Tag: Life Stories

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At the Snug, by Ray S

Dear Friends,
I come to you empty headed and
weary of heart. Truly I bless the imaginative amongst you that brought today’s
meeting to pass. Yea verily I say unto you, I am truly joyous to be “What e’er
thou art” or something to be within the embrace of my dear compatriots.
I hasten to explain about my joy
regarding the recent Feb. first and Feb eighth Telling Your Story subjects. I
found last week’s explanations of the quote attributed to Bobby Burns fascinating,
especially the scholarly interpretation of that foreign language. This was
enlightening and “Sad but True.”
So, what about today’s Irish Snug
venture? Will the change of environment bring forth new muses with beer on
their breaths?
I am afraid that I have imposed my
empty headed meanderings on all of you, probably to the point of, “Will he stop
whining and let us move on to some meaningful stories?”
Sorry, friends, but I wanted to be
here with you, even if I haven’t enlightened you with some grand inspiration.
“Sad but True” and better luck next week.
© 15 February, 2016 

About the Author 
  
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Death and Growing Up, by Phillip Hoyle

I
recall clearly when in my mid-twenties I first had a new thought related to
death, specifically regarding the death of my good friend James, a man I
appreciated, with whom our young families spent time together (he and Sue and
their son Charlie, Myrna and I and our son Michael and daughter Desma), and who
with my friend Ted planted and tended a garden in my backyard one summer. My
new thought was that wherever my good friend James lived, I’d travel there to
attend his funeral. I was stunned by my newly-discovered perspective on
friendship that seemed a mark of maturing and represented for me an aspect of
friendship and love that has become an important signifier.
My
work as a minister took me to many funerals, many of which I led. In the
process I learned how to tend to the needs of family and friends of the
deceased in calls I made on them and comments I shared concerning memories,
grief, and hope at the funerals and memorial services I led. In fact, I learned
to do this work well since the congregations which I served had many elders. I
limited the time of my speeches, Bible readings, and prayers on these occasions
(and as a side effect of my brevity, I became popular with the funeral
directors).
Some
years later, death and funerals took on a new aspect, the one I had anticipated
in my twenties, when my longtime friend Ted died in his mid-forties. Our
friendship had endured over twenty years. He lived fifteen hundred miles away,
but I visited him several times after he became seriously ill. I wanted to help
take care of him when his condition became critical but was not asked to do so.
I did fly to San Francisco to attend his memorial service and pondered what I
would say when folk were invited to deliver verbal tributes. I was unable to
say anything and stayed firmly in my pew appreciating the speeches made by
others. I wondered at my inability to talk but appreciated my ability to cry.
Last
month I attended a memorial service for another longtime friend, Geraldean
McMillin. She died unexpectedly at age eighty-two. Geraldean and I had been
intellectual buddies and friends for over thirty years. I flew to Missouri and
with members of my family attended the service. This time I had agreed to say a
benediction at the end of the service. As person after person spoke, I cried;
more specifically I had a constant stream of tears, mostly from my right eye,
while others talked. I was afraid my weeping might leave me dehydrated, my
voice too dry to speak at all, but when the signal came I went to the front of
the chapel and said a few words about Geraldean and pronounced a benediction
made up of some of her oft-repeated phrases and sentiments.
I
miss her.
I
miss Ted.
I
miss James although I haven’t heard from him in many years and have no idea
where he lives or if he is even still alive. I probably won’t need to travel to
his service but sometimes I wonder who will travel to mine.
© 22 July 2014
About
the Author 
Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com 
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Strange Vibrations, by Pat Gourley

