Tag: Life Stories

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House Cleaning by Lewis

I have been doing housework since I was no more than eight years old. I remember this very specifically because the summer of my eighth year I contracted ringworm of the scalp. It was the summer that my nuclear family—granddad, dad, mom and me—drove Granddad’s 1952 Packard sedan to New England and Washington, DC. We hadn’t been home one week when my scalp started to scale and itch. We had a pet cat, which had every reason to hate me but, when checked, it showed no sign of the skin disease. I might have picked it up in the Big Apple but my favorite theory is that I got it from putting the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner up to my cheek and making funny faces at myself.

In any event, that was only the beginning of a series of odd associations with house cleaning in my early life. My parents were lower middle class folk who rarely could afford to pay a cleaning person but my mother hated—that’s H-A-T-E-D—housework—so, when she was working, it was necessary to pay someone to clean our house. One day, according to my mother, she found a black cleaning woman asleep on her bed. That was the last time she ever paid anyone to do housework and, as far I know, the last time she ever spoke kindly of a black person. No, from then on, if house cleaning needed to be done and I was around, I did it (or, so it seems, looking back across so many foggy years).

Luckily for me, I kind of liked doing housework. (Please note the past tense!) I put cleanliness and order above godliness and I was the only person I trusted to do the job right. When I started working at the public library at the age of 15, my favorite job was to “read the shelves” on Saturday mornings. That meant putting hundreds of fiction books in alphabetical order by author and title and a similar number of non-fiction books in Dewey Decimal System order. I could do it faster and more accurately than anyone else on the staff though they seemed only upset that I lay on the floor to read the bottom shelf.

My second-favorite job was working the basement stacks. Down there was a large “squirrel cage” that housed back issues of periodicals, including National Geographic. Growing up in the 1950’s meant that there were a number of native peoples in the world who were accustomed to wearing little other than a loin cloth and, sometimes, some body paint or other ornamentation. The only magazine store in my home town was a great source of comic books and Christian literature but most definitely lacking in anything that would appeal to the prurient interest of a nascent adolescent. National Geographic filled the gap nicely, especially articles on the golden, stocky tribes of the Amazon River basin.

In my senior year of college, I took a job cleaning house for a retired professor and his wife. He was wheelchair bound and she was his primary caregiver. Their house was a two-story colonial with a half-finished basement. The finished half was the professor’s office and the unfinished half a place to store books, magazines, and other paraphernalia. My job was to clean only his office every other week, which only took two hours. I think they paid me $2.50 an hour but that would pay for soda, movies, and cigarettes for the month. Soon I discovered that the professor was a collector of National Geographics. Suddenly, my job satisfaction improved by leaps-and-bounds.

I now no longer do house cleaning—for myself or anyone. The thrill has gone. I still get a kick, however, out of watching the houseboy in La Cage aux Folles as he combines his flouncing with his feather dusting.

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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Spirituality, by Gillian

“I don’t believe in God, but I miss him….” Julian Barnes

I haven’t believed in God since I decided, at the age of nine, that it was all hogwash; at least, in the way God was portrayed by the church. I did miss him, but believing is not something you can learn or force yourself to do. You either do or you don’t, and I didn’t. However, not believing left me with, as they say, a god-shaped hole. It was this, I suspect, which drove me, eventually, to begin to delve seriously into Spirituality, and so, a few years ago, to a group at the nearby Senior Center who were about to read, and discuss, Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth.

OK. I know those of you who have been in this group for a while are sick of me droning on about Tolle, so feel free to groan loudly right now and get it over with.

(Pause for communal groan!)

But he became, via that group, my spiritual guide and leader. Not that his thoughts are original, as he would be the first to say, but he combines the best thoughts of the other main spiritual teachers from Buddha to Christ and many many more, and nets them out succinctly and in a language so easily understood. And, most valuable of all, he then proceeds to illustrate each point with everyday examples, and makes it clear how we can apply it to our own lives; our own inner selves.

At the first of these study-group meetings we were all asked to say what we hoped to get out of the group. I completely surprised myself by saying,

‘Peace for my soul.’

Where on earth had that come from? I had never spent very much time contemplating the condition of my soul. Not only did I not know it was not at peace, I most certainly did not know that I knew it. My, how we can astonish ourselves at times!

To cut a rambling story short, I have most definitely found that inner peace I needed via Tolle’s teachings and practices. Not to infer, lest you get the wrong idea, that my work is now done and I can relax. Oh, no no! Spirituality, like anything worth doing, requires endless effort and constant practice.

