Tag: Gillian

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Goofy Tales by Gillian

I bet I could have given each of you a hundred guesses and not one of you would have come to the conclusion that my goofy tale would be the story of cashing in a savings certificate. Neither would you have been thinking North Dakota! Those of you who know that part of the world well are in for a special treat. Those of you who don’t will see how much you have missed, and want to jump on the next Greyhound bus to Fargo.

In 2010, Betsy joined friends for a week’s cycling trip around northern North Dakota. I, as usual, went along in our camper van. It so happened that I had a CD coming due at Bank of the North* while we were away so planned to liquidate it at the branch in Minot, a town of almost 50,000 people at that time, and so quite the Big City by North Dakota standards.

The planned morning found me in line at the branch bank somewhere near the town center. The line was slow, with only one teller, and it was no secret to anyone that I was a stranger in town. So of course the questions started. Where was I from and what was I doing in Minot? Every time they said Minot I had a terrible urge to say why not? but managed to control myself. Since then I have discovered, somewhat to my disappointment, that it is not an original response, and in fact there are actually t-shirts with the logo,

MINOT
Why not?

Anyway, these were nice, friendly, people, who looked in horror at me and each other when I explained about this group of cyclists pedaling fifty to a hundred miles each day in the August heat. They shook their heads and said ‘oh no!’ a lot.

Fueled by these reactions, I recounted how this group of friends had originally met while cycling across the country; 3200 miles from ocean to ocean. This was very satisfactorily greeted by more head-shaking, tut-tutting and and many an ‘oh no!’

The line was moving, if slowly, as I told my tales, and eventually I found myself facing a dismayed teller.

‘Oh no!’ she waved my papers sadly at me.

‘We don’t have that kind of money here.’

She glanced fearfully over her shoulder lest some armed bank robber was creeping up behind her, just waiting for her to produce this king’s ransom. I hadn’t thought of it as a huge amount, but this was a tiny one-room bank.

Shaking her head fervently, she repeated, in case I had missed it the first time,

‘Oh no!’

As she picked up the phone receiver she explained,

‘You need to go to the Main Branch,’ (definitely capitalized)

‘I’ll let then know you’re on your way. That’s your white van isn’t it?’

She nodded, all knowing, at my camper van outside the window. Without needing any acknowledgement, she continued,

‘So … go the way you’re headed, turn left at the next street by the Conoco station and ……’

‘Oh no!’ came two voices in unison from behind me.

‘No. Oh no!’ one continued. ‘She’s not from here. She’ll get lost if she goes that way. She needs to go down to the church and turn there …’

‘Oh no!’ the other rejoined. ‘She’ll have to deal with the one-way streets then. And the flea market. She should go …’

Other voices joined.

Completely ignored in the heated discussion, I suddenly noticed the old woman at the end of the line, which by now was at a complete stand-still, waving me over in her direction. Warily, I left my coveted spot at the head of the line and moved back.

She lightly touched my shoulder, directing my gaze out of the window, and pointed a bony old finger. There, not more than three blocks away, stood a tall brick building proudly bearing, in bright red lights, the words,

BANK of the NORTH

I whispered my thanks and slid silently from the office while those inside continued the hotly-contested argument. I have often wondered how long it took them to notice I was gone.

In the event, the journey was very simple, but as I approached I was amazed to see a young man in a dark business suit leap off the sidewalk and wave me joyously into one of several available parking spaces. He gallantly opened my door. When was the last time anyone had done that, I tried to remember.

‘Found us OK then?’ He beamed a congratulatory smile.

‘Didn’t get lost?’

‘Oh no!’ I replied gravely.

The bright smile faded as soon as we settled at his desk and he studied my letter.

‘Oh no!’ He shook his head sadly. ‘This is not our series of numbers. This is not a Bank of the North CD. Oh no!’ he repeated firmly.

Patiently I pointed to the large Bank of the North letterhead.

He simply stared, too confused even to say, oh no!

‘I originally bought it at Bright Side Savings and Loan. That got bought out by Belvedere Bank which then was swallowed up by Bank of the North. It’s a five-year CD,’ I added kindly, ‘and a mighty lot can happen in the banking merger business in five years.’

I almost added an oh yes! for emphasis, but managed not to.

‘So actually, you see,’ I continued, as he still seemed in need of clarification, ‘It is yours. Now.’

The poor man loosened his tie and took off his glasses.

‘Oh no,’ he regained his voice, ‘I have never seen one of these. Please excuse me for one moment.’

He almost bowed before scuttling off to a glass-enclosed office where I could see him gesturing emphatically to an older man in a pinstriped suit which made him, obviously, senior to my poor young man is his plain and rather well-worn black. Pinstripe picked up the phone and shortly they were joined by an elegant older woman. They waved my letter about and talked animatedly on the phone and to each other. A young woman arrived at my chair with coffee to keep me happy while I waited. It was served in a flowered cup with gilt edging and came complete with shortbread cookies resting in the matching saucer, an ensemble to make my grandma’s heart sing.

At last all three emerged from the glass office and headed my way en masse, pushing their triumph before them.

‘We have it now,’ the woman gushed. Not an oh no! in sight.

‘If you would just step over to the counter with me …’

‘Can I get two hundred of that in cash?’ My horrified brain heard the words running out of my mouth before it could stop them.

‘Oh no.’ She sounded very distressed. ‘That would be ….’

My brain rushed to get my mouth under firm control.

‘Never mind,’ I hastily assured her, ‘It’s not important. I don’t need a thing. Oh no!’

A few weeks ago I was in a Denver branch of Bank of the North, arguing over a ten dollar charge with a teenage manager with spiky hair.