“Just because you are
seeing divine light, experiencing waves of bliss, or conversing with gods and
goddesses is no reason to forget your zip code”
Ram Dass
For me strange vibrations
have usually involved bouts of anxiety, which fortunately have been short-lived
and really quite rare in my 67 years. My first experience with being anxious in
an uncomfortable fashion was in my early teens and can be directly related to
buying into the bullshit being foisted on me by the Catholic Church and its
minions.
In hindsight I do think
that my budding awareness that I was a gay little kid was just beginning to
come into conflict in so many ways with the Church’s teachings. The cognitive
dissonance created by what I felt in my core butting up against the relentless
brainwashing could be quite anxiety provoking.
It was the most insidious
form of child abuse legitimately sanctioned by society and the Church and it created
lots of strange vibrations. By my Junior Year in high school these religiously
induced anxiety attacks were quickly abating in large part thanks to my first gay
relationship with a loving queer spirit guide in the form of an elder loving
mentor.
I wonder sometimes if
what I view as the relentless child abuse from all organized religions, often
in an extreme form of psychological coercion and intimidation, doesn’t in some
ways provide the cover or rather the rationale then for actual physical abuse
both sexual and non-sexual to take place. 
If you are willing to foist on young impressionable minds all sorts of
bullshit succinctly laid out in the Baltimore Catechism for example does that
make it easier to then extend this form of mind control to involve the
physical? All of us are born atheists and really should be left alone with that
universal view to eventually sort things out on our own.
I must say that my
current spiritual view, which can best be described as Buddhist-atheism, is no
longer a source of any sort of anxiety. I have finally learned the amazing
calming effect of sitting quietly and focusing on my breath especially when the
current fucked-up state of humanity begins to impinge, usually due to too much
Internet surfing. Amazing how this can also be remediated by a walk to the Denver
Botanic Gardens and a few hours of soaking up that energy.
After extricating myself
from the Catholic Church in 1967 my next real bout with anxiety did not occur
until the fall of 1979 and involved a bit too much psilocybin and a trip to the
Empire Bathes. The resulting moderate freak-out was anxiety provoking enough
for me to essentially swear off all drugs for the past 35+years with one
accidental episode this past winter – details to follow.
My next strange
vibrations did not occur until the fall of 1995 following my partner David’s
death from AIDS related stuff. For many months after his death I would have
nightmares often ending with waking up in panic mode with the sheets often
drenched with sweat.  This did stop
eventually after about six months of talk-therapy with a great shrink. No, I do
not think I was experiencing untreated sleep apnea.
My most recent bout of
strange vibrations occurred this past January when I was out in San Francisco.
I was being Innkeeper and mentoring a new 14-week-old puppy.  It was a rainy evening with only a few guests
and as is my want I started craving something sweet about 7 PM.  The pup and I were ensconced in the library
catching up on Downton Abbey episodes.
Wandering into the
kitchen I spied a Christmas tin on the counter. Upon inspection I found cookies
that I remember being very similar to ones made in large quantities around the
holidays. I quickly made short work of 6 or 7 of these cookies. I thought they
had a bit of an odd molasses taste but still hit the spot. About 30 minutes
later I began to experience very strange vibrations. This was odd I thought
since I was in one of the safest places I can imagine on earth and to have waves
of anxiety sweep over me rather relentlessly soon had me wondering if these
weren’t perhaps the infamous house pot cookies. Several folks in the house have
medical marijuana cards and made use of the herb on occasion often in the form
of baked goods but usually only ¼ to ½ of one cookie imbibed at a time. 
Long story short I was
able to determine that the cookies were “loaded”.  After several calls to Denver friends with
questions about HIV Meds and large quantities of THC I was assured there were
no physical interactions. I clearly recognized the anxiety as familiar ground
and was able to weather the storm with the help of a good friend who came home
from work early and some conscious breathwork. After about six hours I was
pretty much back on earth with the strange vibrations fading away. I was left
to ponder a line from an old Grateful Dead song: “Maybe you had too much too
fast”. 
I was able throughout
though to remember not only how to operate my cell phone and walk the dog but
also I could easily recall my zip code.
©
May 2016 
About the Author 
I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled
by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in
Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an
extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.
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Death, by Lewis