Let’s take just one aspect of the myriad facets of Spirituality; living in The Now. Tolle clearly thinks this is one of the biggies, as he devoted a whole book, The Power of Now, to the topic. Of course what it’s all about is keeping your mind and spirit in the present, not your body. Where else would a body find itself, after all? But somehow our minds, whisked away on thoughts, love to linger in the past or dash off into the future; and so we rob ourselves of the present. That voice in our heads drones on endlessly, reminding us of how much better things were before Mom and Dad divorced, Hubby left with that young chick, or the kids left home. Or piling on the guilt: if we’d been better parents Roger wouldn’t be an alcoholic, or Sally would not have run off with that complete delinquent. Or we trip off into the future on a sequence of what ifs. What if we lose our jobs, or that pain turns out to be cancer, or those damn Republicans take away our Social Security? Or we fall into the trap of coloring all future happenings with a rosy glow which reality can never live up to and we condemn ourselves to endless disappointment. Words chatter continuously in our heads. Tolle refers to it as the tapes playing over and over, though he’s rather dating himself there. I supposed a more up-to-date image might be u-tube videos constantly playing, but that didn’t feel quite right to me. Then it came to me. Of course! Streaming! That’s exactly what it is; words streaming endlessly across your mind and filling up your thoughts.

But, oh, the glorious peace, the blessed silence, when you can just turn that streaming off.

These days I rarely fall victim to that endless chatter, and if I do, I can usually recognize it and shut it off. The last time I remember really having to deal with it was when I treated my wrist to a compound fracture in a silly ping pong fall. I lay at St. Jo’s being prepped for surgery and the words were streaming and screaming. You knew you were wearing the wrong shoes but did you bother to change them? No! What an idiot. Why don’t you act like a grown-up? Didn’t you learn anything from when you broke your ankle? You’re a moron. And now what? We’re planning to go off on a camping trip soon but now you won’t be able to drive for who knows how long and Betsy won’t want to do all that driving herself and anyhow what sense does it make to go camping at all with broken wrist. A fine mess you’ve made of things. Why in hell didn’t you change your shoes……and round and round the voice goes, over and over and over.

Finally I recognized what was happening and applied the brake which Tolle recommends. A few deep breaths, relax, and ask yourself a very simple question. But what exactly is wrong this very moment, this exact current second tick of the clock? And almost invariably the answer is – nothing. Absolutely nothing. Yes, my wrist was hurting a bit, but that was it. All that angst was over whys and what-ifs of past and future. Keep yourself in the now, and there are no problems, no recriminations, no anger or guilt or fear. That one key question is one of the most healing things in my life.

At first this whole concept confused me. Other Spiritual teachers I read had the same concept, of living in The Now, but I didn’t quite get it. I have to live in this world. I have to plan when to take my car in for service and what to buy for the week’s groceries and what to write for Monday afternoon, and so what if I like to remember that wonderful beach in Mexico or think fondly of my mother in days long gone? Ah, Mr. Tolle to the rescue! Another question to ask myself. Am I in psychological time or clock time? Clock time has no emotional entanglements, it is purely for practical use. What time are we meeting for lunch? Psychological time is time that comes with all that baggage. Remembering Mom is fine, but not if the memories are accompanied by resentment, or guilt, or any of the multitudes of emotions we entangle ourselves with, drag them into the present, and ruin a perfectly peaceful Now.

Strangely, for me, Spirituality has provided all those things that I rejected when offered by the Church: angels and demons, Heaven and Hell, and, yes, God. None of these are in the form religion offers them, but they work for me in their re-creations. All of them are within me. They are me. And through spiritual practices I will get more in touch with those I need, and learn to minimize those I reject. Simply, I must believe in me; that me who is part of everything, as everything is part of me. And therein lies true peace. At least for me.

© January 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 now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Unraveling the Knot by Carlos

I germinated in a small pot layered with rich loam. The respirating testa split, whispering softly to my now differentiating cells to trust. With radicle and root hairs, I explored, while my plumule sought the light above. A seedling was coaxed to life through a marvelously and massively intricate and interactive process that proved that the photosynthesis of life is neither accidental nor incidental. Hope was an aroma breathed out by a world of cosmic possibilities, caressed within a world of multiple universes. Unfortunately, in time, the world around me grew small, and I become root-bound. The nutrients that once nourished me dissipated, and although I valiantly sought reconciliation, the oppressive forces decimated my strength. Such was my life as a gay man struggling to embrace my sacred core. In time, with the kneading touch of gentle hands and with the alchemy of divine consciousness, the base kernel of a prosaic mundane life transmuted into the radiant gold of dawning light.

