Tag: Life Stories

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Reframing Reality by Gillian

Many things can force us to reframe our reality; death of a
loved one, divorce, health problems, loss of a job or change in career,
relocating our home, addictions and substance abuse. The list goes on and on.
And the reasons don’t have to be negative. Winning the lottery could certainly
reframe reality, as could falling madly in love or escaping from
addictions and substance abuse.
But the extent to which you allow your reality to change when
such things happen, I believe, depends very much on how secure you are with
your own reality, and your place in it. Possibly I am being hopelessly naive,
but I really think I could find myself the lucky recipient of, say, fifty
million bucks, without it changing me very much. I think I could face health
problems, or being forced, for whatever reason, to live in some other State or
even country, and survive it without allowing my reality to morph to too great
an extent. Of course I’m kinda sticking my neck out here, inviting all of you to
judge me eagerly when one of these happenings does befall me. But at least my
own reaction to these things is something that is within my control, though
whether I do in fact master it may be another matter.
What I have little, if any, control of, is how something
which happens to me, ends up reframing another person’s, or many other people’s, realities around me. When I win
that fifty million, you know it changes me in other people’s realities. The same happens if,
say, I am diagnosed with a terminal illness and given six weeks to live. Does
that cause others to reframe me in their realities? You bet it does.
One of the strongest effectors of reality change in a person
and in those around them is probably addiction and substance abuse, whichever
direction those nightmares are moving. If we fall under the influence of an
addiction, it certainly changes our vision, our very sense, of reality. All
else becomes less and less real; the only thing real to us is that addiction.
Likewise, it is all others see of us. Our entire reality, to our families and
friends, is taken over by the addiction. If we continue, our frame of reality
both to ourselves and others, is the addiction.
Ah, but we have made the miracle happen. We are recovering
from substance abuse. So all will be well, will it not? We don’t fool ourselves. How many
relationships have we seen disintegrate well into the recovery stage? All those
friends, family members, perhaps partners, who had been been accompanying us
happily down Addiction Road no longer find us fun. We no longer share that
costly habit; that dark secret. As we fade in their realities to mere echoes of
our former selves, we are dealing, ourselves, with the formation of very new
realities. We are mere echoes of our former selves to ourselves, also, and must
begin the challenge of creating for ourselves a completely new reality which
maybe we have never known, or at least forgotten.
Well we can’t let this topic go without at least dipping our toes into
the Coming Out Ocean, can we? When I first came out, just to myself, I felt a
huge shift in reality. Or more, it seemed that my previous reality had simply
disintegrated, pffff, in an unimpressive little puff of steam like some things
do on the computer when you press delete. I had no concept of what my new
reality looked like. I was an explorer alone in a newly discovered land: a
time-traveller.
It took coming out to others to begin to frame this new
reality, and for those others to reframe their own, with the new me in it. But
as we stumbled along together, my family, friends, and I, we /found that, at
least superficially, not so much reframing was required after all. I was still
the same person. Little had really changed.
Oh but it had.
Oprah Winfrey has spiritual gurus on her TV channel on
Sundays, part of a series she terms Super Soul Sundays. Watching one of these
one morning I heard an expression that summed up the state of my soul to
perfection. Oprah, or her guest whose name I don’t even recall, used the phrase homesickness
of the soul.
“Yes, oh yes, that is it exactly!”  I wanted to yell and dance and shout for joy. Yes, that is
it.
Before I came out to myself with true, complete,
unquestioning acceptance of who I was, my soul was terribly, agonizingly
homesick. Now it am home. My soul and I came home. We are where we
live; where we must be. What we were born to be.
That is what now frames my reality, and no matter what
happens it will never change.
Perhaps that is why I dare to think, in a way that maybe
seems rather smug, that my reality will not falter in the unlikely event of
suddenly having undreamed of wealth, or, sadly somewhat higher odds, being
diagnosed with terminal cancer.
The only really important reality is my soul, and it has come
home.
©
June 2014 
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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All My Exes Live in Texas by Will Stanton