It is hard to write on a
subject with which one does not have any “lived experience”.  Like most, although having witnessed many
thousands of deaths in the popular media and on television news, I have even
less of an idea as to what death will be like than I have on being the
President of the United States.
I suggested this topic
because it has been on my mind a lot lately, due in no small measure to the
recent death of my husband, Laurin.  Also,
over the past year or so, I have experienced a series of maladies and mishaps
that I can only attribute to a body that is showing signs of breaking down and
rusting away, much like cars used to do. 
(Incidentally, have you noticed how few rusted out clunkers you see on
the streets these days?) 
Every life story has a
finite beginning and a finite end.  It is
the incredible mish-mash in-between that makes our life stories so unique.  I hear every day about lives cut short by one
tragedy or another and I always think how lucky I am to have lived to the
relatively ripe age of 68.  Each day, I
check the obituary pages of the Denver
Post to see how many have died at a lesser age.  It’s a small percentage–perhaps 10-15.  The majority of those are men. 
Though four years younger
than Mom, Dad died 3-1/2 years before her. 
I think he had the advantage, though, in terms of how he died.  He had undergone an upper GI a day or two
before.  The x-ray showed a tumor on his
stomach.  He likely had just received
that news when he went to lunch with some friends and came home.  He was sitting on the toilet, perhaps trying
to rid himself of the viscous prep for the test, when he had a massive stroke
and died on the spot.  Mom heard only one
long groan and it was over.
It was then that my
family first realized the seriousness of Mom’s dementia.  Within six months, she had been diagnosed
with Alzheimer’s Disease and institutionalized. 
For the next three years, her condition continued to decline, while she
wondered the halls of the place where she resided, pushing her walker, not
recognizing family or friends, and cursing at those within earshot.  She did not know that she had survived the
second and last of her children by her first husband.  I did not have the heart to tell her.
Some people die in their
sleep.  Others starve to death or after
spending months in a coma or after days of clinging to life after being
horribly injured.  Family members have
seen their loved one die despite round-after-round of chemotherapy or surgeries
at an enormous cost in terms of not only treasure but also emotional capital.
We do not choose when we
are born.  Heck, we’re not even old
enough to choose when we go to the bathroom or what we eat for dinner.  But death is a different matter for most of
us.  By then, we’re adults and making all
kinds of decisions, some of major consequence and some of very little.  We can pick our doctors, our hospital, our
spouse, the person who holds medical power of attorney, whether we will take
our meds, and, in some cases, whether we want life-prolonging medical
procedures or treatment.  We can even
refuse to take food or liquid by mouth until we die, which can take up to ten
days or so and causes pain as our organs shut down (for which we would be given
pain killers).  What we can’t do legally
in this country is to ask for a dose of something that will end it all
painlessly and quickly.
The term “assisted
suicide” frightens people.  They
seem more comfortable with “dying with dignity” or
“aid-in-dying”.  Today, loved
ones who give aid-in-dying can be charged with murder.  Where are all the Right Wing voices who
scream about government overreach when it comes to aid-in-dying?  It seems they were all in favor of keeping Terri
Schiavo alive as long as humanly possible, even through recourse to the Florida
state courts.  Talk about government
abuse of power–and in service of a specific religious faction at that!
Ask a dozen
people–around this table, for example–what happens to us after we die and you
will likely get at least a handful of different opinions.  Is there anything that happens to us that is
more personal than the circumstances of our death, should we be fortunate
enough to have a choice?  If I am unable
to walk or stand, if I am unable to feed or go to the bathroom by myself, if I
do not recognize that the person standing beside me is my own next-of-kin, if I
am not able to talk and the only thing coming out of my mouth is drool, I do
not want to go on living. 
I do not believe in
life-after-death.  I believe that the
release of my last breath will feel very much like that moment before I
received that swat on my bottom that brought that first gasp for life-giving
air.  It is that belief that makes me
want to make the most of every day that I have left–to live, to love, to
celebrate, to share, to grow, to smell the roses, to simply be.  Then, when that final breath comes, it will
be every bit as sweet as my first.
© 13 Oct 2014 
About
the Author 
I came to the
beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the
state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my
native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two
children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married
to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was
passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were
basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very
attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that
time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I
retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13
blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to
fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE
Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.
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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