Had he said oh no! just once, I would have given him the damn ten dollars.

But he didn’t and so I didn’t.

Oh How I sometimes long for North Dakota!

* There is no such bank. Nor do the other banks mentioned exist. I do not wish to identify the actual bank involved, which is in fact a large and well-known bank with branches all over the country.

© 2013

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Coming Out to the Cat, by Gillian

The first person I came out to was my cat; came out to out loud, in words, I mean. Of course, inevitably, the very first person I came out to was myself. You cannot tell someone something you don’t know yourself, can you? As I remember it, after more than thirty years, this bolt of lightning hit me out of the blue and all the bright lights suddenly blazed; my world became crystal clear. I know it was not really so very sudden. I had been mulling it over subliminally in the depths of my confused soul for as long as I can remember. It was the total recognition, the acceptance, of the reality which was sudden.

But, back to the cat. (And anyone here who does not consider a cat to be a person, clearly has never been owned by one.) My cat was female and liked to cuddle up to me on my bed at night, so I felt she ought to know. Besides, I had never said the actual words out loud and I thought I should probably practice. She jumped up on my lap and gazed curiously into my eyes as she so often did. I always wondered what she saw there.

‘So, Smokey,’ I said, looking back straight into her eyes, ‘Your human is a lesbian. Gay. Queer. What do you think about that?’

The words did not sound at all frightening to me, I discovered. But then I was addressing the cat.

She continued her unblinking gaze, then slowly narrowed her eyes to nothing more than little yellow slits. I could swear I heard a contemplative, hmmmmmmmm. The eyes sprang open and a little furry paw patted very gently at my cheek. She butted her head affectionately under my chin, then curled up on my lap and went into full-throttle purr mode.

Well! I thought. This coming out business is not so bad; not bad at all!

The next people I came out to were, of course, my husband and step-children. It was not easy, but the response from the kids was all of the as long as you’re happy that’s all that matters variety, as it was from my husband after a while when he had time to get over the shock.

I have no siblings, so next should have been my parents. I agonized over that one for some time, eventually deciding against it. They were in England, far from my day-to-day life. They were old. It seemed nothing other than selfishness to tell them something which I knew would cause them to worry. They would love me just the same, I knew that without the slightest doubt, but they would be unable to grasp what my new world looked like. At this stage, I scarcely new!

Had they still been alive later, when I found a happiness I had never dreamed of with my Beautiful Betsy, I would have shared it with them, but they were dead by then. I have no regrets. I believe I made the right decision.

I did come out to cousins and several childhood friends, who responded unanimously with the basic message that it must have made life difficult and I’m so glad you are happy now. I have some very good people in my life.

In fact, I have very many wonderful people in my life. Over the years I have come out to countless people, I have no idea how many. Very rarely the result was negative, occasionally a little tepid, but the overwhelming majority of people responded positively, with complete acceptance and support.

A few years ago, I was chatting with a group of people at the Senior Center. I mentioned my partner, and went on to talk of something, I forget what, that she was doing. Oh! I realized in surprise that I had just outed myself without any thought; without first shoving it through my internal filtering system of shoulds and whens and whys. Oh the freedom of it. I felt so liberated, and ever since then have really given little thought to coming out, or even of thinking of it in those terms.

It’s strange how things morph over time. In my early coming-out days, the word lesbian seemed a bit intimidating; a word to be whispered while glancing furtively over the shoulder to see who else might hear. From there I went into my out, loud, and proud years when I didn’t give a damn who heard, and now I see little need for the word at all. I am quite simply a woman very deeply in love with a woman. If you feel the need to put a label on that, feel free. I don’t.

In fact, rather to my own surprise, I find myself to be vaguely offended by those little boxes I am asked to check.

Do you consider yourself to be –

straight

gay

lesbian

bisexual

transgender

etc. etc. 

I want to add another box for me to check; None of the above. Or better still, All of the above. It’s nothing to do with you. Which, I suppose, is what the current queer direction is all about; not wanting to label yourself or to be labeled by others.

(And while we’re on the topic, stop asking me to check the box which tells you if I am single, married, widowed, or divorced. That is nothing to do with you, either. Except, possibly, if you are the IRS, which seems to be the possible exception to anything and everything.)

But, back to the cat. In all my coming-outs over thirty-something years, no response has ever come close to the lofty heights set by Smokey. No-one I came out to ever lovingly patted my cheek. Nobody nuzzled their head on my neck, and most assuredly no-one ever curled up on my lap. As with many of life’s experiences, the first was definitely the best.

© May 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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A Meaningful Vacation, by Gillian

