Tag: Life Stories

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Acceptance, by Betsy

These
words represent thoughts that have occurred to me over the past couple of
weeks—mostly while on our recent trip to Nicaragua.
Acceptance
is growing
old and embracing it (being literally led by the hand so to speak through
airports, hotels, car rentals, etc. by children and grand child, I realized that
this is okay. I can embrace this)
Acceptance
is greeting every new day with gratitude, enthusiasm, and joy
Acceptance
is knowing when to keep your mouth shut
Acceptance
is understanding your shortcomings and imperfections and still loving yourself
Acceptance
is acknowledging when you are wrong
Acceptance
is accepting things you don’t want to accept
Acceptance
is putting words from the heart to paper
This
is not to say I don’t have a long list of things that I do not  care to accept but that will have to wait for
another day.
© 21 Dec 2015 
About the Author 
Betsy has been active in
the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old
Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been
retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major
activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a
volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading,
writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage.
She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren.
Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her
life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.
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The Men in My Life, by Pat Gourley

Good grief where to begin
with this topic? It could certainly be the title of a book with many, many
chapters. As I have written in the past it has been the women in my life who
have had the most profound impact of substance. By that I mean they are the
ones who have most influenced and shaped my intellectual, philosophical and
certainly political bent. The one possible male exception would be Harry Hay.
For this piece though I
am not going to write about Harry but rather a person who has been in my life
for the past 38 years. This is a man who is now in his late 70’s who I first
met I think in the fall of 1978 or perhaps the spring of 1979 that bit of
history being somewhat fuzzy. We met for the first time and gloriously fucked
at the Empire Baths and then got together the next night at my house for a
repeat. That first night at the tubs I had picked him up in the showers and to
be honest it was his quite ample and thick cock that first caught my attention.
I really don’t think of
myself as a size queen and have thoroughly enjoyed many penises of all sizes
and girths over the years and know from lots of experience that it is not the
size of the member but rather the skill of the partner that makes all the
difference.  It is no longer the case but
in my teens, 20’s and 30’s the sight of a large, stiff dick was irresistible
with all caution thrown to the wind and if this appendage was attached to a man
who also knew how to use it, all the better. 
I really most enjoyed unwrapping a package that came with no assembly
required.
Over the next few years
we came to know one another quite well. I learned that he was married and lived
in rural Colorado. And most shocking of all he was a Republican! Amazing how if
the sex is really good party affiliation seems to rarely be an issue.
Our get-togethers were
always sporadic but consistent over the years and I came to truly appreciate
our genuine mutual love and his no strings attached generosity. I did meet his
wife on a couple of occasions. She is a wonderful, dynamic woman who he still
lives with him in a Western, rural and very Republican state. I never asked and
have no idea what she knew or did not. 
From the early 1980’s on, at my insistence, our sex became scrupulously
safe which turned out to be a good idea after I tested positive for HIV in
1985. He was always the top though so any risk to him and or to his wife was minimal;
latex sealed that deal, even with almost all play being just mutual masturbation.
The dramatic difference
in out worldviews and every day life has been a recurrent and at times a challenging
lesson for me. Our truly loving relationship has been a reminder to not take my
own politics too seriously. I do believe if we could get a majority of the
world’s men to lie naked with one another, even just on rare occasions, the
world would be so much more peaceful and less toxic in general.  Ah, the stuff of dreams.
Though I have only an
inkling of how closeted his life may still be I have always been very
protective of his identity and his hetero life. He has described himself to me
as gay but I don’t ever try to deconstruct that too much. As a good San
Francisco friend recently said in describing another queer theorist writing’s
in the Gay and Lesbian Review: “his
ramblings sound like Tourette’s with a PhD”. No need for me to risk being that sort
of analyst with my dear friend.
We most recently got
together a few days ago on a visit to Denver. Most of our time was spent
soulfully chatting about the recent suicide of a mutual friend and deeply
listening to one another grieve and shed a few tears about this loss.
There was a bit of naked
play on this visit, nothing to compare to 30 years ago of course, but still
enjoyable and generous on his part. No, I did not succumb to lecturing him on
the fact that his dick would work much better if he could get the animal
product out of his diet.  We got to the
point years ago where the quality of our time together was not predicated on
the rigidity or complete lack thereof of our hard-ons. Something that seems to
be a real barometer of many long-lasting gay male friendships I think.
Speaking only from a gay
male perspective here I think it worth mentioning the truly amazing and
literally millions of gay male friendship networks that are enduring and often
totally non-sexual that characterize so much of our queer lives. This is
something that truly differentiates us from many of them. Let me close
paraphrasing my favorite Harry Hay quote of all time: “the only thing we have in
common with the straight world is what we do in bed”.
© 27
Mar 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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The Women in My Life, by Lewis