Doors, by Gail Klock

Buzz, the dull sound of
an institutional doorbell summons the matron with the keys. Footsteps can be
heard descending the stairs. Click, goes the first lock, up two flights of
stairs, then click opens the metal mesh door into the plainest, most
unattractive physical setting you can possibly imagine. A space which lacked
color and texture, the walls and floors an unpainted concrete; no pictures,
wall hangings, or changes of surfaces to detract from the bleakness; no shelves
holding objects of interest. It was a grey world. Visiting my grandmother didn’t
take place in an over the hills and through the woods fashion. We entered
through the locked doors of the mental institution in Pueblo where she was a
patient. She seemed quite “normal” to me. She was dressed like all the other
female patients in non-descript shifts which left you guessing as to the shape
of the wearer. The men were dressed similarly in the same institutionalized
green material with pants that had drawstrings and loose fitting tops. All the
women had the same hair style, one I could have administered as a kid, hacked
off at the neck line.
The room was large and
open, a few tables scattered here and there and lots of empty space. Some of
the patients were moaning to themselves rocking back and forth sitting on the
floor, and others were very intensely playing with their private parts. My
mother and other family members never did know what the diagnosis for my
grandmother was, my guess is clinical depression which was triggered by the
death of her husband at an early age shortly after the diagnosis of his brain
cancer. My grandmother’s behavior didn’t bother me, nor did the actions of the
more severely impacted patients, but the locked doors did. She had been
stripped of her freedom to move about as she liked and to spend time with her
loving family. She lacked the necessary keys to escape this captivity, to
regain her freedom and become all she was capable of becoming.
Fortunately, I’ve had
these keys available to unlock the restrictive doors of life, but I’ve often misplaced
or used the wrong ones in trying to open the doors to happiness.  As a child trying to maneuver through life
without the emotional support of loving adults I developed childish strategies
to protect myself from being hurt and disappointed by loved ones. I played
Simon and Garfunkel’s, “I Am a Rock,” over and over as a college student. I so
identified with the idea of being a rock which felt no pain, and an island
which never cried.  But I didn’t have the
wisdom or guidance to realize a rock doesn’t feel love and an island doesn’t
laugh. The keys I needed to use were the ones which led me through the door of
vulnerability.
Several instances, which
have occurred recently in my life, have given me insight into the desirability
of being vulnerable.   During about the third round of chemo, simply
walking a few steps was exhausting and almost impossible and the myriad other
physical feelings when sitting still were equally horrible. It was at this
point that I realized, “it is what it is.” I can’t fight the feelings, I can’t
change the feelings, I can only live with them. Once I acknowledged the
situation and accepted it for what it was a sense of peacefulness descended
upon me. I knew I was okay and would continue to feel better and better. There
were no longer doors separating me from others, somehow they had sprung open
and I felt more one with the universe. I can’t explain this further, but I felt
a shift in energy.
After my last surgery in
2012 I slowly embarked on the physical healing process which allowed me to return
to playing basketball, an activity I love with my heart and soul. This process
has been slow, at first just getting the ball to the basket was all I could
manage. I didn’t step foot in a scrimmage on the court with others for at least
six months, and when I first did it was with trepidation. The surgery had been
very complex and had involved cutting and moving all of the nerves and muscles
in the hip joint.  Initially I could not
bend either my knee or hip. I asked my doctor if I could try playing again and
told her falling is part of playing and asked if this was a problem, she wisely
stated I might open the wound back up but I wouldn’t hurt anything. She must
have been an athlete herself to understand the significance and relative truth
of this statement.  It took a while for
me to get enough stability to play and it took longer to overcome my fear of
getting hurt. Now I don’t worry about getting hurt… it is what it is, when you
fall you get back up. You might have some bumps and bruises, but you also have
the joy of playing. It’s that one time when you execute the motion just right,
when you get the desired result, when the wholeness of your mind and body are
one, that makes it worth the bumps and bruises. I’ve unlocked the door to
physical vulnerability and have experienced the joy that was on the other side
of the doorway.
I’m well on my way to
accomplishing the same with my emotional life. Even in moments of emotional
isolation, which used to paralyze me with fear, I now realize I have the key
available to open the doors to great love and joy, to actualize the energy
available, which is represented by the concept of “it is what it is”, allowing
the doors to be unlocked. It is only through allowing myself to be emotionally
vulnerable that I will enjoy the greatest love of my life… yes there will be
some tears along with it, of that I am sure. 
But I’ve been that rock way too long, and it was a rather dull rock at
that, now I’m beginning to feel really alive. I feel like the hawk that soars
above, enjoying the warmth of the thermals, knowing it will soar with the wind
beneath its wings, knowing it’s not alone in life, and that all of life’s
forces work together… if only we use the right key.
© 27 Apr 2015 
About
the Author 
 I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents.
Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in
Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison,
Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend
graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached
basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake
Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and
Colorado School of Mines.
While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two
daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home
required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education
certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County
Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my
granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the
storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT
organizations.
As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter,
playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling
group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.
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Pets, by Lewis

After initially thinking I would describe a litany of the pets I have owned over my lifetime–from a dog to a hog-nosed snake to a squirrel to a parakeet–I soon became aware that I had tapped into a very deep well of sadness. More than a moment of grief, it felt as if I had broken the seal on a bottle of “despair Drambuie” that had been corked for sixty years.