I
started out trawling through wonderful memories of countless vacations, seeking
out a really meaningful one, but quickly realized that every one of them, from
months-long volunteer ‘vacations’ to single day trips, have all been very
meaningful to me. If they were not, why would I take them? Why not simply stay
home?
I
have a passionate love of learning, and that is the primary reason vacations
are inevitably meaningful to me; they are great opportunities to learn new
things. I learn about people and places, wildlife and geology, languages and
the arts, and frequently I learn a little more about my beautiful Betsy, and
last but certainly not least, about myself.
I
have never been a fearful person, but travel has taught me that a little
caution is a good thing.  
In
places which pick-pockets and purse-snatchers may frequent, I wear a
well-hidden money belt. I try never to be in suspect neighborhoods alone and
especially after dark. When, on occasion, I have ended up in such a situation I
walk quickly and purposefully, attempting to look perfectly relaxed and as if I
know exactly where I am going. Betsy and I did that in Cape Town one night,
arriving unmolested at our hotel, as I did in San Paulo and St. Petersburg and,
I must admit, once when I was lost in a very dubious part of Miami.
Betsy
and I travelled all over this country in our camper van and I don’t recall one
single time we felt threatened in any way; two old women camping on their own.
But we always practiced a little elementary safety. We kept the van doors
locked while we slept. We always camped, as we faithfully promised loved ones
we would, in designated campgrounds, though there were several occasions when
we happened to be the only people actually camping there. National Forest
campgrounds, in particular, are often remote and with no other occupants, and
often in a location without cellphone service. But no-one ever bothered us.
Driving
long trips across the country we learned to keep a very careful watch on the
weather, and not to ignore those black skies ahead. We were under tornado
warnings a few times, and learned that there is no shame in running for the
closest hotel, and making sure they have a storm shelter before handing
over the credit card.
So
just this one aspect of travel has taught me not to be so stubborn; to be more
flexible. If circumstances dictate a hotel room rather than the planned camp
site, just enjoy that clean hot shower. Occasionally the camping spot we had
been heading towards for five hundred miles didn’t feel good to one or both of
us when we got there. Sometimes this was for no apparent, recognizable, reason.
It just didn’t feel good. So we would go on. We both always listened to those
inner whispers, no matter how unexpected or nonsensical they seemed, or how inconvenient
the result.
I
believe that vacations of all kinds have improved my character in many ways and
much more effectively than all the self-help books ever written could have
done.
I
will bore you all with further details of these character enhancements another
time.
© 25 Apr 2016 
About
the Author 
 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.
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The Men in My Life, by Gillian