I was about eight-years-old when I first saw my father wear a tie. I looked up at him as he interlaced the snaking fabric into a credible Windsor knot. Because his job at a local trucking company as a dispatcher did not warrant any pretentious attire, I concluded that only a certain class or men brandished ties, namely professional white men I saw on our black-and-white Zenith, men whose fingernails were always immaculately manicured. Such men came home at the end of the day and sat at an easy chair, shielding themselves behind the newspaper as they awaited their supper and lorded over their kingdoms. Thus, as my father clumsily manipulated the knot, I knew it was an important day. Little did I realize the significance of the moment, for on that morning he, and in a sense I, earned our wings of citizenship. He was on his way to the federal courthouse, where after 40 some years of living in this country as an undocumented man born in Mexico, he was transformed, by his own choosing, into a new American. A few hours later, he proudly walked through the threshold of our 3-room adobe. He had left an invisible man weighed down by misidentity and had emerged like Nestor returning to Pylos. He was now free to bathe in the golden font channeling redemption upon the newly baptized although, in fact, he remained a working stiff drained by corporate vampirism. I don’t think I saw him wear a tie again until I graduated from high school a decade later. On that morning, as I fumbled with the manipulation of my own tie, he walked up to me, took the tie in his hands, and proceeded to show me how to be a man of learning, a man whose palms, unlike his, would never know the callouses of hard and dingy work. And I stood patiently as he metaphorically let me know my destiny would be different than his. Decades later, on those occasions when I still wear a tie, I can uncannily feel his fingers interlacing with mine; I can still feel his warm breath on my cheek. I can still see his eyes proudly declaring, “This is my son.”

In time, I did achieve my father’s expectations, becoming the educated man denied him. Throughout my youth he had encouraged me to be priest, even a Mason, a man to whom the world would genuflect, rather than one destined to be victimized by planned obsolescence. Instead I chose to become a teacher, not because I really wanted to be one but because my delusions of grandeur of being an architect did not see eye-to-eye with my lack of left-brained mathematical reasoning. And thus, for the next four decades, I taught generations of young people to wade through the shoals of Dickinson and Shakespeare, Lincoln, King, and Garcia Marquez, as well as how to write with urgency, with conviction, and with a need to let Spirit itself know that human reasoning is inspired by life itself. And every day I wore a tie because it was my father’s dream, because it was a symbol of the American quest, and because it purportedly conveyed confidence and power. I knotted ties around my neck that were whimsical, yet political in scope, as was a polyester sporting a lone black sheep daring to thrive amidst a flock of white sheep. I wore stately cravats that were door-openers as was my blue silk or my burgundy I’m dangerously-sensual cashmere. On occasion, I wound a black satin noose that bespoke of the renting of my heart, as when I stood before my father’s bier, straightened the tie festooned around his neck, and closed the casket lid. The sound of the latch was like the shattering of dewy ice crystals on a frigid night.

Not long ago, I accepted a position at a local college. I was ready to close my eyes, look within, and contemplate time’s Source. One of the first things I did was to shirk the tie. The first time I walked on campus liberated of my silken noose, I felt somewhat fragile. But like Francis standing unadorned before Pope Innocent III, I stood my ground, convinced my tie was not the sum of me, confident that my being would sufficiently address the crux of my truth. For decades I harbored internal doubts because as a gay man I bore witness to the stars rather than to the sun. It sapped my energy to walk on eggshells, valiantly trying to deflect the assaults around me. On the surface, I thrived, but when a man is gay and exists in a world where he has been acculturated to believe that only the validation and approval of others can give him substance, I struggled with self-acceptance. My reservoirs were diminished as sleepless night after sleepless night I sought unattainable rest. And all of this resulted to please those who imprisoned me in reduction, accusing me of infidelity because I was not the man of their vision.

It took time to reject the infernal scenario as I whittled away at the incrustations I had permitted others to impose upon me. I married the man of my dreams publically and with pride. I honed my voice before peers and strangers alike, casting down the veils that had previously denied me my holy tabernacle. I cut the umbilical cord to those in my tribe who loved me only on the condition that I spoke not my name. Of course, it has been difficult to tear into the carapace of fossilized layers I once so passively accepted. However, acceptance is like breathing in the aroma of freshly tilled spring earth pungent with the living energy of seasons no longer in repose. I was always a part of the garden around me, but only when I gave myself permission to cauterize the wounds resulting from death of a thousand self-imposed cuts, did I send shoots up into the stratosphere.

I have shunned the ties that I once wore like a scarlet letter around my neck; in addition, I have banished my shame and doubts of being gay to a domain of shadows. Only fools believe the adage that old dogs cannot learn new tricks. The fact is we, we proud gay men and lesbian women, are mutable beings capable of adapting to the undertows always swirling around us like a Mad Hatter. Awakening to my spiritual power is the equivalent of enjoying a piece of rich rum cake, listening to Bach, or sinking my toes into the sands of a Florida beach. As the Buddha found his enlightenment by sitting in immaculate Emptiness, I have found mine by dancing in radical Fullness, sans my tie.