Of all my pets, my most dear was the only dog I have ever owned, a mixed fox terrier puppy named Skippy. He was a gift from my maternal grandfather–the only grandparent I have ever known–on a day in May of 1955 that was totally unremarkable. There was no “occasion”. I simply arrived home from another day in the 3rd grade at Morgan Elementary to find a puppy running around the kitchen. I was told by my mother that the puppy was a gift from Granddad Homer, who was living with us but at the time nowhere to be seen.

This was not unusual for my grandfather. Although extremely generous with his money, he was a five-star miser when it came to communication. I do not remember a time when we shared a conversation, laugh, or tender touch. When he gave gifts, he always did it through a surrogate– our first TV magically appeared in our living room, my first bike was delivered by a Sears van as I sat on the front lawn, my first gun–a .410 gauge shotgun–was handed down from him through the hands of my father. When he died, approximately six months after bringing Skippy into my life, I was not allowed to attend his funeral. Since when does a 9-year-old need closure?

At first, I resented the duties that came with owning a dog. When still a puppy, I attached a leash to his halter and swung him around in the back yard as if he were on a merry-go-round. But soon, Skippy became my trusted and loyal buddy.

On Columbus Day, 1961, I was sitting at my desk doing homework after school in my bedroom. I was 15 and a high school sophomore. Mom was the TV Editor for the Hutchinson [KS] News and hadn’t yet come home. I heard Dad come in the front door and could tell something was wrong. Dad had found Skippy lying in the street dead, apparently hit by a car. His body was unmarked except for a tiny tear in his skin.

I could tell Dad was sorry for my pain. I asked him what we should do. He said we should find a spot to bury Skippy in the back yard.

Dad grabbed a shovel and I carried my dog as gently as my shaking arms would allow. We looked around for an appropriate place of internment. Somewhat baffled, Dad–who could have been the prototype for Jimmy Olsen of Superman fame–said, “Where can we bury that damn dog, anyway?” I had already steeled myself against showing one whit of emotion and his comment only steadied my resolve. We did agree on a final resting place and I placed Skippy into it, along with a piece of my heart.

I never owned another dog as long as I have lived. The pets I have had have not been of the type that one would describe as “cuddly”. They were either reptiles or amphibians, except for one brief turn with a wounded baby squirrel.

Lately, as I have been giving more thought to the notion of once again being “in relationship”, I ask myself, “What kind of person would I be happiest with?” It seems to me that the process is a lot more like selecting a breed of dog to purchase as a pet that some people might think. Am I looking for a guard dog, a lap dog, or a dog to play “fetch” with? Why, I ask myself, are most of my friends women? Why do the men I know mostly seem to be narcissists who talk only about themselves and NEVER ask a question about my life?

At the suggestion of a newly-acquired male friend, I took the online Enneagram Personality Test. I found out that I am a Type 2–The Helper. I am told “people of this type essentially feel that they are worthy insofar as they are helpful to others. Love is their highest ideal. Selflessness is their duty. Giving to others is their reason for being. Involved, socially aware, usually extroverted, Twos are the type of people who…go the extra mile to help out a co-worker, spouse or friend in need.”

Not too bad an assessment, I would say. The description of a Type 2 goes on to say, “Two’s often develop a sense of entitlement when it comes to the people closest to them. Because they have extended themselves for others, they begin to feel that gratitude is owed to them. They can become intrusive and demanding if their often unacknowledged emotional needs go unmet.”

I recoiled from this accusation upon first reading. The idea that I could become “intrusive and demanding” seemed like a ridiculous fantasy. But upon further contemplation, I had to admit that I do have “unmet emotional needs which go largely unacknowledged”. The suddenness of this realization flooded over me like a loss every bit as painful as the death of a beloved pet.

Still, some men I know do engender a powerful resentment in me. These are the ones I labeled a bit ago as “narcissistic”. The conversation is all about them with never a thought about me. This trait among the men I know is so pervasive as to explain why it is that I much prefer the company of women. It’s not that I feel that “gratitude is owed to me” as much as I feel that I am an interesting person who deserves equal time. I don’t think that is too much to ask of a friendship. If all I cared about was caring for and pampering the other, I would go out and buy a cat. Alternatively, I’ll just have to learn how to extend myself less or be more open about verbalizing my own need for caring. Anybody know any Type 2’s out there?