I.  TRUDY
I
think I am on safe ground in saying that I am likely the serendipitous product
of the unlikely coupling of a lesbian with a man who never seems to have had a
prurient thought in his lifetime.
I
wrote extensively about my mother back on December 2nd of last year.  Back then, I did not delve into the
circumstantial evidence for my mother’s lesbianism.  I will wade into that somewhat sticky thicket
today, however, as it is the earliest historical instance of the almost
fantastical history of the women in my experience.
Let
us turn the imaginary clock back to May 15th, 1939.  The scene is Pratt, Kansas, a place scarcely
touched by the Renaissance, let alone the Enlightenment.  Married to Bernard for 12-years with
children, B.J., aged 10, and Joyce, aged 8, Mother filed for divorce on the
grounds of “extreme cruelty”.  The Divorce Agreement goes on to claim that
“unfortunate differences and disputes have arisen between the parties and
they have separated with the intention of living separate and apart from each
other during the remainder of their natural life [sic]”.
The
only complaints Mother ever expressed to me about Bernard were that he was an
alcoholic and once came onto their porch distraught and tearfully imploring her
to take him back.  She berated his lack
of manliness.  My half-sister and
-brother, who continued to see their father until his death, told me that he was
not an alcoholic.
Here’s
where the Divorce Agreement gets bizarre: 
“There have been two children born of this marriage…They are now
living with the husband and he is to have the care and custody of said children
in the future.  In this connection the
said husband agrees to be responsible for the support and maintenance of said
children.  It is further agreed that the
wife shall be permitted to see and visit said children and said children are to
be allowed to see and visit with her.
“It
is further understood and agreed that the husband and wife, since their
marriage, have accumulated but little real and personal property…and they
have some personal property, including an automobile.  All of said property is to belong to the
husband, except any items of personal property belonging to the wife.”
Then,
comes this little tidbit:  “…[T]he
said wife does hereby release and discharge the said husband from all
obligations of support and from all claims and duties arising out of their
marital relations.”
Within
a year-and-a-half, my mother had married again, this time to my father.  It was his first marriage.  I’m not certain of the date of their first
meeting, but I do know where it took place. 
Dad had an office on the second floor of the Sears department store in downtown
Pratt where my mother and another woman operated a beauty parlor.  At some point in this interval between
“Hello” and “I do”, Mom’s business partner unceremoniously
departed for California.  My suspicion is
that Mom got caught in a gay tryst and surrendered all rights to parentage and
property to silence Bernard.  That would
also explain the sudden departure of mom’s business partner for the west coast.
Since
I have covered some of this ground before, I will not repeat myself.  Suffice it to say that for as long as I can
remember, Mom and Dad slept in twin beds. 
From the time I was six, Dad dressed in another room.  I never remember seeing them kissing or
hugging or showing any form of physical affection during their 49-year marriage.  Was Mom gay? 
Dad?  Both?  Neither? 
Perhaps they were perfectly suited marital partners–each as cover for
the other at a time when being gay was strictly verboten.  I’ll probably never know for certain. 
II.  JOYCE
Joyce
was Mom’s second child by her first husband, Bernard.  I have mentioned her before in one of these stories
as the young woman who gave me such a thrill when she stayed overnight in my
bed when I was about 3 or 4 years old. 
She was truly beautiful and a dear, sweet person.  I adored her and so did my mother.
As
long as I can remember, Joyce was married to Moe.  Moe was an engineer on the railroad.  They lived in Pratt.  They had two children, a boy, Damon, followed
a couple years later by a girl, DeeAnn. 
I was an uncle at the age of 9. 
When they came to visit, Mom and Joyce would go shopping and I would
play with my niece and nephew.  We all
got along famously.
When
she was 55, Joyce was afflicted with pancreatic cancer and soon died.  It was a terrible blow to the family, and my
mother in particular.  I will treasure
her memory forever.
III.  SANDY SUE
Before
I started school, my best friend was Sandy Sue. 
She lived in a corner house at the far end of the block.  She had a basement where we could play
hide-and-seek.  Sometimes, when other
kids were around, we would play spin-the-bottle.  On one occasion, Sandy Sue and I were in the
basement playing with matches.  Somehow–I’m
pretty certain I had a roll to play–a wastebasket was set on fire.  The flames shot up as high as my head.  We both panicked.   Sandy’s mother must have heard something or
smelled smoke because she came running down the stairs and put out the
fire.  I was sent home, now as a persona
non grata. 
IV.  JUDY
When
I was half-way through kindergarten, my parents moved into a small ranch house
with three bedrooms so my maternal Granddad could live with us and Dad could
have an office at home.  On moving day, I
was standing in the front yard taking in the new surroundings when I heard a
voice approaching from behind.   It was
Judy.  She was what they used to call a
tomboy.  She grew up with three older
brothers and liked to do things that boys like to do.  Although I was pretty shy, we became the best
of friends.
I
should have known by then that playing in basements invited risky behaviors.  When we were about 10–Judy was 12 days
younger than I–we were playing hide-and-seek in her basement when she said,
“Let’s play doctor!”
“How do you play
‘doctor’?”, I naively queried.
“Well, I’ll be the
doctor first and you’ll be the patient, then we’ll switch”, she
replied.  “You’ll start by taking
off your clothes.”
“Oh, no,” I blurted
out.
“Don’t worry.  I do it with my brother and he doesn’t
mind.”
“If you insist, I’m
leaving.”
“OK, I won’t
insist,” she said.
I’ve
often wondered whether, had I not been so unaccustomed to being naked in the
presence of others or had I not been an inchoate gay boy, might I have
responded differently to Judy’s entreaty.
When
we were 5th graders, Judy and her family moved to Wichita.  Much later, on a visit when we were 19, she
proposed to me.  By that time, I
understood why “playing doctor” with her had not aroused my
curiosity.  I told her “No”,
once again.  By that time, her family was
living in Evergreen, CO, and I saw her only infrequently.  She married, then divorced, then married
again and is now living in Arvada.  We
are still friends though no longer close.
V.  JANET
After
graduating from the University of Kansas with a Mechanical Engineering degree
in January of 1970, I took a job with Ford in Dearborn, MI.  For the first time in my life, I had neither
school nor friends to keep me busy.  I
had lots of time to think about who I was and where my life was going.  I decided to get some professional counseling.  After many visits, I told my psychologist
that I was sexually attracted to men. 
His advice was to tell me that I would be happy if I simply found the right
woman.  Within less than a year, I had met
a woman and we started dating.  I was
very uncomfortable and must have telegraphed my discomfort.  It only lasted a couple of months. 
Soon,
I was feeling secure enough in my orientation that I wanted to come out to my
parents back in Kansas.  I told my
therapist that I was thinking of writing them a “coming out” letter.  He said that would be a terrible mistake, so
I didn’t.
About
six months later I went to a Christmas party attended by clients of my
therapist’s two group sessions.  I struck
up a conversation with a young woman who was a member of the other group or,
should I say, she struck up a conversation with me.  Her name was Janet and we talked for two
hours.  Like Judy, she was extroverted,
very down-to-earth, and knew her own mind. 
Not liking to linger at parties, I politely excused myself, said my
“goodbyes” and left.  As I was
getting into my car, a man known to both Janet and me came rushing out of the
house with a note in his hand.  It was
Janet’s phone number.
Well,
I did call her a few days later.  We had
many interests in common and began to see each other regularly.  I even told her of my interest in men.  Janet had been “around the block”,
shall I say, sexually, having once been a member of the Sexual Freedom League,
an organization formed in 1963 in New York City which, to quote Wikipedia, “existed to promote and conduct
sexual activity among its members and to agitate for political reform,
especially for the repeal of laws against abortion and censorship, and had many
female leaders”.  The fact that
Janet had been raised in a Polish Catholic family but had rejected the Church
while still in college for its sexism, only made her more attractive to me.
Within
three months or so, we were having sex regularly.  I can remember driving to work from her
apartment after spending the night wondering if my co-workers could detect the
odor of our coupling. 
We
were about to have sex in my bedroom on one day that July of 1972 when Janet
asked me if I was still attracted to men. 
I answered truthfully, “Yes”. 
She then wanted to know if I was still committed to marital monogamy, a
subject we had discussed at length.  I
answered in the affirmative.  She was
happy with that. 
We
married that fall in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockford, IL.  The minister had been at the Detroit UU
Church when we first met.  Her family came
from Michigan, mine from Minnesota and Kansas, so the location was a good
compromise. 
That