Who the heck came up with
this topic?  Just because the title
rhymes doesn’t mean that every member of the Story-Time group will have
something worthwhile to say about it…and, in my case, certainly nothing serious.  I’ve read the lyrics of the Shafer and Shafer
song, and I can’t say that the song has any memorable quality to it, regardless
of whether the song is sung by George Straight or Marvin Gay.
To begin with, I don’t have
any exes.  I had just one partner of
twenty years before he died of lung cancer, and I don’t consider him to be an
“ex.”  Besides, if I did have exes, the
kind of person I would have associated with, as sure as hell, never would want
to move to Texas.
Oh, I’m sure that a few of
the people in Texas are very nice and have something to offer humanity, but I
have to say the the ones that I met on a couple of visits left me
unimpressed.  Now, maybe this statement
is too much of a generality, but it appeared to me that the only things the
Texans whom I met were interested in were money, power, food, and sex…and
maybe in that order.  They practiced a
form of Texan chauvinism, viewing outsiders as suspect, probably even
un-American.
The Texan culture (to use
that term loosely) seems to consist of strident guitars, pounding drums, cold
beer, and line-dancing.  The Texas
Two-Step probably was devised by quickly avoiding cow paddies out on the
prairie.  Yes, I know that Houston has an
opera, but I suspect that its oil-rich patrons gave tons of money to Carl Rove
to help him execute the 2000 George-Bush junta that placed him the Presidents’
office.
After eight years of W,
along with a plague of senators and congressman from that lunatic asylum, I
cringe at even the hint of a Texas accent. 
I recall when a Texas senator (who expressed his dislike of faggots) had
the hubris to consider running for President. 
He naturally went to his base, the N.R.A., for a speech.  One of his statements, and his thick Texas
drawl, remain indelibly printed in my memory. 
He said, “Ah own more guhns than ah need, but not as minny as ah
wohnt!”  I suppose he thought that this
sentiment qualified him to be leader of the “Free World.”
In case any of you needs
assistance in interpreting Texan speech, there is, in fact, a Texan-English
dictionary.  For example, “ohll” is that
black stuff that they pump out of the ground.   
And, “Yurp” is that place east across the ocean.
I’ll tell you what – – how
about culling out those Texan senators and congressmen who are scary, delusional
nut-cases and making them all exes.  Get
them out of Washington and send them back to Texas.  Then if they want to secede, let them.  Let them try to make it on their own without
all the federal services and benefits that they claim are a commie intrusion
upon their freedom.  The next time a
hurricane devastates their coastline cities and industries, let them try to
make it on their own.  Or, maybe they can
ask Mexico for help.
I have one more suggestion:
how about all those people throughout the nation who have had the misfortune to
have made terrible choices in selecting partners sending all their exes to
Texas?  Get them out of the country and
put them where they belong.  We could
call that program “Keep America Beautiful.”
 © 17 December 2013 

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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No Good Will Come of It by Phillip Hoyle

Today’s topic—‘no good will come of it’—seemed an apt description of my search for a story even though I started looking for an approach two weeks ago. At first consideration the theme sounded to me like Cassandra’s warning to the good citizens of Troy in the Iliad, “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” Homer could easily have added, “No good will come of it,” without any change to his character or plot. I didn’t pursue this image, for to view my life as a tragedy didn’t easily fit my personality. I felt stymied by the topic that seemed to go nowhere.

I began my search again on Tuesday morning and found myself wandering through empty hallways of my memory—no furnishing wanted to seat such a saying, no picture offered potential to my storytelling. Still I walked around in the space peeking into corners and around projections, peering out windows and down stairwells, opening doors and slamming them shut in frustration. Finding a story seemed hopeless.

Come Wednesday I considered what I saw as a great contrast between my parents: Dad, who was more of the “No good will come of it” school; Mom, who was more of the “Every cloud has a silver lining” school. I saw easily how I was more like my mom, but the insight offered no story I hadn’t told before. Besides, my parents’ lives were much more than a single contrast. Both believed in the power of learning and education. I’m sure Mom had her challenges that made some days seem just plain gloomy and Dad held out hope that his kids would live meaningful lives.

Surely both Mom and Dad deemed my education effective when in eighth grade I began reading with a voracious appetite, a result of my discovery of historical novels in the junior high library. My interest in American history was spurred on by the dramatic telling and the presence of Native American characters. As a developing bibliophile I supplemented assigned books with stacks of novels throughout high school, five years of college, and over five years of graduate education. I read with a preference for comedy but in the process took in many tragedies, stories from many cultures told from many perspectives. Finally I discovered novels written by American Indian authors and by gay and lesbian authors. Then I read more and more. A Canadian friend sent me books by Canadians such as Thomas King and Annie Proulx. I felt thankful that my vocation as a minister supported the idea that I continue learning in order to be an effective teacher and leader. My library grew, but of course, some books I did not place on the shelves in my church office.