Many
men have influenced my life; most positively, some not.
Until
I went off to college, the only males I had formed any attachment for were my
father and maternal grandfather and a teacher. The boys in school all seemed
too immature for words and essentially I ignored them, preferring the company
of girls; especially one, with whom I remained secretly in love through all my
schooldays, but I won’t digress as this is supposed to be about men.
My
dad I have written about many times, I will simply say that I loved him, he
loved me, and in a strangely silent way we became increasingly close over his
lifetime. And, yes, even since his death. My mother’s dad died when I was
pretty young so I don’t remember very much about him, except that I was always
happy just to sit with him while the carved beautifully ornate headstones out
of the local marble. Only slightly more garrulous than my father, he sometimes
sat in silence for what seemed like hours, but I was a little kid so maybe it
wasn’t really so long. I do know I never got restless or tried to make him
chat. I loved just being there, watching his clever hands create such intricate
beauty. Occasionally he shocked me with a sudden swift launch into
story-telling – spellbinding and supposedly true although looking back, even if
I cannot recall the details of any, I doubt their veracity. But despite these
rare jaunts off into the world of monologue, words were few. So the first two
men in my life, both of whom I loved greatly, folded me into a strong, silent
world; a world where deeds spoke much louder than words. A world of true, if
silent, love. They actually had a lot in common, Dad and Granddad, although not
related by blood. (Not so very surprising, I guess, as girls supposedly tend to
marry a man like their father.) They are also connected, in my child’s memory,
by birds; more specifically, robins. The English robin, quite unlike the
American version, is a small brown bird with a scarlet breast, known for it’s
inquisitive nature. One it seemed was always around, watching my grandfather
chisel and hammer just as I did. The little bird’s head bobbed from one side to
the other as he seemed to evaluate Granddad’s every move with his sharp, shiny,
little black eyes. My father had his faithful robin, too, who followed him
around on his chores; waiting, I’m sure, for tasty morsel to be offered up in
the process.
The
other strong male influence in my youth was my high school geology teacher. He
was one of the natural teachers of this world, and carried with him an aura of
boundless energy and enthusiasm which was very contagious. At weekends he and
his little band of devoted followers would slog up and down wet Welsh
mountains, returning home exhausted with pockets and bags groaning under the
weight of rocks and minerals and fossils. He blessed my life with a fascination
with geology which has remained with me throughout. And, no, I didn’t have that
schoolgirl crush on him which tends to accompany teenage admiration, and which
I’m sure some of the girls succumbed to. I was immune. My passions were spent,
as are all good lesbian youthful crushes, on my female gym teacher!
In
college I was never romantically involved with any men, being passionately but
secretly, even for the most part hidden from myself, devoted to a female
classmate. But I learned a lot from men in my life who were completely unlike
any of the boys I knew at school. Inevitably so; they came from different
worlds. My professor at The University of Sheffield had been a prisoner of the
Japanese in World War Two. They had cut out his tongue. Consequently, his
lectures were very difficult to follow until you became tuned in. I was
incredibly impressed by his courage and tenacity in returning after the war to
a position made difficult and, I would suppose, embarrassing, by his
affliction. I also learned forgiveness from this man. I never once heard him
say anything negative, either in class or in private gatherings, about the
Japanese or their country. The attitude he maintained made it very clear that
he held no grudges; no animosity. This was 1959, so he had had fifteen years to
get there, and how long it took or what efforts it cost him, I don’t know. But
ever since, upon finding myself harboring resentment over some petty words or
deeds, I have tried to remind myself of a wonderful man who managed to forgive
completely a truly terrible wound.
Also
at Sheffield University in the late 1950’s and early ’60’s were several young
men who had managed to escape Hungary after the invasion by the U.S.S.R in
1956. I had seen, on the tiny old black-and-white T.V., the street fighting in
Budapest where these men, or others just like them, faced up to tanks with
nothing but a handful of rocks. We found them strange, these dark brooding
silent men who emitted such an unmistakable air of rage. They never bragged, or
even mentioned, anything they had done in defense of their homeland.  If they talked at all it was of nothing but
their hatred of the Soviets and their endless innumerable plans to free Hungary
and return home. They hated England, and refused to offer any sliver of
gratitude for the free college education they were taking advantage of at that
very moment. We didn’t like them. They were unfriendly. They were no fun. They
were freeloaders. Then I slowly formed a friendship with one of them, and was
forced to dig deeper and learn. Domonkos needed a lot of help
understanding our mutilated professor’s lectures, and I somehow fell into
spending time going over every class with him. Usually this was in a coffee
shop or pub, and slowly his entire story came out. He himself had not been one
of those tossing stones at tanks. He had tried to protect his mother and
sisters but instead was made to watch while they were raped and then shot. His
father had died in Auschwitz in 1945. His mother and sisters and he, had for
some reason been taken to Mauthausen, from which they were liberated at the end
of the war; only for the women to die at the hands of the Soviets in 1956. Was
all this true? I had no way of knowing, but I had no reason to doubt it. It
didn’t seem to matter. This young man had clearly suffered from terrible
traumas, no matter the details.
He
told me similar stories of his fellow Hungarians students, until I was numb to
the horror of his tales. Numb in a sense, yes, but he also forced me to wake
up. I and my friends found these men boring? They were no fun?
How much fun would we be, under such circumstances? In all honesty, I could not
warm to them as a group, nor even to Domonkos himself. But through them I
learned to look below the surface; to see perhaps why people act as they do. To
care for them, to empathize, despite no real affection or liking. To try to be
quicker to understand and slower to judge.
Then
came adulthood and, at the age of 26, marriage. My husband was not a silent man
like my father, nor was he terribly loud and verbose. He did not have my
teacher’s energy and passion, but he worked and played hard enough. He
certainly was not Hungarian-style hating and morose. He was really a pretty
average guy doing his best, but with my homosexuality lurking around, rising ever
closer to the surface, the marriage was doomed from the beginning. It was the
final chapter of my book of learning that if you are not true to yourself you
simply cannot bring happiness to others. My poor husband inadvertently taught
me that.
Not
long after we married, his four children unexpectedly came to live with us.
Once over the shock, I coped pretty well, and step-motherhood became a positive
experience for me and for the children, three of whom were boys. Over the
years, they became new men in my life. I know parents cannot have favorites,
but I say that’s one of the advantages of the step- relationship.
I
truly think I didn’t show it, but my oldest step-son was my favorite. I loved
all four kids, and they loved me, but I adored Dale. As did many many people.
He could charm anyone; girls, boys, men, women, neighbors and friends, teachers
and police. What defenses could a helpless step-mother employ? Sadly, this very
charm turned on him and did him evil rather than good. He was born to trouble,
it seemed, and he almost invariably charmed his way out of its consequences,
and so led him deeper down the wrong path. The real trouble, which no-one can
talk themselves a way out of, was serious unrepenting un-recovering alcoholism.
This became manifest in his early teens and lasted all his life, which
predictably was short. He died a few years ago at the age of fifty. I was
heartbroken, although he had not been in touch with any of his family for a
long time so the hole he had dug in my heart was nothing new. It had been there
for many years.
After
my divorce, I still worked mainly with men so I did not register an absence of
men in my life even after my social life morphed to consist mainly of lesbians
and straight female friends. Post-divorce, I tried to keep up some male
friendships but straight men all know that a divorcee is looking for only one
thing. It was hopeless. After I was out to the world, I foolishly imagined this
might change, but straight men all know what it takes to cure a lesbian. It was
hopeless.
When
Betsy and I moved in together we found both of us equally missed the rumble of
men’s voices in the house; in our lives. We both like men. We looked around.
The answer stared us in the face; gay men. They had no interest in
whatever divorcees were after or what it took to cure lesbians. But hold your
horses! Not so easily done. Looked at objectively, where is the attraction? Gay
men and women are the ones not drawn to each other. So – you need a
catalyst; something to attract both, other than each other. Betsy joined a gay
tennis group where we did make a few male friends, but as she was the only
woman who ever belonged, it slowly fizzled out.
The
Center was, of course, our salvation, and especially this group. We now are
grateful to have many men in our lives with whom to share laughter and tears,
anger and celebration, memorials and hospital visits and parties.
I
love the men in my life.
I
always have.
© 28 Mar 2016 
About the Author 
I was born and raised in England. After
graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered
Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965,
working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got
divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I
have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been
married since 2013.
Posted on

Jealousy by Gillian

The first part of this story will be a boring repeat for those who have been in this group for a while, in fact I am just pulling small parts from other writings, so I’ll try to keep it short. It returns – no surprise – to my childhood and the subsequent angst of my inner child.

My mother taught the younger children in one room of the local two-room school. Over time my dad and I heard every struggle, every humorous incident, every cute utterance involving every child passing through my mother’s classroom. When she wasn’t talking about them, she was studying new methods to teach them, or devising educational games for them to play.

They were her life.

She taught me, too, for the first few years of my school life.

Slowly it came to me, though, that I was never one of those she told my father about with such gusto, or pathos, or humor. Why? Wasn’t I as interesting or funny or sad as all the rest of them? Why wasn’t I her most important child?

The ugly green-eyed monster began to raise it’s ugly head.

In 1955, I had Asian flu. I stayed home in bed and my mother promised to check up on me at lunchtime, her school being just a five-minute walk from our house.

My day proceeded through an elevated-temperature induced haze, but I was sufficiently conscious to look forward to my mother’s arrival; a cool loving hand on my sweating brow. Lunchtime came and went and I knew she had forgotten me. Me. Her own daughter. Her own sick-in-bed daughter. All those other bloody kids had come between us. They were all she had room for in her mind or her heart. But it should have been me. I should be the one who filled her heart. Not them. I sobbed in emptiness and anger.