night, there was no latex involved in our love-making.  By Thanksgiving, Janet began spotting.  Something was wrong.  I have already told this story, so I’ll spare
you now, except to say that we lost that child. 
Eventually, luck being with us, we had two children, a girl and a boy.
I
was absolutely true to my word and remained faithful to Janet throughout the 26
years of our marriage, as she was to me. 
Oh, I had a rich fantasy life and that kept me going, so to speak.  We both had careers, she as an elementary
school teacher and I as an automotive engineer. 
Neither of us lived to work, however, and no housework nor child care
activity was beneath either of our dignities.
As
time went on, however, I found it increasingly difficult to sublimate my gay
inner persona.  I began to focus more and
more at home on my hobby, thinking that merely being “present” was
parenting enough.  It wasn’t, though it
took me many years to figure that out–at a cost of much pain to my kids.  I won’t dwell on this now.  That will be the subject for another Monday
afternoon.
Let
it suffice to say that Janet and I are still friends to this day, despite
divorcing in 1999.  Janet stated emphatically
that she would never remarry and she has held true to that conviction.  She lives close enough to both kids to see
them regularly.  She spends her time
playing clarinet in three community bands, taking watercolor classes, and
visiting friends.  She has a number of
serious health issues and is scheduled for hip replacement surgery in December.
For
a quarter century, we were as close as any man and woman I have ever
known.  She brought me blessings by the
bucketful.  I couldn’t have asked for a
more loving companion and partner. 
LAURA/CALIX
I
have already written about Laura’s difficult delivery using forceps on her head
while the doctor pulled the delivery table, a nurse, and me across the delivery
room floor.  I also told about the first
time I held her in my arms when she was less than a day old, removing the
hospital gown I had been given only to find a blob of baby poop on my dress
shirt.  Yes, it was very early in my
daughter’s life that I knew who was calling the shots.
Calix
was not the name Janet and I gave her at birth. 
That was “Laura”. 
“Calix” is the name our daughter assumed when she became an
adult.  Other than both consisting of
five letters, the second of which is ‘a’, the two names could hardly sound more
different.  It was just another milestone
on her journey toward becoming her own person.
Is
it a rule of parenting that, if one of your children is neat, punctual,
compliant, unassuming and shy, the other will be passive-aggressive, messy,
contrary, and stubborn?  If so, how much of
that is rebellion, how much life experience, and how much luck-of-the-draw?
In
1980, Janet and I, with our daughter about to enter kindergarten, moved from
Detroit to the tony suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, where Janet taught 4th
grade.  For the 7-1/2 years we lived in
the big city, we had not had so much as a lawn sprinkler stolen, although it
had been slightly unnerving to watch the tree limbs drop to the ground as the
next-door neighbors and their friends fired their guns into the sky on New
Years’ Eve.
Five
months after moving in, Janet and I attended a Detroit Symphony Orchestra
concert.  The baby-sitter we had hired–and
her parents–were known to Janet through her teaching.  The girl was 13 but kind of new to
baby-sitting, certainly new to us.  After
the concert, we had been invited to the home of one of Janet’s fellow teachers for
coffee.  Driving home around 12:30 AM, we
could see from a couple of blocks away flashing red lights in the vicinity of
our house.  As we pulled into the drive,
the side door opened and a plainclothes policeman approached the car.  He ushered us inside.  There had been some trouble.
Earlier
in the evening, a woman known only superficially to Janet had been in the
emergency waiting room of a local hospital with a couple of friends.  They were trying to get her committed for
psychiatric care but needed the signature of a second doctor because it was
without the patient’s consent.  At some
point, the distraught woman had simply walked out of the hospital and took off on
foot in the direction of our house.  She
had gone nearly two miles when a neighbor noticed her in the middle of the
street, shedding clothes as she went. 
The neighbor called the police. 
We had left the side porch light on. 
Whether that was what attracted the woman to our house or not, I don’t
know.  She walked up to the side door naked
from the waist up and rang the bell.  I’m
sure she was verbalizing, as well.
When
the baby-sitter saw her, she turned back and ran to the kitchen, where there
was a phone.  She called her home.  Her dad answered.  Meanwhile, the woman broke a small window
glass in the side door and let herself in. 
She walked up to the sitter and began running her fingers through the
girl’s hair, upon which the babysitter dropped the phone and ran out the
door.  At this point, the woman began
rummaging through the kitchen drawers, looking for something to use as a
weapon.  All she found, luckily, was a
pair of vegetable shears.  She set out
looking for a victim. 
The
babysitter ran screaming toward a couple across the street walking their
dog.  She tried to tell them which house
she had come from but, in her panic and unfamiliarity, wasn’t sure.  At just this moment, a cop car came down the
street in response to the phone call reporting that a woman was taking off her
clothes and dropping them on the street.
The
distraught woman walked right past the bedroom where our two-year-old son was
sleeping to the far end of the ranch house and into Laura’s bedroom.  Waking her, she knelt over her and began to
make mostly superficial stab wounds over Laura’s face, torso, and near her
vagina.  The most serious of the wounds
penetrated Laura’s lower lip.
When
the police entered the house, they saw the woman wielding the scissors while
repeating, “I have to kill the children”.  It took three officers to wrestle the woman
to the floor and put her coat back on to take her away.
Laura
was not seriously hurt physically.  All
of the wounds healed on their own except for the one to the lip, which required
a stitch or two.  At the commitment
hearing for the woman, I sat just in front of her husband, who whispered to me that
all women are just a hair away from mental instability once a month
anyway.  She was committed to a mental
hospital for 90 days, after which she was released to the care of her loving
husband.
Janet
and I sought counseling for Laura immediately. 
Some of the advice we got was less than useful, though we did not
realize it right away.  I’m sure some of
it did more harm than good, including setting up a point system to reward good
behavior and punish bad.  Laura had
always been late for everything, slow to dress, having to be coaxed to get
ready for school, on and on.  She started
sucking her thumb and continued doing it into high school.  It caused her mother and me no end of
frustration.
In
high school, Laura befriended a girl who also was an outsider.  Their relationship was so close that other
kids thought they were lesbians.  Our
son, Nolan, two years younger, was teased about that when he started high
school.  In their senior year, Laura and
the other girl had a falling out.  The
other girl brought a knife to school and threatened Laura with it.  Laura became depressed.  She was hospitalized and diagnosed with PTSD,
probably from the incident when she was four.
Calix
was a talented poet and artist.  She went
on to college hoping to teach philosophy but ran into a brick wall when it came
to writing term papers.  She not only had
PTSD but also ADD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  At age 38, she is still a year away from a
bachelor’s degree and works for $9 an hour at a clothes cleaning establishment.
Four
years ago, she married the love of her life, Scott.  He works at Walgreen’s as a clerk though he
holds an MBA which he earned online. 
Together, they made $25K last year and have, between them, over $70K in
college loan debt.  They are living
almost from hand-to-mouth and their future is far from bright.   They seem happy, though they cannot afford
to have the child they so much desire, and I am happy for them.  It’s nothing like the life Janet and I wanted
for her but it will have to do.
EPILOGUE
There
is another woman who has played a critical role in my life.  She was my son’s girlfriend back in
2008.  Her name was Jasmine.  Nolan has a penchant for dating women with
exotic names–Alethea, Jasmine, and Destiny among them.
One
night in late February of 2008, Jasmine came to confront Nolan in his apartment
after he had sought to break off the relationship.  Jasmine picked up a knife and stabbed Nolan
in the throat, just missing his carotid artery by 2 mm.  He ran down the stairs and into the attached
garage.  He got into his car and pressed
the garage door opener.  Jasmine followed
him to the garage and used the button near the inside door to close the garage
door again.  She still clutched the
knife.  Nolan got out of the car, ducked
under the closing door and ran from neighbor to neighbor, barefoot, pajama-clad
and bleeding in the snow, seeking help. 
After several rebuffs, an elderly woman let him in.  Jasmine was tried and went to jail for four
months following a plea bargain, despite evidence that she had used Nolan’s
computer to research the anatomy of the human neck, including the location of
the critical artery.
I
believe I am truly unique in the fact that both of my children were at one point
in their lives stabbed by emotionally distraught, if not downright loony,
women.  I think that gives me a somewhat
unique perspective although I have no idea as to what.
© 24 Nov 2012 
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.
Posted on