I easily preferred reading a book over viewing a movie, even a cinema made from a book. So when I heard talk that a movie was being developed from a story by Annie Proulx, I went in search of the tale at the library and found “Brokeback Mountain” in a collection of Wyoming-themed short stories. I read “Brokeback Mountain” with interest and then the rest of the stories in the book. One word seemed to describe them all: bleak. Such a mood had permeated her novels. I wondered how this movie would turn out. When it showed at the Mayan Theatre I attended with my partner. I was so moved that at the end of the movie I had to stay through the credits to weep. Eventually we left the theater. Wanting to see just how closely the movie script and editing followed the story, I purchased the collection and was amazed at how accurately it tracked and how freedoms taken in the movie interpreted the story with amazing clarity.

While discussing the show with a minister friend I discovered my view contrasted greatly with his. At the end of the movie I had felt something deeply positive in the survivor’s life, in both the new-found connection with his daughter and a continuing deep love with his deceased friend. His grief had great value that made him reach out to his family. Even that little, undeveloped glimmer of hope which, in contrast to what else he had experienced, seemed to me the promise of eventual fulfillment for the character. My friend Terry didn’t feel it at all, but rather sank into the bleakness of the author’s characters and the setting’s spare resources. He left the movie feeling no hope. Perhaps he really enjoys tragedies while I really want comedy. But more importantly I believe I saw the movie from the point of view of my own gay experience. While I deeply loved a couple of men through the years of my straight odyssey, I also lived a strange, spare realty—one in which increasingly I desired a gay relationship of open shared affection. I wanted to be nurtured by it, by a man. I held onto the images, the friendships I had, the literature I read, even some pornography, but through a sense of self control patiently nurtured my friendships and loved myself. I really wanted more and eventually went to find it.

My search was consequential, but my life was not bleak. Still, deep within there was a Wyoming kind of windblown, cold, lonely world, aspects of which could be seen even in my childhood. Gay boy loses straight friend after years of playing together; their worlds diverged. His same-sex needs persisted but he didn’t find anyone to share them with. As a young adult he found two gay male friends with whom he could share his own sexual narrative, but he didn’t pursue either as a lover. He had other friends but the gay ones always seemed more interesting. He watched other bisexual men but didn’t want their problems. Eventually he changed his life, took the great losses and the attendant grief. He was hurt but not destroyed.

You see, like Ennis Del Mar at the end of the movie, I stood in the trailer of my transience and examined the souvenirs of my life and loves and felt inspired and loved—even if imperfectly—and eventually hopeful. That’s how I saw Ennis. That’s how I saw myself. So, although observers of my not-strong straight approach to life may have been supposing no good would come of it, and although some pointed to the disruption of my vocation and marriage as proof they were right, they had no access in their depressed judgmental view of the deep joy that disruption led me to experience. I found in those changes silver linings and deep veins of golden treasures. I kept my souvenirs while I continued searching for gay love and meaning. I guess I am so much like my mother! I found my story.

© 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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Wisdom: I Do Not Assume the Role by Phillip Hoyle

Wearing my mother’s housecoat and slippers, Lady Wisdom spoke to me. She sat there at the breakfast table listening to my complaint about Andy, a new student at college, a boy from a small eastern Colorado town, who seemed to assume he knew more than anyone else, who in the mid-sixties to me epitomized that worst 1950s trait of being stuck on himself, who demonstrated no humility. I really didn’t like him. Lady Wisdom listened as I described this young man, a whole year younger than I. Finally, from somewhere deep in her experience, she proffered these words: “Maybe he’s having a hard time dealing with all the new things he’s encountering living away from home, in a dorm, in another state, surrounded by other people who don’t always sing his praises. Maybe he’s just scared and so presents a confidence he doesn’t really experience.” I was amazed by her words. I had thought I was speaking with my mother, but the wisdom of centuries made their way through her mouth. Mom, as the slogan of the Kansas Association for Youth advised, took the long look and urged me to do the same. Her concern was to bring peace to her family, to her larger community, and to teach her children to do the same.

Wisdom is the theme of the cartoon of a person climbing a tall mountain to seek the insight of some hermetic guru. It is the watchword of international negotiations along with the secondary value of tact. It is a meditation that examines not only the content of knowledge but also its application in daily life, not just to know but also to know how to do. Usually personified in ancient times as a woman, Wisdom appeals to the more feminine side of human need, a need for tolerance, contemplation, and ultimately service to the common cause.