The green-eyed monster proudly puffed himself up.

A few years later, my aunt told me that my parents had had two children who lived and died before I was born. They died of meningitis at the ages of two and three. Slowly, as I came to grips with this new knowledge, it began to throw a little murky light on my parents’ emotions, especially my mother’s.

However, understanding intellectually that my mother could not afford to be as close to me as I wanted, needed, her to be, for fear of leaving herself vulnerable to more unbearable pain, was one thing. Watching her showering other, safer, children with that love I craved, was quite another. Why, why, why? screamed inside my head.

Still more subliminally, always craving to be number one, I lived in constant competition with two dead children; not a competition I was ever going to win.

Over the years, the emptiness, receded but never disappeared. The green-eyed monster dozed with one eye open so as not to miss an opportunity.

After my mother died I found a few old faded black and white photos at the bottom of a drawer; two smiling happy children, two smiling happy parents. I stared at my grinning father wheeling the two toddlers in his wheelbarrow. Why had I never seen him with a broad grin like that? Why had I never managed to bring him such joy? Why them and not me? Why was I never number one?

In 1987, I entered into a seriously committed relationship with my Beautiful Betsy, who was, as a mother should be, already in a seriously committed relationship with her children. The green eyes opened wide. The monster stirred and smiled a sly smile. Time to wake up! He bided his time and at first all was fine. But slowly those old crazy feelings began to take shape. She loves them more than me began the whispers, eventually becoming screams, in my head. Oh, intellectually I knew, of course, that the love for a child is completely different from the love of a partner, and in any case love is not a finite commodity, there is enough and more to go round, but that did nothing to still the screams. If we are married, which we always considered ourselves to be, regardless of laws, then I am supposed to be number one. Aren’t I? Aren’t I?

Betsy has what I believe to be a closer than average relationship with her daughters, and of course I wouldn’t wish it any other way. However, it made for a bad juxtaposition of energies; the yin and the yang. But the last thing I wanted was to cause pain to Betsy and those she loved, and most of all, I freely admit, I did not want to create further pain for myself. I had to kill the monster. Thus began a quest for spiritual enlightenment which still continues today. Through it I have discovered a level of deep peace which I never knew before. If I ever knew such peace of the soul existed, it somehow seemed reserved for a lone monk sitting cross-legged on a mountain top, not for me. I never dreamed it could and would exist for me. And if I sound rather like a born-again, that is because I am. Not through religion: not through sudden belief in another being, but a new belief in myself and my world and everyone and everything in it. I am at peace with the messy past, the glorious present, and the future, whatever it may bring.

But I did not succeed in cutting off that monster’s head; I merely shot a tranquilizer dart.

I know that I must always remain alert for the re-emergence of those evil green eyes.

© April 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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True Colors, by Gillian

Tricky things, true colors.  

Betsy and I often see colors slightly differently. Oh, we both agree on what ‘s red and what’s black, but when we come to more subtle hues, we differ. She might describe something as a brownish mauve, while I see it as beige. She may say a color is definitely blue while I see it as a bluish green. 
So what are true colors? 
Years ago we took a watercolor class together. It fascinated both of us to observe the very different mix of colors we would each use to match the roof of the barn or the rocky outcrop on the hill. Needless to say, our paintings of the exact same scene came out very different from each other: not only resulting from our low-grade artistic skills but also because we simply see colors differently.
These days we have made working with colors much more complex than it used to be. Once upon a time our house walls were whitewashed, if they were colored at all. Now, if you decide you want white walls in the bedroom, you are faced with a huge array of choices. Do we want Pearl or Eggshell, or Linen or Ivory or Cloud or Decorator White or Simply White? etc. etc. etc. To determine your answer, you hold a two-inch square of each shade up against your wall and imagine that color covering the entire wall. Yeah, right!
This begs a question. Why do automobile manufacturers appear to be unable to access this embarrassment of riches? We have a Toyota Corolla. It’s color, according to the factory paperwork, is Mushroom. It’s a low-key inoffensive color and I have no objection to it. My only question is, why have I never seen a Toyota Corolla of any other color? Our other car is a Toyota Rav4. Other than the ridiculous name, it’s fine. It is a kind of silver or steel color, again low-key and inoffensive. There are Rav4’s of a different color. I have seen several red and a few blue. But the vast majority of them are, yes, the same color as ours. So, Toyota being a pretty popular brand around here, we have two cars equally impossible to find in King Soopers’ parking lot because they look look exactly like half of the cars parked there. 
And speaking of strange color choices, what is with the military – maybe just the army, though I’m not sure – and those camouflage uniforms? I somehow missed the switch from the accustomed olive drab, so, at DIA shortly after 9/ll, I was amazed to find the airport awash with heavily armed soldiers in unfamiliar, vaguely leafy, patterned uniforms. What did they think? That we couldn’t see them? Or we’d mistake them for plants? Against the angular marble and glass of the airport they stood out like the pyramids rising from the desert. Perhaps, I pondered, that was the idea. After all they were meant to be a Presence, to instill is us, depending on our intentions, either fear or a sense of safety and protection. To me, they emitted more a slight sense of the ridiculous. I wanted to giggle; and I was sorry for that. I respect those who join the Armed Services, and don’t want to make them into a figure of fun, even only inside my own head. 
Having learned from the Web that the change of uniform took place in the 1980’s, I see how I missed it completely. There is not, and was not at that time, a significant military presence around the Denver Metro Area. Men and women in uniform are not a particularly common sight.
And by the 1980’s I no longer had step-sons in the Service. 
But what were they thinking, those powers that be who made the decision? Of course camouflage has always been as important for survival in the military as it is in nature, but in the past it has not been worn, as far as I know, as the everyday uniform. Those men and women would have done well, in their vaguely floral green and brown, crawling through the jungle; but why dress like that at DIA? The other thing that strikes me as odd, is to have camouflage of those colors and curving shapes. Most of those currently making up the group that we chose to call, euphemistically, boots on the ground (as if they were just footwear, not real live people) seem, when I see them on TV, to be either on bare open rocky desert or in mean urban streets, neither of which environment sports a blade of grass never mind a tree. Maybe we just have a huge surplus of leafy camouflage left over from Viet Nam? 
Anyway, who am I to criticize camouflage? I relied strongly upon it for the first forty-something years of my life, ensuring that no-one, most especially I, should catch a glimpse of my own True Colors. If occasionally I did , out of the corner of an eye, then I simply clutched my camouflage more tightly around me and snuffed out the light. Now I pride myself on a full peacock display of my True Colors, standing tall and proud, having burned my camouflage as in the ‘sixties they burned their bras. Some of the men and women in what I cannot help but find faintly laughable uniforms, may be wearing physical camouflage but, since we now have marriage equality in the U.S. military, can now be out of their metaphorical hiding places standing tall and proud in their True Colors. In comparison to the significance of that, what on earth does it matter what they wear? Or what color cars are? Or if my gray is Betsy’s blue? Displaying our True Colors, whatever they may be and whoever we are, to the world, with pride and dignity; that’s what it’s all about.