Vibrations of Time, by Carlos

A
ghost abides in my house, although the word ghost is hardly the appropriate
word to use, for I think both he and I prefer to use the word spirit. He is an inconspicuous
energy that lingers around me like the aroma of mint tea on a frosty day or the
taste of orange blossom honey on a warm croissant. I have only seen him once, a
snippet of a shadow that appeared in my periphery vision and was gone like a
summer beam of light. I was working in the garden and happened to look up at
small window above the staircase, catching him as he spied down on me. He is a
fine-featured, tall gentleman dressed in what looks like an Edwardian morning
coat and silk ascot. And although I dismissed him as an overactive imagination
borne perhaps from too many hours under the summer sun or from the expectation
that a spirit should after all reside in a Victorian home, I have never, until
now, spoken of him. I’ve given him the name John, and he seems most content
that I should name him so.
This
is not to say that John has always been a quiet energy, satisfied to waft
through the air like the first sublime notes of Karl Jenkins’ Benedictus. When I first moved into our 1888
Queen Anne, she looked like a dollhouse that had been touched inappropriately
by too many who had taken from her, but never loved her unconditionally. The
windows were broken, and the rooms frigid. Her fine details were gone, ripped
out and sold or simply discarded and replaced by the more modern contrivances
of evolving tastes. As for her garden, only two century-old maples and two
weathered apple trees remained, no doubt, an attempt by early homesteaders to
tame the wild grasslands of a former time. Nevertheless, our attraction to each
other was instantaneous, like two would-be lovers who meet on a quiet dance
floor and see each other’s souls through the haze and shadowy darkness. Putting
an offer, and finalizing the closing, within weeks our destinies were linked.
On my first day in my proud, but sad, house, I sat on the floor and envisioned
hopes and promises yet to be birthed. I sat in terror, pondering whether I
would be worthy enough to respect her and restore her faded self-esteem. Upon
moving in, I immediately hanged my treasured cuckoo clock upon a wall, taking
great joy in calibrating the weights every week to enjoy the automaton’s hourly
call. It became a symbol of my own nesting.
Often
the vibrations between house and me were at odds and tenuous, much like a newly
wedded couple in an arranged marriage. She was suspicious of my intentions; I remained
dubious as to whether I could do right by her, whether I could be faithful to
just one. The energy within the house was impudent, challenging me as though to
undermine me and determine my reaction. 
After the water pipes froze and water fountained throughout the first
floor one frigid winter night, I repaired the damage and remained, proving to
both us that I was not about to retreat in spite of our apprehensions. As I cleaned
from the deluge and pulled up nasty, old carpeting, I connected with the past,
discovering sheaves of 1920’s vintage newspapers, now soaked, that had been
laid down by a former tenant to insulate the floors. Later, she tested my vows
as when during a small dinner party, I shame-faced discovered I had served gritty
sand in our soup bowls. Thinking I had been guilty of not washing the
vegetables, I, to my dismay, ladled out a chunk of horsehair plaster from the
ceiling that had unexpectedly fallen into the kettle. It was not long after
that that John’s presences made itself known. One night something touched my
toe as I lay in bed. I spent a few sleepless hours in a frigid room, not sure
whether I was more frustrated with the blustery winds that tumbled and shrieked
through the dark hallways or the unwarranted caress from the unknown. When I
demolished the upstairs walls, since they were but cheap cardboard sheathing
unceremoniously nailed down between rows of wood furring strips, giving the rooms
a prison-like aura, John was angry, perhaps because he thought that like others
before me, my intentions were to dismantle his world even further. I heard him
stomping angrily upstairs with fury, convincing me I was about to be pummeled
by a would-be intruder. However, when I ran upstairs to investigate, the sound
ceased; he had retreated. Over the ensuing years, the energy in the house gradually
changed to a live-and-let-live ambiance as I jacked up foundations, replaced
floors and windows, brought the plumbing and electricity up to code, and
strengthened the bones of the house. Eventually, chandeliers and fretwork,
stained glass and tile, roses and violets and sweet woodruff gardens graced my
home, mirroring her former self and solidifying my intentions to honor a
promise made when I was young and naive. Years earlier, I had concluded that
John did not care for the raucous sounds of my cuckoo clock since as long as
the clock chimed, his presence lingered nearby; thus, I decided to put the
clock in storage.  I suspect that in
doing so, I finally banished him, for the energy in the house became peaceful and
sedate, a true nest of repose. Yet, in truth, I missed his child-like antics,
his protective aura that pushed away suitors who were not good enough for me,
but welcomed those bathed in an evanescent light. Today, although he never
reveals his presence and rarely leaves a calling card of his ethereal essence, I
know he is still as close as my heart. Ever vigilant and circumspect, I know he
watches protectively over the house, over my now husband and me. We felt his
presence reaching out the night our Jonathan died as though reminding us that
death is a return back home, with a promise of reuniting. I feel his presence
as he keeps guard over me in the garden, trying to coax another poppy or
hollyhock to reveal the scarlet garment encased within her burgeoning bud. I
feel his presence when I am afraid of death and tired of living. Sometimes in
the middle of the night, I walk downstairs and meditate, and although always unobtrusive,
he waits nearby, shielding me from evil. Because I’ve come to understand his
intentions as being altruistic and benign, I’ve decided to unpack the cuckoo
clock and restore its warbling mechanic bird.  It is time to let him know he is not banished;
it is time to restore him to his rightful place in our home.
Our
home remains a work- in-progress, as well as a financial behemoth. More
important, however, it is a haven, a reminder that past sunbeams continue to blaze
and undulating rhythms continue to resonate, reminding me that I am but a
traveler temporarily away from home. I rejoice that time’s vibrations echo in
my life; I acknowledge energy’s immortality. I suspect that when I finally
awaken from my slumber, John, whether he is real or simply an abstract,
metaphysical self-deception, will serve as a reminder of the bewildering
ripples of time. Thus, I conclude that oscillations of time and space ultimately
act like concentric circles radiating from their source, the effect expanding
outward until equilibrium is again restored.
© 23 May 2016 (Denver) 
About
the Author 