I suppose I should know something about wisdom, but it seems to assume too much, by which I mean it wants me to be responsible. I recall the week two highly contrasting massage clients responded to a jazz lyric playing in the background, “That’s exactly what I need, someone to watch over me.” Yikes I said silently to myself. Don’t expect that from me. I just rub away aches. I cannot run your life. I cannot live with you. I cannot be your husband. You see, by becoming a massage therapist rather than a minister I was trying to simplify my life. I didn’t want to advise or to live with exaggerated expectations for miracles and other such responsibilities. I wisely, though, kept my mouth closed and kept rubbing.

Today I want to say something important about what we are doing in our Sage of the Rockies storytelling. Wisdom is usually linked with age, the Sage or wise one with experience. For years I read gay studies and gay stories. I was trying to find out from others what my gay life could be. That related to my personal needs. Now as a GLBT I am telling stories to serve a community need. While we have seen huge changes, seen the gathering of identities and power among GLBTs, we still need to keep alive past experience—even the perspectives of hiding and fighting, hurting and coping. Changing laws and increasing acceptance of us and our ways in the general society do not erase memory. We have to tell the stories for not to do so in some new way dis-empowers the unsuspecting and sometimes ignorant GLBT populations of the future. We need more words of wisdom from our experienced gays. We need more stories of true life from our lesbians. We need more clarity from our bisexuals. We need more advice from our Transgender brothers and sisters who are still experiencing the terrifying isolation and focus of hatred—more than Gays, Lesbians, and Bi-sexuals. We need all these stories to remind us of our own.

We need to proffer wise council—not in order to be right but rather to keep alive perspectives and memories that could easily get lost in a media-crazed and Madison Avenue world—especially when huge money manipulates huge portions of the population and an informal popular base seems lacking in public democratic life. So, let us tell the stories, our stories, in all their beauties and pains. May we be clear, candid, and clever in our accounts for we tell the story of a life and of a community.

Oh, about Mom’s wise words concerning Andy: for me they were very helpful and still are to this day since Andy married one of my sisters.

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
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Drifting by Pat Gourley

A secondary definition of “drifting” is to be driven into heaps by the wind. This particular definition reminds me of one of my favorite childhood experiences when growing up in Northern Indiana in what is called the Snow Belt. That of course was the several times a winter when we would get snowed in and be unable to get to school, a Catholic grade school about ten miles north of our farm.

I grew up on a farm on a rural country road in a part of Indiana that was the frequent beneficiary of snow squalls coming off the southern end of Lake Michigan. These squalls were often driven by strong winter winds out of the northwest that would gather moisture off the lake and dumped it right on us in the form of snow. The issue with getting truly snowbound often depended on whether or not there was significant drifting. When that occurred it would often take the county plows twenty-four to sometimes seventy-two hours to get us plowed out. We lived in the southern end of La Porte County, an Irish Catholic enclave, and plowing our little country lane was never a first priority it seemed.

This of course suited me, my brothers and sisters and cousins up and down the road just fine. Looking back on those years particularly grades one through eight when I was attending St. Peter Catholic grade school in La Porte I was not a very happy student, particularly after the fourth grade. I had this rather spontaneous and precocious, OK perhaps the adjective should be flamboyant, quality to my personality. For reasons I am now completely unaware of and perhaps was even oblivious to myself back then I learned it was best to tone it down a bit and you would fit in better. Better to drift along with the prevailing current than to turn around and try to swim upstream. I never went crazy though because I had a great mom and dad whose unconditional positive regard was always unflinching.

By the time I had reached eighth grade and my early teen years I was much more withdrawn though considered by my peers and teachers to be a serious young man perhaps headed to the priesthood and a pretty good student. Perhaps this was why in part I was chosen to play the role of Jesus in out eighth-grade Easter week play. We literally read from one of the gospels, not the most creative of productions. Which gospel it was escapes me but it was the Passion of Christ as it was played out in those tomes and dealt with the drama of holy week leading up of course to the crucifixion and resurrection.

For a little gay kid who would later be fascinated and tentatively drawn to the queer S/M subculture I was probably on some level disappointed that the crucifixion part was really skipped over as I recall. No loin clothes or whips for this little Jesus. It was a Catholic school remember and those Holy Cross nuns had no sense of humor or perhaps worse no realization of what sorts of nasty transgressions could really feel good, no sense of the erotic. Some of my best lines in the play though were after the resurrection. I got to be Jesus in large part because I was perceived to be the best little boy in the world.

That I was tormented with a reality that I was somehow very different from the other little boys was something I would have at the time guarded to my death. I do though remember thinking what a phony I was playing Jesus, being the big old sinner I was sure I was. Not that any sort of gay sex had remotely occurred for me yet. The biggest transgressions involved laying naked along the local river bank in the summer with several of my male siblings and cousins all of us sporting hard-ons and talking about how girls got pregnant. Believe me it was not the thought of a penis in a vagina that was doing the trick for me but the sight of other erect penises all within touching distance and what a magical phenomenon that was to behold!