© 18 August 2014

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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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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Away from Home by Gail Klock

Home to me is not a place so much as a state of being. It is a place deep within me, where I am loved unconditionally, where I’m accepted and understood. It is that place where my thoughts come to my defense when under attack, like a mother lion defending her cubs. It is that place where I am allowed to make mistakes, and take ownership for my actions and make amends to others if those actions cause them pain.

I am going to be okay no matter the circumstances, are the feelings which reside in that place called home. They are the indescribably good feelings deep within me, like the ones which come coursing through my body when listening to a beautiful piece of music, or when I laugh from the depth of my soul, or cry in empathy for another’s pain. It is the beauty, grace, and power of a hawk soaring through the sky, treating me to the joys of nature.

It has taken me a long time to find home… I was away from home most of my life. I found it difficult to find peace within myself, due at least in part to my homosexuality. It was, and on rare occasions still is, hard to find serenity within, especially when being viewed by others as a deviant person.

I was a pioneer in the gay movement back in the 80’s when I chose to have children through artificial insemination and to be out, knowing to not do so would place my daughters in the position of having shame about the family they came from. But as I was traversing this unknown world I carried abashment within me. My inner world was still not a place of self-acceptance and tranquility. I look back on those times now with admiration for my courage, but I would rather have realized my inner strength at the time. I was still away from home. I was looking at a young lesbian the other day and admiring her hair cut with one half of her head shaved and the other side cascading across her head like a waterfall. I would not have had the courage to wear my hair like that when I was young. But then I kind of chuckled inwardly as I realized I now sometimes wear my hair in an equally brazen fashion.

As long as I remind myself where home is, I can get there. It reminds me of the last time I parked at the Pikes Peak parking lot out at DIA. I dutifully told myself to remember I had parked in the F section. That was all good and fine until I exited the shuttle bus at FF after only 3 hours of sleep the night before. I reminded myself of this lack of sleep as I fought off the notion that someone had stolen my car, after all no one else had my keys. Wandering back and forth several times along rows EE, FF, and GG …dragging my luggage, I knew I had to develop a strategy to find it. I then thought okay, I’ll just go up to section A and walk up and down every lane until I’m successful. As I reached section YY it occurred to me I had parked in F, but I had been searching in FF. I found my car where I had parked it. Of course it was there all along just waiting to be found, which is true for my inner sense of home as well. My serenity was always available to be, I just had to find the correct strategy to get to it. I get there with less angst now, especially when I remember to delete the old tapes which play within my head about the perversion of being gay.

© 2 August 2015

About the Author

I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents. Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison, Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and Colorado School of Mines.
While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.


As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

Posted on

The Invisible Line of Cigar Store Wooden Indian, by Carlos Castillo

The Plaza Theater in El Paso is one of those 1930’s iconic theaters built to immortalize cinematography. Entering into the Spanish colonial building festooned with ornate furnishings, red velvet curtains and ornate plasterwork propelled me to a world I could only imagine. After all, I lived in a 3-room adobe with no indoor plumbing. As I sat marveling at the ornate proscenium arch before me and the overhead ceiling with astronomically correct twinkling stars and projected gauzy clouds, I felt the awe of peasants in the Middle Ages when they walked into Gothic cathedrals radiating light through stained glass rose windows. I was on a school-sponsored trip to watch John Wayne’s rendition of Texas’ war of independence at the Alamo. When the camera panned the battlefield depicting Mexican soldiers falling in a barrage of bullets, my peers applauded and yelled enthusiastically at the carnage. After all, we were fellow Texans, disdainful of the Mexican hoard. It did not matter that the Mexicans spoke our language and looked like most of us. During the climactic scene when the small band of Texas insurgents were overwhelmed by the formidable Mexican army of Santa Ana, I felt strangely uncomfortable although I did not really understand why. Later, when I asked mi papá who at that time had not yet become a naturalized citizen to explain, he replied that films do not always depict history accurately, thereby challenging my vision of truth.