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.
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What I Did for Love, by Ray S

As far back as memory reaches the euphemism “passed away” was a familiar phrase in polite society. As a little child I was expected to attend the services, another euphemism, of family and those who had passed on. At that age I just accepted the story my parents told me, and just understood I was included among the mourners as an act of respect and/or love. That kind of death and funerals were to say the least, remote in the perception of a six year old. It was a time of observation and learning, not a sense of loss.

Of course, with the passage of time the reality of what all of this meant to the adults and me as well, became evident. In retrospect I see it as preparation emotionally and intellectually for dealing with custom and the loss of a loved one. The loss of parents you loved and family members, too, have been peaceful or tragic, but the inevitable had to be accepted and one could only rely on the everlasting love that memories held.

Nothing seems to compare in what I did for love as the experience of having to decide that it was time to take our dying family cat to the vet for his final rites. I had never sat by anyone’s deathbed, but this was as close to it as I had been. I could guess you might feel this is quite trivial in light of the beginning of this story, but it is a different kind of personal tragedy; only to be followed by a second trip to the vet’s a couple of years later for the euthanasia of our good buddy and constant buddy and would-be guardian, Harvey the cat. This time my wife chose to remain in our car after saying goodbye to Harvey; she just couldn’t make the trip into the doctor’s office. As the saying goes, “You have to do what you have to do.” And that is what we did for love.

Denver, © 16 November 2015

About the Author

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Still Learning after All These Years, by Phillip Hoyle

My artist and poet friend Sue keeps learning. She has studied art with teachers and has produced art in several mediums for years. She has managed co-op art galleries, displayed her works in solo and group shows, and taught art to youngsters. But now Sue has extremely limited money resources. For awhile she kept up her learning about art processes by watching arts and crafts shows on TV. When she got a PC, she switched to following art blogs and watching tutorials. Still she is learning. Still she keeps experimenting. Still.

I likewise keep learning bolstered in my resolve to do so by watching Sue’s creative efforts and by recalling the concept of lifelong learning I promoted during my long career as a minister. I try to practice what I preached. For instance, I have long participated in a writers group that, although it does not critique pieces, affords me a constant source of response and learning. When I read something to that group of writers, I hear my words differently and pick up problems I’ve missed in my own reading and editing. I also get positive feedback.

When possible I have attended art workshops. One of the most helpful processes I learned in a week-long event with Houston artist Polly Hammett in 1998 was a process of self-criticism. She recommended the process that continues to teach me about my work and its direction. Her SELF-CRITIQUE is this:

Select from your current work several of the pieces. Set them up as a gallery. Decide three things you like about each piece.

1. See them. As you look at each piece see what you like.

2. Say them. Aloud say what it is that you like. Say aloud all three things.

3. Write them. Write down those things you have decided. If you are working on paper, write them on the back of the piece itself. If not, write them in a notebook. Write them.

Then choose your favorite piece. Decide, say, and write why it is your favorite, how it is related to the other pieces, and how it is different. “Do this,” she said, “so you keep affirming what you like. You will do again such things if you repeat them verbally.” She also stressed not to spend any time on the things you don’t like or you’ll end up doing them again and again! I have applied her advice to my work over the past fifteen years.

When I worked at a spa clients would sometimes ask, “How long have you been doing massage?”

I told them, “I’ve given massages professionally for eight years.”

“What did you do before that?” they almost always responded.

“I was a minister,” I said. That stopped the conversation almost as effectively as being introduced as a minister to a group of people drinking heavily in a bar.

“That’s really different,” many of them would eventually respond.

“No,” I answered with a chuckle. “My clients still tell me their problems.”

We’d laugh together. Then I’d clarify. “Actually it is different. In the massage context they edit their stories much less.”

Even in this last year of massage I have been learning new processes, new applications of things I learned in school, and sometimes a realization of what my teachers were trying to communicate about the work all those years ago.

In 2013 I am still learning not only about my art and massage, but also about personal relationships, things I never before could have imagined. The things people have told me about their lives probably were just details I couldn’t imagine about folk in churches when they told me their troubles. I have learned about life and about people, including many things about the varieties of GLBT folk!

Enough of these stories. Here’s my elder advice:

* In learning and work, both go it alone and collaborate with others.

* Adopt a rookie attitude about your life, skills, and learning even if you are ancient.

* Like Sue, find novel ways to learn.

* Keep your eyes open, your ideas transportable, and your attitudes creatively engaged.

And let me tell you; I hope to keep learning right up to my last breath.

Denver, © 2013

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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The Men in My Life, by Lewis

Preamble 

I have lain awake at night more than once this past week thinking about what I might write on this subject, trying to find some common theme amidst the tenuous and sparse connections I have had with two of the three men with whom I have lived. Perhaps it was the place, perchance the time. Whatever the reason, I can honestly say that when it comes to the masculine persona, “Yay, verily, I have barely known ye.”

What are men afraid of? Is it a part of being “macho”? It seems to me that it is not related to sexual orientation. I see it even in this Storytellers group—men are reluctant to share their vulnerability, their pain. Perhaps it is because we are all Baby-Boomers or older. Perhaps it was growing up in the decades of seemingly endless wars, whether hot or cold. It could have been our heroes on TV and movie screens—Charlton Heston, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne. Perhaps it was ubiquitous homophobia, insinuating into our lives the scandalousness of showing tenderness or warm affection toward any man. Whatever the source, it is a theme that has run throughout my associations with men from my earliest days. And that has left a hole in my soul that remains unfilled to this day.

In recalling the men in my life and writing about them, wounds have been opened that never healed but were only glazed over by time and circumstance. They are the neglected infrastructure of my life and I have run into a deep pothole. Perhaps in writing this, I can throw some “cold patch” into it and smooth out some of the pain.