© 1 June 2015

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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Guilty Pleasure by Will Stanton

Without my dwelling upon any particular events in my life, I can say that, in general, I could have wished for a more satisfying, fulfilling life. Oh, of course, I have had some good things happen that others, perhaps, were denied; and I have not suffered the misfortunes that many others have. Yet, I would have preferred to have had a life of far better health, more supportive family, better direction, greater success, more love and happiness, and the physical ability to do the things I wished to do.


I always have been prone to seeing selected others who appear to be endowed with the qualities I would have preferred to share and wishing that I were like them. Of course, we can not tell for sure, especially from a distance, whether or not such persons truly possess those qualities. Simply viewing someone on TV, in movies, DVDs, photographs, or even live, briefly in passing, is no assurance that I would like to be “in their shoes” if I were fully aware of their lives, thoughts, and feelings.

Over the years, I have watched many hours of film of various genre, portraying other people’s lives. Some of it has been documentary, some of it fiction. Undoubtedly, some of my selections have been an attempt to divorce myself from the real world and to identify with the characters portrayed. I have found perhaps a dubious pleasure by identifying with some others rather than making something of my own life.
A more self-actualized person would declare that I always have needed more self-acceptance, more self-esteem; and that person would be right. My not reaching that preferred state of being has resulted in far too much time in my life wasted upon gazing at others and dreaming, “What if?”

All that time and energy wasted dreaming reminds me of a scene and a lesson I should have learned many years ago from the book “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Harry sits for hours in front of the Mirror of Erised, viewing his greatest desire reflected in the glass. He is found there by Professor Dumbledore who admonishes Harry, “ – – this mirror will give us neither knowledge nor truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. – – It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.”

© 05 May 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.

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Living on the Faultline, by Nicholas

          Late that
pleasant afternoon, after I’d finished classes, I walked across campus to do
some work in the library. On the third floor I found the book I needed and was
about to sit down at a table when things began to rumble. It was Oct. 17, 1989
and San Francisco was about to get a shaking like it hadn’t felt in decades.
Floors and walls trembled in the familiar motion of a California earthquake.
Fixtures rattled a little and swayed. Then the real shaking began. Ceiling
lights knocked around and flickered and then went out. Books were flung off
their shelves. Filing cabinets toppled over. People dove under tables and I
quickly placed my brief case over my head to protect against falling debris. I
had been through many earthquakes in San Francisco—felt the building sway,
heard the rattling, been waken up in a rippling bed, felt the floor jumping
around beneath my feet—but this time, for the first time, I was afraid. “God, I
could die here,” I thought.
          Then, it
stopped. Fifteen seconds that felt like 15 years. The lights were out but being
5 o’clock in the afternoon, there was enough light for us to thread our dazed
way down three flights of stairs and out of the building. There was no panic as
hundreds of students climbed over piles of books and papers and dust to leave.
Outside, people milled about the campus. I was in probably the worst building
in the worst spot for an earthquake. The San Francisco State University campus
sits almost exactly atop the San Andreas fault and the soil is mostly sand
which tends to magnify the waves of an earthquake. The building I was in was
built of concrete slabs, the kind that respond to shock waves by simply
collapsing. It’s called “pancaking” in which the floors just slide down onto
each other, crushing anything in between. I was glad to be outside.
          Since all
power in the city was out, no traffic lights worked, cars just stopped on the
street, dazed drivers wondering what to do next. No streetcars could run
either. The city just stopped.
          The first
reaction to a major earthquake is confusion. Buildings and the ground they’re
built on aren’t supposed to move like that. Disorientation is the first shock.
          The campus is
in the southwest corner of the city and with traffic totally snarled and no
public transit operating, I figured I might as well start walking home which
was close to the city center, probably 4-5 miles away. I started walking, heading
toward clouds of billowing black smoke. I hoped it wasn’t our house burning
down.
          The streets
were crowded with walkers and some people had transistor radios to get some
news. Remember, this was way before Internet, Facebook, cell phones. No such
thing as instant communication.
          One lady stood
in front of her house and announced to passersby that “That quake ran right in
front of my house.” Had the tremor run right in front in your house, I thought,
you wouldn’t be standing here now. The actual shift in tectonic plates was
probably miles deep in the earth.
          Somebody said
the Bay Bridge collapsed—a part of it, in fact, had. A freeway in Oakland had
collapsed, killing 60 people. The Marina District, built on landfill by the
bay, took the worst damage and was burning. All highways, bridges and trains
were unusable. If you couldn’t walk to where you needed to be, people were told
to just stay where they were. I kept walking, stepping around the occasional
pile of bricks and stucco that had fallen off buildings.
          Finally, I got
home. Everything was OK. We lived on a hill overlooking Golden Gate Park, the
most solid geology you could find in San Francisco (the hill, not the park
which is sand). Walls cracked and books had wobbled to the edges of shelves,
but nothing toppled or collapsed.
          Jamie got home
soon after I did. He’d been in a highrise office building downtown and had to
walk down ten flights of stairs but managed to drive home taking a circuitous
route through neighborhoods to avoid traffic jams. Some of the office towers
had actually banged against one another at the height of the shaking—or so we
heard.
          Shortly after
we arrived home, two friends showed up. They both worked in SF but lived in
Oakland and couldn’t get home so they hiked to our place and stayed with us.
There was no power in the house, so we built a fire outside in a little hibachi
grill and heated up some leftovers. The city was dark except for the glow to
the northeast where the Marina District kept burning. We felt oddly safe on our
bedrock hillside.
          We did
actually perform one rescue that dangerous night. The woman who lived in the
flat below ours was stranded in East Bay which meant her cat Darwin needed
feeding. He sat mewling at our back door until we invited him in and gave him
some food. Next day Darwin repaid the favor by leaving us a dead bird on our
doorstep.
          In the days
that followed, the city slowly got back to a new normal. Mail delivery was
cancelled for three days and many shops remained closed. The World Series
between SF and Oakland resumed. Buildings and freeways were inspected and some
condemned. BART resumed running trains the next day but the Bay Bridge was to
stay closed for at least a month until the collapsed section could be repaired.
Ferry boats started running across the bay—actually a nicer way to commute. We walked
through the Marina District over the rippled pavement and past the leaning or
burnt out flats. Everywhere you went you calculated how safe it was or wasn’t
until you realized there was no place safe but you went on anyway. Living on
the faultline. 
©
19 April 2015 
About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in
Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He
retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks,
does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.
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Gifts from Afar, a Harmony Story, by Carol White