© February 2016

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

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Raindrops, by Gillian

How can it be that any
time I hear the word rain, I am immediately transported back to my
youthful years in Britain    I must say,
though, that in my memories of rain there and then, raindrops are not
writ large. In my memories, rain does not arrive in gentle, single, drops.  It comes in more or less solid sheets which
saw and slap disdainfully at any exposed skin and soak all clothing in mere
seconds. But that is the essence of raindrops, is it not? Like oh so many
things, they are relatively unnoticed in ones and twos but when they gather
together – watch out!
Where I lived, at least,
umbrellas were rarely seen. They serve little purpose against slashing, driving
rain which comes from a different direction instantly and often. And anyway, in
a farming community, who has hands free to handle flailing umbrellas? Might as
well expect to see firemen and soldiers huddled beneath the things.
Much more practical to
‘bundle up’ against the weather the best you can; a rain hat of some variety, a
completely waterproof plastic or oilskin coat over your other clothes
providing layers for warmth as well as dryness, and a pair of sturdy rubber
boots up to your knees. And all that might be effective against mere raindrops,
but against those horizontal waves of water it stands no chance. A few moments
of exposure and the water is pouring down inside collar and boots, the only
difference being that your clothes are getting soaked from the inside out
rather than from the outside in.
But, other than cricket
and tennis, I rarely recall anything being cancelled because of rain. Well,
you’d never get to do anything, would you? I remember county shows with
apparently obliviously-contented sheep and cattle steaming in the pouring rain,
while critical farmers proclaimed their opinions and puffed hopelessly on pipes
which sizzled sullenly, all hint of flame long extinguished. Meanwhile we kids
slipped and slid and frolicked and rolled in the wonderful sticky, stinky, mud,
and would have felt quite cheated should the sun have had the temerity to drive
away the rain.
It is a truly rare thing
to hear a Brit complain about the rain.
‘Grand drop of rain,
this,’ they’ll say, appreciatively, and the completely serious response will
be, ‘Ay. Good for the garden.’
Has nobody noticed that
it’s been absolutely bucketing down for a week now and every garden is awash? I
actually believe it’s some kind of national collective denial over how bad the
weather in Britain actually is. A wit once remarked that the difference between
summer and winter there is that the rain isn’t quite as cold in the summer. I
truly do enjoy rain, but then I live in Colorado where a ‘grand drop of rain’ really
can be a rare and beautiful thing.
I usually trawl the
internet for quotes, when we have a topic such as this one. One of many rather
gooey sickly-sweet ones I came across, was; life isn’t about waiting for the
storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Which, I guess, makes
the Brits the best dancers in the world.
  
© 16 Apr 2016 
About
the Author 
  

 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.
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Purple, by Gillian

Purple is passé, or so it seemed to me as I
trolled through my brain for thoughts of it for today’s topic. It’s the color
once worn by the rulers of the Byzantine and later the Roman Empire, both long
gone. Purple was once the color associated with royalty, but most royal
families are now long gone. Queen Elizabeth struggles on, God love her. Not a
fashion statement at her best, her carefully matched purse which she
unfailingly carries appears to be of the same style she favored in the 1950’s.
But even one as traditional as she, does not wear purple excessively.
When black was no longer
absolutely mandatory wear for funerals and periods of mourning, purple crept in
in its stead, here and there. But those days have also gone. There are no
longer rules, even unwritten ones, telling us what we must wear to a funeral;
anything goes.
Way back in my youth
there was this ridiculous song Purple People Eater, I imagine most people in
this room remember it well. It was #1 on the pop charts in 1958. Why,
for God’s sake?
A song about this
one-eyed, one-horned, flying, purple people eater? Were it to make a comeback
today, which I cannot envision, it would doubtless be taken as innuendo and
much made of eating purple people. But back in the innocent ’50’s most of us
sang along without a thought. One more piece of purple now extinguished, and I
certainly cannot say that I regret it’s passing.
Another purple horror is
purple prose. It’s a term used for flowery, over-descriptive writing,
especially that filled with euphemisms with reference to sex. This abounds in
romance novels, especially those set in the past when no-one ever spoke aloud
of intimate body parts and acts.
I found a wonderful online article about it, in which Deb Stover warns all writers to use it sparingly.* She talks of breasts being referred to as ‘mounds’ and erection as ‘arousal’,
of a penis as ‘his sex’, or ‘his love tool’. Wait for it, it gets worse. She cites
such examples as, ‘the raging beast of his desire’, and, ‘the raging monster of
his lust’!  Good Lord! No wonder
Victorian mothers told their daughters just to lie on their back and think of
England!
All in all, I’m not
coming up with much to mourn in the passing of purple. And let’s not confuse
purple with violet. Violet is OUR color. Violet is a ‘real’ or spectral color
with it’s own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light. Purple, in the
strictest sense of optics, does not exist. It can only be produced, apparently,
as a composite color by combining red and blue.
One purple tradition
which I would love to see disappear for lack of need is that of the Purple
Heart presented to those in the military who are wounded or killed during their
time of service. This includes all those from the time the U.S. entered WW1 to
the present, and numbers over two million. Next year will be exactly a century
that the Purple Heart has been in existence. I sincerely pray it may be
abolished, or at least used rarely, in the following century; not because I
wish not to honor our war dead and injured, but simply because I want it all to
go away. I want the wars to end. I want us all to live in peace. But you have
all heard my peacenik rantings before so I’ll end right here and take a break.
Then I think I’ll
practice up a bit on my purple prose.
*http://www.debstover.com/purple.html
© 7 Mar 2016 
About
the Author 
 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.
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Where Do We Go from Here?, by Gillian