Homer

Homer E. Wright was my maternal grandfather, the only grandparent I ever knew. My mother was the oldest of six children growing up on the outskirts of Pratt, Kansas, in the nineteen-teens and –twenties. A couple of cows and a few chickens shared the yard. Granddad worked his entire life for the Rock Island RR. His wife, Alma, died in 1943 of colon cancer. He continued living in Pratt until he retired in 1952. It was then that he moved to Hutchinson to live with my parents and six-year-old “Lewis the Third” in a newer, larger house on which he made the down payment on the $12,500 mortgage. The house had three small bedrooms, one bath, a single-car attached garage, a large yard, and no basement. Because Dad used one of the bedrooms as an office, Granddad and I shared a bedroom. He got the bed and I slept on a wire-frame divan with removable cushions. (I can remember that I liked to sleep on my stomach and let one leg drop down into the cradle formed by the tucked in sheets.)

Granddad was very generous with his money. He bought us our first TV that same year—even before there was a broadcast station within range. He also paid for my first bicycle and only pet dog.

In 1955, we all piled into Granddad’s ‘52 Packard and headed for Washington, D.C., New York City, Boston, and Newport, Connecticut, to see the sights and visit aunts and uncles on my mother’s side. While climbing the Statue of Liberty, I left Granddad’s Kodak box camera on a bench at a rest stop halfway up the long, long staircase. It was gone by the time we came back down. I feared his wrath but, as with other emotions, it was missing in action.

When he died in November of 1955, he left each of his six children $15,000. My parents used the money to pay off the mortgage. We burned it in the fireplace.

As generous as Granddad was with his money, he was every bit as parsimonious with his personal attention. I have no memory of having a conversation with him or any physical touching. Even when he gave me a gift, it was not because he handed it to me. It just “appeared”. With a tip of the bowler to Winston Churchill, he was “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.

Perhaps it is not a coincidence that his offspring scattered to the four winds, Harold to a farm in the far southeast corner of Kansas; Carl to Alaska and Mossy Rock, WA; Merle to Stone Mountain, GA; Ruth to New London, CT; and Verna to somewhere in Texas. Perhaps it wasn’t Granddad. Maybe it was only escaping Kansas that was important.

Dad

Dad was the oldest of four boys born on a farm near Cheney, Kansas. I never knew either of his parents but he told the story of their losing their farm during the Depression. It was the only time he ever saw either of them cry. It moved him so deeply that he resolved to spend his working life helping farmers get the loans they needed to prosper.

My dad was much more approachable than Granddad. Before I was old enough for kindergarten, on Sunday mornings I would sit on his lap while he read the comics to me. I would ask him to “point” so I could follow along. It gave me a great “leg up” on learning to read myself.

His relationship with my mother was almost like a business partnership. If it weren’t for the Sunday evening every month that their bridge club met, there would have been hardly any socializing at all. My ex-wife remembers my mother criticizing my dad’s driving while vacationing. (My dad drove as part of his business. He put 30,000 miles per year on his company car without ever causing an accident.) They slept in twin beds–like Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz but without the bickering—and even dressed in separate rooms. Dad was a “soft touch”. Everybody liked him. I think Mom resented him for being that way but her latent lesbianism meant she couldn’t stand intimacy, either.

Dad had no idea how to parent. Mother handled all the disciplining, including spanking. He didn’t know how to be truly tender, either. When he found the dog Homer had given me dead in the street—I’m not sure it wasn’t his car that did it—he was annoyed at having to find a spot in the backyard to bury him. The only “heart-to-heart” talk I can ever remember having with him was when I was entering middle school and he felt obligated to tell me what a jock strap was for. I think he was more uncomfortable that I was.

Still, I felt I understood Dad more than I ever did Mom. I think I adopted many of his ways, especially the way he took care of business in his office at home, sort of like being there but not being there. That was true of me much of the time while my kids were growing up. It is the biggest regret of my life.

Laurin

There’s a neat kind of symmetry to having been in love with one woman and one man. It would have been even more remarkable were I able to say that I was single for the first 26 years of my life (true), married to a woman for the second 26 years (also true) and then married to a man for the final 26-year installment of my life. I only got to live with Laurin for half that long. Had he not been twenty years older than I, we might have made it to that milestone.

Laurin and I filed for divorce from our wives when it became apparent that we had something truly special going on between us. He had been married for nearly fifty years and he and his wife had five children, all grown. Laurin had the “hots” for me from the moment we first met. He was not shy about expressing it. The way he looked me in the eyes without saying a word embarrassed me in the extreme. His directness was something I had never encountered before in a man.

I was at that time in the process of getting in touch with my innate sexuality. I was seeing a gay therapist in Ann Arbor. He was urging me to go slow. The fact that Laurin lived 55 miles away in Flint, where he taught high school social studies, gave me the space I needed to sort things out. It took a lot of sorting—seven years in fact. We stayed in touch through letters—the snail-mail kind. By 1998, I was openly investigating the gay culture.

That May, I attended a weekend financial seminar for gay men and women over 50. The keynote speaker was Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant. Laurin was there also. We picked up where we had left off. Laurin’s wife had been living for many years in Hylton Head, South Carolina, where they owned a condominium. Although we still lived 55 miles apart, we met on a few occasions for dinner or to attend the monthly meetings of Body Electric in Detroit.

I wrote Laurin a letter to inform him that I thought I was ready to take our friendship to a deeper level. I had been reading books by men who were gay but living a closeted existence within a heterosexual marriage. In the car one day that May, I told my wife, Janet, about a case I had read about involving a Mormon couple who took annual vacations to New York City with their children. She would spend the week taking the children to museums, concerts, and the theater while Dad would check out the gay bars. At the end of the week, they would resume their “normal” existence back in Utah.

Janet’s response was to ask me, “Is that what you want?” I said, “No”. She asked what it was I did want. I told her that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a man. That night, I slept in our son’s former bedroom and we began the process of getting a divorce.

Three weeks later, I participated in a workshop for gay men seeking deeper same-sex relationships. I waited for a response to my letter from Laurin. Nothing came. A couple of months went by; still no response. Finally, one of us called the other. I don’t remember who was which. I asked Laurin about the letter. He said, “What letter?” Turns out, I had typed the letter but never mailed it. Freud lives!

The die had been cast, nevertheless, and the two of us began to plan a vacation tryst in a place with sand, palm trees, and privacy. But first, we needed a trial run. We arranged to rendezvous at the very cabin in Lakelands Trail State Park, MI, where we first met. I was there to greet Laurin as he drove up. He got out of his second-hand Cadillac and immediately removed his toupee and flung it across the trunk. For both of us, the moment marked the end of pretending to be who we were not.

Laurin was unlike any man I had ever met. He delighted in his body and in mine. He was spontaneous, direct, and completely devoted to my happiness. His favorite movie was The Unsinkable Molly Brown (he was a Colorado native). Early in the movie there is a scene where Harve Presnell and Debby Reynolds are laying in the grass under a tree. He sings to his love, Molly, “I’ll Never Say ‘No’”. Laurin vowed that he would never say “No” to me—and he kept that promise for the fourteen years we were together. (This is not to say that he never did things I would not have approved, if given a chance.)