In 1992, 23
years ago now, the State of Colorado voted to pass something called Amendment 2
to the Constitution of our State, which said that gay and lesbian people could
have no rights whatsoever, and whatever rights they already had in cities such
as Denver and Aspen and Boulder would be canceled or repealed.
The Amendment
2 campaign and battle was vitriolic and pretty nasty.  We worked hard and
thought we were going to defeat it, but when it passed, we were all stunned and
devastated.  It is very difficult to explain the hurt that hung like a
black cloud over our whole community in the wake of that election.
Amendment 2
passed on a Tuesday in November.  That Friday Harmony, a GLBT chorus that
I was conducting at the time, went to the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park for
our usual retreat before an upcoming concert, where we normally rehearse and
polish our music for the performance.  But on this occasion we were also
crying and telling election stories and trying to support each other after
having been knocked off our feet, so to speak, by the people of Colorado.
That same
weekend there happened to be another retreat going on at the same YMCA for
Methodist youth leaders from our jurisdiction, which covered four states.
 One of the ministers who was leading that retreat happened to be the
brother of one of the women in Harmony.  The brother and sister got
together, and the brother minister through his sister invited Harmony to sing
for the convocation of Methodist youth at their Sunday morning meeting.
She brought
the idea back to the choir, and we accepted.
As Sunday
morning came, we lined up outside the Chapel, which is still there but has
later been remodeled.  At that time there were no pews.  And since
there were over 100 Methodist youth, they sat on the floor in the middle of the
chapel, and since there were over 100 Harmony members, there was no place for
us to get except to surround them standing up.
So I went to a
little stage at one end of the Chapel, and said that I had been a Methodist
youth just like them, had received a Master’s in Sacred Music from SMU in
Dallas, and had served a large church as minister of music for four years
before being fired because I was gay.  Then I said that Harmony was a GLBT
chorus, and we would just like to sing a couple of songs for them.
I said,
“This first song is dedicated to all of you who might be gay, or all of
you who are struggling with self esteem for any reason.”  I knew that
most high school kids struggle with self esteem for a variety of reasons.  The song was:
“How
could anyone ever tell you you are anything less than beautiful,
How could
anyone ever tell you you are less than whole,
How could
anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle,
How deeply
you’re connected to my soul.”
Then we sang a
Holly Near song and taught it to them and they sang along.  It was:
“We are a
gentle loving people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.
We are a gentle
loving people, and we are singing, singing for our lives.”
Other verses
said, “We are gay and straight together,” “We are a land of many colors,” as
well as a few others. 
We were about
to leave, and some of them said, “No, sing another song.”
There was an
old organ at the other end of the chapel, and our accompanist cranked it up and
started playing the introduction to our theme song, and the choir started
singing,
“In this
very room there’s quite enough love for one like me,
And in this
very room there’s quite enough joy for one like me.
And there’s
quite enough hope and quite enough power
To chase away
any gloom,
For Spirit,
our Spirit, is in this very room.”
At the end of
the first verse, one of the girls sitting on the floor got up and stood with
Harmony in the circle.  They continued singing,
“In this
very room there’s quite enough love for all of us,
And in this
very room there’s quite enough joy for all of us.
And there’s
quite enough hope and quite enough power
To chase away
any gloom,
For Spirit,
our Spirit, is in this very room.”
During the
second verse, several youth, in groups of two’s and three’s, stood up and
joined Harmony in the circle.  They kept singing through their tears,
“In this
very room there’s quite enough love for all the world,
And in this
very room there’s quite enough joy for all the world,
And there’s
quite enough hope and quite enough power
To chase away
any gloom,
For Spirit,
our Spirit, is in this very room.”
By the end of
the song, there was no-one left sitting on the floor.  They were all
standing arm-around-shoulder around arm-around-shoulder.
There was
nothing left to say.  We had gone there to sing for them, and they had
turned it around and helped us when we needed it most.  Harmony filed out
of the Chapel knowing that we had been blessed. 
They had given us a Gift from Afar.
A few years
later Amendment 2 was repealed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
© 29 May 2015 
About the Author 
I was born in Louisiana in
1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963,
with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for
a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay
in 1967.  After five years of searching,
I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter.  From 1980 forward I have been involved with
PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses:  the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s
Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and
Harmony.  I am enjoying my 11-year
retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes, going
to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.
Posted on