Waking
up in my bed that cold, wet, typically English, morning, my first day as a
student at the University of Sheffield, did I wonder where will this lead?
what will happen? where do I go from her? If I did, I don’t remember. I
certainly don’t remember how I answered myself.
Surely
I must have asked myself some questions along those lines on another cold wet
morning, lying in my bed on my first day as a college graduate. I was
unemployed and apparently likely to remain so. Jobs were thin on the ground and
many of my friends were leaving for miscellaneous spots around the world which
all had one thing in common; on our schoolroom wall maps of the world, they had
all been colored bright red. Why wasn’t I a part of this mass exodus to take up
opportunities offered by our erstwhile Empire? Inertia, I guess. Idleness. A
certain unwillingness to make decisions. Rather, I would drift, worry-free,
wherever the currents took me.
A
few months later these currents deposited me on the ocean liner Queen
Elizabeth, heading across the Atlantic. Waking that first morning in my
rolling, heaving, bunk, did I lie there contemplating my future? Where do I
go from here? I think not. I staggered to the breakfast room to chase an
erratically sliding plate around a pitching table, giving my future arrival in
New York, with no job and nowhere to stay, little space in my head.
Every
twist and turn in my life feels to me to have followed a similar pattern. The
ebb and flow of life somehow deposited me into my bed on my first morning as a
married woman, and some years later in another bed, my first morning waking up
as a divorcee. Then waking up as an out lesbian, followed by my first morning
to wake up beside Betsy. Suddenly, or so it seemed, I found myself waking up on
my first morning as a retiree, and still not really knowing how I got there.
Life’s waves had simply deposited me on yet another shore. I had never, as far
as I can remember, asked myself the question, where do I go from here?
Waking
up in a hospital bed, however, which I have done a couple of times in recent
years, tends to concentrate the mind! Where do I go from here? becomes a
vital question. Can I go home? When? How? Will I be in a wheelchair? Will I
ever be completely better? Or the very worst, will I die here? And that brings
up the really BIG where do we go from here?
Now,
as old age creeps quietly upon me, I occasionally do find myself asking the BIG
where do we go from here? in my own bed on a drowsy morning. It
no longer takes waking in a hospital bed to nudge such thoughts awake. I
wouldn’t say it worries me, simply that I chose to contemplate it once in a
while.
I
cannot say I believe …. anything. On the other hand there is little that I
positively absolutely refuse to acknowledge is possible. The exception to that
would be a Biblical Heaven with angels and harps, and a fire and brimstone
Hell. Other than that, I just don’t know. It seems to me that when my body
dies, some energy must be released. The world needs balance, so that energy
must be used elsewhere. But how that works, what form it takes, is beyond my
imagining.
As
far as it goes, it fits nicely with various theories of reincarnation, about
which I keep a basically open mind. But I have a hard time getting my head
around it. I find it almost impossible to imagine a scenario where some future,
reincarnate me, is aware of past multiple me’s, simply because energy from the
present me is put to use elsewhere. Especially as, if I get into this transfer
of energy thing, I come to the belief that all energy is the same so mine is
not confined to human form. If mine returns as a nice shiny apple growing on a
tree in New Zealand, I fear it will not be visited by any ghosts of Xmas past.
Just
as I seem never to have given much thought to my destination at different
junctions in my life, I expect that without too much anxiety I can let the
tides of death deposit me wherever they will, and wherever that is, I shall
never know.
But
maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Some morning perhaps I shall wake up dead, and at
that moment know all the answers to all that ultimate question, where do we
go from here? I just hope there will be strong rip tides and currents and
monster waves to wash me along to wherever I have to go. I don’t want to have
to start out my next life making decisions.
© 4 Jan 2016 
About the Author 
 I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.
Posted on