Throughout the years, being a child of immigrant parents had thrust me into a spiral of doubt. Although I ate beans and tortillas at every meal and considered La Virgen de Guadalupe my spiritual benefactress, the last thing I wanted to be labeled as was Mexican. Being accused of being one invariable resulted in angry words and school yard brawls. After all, the Hollywood stock character of Mexicans as poor and uneducated at best, corrupt and violent at worst, nettled my consciousness. I did not question this perception until years later when mis padres took me back to their native Jalisco in an effort to show me another facet of my identity. They, the Mexican people I encountered, did not fit the cartoonish stereotypes of sarape-draped men leading donkeys by the halter nor rebozo-cocooned women selling calla lilies at the marketplace. The relatives and human beings I met were poetic, cosmopolitan, and generous in their affection for me. My Tía Concha slaughter a hen from her garden and prepared a mole redolent with spices that left me lapping up the bowl with delight that evening. Noting my gustatory seduction, she again prepared the same complex dish the following day. Years later, I would recall a similar awe when after being legally deaf for years, I again heard after the advancement of deaf technology. Thus, I returned back home with a new-found appreciation for being Latino. Endlessly I played the rancheros/ bolero recordings of Javier Solís with his liquid brown eyes, bronze face, and moustache draping his pouting lips. I sat at the edge of my seat watching movies of Cantinflas, internalizing his typical we-live-to-laugh Mexican philosophy. I immersed myself in the national consciousness of my parents’ homeland while simultaneously remaining firmly rooted in my pride of the red, white and blue. I became a scion of two cultures, recognizing that my soul was forged of the silver of Taxco as well as in the coal of West Virginia. Thus, I started to reject the stereotypes that had calcified in me over a lifetime, to reject the scurrilous labels and images I had internalized, as a Mexican, as an American, and as an American of Mexican descent, and to drink water made sweet in earthenware cantaros even as I indulged in Oscar Mayer hotdogs.

Because The Alamo became a lesson for me about illusions, ultimately I recognized that even darkness can lead to vision. However, to see, it was important that I first embrace my blindness. Indigenous peoples have consistently been stereotyped. The oversimplified and inaccurate stereotypical depictions of identities run the gamut from noble savage to ignoble barbarian and from Indian princess and squaw pejorative to wise sage. The stereotypical influences are so pervasive many Native peoples today are actively pursuing a more accurate understanding of themselves and their cultures in an attempt to reject the internalized effects of these misconceptions and labels. Many are reclaiming their native identities, recognizing they are the people; they are human beings, not cigar store wooden Indian caricatures. Likewise, we gay and lesbian people struggle to define who we are as we confront the insidious stereotypes foisted about us by media even in this era of social progress. We struggle to reject the offensive humor and defamatory stereotypes. I weary of the sociopathic, effeminate and butch, dangerous and predatory, immortal, suicidal labels queer folk are subjected to. These stereotypes only foster hatred and prejudice. Like Native peoples, we too have become caricatures, metaphoric cigar store gays and lesbians. Of course, I understand that the media stigmatizes many groups from repressed Brits to evil Mexicans, and from racist white Southerners to doddering elders. After all, stereotypes are invaluable because audiences have been conditioned to expect certain behaviors from stock characters. The point is that audiences willingly accept established archetypes in place of genuine character development, thus freeing up remaining frames to more interesting and adrenaline-pumping scenes. Thus, unfortunately the cigar store wooden Indian, in its many manifestations, persists.

Over time, I have learned to savor the diversity and complexity of the human experience. Yet, false depictions continue to drift through the air like the stench of something unspeakable. Most recently, the vitriolic venom being spewed like explosive diarrhea by a “You’re fired” candidate and his followers about people who are like you and me angers me, but in my anger I find the courage to speak up and pull back the fog of blindness, the silence of deafness. I will not sanction cigar store wooden icons of any of God’s creations. I will not be a cigar store Latino or gay wooden icon.

The adage a picture is worth a thousand words is heartening. One balmy fall day in l960, I walked into a theater intent on immersing myself into a world I little understood. Several hours later, I emerged transfixed and transformed, pondering the implications of what I had witnessed. Although we have all been invited to attend a banquet in which all forms of delights, both sweet and savory, are ladled unto our bowls, unfortunately too often we pull back from the table because we fear the unknown. And in fearing, in withdrawing, and in condemning, we deny ourselves the wonders of an elaborately prepared spicy mole, made rich by old world and new world hands. Life is a journey in which we need not behold others nor ourselves reflected on the prism of cigar store wooden misrepresentations.

© August 19, 2016, Denver

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.