Passion, by Betsy

Passion: an intense desire or enthusiasm for something.
Passion is energy, – feel the power that comes from focusing on
what excites you. – Oprah Winfrey
I have a passion for a few things:  First, for certain people; namely, my loved
ones—my partner, my children and grandchildren.
Second, I have a passion for music–not all music.  Mostly for the classical of the baroque, classical,
and romantic styles and a little contemporary. 
I am very limited in my ability to perform music.  I do like being a part of a choral group and
have been doing this for much of my life. 
But listening is stirring and inspiring. 
I use my iPod when exercising. 
Nothing like a Schubert or Brahms quartet to keep me moving and working
hard on the stationary bicycle, elliptical or rowing machine. Some music does
excite me and gives me energy. Often fellow exercisers ask me what I’m
listening to.  When I tell them, they
give me a very strange look as if to say, “Don’t you know about rock!  You poor thing.”
My greatest passion is for sports. That is doing, not
watching. I am a mediocre spectator fan—well, that’s probably an
exaggeration.   I don’t pay a lot of
attention to which teams are winning or losing. 
Occasionally I’ll watch a tennis match on TV or even a Broncos
game.  But given the opportunity I would
a thousand times prefer to play, compete, or do most any activity
involving  physical action, motion,
skill, and/or a desire for adventure.
I must mention one other passion I have.  Now in my later years, I have become aware
that I have a great respect – I think it qualifies as a passionate respect for
the truth.  Perhaps that is because I
spent a good portion of my adult life living a lie.
I have noticed that what may appear to be a person’s passion
turns out to be short lived and it is no time before the individual appears to
be passionate about something else.  This
is particularly manifested in children and young adults.  They jump from one interest to another, I
suppose, exploring different areas of interest until one of those areas becomes
their deepest passion.
As I was giving this subject further consideration, I came to
the conclusion that passion and obsession are very closely related.  I had this thought when I realized that I had
made a glaring grammatical error in last week’s writing and I actually read it
using the wrong part of speech and didn’t even notice.  The realization hit me in the middle of the
night the next night as I lay in bed. I thought, “Surely I didn’t write it that
way.”  So I jumped out of bed at 3:00Am
and checked my paper.  Yes, I had written
it that way and read it that way.  Very
upset with myself, I had to wake Gill up and tell her.  “I can’t believe I did that,” I said.  At that moment I realized I have a passion
for the correct usage of the English language and its rules of grammar.
Understand.  I DO NOT have a passion for
writing, but the use of the language definitely intrigues me. This goes back to
my high school days when my English teacher, who taught me for all 3 years of
high school English, exposed us to very little literature.  Mostly we studied grammar and a little
writing.  Most in the class thought the
grammar was rather boring, but I loved it. 
I guess I have the kind of mind which loves to analyze and that’s what
we did.  We analyzed sentences most of
the time and learned rules of grammar and word usage. So…..When does passion
become obsession?  At 3:00AM.  Ask Gill. Passion becomes obsession when one
becomes dis-eased over what she thinks she has a passion for.  (Oh, oh, there I go, ending a sentence with a
preposition.) 
© 22 April 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).  She has been retired from the
Human Services field for about 15 years. 
Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping,
traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports
Center for the Disabled, and learning. 
Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close
relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four
grandchildren.  Betsy says her greatest
and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of
25 years, Gillian Edwards.
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Competition, by Ricky