What I Did for Love, by Gillian

My mother and I had a
strange relationship. (Boy, how many of us could start our autobiographies with
those exact same words, I wonder!) It’s not that it was not a loving
relationship. It was. But it was strangely inverted: inside out and upside
down. I, the child, was the protector, the defender; my mother the one who
needed care and protection from the rigors of reality. I intuited, at a very
early age, as little children often just feel things, that Mum was filled
inside with an aching sadness. It was, of course, my job to fix it, or at very
least to provide a counterbalance.
The first time I remember
this inversion of roles, was with reading. Of course when I was very little my
mother used to read to me, but as soon as I began to learn to read myself, she
had me read to her. Nothing so odd there, I was simply demonstrating my reading
skills. The strange thing was, that pattern remained, really, for the rest of
her life. Before I started my homework I would sit beside her and read the next
installment of the latest novel. When I visited from college or from my U.S.
home, she always wanted me to make time each day to read to her. Late in her
life, in the nursing home, I would read to her until she fell asleep. I have
often thought how much she would have loved recorded books, had they been
around in her day, but actually I’m not too sure about that. I suspect it was
more about the reader being me, so close there beside her.
The other way I was
always called upon to entertain Mum was playing cards and board games.  She loved any and all of them, and was as
excited as a little kid when she won. The result was that I consented to play
games that I felt I had long outgrown when I would have much preferred other
activities, but this was my job. It was my purpose in life. As time went by, I
found myself letting her win. Now, parents sometimes might encourage a child,
perhaps, by losing on purpose occasionally, but I have never heard any child
admit to faking a win for an adult.
My father would have no
truck with games or reading aloud, but in other ways he silently validated this
subliminal need of mine to cheer my mother, to keep her happy, to protect her.  I learned very early on that when he winked
at me, in a way I so loved, it meant that we were now to collude in some fakery
or falsehood so as not to hurt her. Mum’s culinary and needlework skills were,
shall we say, not well developed. Of course, it’s also fair to say that she was
severely handicapped by strict postwar rationing, but I couldn’t help but notice
that other women managed many and various creations with much greater
success.  None of this was ever alluded
to. After every meal, no matter how insipid or just plain burned, Dad would sit
back in his chair, pat his tummy affectionately, wink wickedly at me, and say
with great gusto, ‘By ‘eck but that was grrrand!’ or words to that effect.  
I invariably tried to
emulate his praise, but rarely managed the right degree of enthusiasm.  I wore, without complaint, strange
unidentifiable garments which were too big here and too tight there, and
sometimes had wildly undulating hemlines. My dad suffered more from Mum’s
attempts at knitting. One of my fondest memories is of him donning a
newly-knitted wool hat.  
It was too small, and the
harder he tried to pull it down to cover his shiny bald head, the more
determinedly it sprang back to sit way too high above his ears where it perched
jauntily at a dangerous angle. It came to a weird point at the top and gave my
big, solid, father something of a look of a drunken elf. The anticipated wink
made my urge to giggle almost uncontrollable. 
‘By ‘eck,’ he said, struggling to keep it from popping off the top of
his head, ‘That’ll be grrrand!’
When, in my high school
years, my aunt told me that my parents had had two children before me, both of
whom had died of meningitis at the ages of two and four, my psyche blazed with
newfound light. So it was all real. Mom really did have a huge sadness inside
her. All the time I knew it, but didn’t know it: didn’t know it was real, didn’t
know why. The knowledge changed nothing of our dynamic, it was much too deeply
ingrained. But it did make me feel less crazy, more in control. I was making
conscious choices, rather than everything I did being driven at some
subconscious level.
I could tell endless
tales of ways in which I mothered my mother, but you get the drift. But what
effect did that topsy-turvy relationship have on me at such a vital stage of
character development? Much of my life has been spent un-learning a lot of what
I learned as a child.
I found out quite rapidly
that my desire to fix others’ problems was one which must be denied. In the big
outside world, attempts to do so result in resentment and are doomed to fail.
We can each only fix our own problems, not each other’s.
My competitive spirit, if
I ever had such a thing, was still-born. I simply am incapable of feeling that
will to win which practically everyone else seems to share. So it still feels
unfair to me, to win at all, ever, when I am perfectly happy losing and no-one
else is. But I learned, quite early, that losing on purpose is not appreciated.
I got caught cheating to lose in a card game by two college friends, one of
whom I was madly in love with at the time. Ever after that game, I would catch
her looking intently at me sometimes with a puzzled expression, and our
friendship – which was all it was – was never the same again. Or maybe I just
imagined it. But it cured me of the losing habit, though not of the instinct to
do it.
On the positive side, I
learned to appreciate something done for me or given to me for the effort made,
and the love that drove it, rather than the end result. The first gift my
youngest step-son gave me was a frighteningly huge bottle of perfume. It
obviously came from some low-end dime store. The cloying, sickly-sweet smell it
gave off when opened was literally nauseating. But every morning, for what
seemed like years, I left for work bearing a big dab of the stuff, only to
scrub it off in the car. Just as my dad, leaving the house in his ill-fitting
elfin hat, doubtless stuffed it in his pocket immediately he rounded the
corner.
I am forced to wonder,
looking back on my childhood, if I actually got it all wrong. Did I, by meeting
Mum’s every need as far as I was able, in fact prolong her suffering? Had I
refused to play the mothering role, would she have been forced to be the
mother, and I allowed to be the child? But I was just a child, with no
more than instinct to guide me, and whether I got it right or wrong or some
mixture of both, I suffered too. I knew my mother loved me, but there was
something not quite right there. I felt it deep down in my young soul. I so
longed for a pure, unsullied, mother-love, which was never to be. I still yearn
for it, even as I know it can never be.
But, if I have learned
only one good lesson from my battered inner child, it is not to judge. And
especially not the judge a past which I can do nothing to change. If I got it
all wrong, and maybe my dad did too, we did the wrong things for the very best
of reasons.
We did it all for love.
© 18 Nov 2015  
About the Author 
I
was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to
the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the
Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30-years at IBM. I married, raised
four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting
myself as a lesbian. I have been with
my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty-years. We have been married since 2013.