That’s what made Laurin so precious to me. He went wherever I went and vice versa. We couldn’t get enough of each other. I had finally found a man who truly enjoyed my company, who wanted nothing more than to wake up next to me in the morning. For the first time in my life, I felt that I truly mattered to another man. It was like heaven.

© 28 March 2016


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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Shopping, by Phillip Hoyle

We’d been out dancing together earlier in the week—Ronnie, my wife, and I–and were planning another outing. I liked Ronnie, thought he was really funny and cute in his own peculiar way. He was clever with language and image, always laughing, a serious two-stepper in his western boots twirling my wife this way and that with an ease I could never quite master. We’d go dancing, and she’d keep us both busy so teetotaler she would never have to stop and consider that she was dancing in a country western bar. That afternoon, while sitting in a booth with several employees at the Marie Calendar’s restaurant where Ronnie and my wife worked, I heard him say he liked to shop.

I phoned him to ask, “Were you kidding about liking to shop?”

“No.”

“Do you like to shop for clothes?”

“My favorite.”

“I need you this Wednesday or the next because I have several hundred dollars a friend sent me to buy clothes to wear at my daughter’s high school graduation. He doesn’t want me to embarrass her. I need to spend the money in one afternoon because shopping depresses me.” Ronnie agreed to take me shopping. We met at the apartment and went to a variety of stores.

He asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Grey.”

“No, no. We can’t have you in grey. Grey will just wash out on you,” he declared as he whipped down rack after rack of shirts. “Go to the dressing room and start trying on these,” he instructed as he handed me several shirts. So away I went, and down more aisles of TJMax he flew. Several more shirts in bright colors: turquoise, purple, and red were shoved through the door. I tried them on one after another. They all fit and to me looked really good. Then in came pants for me to try. Only one pair didn’t fit. It must have been mis-sized.

Usually I would go shopping alone and get discouraged after two or three tries, feel depressed, and take home clothes that didn’t really fit. This time Ronnie dressed me; everything fit. We went to Burlington Coat Factory where we decided on a silk sports jacket to go with the shirts and pants. I told him I wanted a belt I had seen at the Pendleton store in Old Town. We drove down there only to discover they didn’t have it in my size.

While there Ronnie tried on some western hats at my encouragement. He looked lovely; well I mean handsome; well actually sexy. I told him I’d buy him one that fit perfectly. He refused. I told him it wasn’t my money anyway, but he said, “No.” Around that time I wondered just what I was shopping for. We went back to the northeast heights to Ross’ and found a satisfactory belt. Then we looked at swim wear for the coming summer, and he let me buy him trunks and a t-shirt.

I went to the Missouri graduation outfitted in colors. I still enjoy looking at photos of me in my turquoise shirt playing with my grandson Kenneth. We had such fun. I was happy to get back to Albuquerque to see Ronnie and tell him stories of the success of my clothes. That’s when I clarified another level of my shopping, one that never made me depressed. So Ronnie and I started going out alone at times when my wife was working. We went to play pool even though neither one of us was any good at it. We’d go to those over-lighted straight places and share a pitcher of beer and play with lots of noise making: groans, cheers, and laughter. I suspect people thought we were a couple of irritating queers who insisted on being seen together in public. Finally one night when we were driving north on Wyoming Boulevard I rested my hand on Ronnie’s belly. Soon after that night we started playing sex games together.

I still don’t like shopping and every time I think about having to go buy some piece of clothing I think of Ronnie and our Wednesday shopping spree. I learned about color. I learned not to care about the money I was spending since it was marked for that purpose. I was happy to share the experience with a gay guy who loved to shop. I still don’t like to shop except for art supplies, but I do so when necessary. I miss my fashion consultant and all the things we did together back in those days.

We had fun, Ronnie, Myrna, and I. I had fun with Myrna. I had fun with Ronnie. I loved having a male lover, one close to home whom I could see more than two or three times a year, maybe even two or three times a week. I loved having a male lover who wanted to have sex with me often, and who liked the ways we played off each other. I liked being desired. I liked desiring this very funny man.

Such memories of shopping!

© Denver, 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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Depression, by Gillian

I have talked before of how fortunate, indeed blessed, my life has been, and certainly a large part of that is not to have been afflicted with depression. Sure, I have my ups and downs, sadness and loss; I’ve shed my share of tears. I’ve occasionally spent a few miserable days in what a friend calls a ‘mean green funk’. But when I’m low it’s the result of an identifiable cause; something that has happened. I have never suffered from long-lasting depression coming upon me apparently for no reason, though probably the result of some unidentified cerebral chemical imbalance, and most likely requiring some kind of medication to eliminate, or at least alleviate, the problem. Alas, I know too many people who do suffer from clinical depression to remain unaware of the depth of gratitude I must feel for not having been its victim.

I also escaped the Great Depression with all its miseries, not being born until 1942. But I find great similarities in the attitudes of those who survived the thirties with my own, learned in World War Two. Make do and mend, never waste anything, were the watchwords children in my world grew up with, as they were for the children of the Great Depression. Reading memoirs of survivors, the things they say could just as easily be said by Depression children as wartime kids.

I still turn off the lights when I leave a room. I save every little thing in case I might be able to use it sometime in the future. It was a great equalizer, everyone we knew was in the same fix.

We were kids: we didn’t know we had nothing, everyone had nothing. Our parents tried to hide the real hardships from us. One person collecting interviews sums it up, ‘Frugality: it is their middle name.’ Yes indeedy!!

Tropical depressions; I’m sure I have been in several, but so far have been fortunate enough not to encounter their more developed selves, hurricanes. Betsy and I came uncomfortably close to tornadoes here and there occasionally on our travels, but I have never been anywhere near a hurricane. I wish I may go to my grave saying that.

Depressions in the earth sometimes collapse suddenly creating sinkholes of various sizes. These have been known to swallow up cars, trucks, buses, houses and people. A police SUV fell into a sinkhole in Sheridan, Colorado, this summer. In 2014 eight classic Corvettes in the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, disappeared into a sinkhole. People in Florida have fallen into sinkholes and never been recovered. And these things appear all around the world, not just in this country.

Depressions of all kinds seem, inevitably, to be ……. well, depressing. I looked for an appropriate quote as an ending to this piece, and found I was becoming ….. well, depressed. Then I chanced on this one by Emanuel Celler –

“The panic of the Depression loosened my inhibitions against being different.”

I could be myself.

Okey dokey! We all know the importance of being yourself: different, free of inhibitions. So maybe depressions, whether cerebral, climactic, fiscal or physical, are not all bad after all.

I’ll try to remember that when I’m trapped in my car in a sinkhole in the middle of a hurricane and I can’t quite reach the glovebox where I left my Prozac.

© December 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.