        I
am not a “competitive” person.  When I
was a child, I enjoyed playing games where there was a winner and one or more
not the winners, but I didn’t care which category I was in ultimately.  I just played any game for fun.
        When
I was old enough to play Little League baseball, I was nearly competitive by
doing my best to help the team “win”. 
But when we would not win, I did feel a bit down, if I had made mistakes
that contributed to our failing to win. 
However, I did not castigate myself because I knew that in spite of
making (or not making) mistakes, I had done my best for the team and I knew not
winning did not reduce the amount of fun I experienced playing the game with
other boys.
        Just
playing a team game for fun still taught me sportsmanship, cooperation, working
together for a common goal, and helped to build my character.  I did not need parents or coaches who
believed in “winning is everything” to motivate me.  If they had, I am sure I would now have more
character flaws than positive attributes.
        In high school,
I never played on the school sports teams. 
They were all about winning and I only liked to play for fun.  The fact that I wasn’t all that good at any
of the sports also contributed to me not even trying out for a team.  I did play friendly team games during PE
class.  Besides the seasonal games of
softball, flag football, basketball we would also play other games for a week
or two.  One of my most memorable games
was badminton.
        The
PE teachers decided to set up two badminton courts/nets inside one half of our
gym.  They then organized the girls and
boys into teams of two players and held a tournament.  Eventually, the boys’ champions played the
girls’ champions.
        My
teammate, Ray Hoff, was one of my two friends in high school.  We first met in 6th grade and
continued as friends throughout our school years.  Winning was nice but we played for fun.  We would constantly talk to each other during
the game, giving encouragement, criticizing our play, and telling jokes all
while batting the shuttlecock over the net. 
Sometimes we were laughing so hard that the other team would score.  In the end, we were the boys’ champions and
got to play the girls’ championship team for our class period.  Ray and I continued our antics and had lots
of fun.  The girls would often laugh with
us.  Ultimately, the girls won with 4
sets to 3 but those 7-games took two class periods to play.  I don’t think anyone else ever watched our
games against the girls.  The other boys
were busy playing basketball and I don’t know what the other girls were
doing.  All I know is that Ray and I had
tons of fun playing a non-macho game.
        For
the years following high school, I still would rather play a game rather than
watch one.  To me, just sitting watching
a baseball, football, or basketball game is rather boring and many people take
those games way too seriously and kill all the fun.  Even when I play a board game like Risk or
Monopoly, I play for fun.  When it
becomes evident that another player is getting too emotional and is too
personally involved in the game, it kills the fun of playing and I’m ready to
stop.
        I
have given up watching team sports that are not sports anymore.  They have become big business and I find no
fun in business.
© 3 March 2014 

About the Author  
 I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in
Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just
prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on
their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my
parents divorced.
When united with my mother and stepfather two years later
in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California,
graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force,
I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until
her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001
terrorist attack.
I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be
therapeutic.
My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.blogspot.com
Posted on

Plumage, by Nicholas

          I like
scarves. I like to wear them and I like seeing them worn by other people.
Scarves are both fashionable and practical. They can provide warmth and
protection against the elements on a cold, blustery day. They can also provide
an elegant touch of color, a bit of flair with a swath of fabric flung around
your neck and over a shoulder. And they can make statements about who you are
and even what side you take.
          I’m always
surprised how much warmth a scarf can provide when wrapped around my neck on a
winter’s day. It’s an extra layer of protection against the wind. It feels cozy
and snuggly and shelters some exposed skin. The winter scarves I have are light
wool and are burgundy and purple. They’re long enough to completely wrap them
around me. I have another yellow scarf that my mother knitted for me years ago
but I rarely wear it because I keep it more as a memento of her.
          Scarves can
also make statements—fashion statements and political statements. Scarves can
be gay when a man wears one that is colorful and elegant. It can bring a
feminine touch to your wardrobe. I wear a blue and gold silk scarf sometimes
and I have a fuchsia and black scarf that I wear just for decoration. The
secret to always being fashionable, they say, is to accessorize. Scarves can be
so gay.
          Political
statements are also made through scarves. Certain scarves in certain colors on
certain days often convey symbolic political sentiments. I own a scarf that is
checkered red and black which might be taken for a Middle Eastern keffiyeh, the checkered headdress worn
by many Palestinians and adopted by some non-Palestinians as a gesture of
solidarity. I didn’t buy it for that. In fact, the resemblance didn’t occur to
me until much later when I realized there could be political overtones to my
new fashion accessory. But then I doubt a Palestinian warrior would wear my
pinkish-red scarf anywhere. It’s not their style.
          My favorite
scarves are not actually scarves at all but can be worn as such. They are these
bright pieces of plumage from Renaissance Italy. These are actually flags or
banners representing the different neighborhoods of Siena. Each banner—with different
colors, animals (both mythical and real), wild patterns of stripes and daggers
of color, and patron saints displayed—symbolically represents one of the 17
districts of the old medieval city.
These banners are used by neighborhood
teams competing in the annual horse race, called the Palio, held since the 15th
century (and still held) each summer in the huge piazza in the center of town.
Of course, the three-day event is more than one horse race. Much pageantry and
pomp goes along with it, including parades with these banners carried by people
in equally flamboyant Renaissance costumes of tight leotards, puffy sleeves and
very bright colors.
So, wearing a scarf can be more than
putting on an accessory to highlight a color, more than showing your support
for a sports team, and more than just bundling up against the cold. Scarves
have become yet another way humans have concocted to say something in a world
that might not be paying much attention anyway. A scarf is a flag to wave.
©  March 2015 
About the Author 
Nicholas grew up in
Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He
retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks,
does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.
Posted on

Getting Caught, by Lewis

As a boy, I was not afraid of heights. By the age of four, I was jumping off the roof of the garage. I could climb almost anything. My mother—never too watchful—soon learned to find me not by looking “around” but by looking “up”.

Our house was a one-story bungalow. Next door lived an elderly widow whose house towered over ours. One day, I was playing outside, between our houses, and I heard a strange and frightening cry from an upstairs window. I could see her face. She appeared to be talking to me. She hadn’t done that before. What did she want, if anything? How could I help? She appeared OK to me. I walked away. She scared me. I had never known my grandmothers.

Soon, I learned, to my horror, that she had been doing laundry and caught her hand in the rollers of her Maytag dryer. I wasn’t punished; she was the one who “got caught”. But I sure learned something about the hazards of daily living and the need to be more responsive.

Around that time—the years have grown somewhat fungible with their passage—I noticed that a very long ladder had been placed against the side of her house. It reached all the way from the ground to her roof at the exact location of her brick chimney, from which, I was certain, an excellent panorama of our entire neighborhood could be enjoyed.

The opportunity was a prime example of what in the liability law profession is known as an “attractive nuisance”—especially for a boy who loves to climb.

So, I climbed, hand-over-hand, to the rain gutter 25 feet or so above the sidewalk upon which rested the ladder. The roof was fairly steep but negotiable, so I soon found myself perched on top of her chimney thoroughly enjoying the spectacular view.

Before long, my reverie was shattered by my mother’s voice somewhat exasperatedly calling out my name in a context that suggested some kind of a response was in order. She clearly did not see me. I waited until I thought she might have the police out looking for me.

“Up here, Mom,” I said, hoping-against-hope that she would be impressed.

“Lewis, you get down here this instant!”

Mother had made similar demands in the past but I was pretty sure this time she didn’t mean to be taken literally.

Anyone who climbs at all knows that climbing down is far scarier and more risky than climbing up, if for no other reason than you’re looking at hard objects rather than clouds and the sky. Nevertheless, I managed to make it safely down to the ground without so much as a scratch. I imagined my mother rushing over to me, sweeping me up in her grateful arms and showering my cheeks with kisses, as I’m sure I had seen done in Lassie Come Home. Instead, I got a firm thumb and forefinger on either side of my right ear lobe and a brusque shepherding through our side door and into the kitchen, where my mother posed to me the type of question designed to instill shame and guilt in the heart of a 4-year-old, naïve, novitiate Christian.

“What would you do if you had a little boy who pulled a stunt like that?”

Now, I immediately recognized her query as a “trick question”, the answer to which might very well seal my fate. Rejecting rejoinders such as “give him a spanking”, “ground him”, or “send him to bed without his dinner”, I happened upon a response that might just turn a lemon into lemonade.

“I guess I would simply ask God to watch out for him”.

I never knew whether she actually did make such an appeal. I just knew that I had had a very close brush with disaster. I also learned that religion can easily be used to manipulate.

© 4 February 2013

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.