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Compulsion, by Will Stanton

I suppose that it is human nature for many of us to succumb to compulsive behavior. If we attempted to list every possible form of compulsion, we would be here all day.

Eating certainly is one of the most prevalent compulsions, especially in America. I once was invited by a 400-pound man to join him and a few others for dim-sung dinner. I tried to avert my eyes while he ravenously ate multiple courses, along with everything left over from other diners at the table. I will never subject myself to that kind of disturbing experience again. America is so notorious for overeating that someone posted on-line a photo-shopped image of Michelangelo’s “David” supposedly after visiting here and eating too much American food.

Chunky David

I fell pray to overeating for a few years, all because of chronic stress. My partner died. He also was my business partner, and I tried to do both jobs. Further, in our profession, we were required to deal with many people’s ongoing problems, which was hard enough. I also had to be concerned with professional clinical and legal liability. Worse, most competing clinics were thoroughly corrupt, making tons of money, and stealing away most of my clients. Big stress.

For a while, a little place close by, B.J.’s Carousel, became the antidote to my own stress. I must have driven by B.J.’s 10,000 times before someone told me that there was a little restaurant in the back that served solid American-style food at reasonable prices. In addition, the regular patrons and staff were exceptionally friendly and accommodating. Frequently, patrons chatted with each other from table to table, fostering a warm, supportive atmosphere. The restaurant played soft, classical music, rather than the pounding drums and screaming that most restaurants play now-days. Also in the winter, they had a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room that made the area very cozy. That’s where I would go to unwind.

Once my evening therapy groups were gone, and I had discussed each person’s case with my contract psychologist, and I had prepared the individual sessions notes for the clinical files, I felt drained. I would jump into my car and race down to B.J.’s, which stayed open late, and order an excess of comfort-food – – meat, potatoes, salad, veggies, and (of course) desert. This went on for a few years, and I must have been oblivious to the consequence until it became more obvious. Fortunately, I rarely eat that way now. The fact that B.J.’s since has shut down probably removed a pit-fall from my path.

Over those many evening dinners and Sunday brunches that I had at B.J.’s, I got to know one of the other regular patrons. It turns out that this person had a life-long obsession with trains – – – real trains, model trains, train videos and DVDs, train paintings, train artifacts and clothes. He even chose what cities in which to work so that he could be around trains. His compulsion to continually buy train stuff resulted in his living in a house crammed so full that one would need a front-loader to clear it out. His having a lot of discretionary income in retirement, he could afford to buy a state-of-the-art Lionel “Big Boy” steam locomotive that lists for $3,000.

Big Boy Locomotive

I later found out that the front of B.J.’s was a bar that was known as the place where drag-queens could go and to be in occasional drag-shows. Although popular with some people, I never have had the slightest interest in that phenomenon and don’t quite understand the compulsion to dress-up like that. But, I could not escape noticing them on show-nights when some of them would wander through the back restaurant. I truly admire natural beauty, but I can’t say that any of those individuals fit into that category. I sense that most of them realize that they never will look like ravishing, natural beauties, and some probably dress up with some sense of satire. There may be those occasional individuals who do try to look like Hollywood models. B.J.’s, however, was not Hollywood nor Los Vegas, and I never did see anything appealingly eye-catching. Instead, homely faces, chunky bodies, big feet, ungraceful movements, and lip-syncing tended to betray any efforts to look truly attractive.
Drag-Queens
I recall one individual who, from time to time, would come stomping through the restaurant section in a most ungraceful manner, carrying high-heels, on his way to the dressing area. That poor person’s face looked as though he once had suffered a bad case of acne. Between those pockmarks and his usual grumpy scowl, I might have surmised that this sad person once had worked at McDonald’s and possibly had a compulsion to bob for fries.

I suppose that it is inevitable that, wherever there are drag-queens, there is a certain percentage of them who become titillated with the idea of toying with female hormones. For some time now, I have understood the theory of clinical transgender orientation, and I intellectually can handle that concept. These are the people who seriously think of themselves as the opposite gender, and their transition is carried out, over time, carefully and seriously, with the assistance and advice of professional doctors and therapists.

However, as naïve as I usually am and until recent years, I was totally unaware of the fact that, throughout the world, there is an amazingly large number of young guys whose compulsion is to take massive doses of female hormone, permanently changing their bodies but with no intention of surgically fully transitioning to female. They rashly do this with black-market hormones and without the supervision of professional therapists. Instead, they turn themselves into, what is crudely called, “shemales,” neither male nor female, but individuals with male genitalia and, in addition, breasts, wide hips, and large buttocks. These are the hybrid individuals who Robin Williams jokingly referred to as “The Swiss Army Knife of Sex.”

Finally made aware of this phenomenon, I have tried to intellectually handle well this phenomenon of hybrid gender, but I have a hard time handling it emotionally. What disturbs me most is that many of these individuals start out as very good looking young males; yet their masculinity is destroyed forever. To my personal way of thinking, that is a waste.

She Male


I also understand that such unpredictable use of hormones may not always turn out well. There was one tall, good-looking guy who decided to secretly take hormones. He told me that he always was afraid that his family might find out. Oddly enough, his day-job was as a tow-truck driver. He hid from his coworkers what he was doing by wearing heavy, loose clothes. Then he would change into women’s clothing and go to B.J.’s. Later, after he had developed breasts, I overheard him lament that he was sorry that he had taken those hormones because now he no longer could take his clothes off and go swimming.

More bizarrely, I saw one evening a short, previously normally built teenager, who had been named “Miss Teen Queen,” who, from taking hormones, quickly put on a vast amount of weight and ended up with huge, bulging belly, drooping breasts, and bizarrely wide hips. I found that sight very disturbing. I was very puzzled as to why that boy had such a irresistible compulsion to so dramatically change his body. Did he imagine the results being different?

Then, a skinny, drag-queen waiter told me that he once had considered taking hormones until he saw what happened to one of his friends who had succumbed to that compulsion. His friend took lots of black-market hormones and then (in the waiter’s own words) “really freaked out and totally lost it” when he saw how dramatically his body had changed and also realized that those changes were permanent, especially the expanded bone-structure of his hips. Just the idea of his doing that to himself freaks me out, especially since the friend obviously never thoroughly thought through what he was doing or sought advice from any therapists.

I guess that the “trains-on-the-brains” guy’s compulsion to continually buy model trains, train artifacts and clothes, especially since he has the money to do so, is pretty mild in contrast to the kid who totally freaked out. At least, compulsive train-guy can trade or sell-off his trains if he wants to. And as for me, I can fairly safely continue my obsession with classical music by spending an inordinate amount of time playing and listening to good music. The freaked-out kid, however, will have to live a long time with the all-too obvious consequences of his compulsion.

© 06 October 2015

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life stories. I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at times, unusual ones. Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group. I do put some thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.