Back to drifting. That really was how I was getting by in those years from fifth grade until my family moved up to Northern Illinois at age sixteen when my whole life changed for the better in ways unimaginable. Just drifting and allowing myself to be buffeted and intimidated by the strong winds that were the Catholic Church and its many minions and their truly perverted worldview. How ironic that it was that a couple of those same minions in the form of a commie-pinko nun and a queer male guidance counselor allowed me to stop being buffeted by the wind and instead to lunge headlong into the winds of change sweeping the whole country in the late 1960’s: something that proved to be much more soul quenching than just drifting along.

© July 2014

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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My Favorite Fantasy by Betsy

Contemplating this subject I find myself coming up with things I wish for — things I may be striving for. Then, I realize a wish is different from a fantasy. Wishing is imagining something that COULD happen, something likely or probable. Fantasizing is imagining something unlikely or improbable or impossible. That’s the dictionary’s definition. I’m going to throw in another qualification: A fantasy involves repeated imagining and something that you hope will just miraculously happen — not something toward which one slowly progresses.

There are many things I would wish for that I know will never happen — I guess that makes it a fantasy — such as, I would love to have an exceptional ability for mathematics or an exceptional talent for writing or a smidgeon of artistic ability. More than that I would love to be able to perform on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Quite often I picture myself conducting a symphony orchestra. Mostly I dream of having an opera quality coloratura soprano voice or a powerful mezzo or alto voice and performing on the concert stage.

My fantasies at this phase of my life are different from fantasies I’ve had at other times in my life. When I first came out and before I came out, I fantasized some about sex — with a woman. Also just about being WITH a woman. I guess I would have to call this a wish by the above definition, since it turned out the reality of it happening was not impossible or even improbable.

At this stage of my life and now that I am at peace with my wishes I have to say that my favorite fantasy always involves the performance of music — as a singer, as a pianist, or as an orchestra conductor.

It seems my music fantasies are triggered when I am listening to some music or more often after I have heard some music.

Now conducting can be done anywhere, almost anytime. Sometimes if music is playing — in my head, on the car radio, or otherwise — I can’t help myself. My arms just start flying, waving in the air. I have to restrain myself when I get carried away when driving in traffic. Other drivers can mistake my gestures and think I’m flipping them off.

I have practiced conducting so much, I think I would really be good directing the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. And by the way,Marin agrees.

Back to my favorite fantasy — singing. I never sing out loud in my fantasy. That doesn’t work because out loud I can’t produce the desired sound. I always hear myself singing in my head — and I must say I sound beautiful.

Like this.

(play music)

Even in the shower.

The problem I have with reproducing Kiri Te Kanawa singing arias from the Marriage of Figaro is that I don’t have the words down. So more often I will hear myself singing like Leontyne Price.

(more music)

with easier words.

Most often I sing la, la ,la. But who cares. In my fantasy I’m the only one who can hear it.

© 11/14/13

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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Sports by Will Stanton

First, let me define the word “sports” in my own terms. To me, “sports” means physical education and recreation, activities that are healthful and enjoyable. I certainly do not mean anything like professional football, basketball, or baseball. Those are not sports in that word’s original intent. Those are multi-billion-dollar mega-businesses. The amount of money acquired and spent is obscene. Also, the fact that millions of people “go crazy” sitting in bleachers or in their recliners at home watching, screaming, and shouting, but not otherwise exercising, seems to be some sort of insanity. There certainly is not much healthful exercise, especially when drinking beer and eating tons of junk-food.

And by extension, I’m not referring to football, basketball, or baseball in high schools or in peewee league. Winning at all costs seems to have become the main concern, not the well-being of the participants. Too often, young players have been coerced into continuing to play with injuries and even concussions. Winnng has become so important that arguments sometimes have broken out between parents, coaches, and officials. Unlike the U.S., Canada is sane enough to have eliminated football from its school programs.

Let me tell you what physical education and recreation activities I have engaged in from my earliest years onward. Of course, not everyone needs to attracted to the same activities as I, but one can see from my list that what I did was for enjoyment and health.

As in most grade schools, we kids played kickball and softball. We had fun, and winning was not so important. We even had some lessons in square-dancing. Around home, we rode bikes a lot. We also played all kinds of games which provided us with lots of fun and exercise.

The high schools in my town were not big enough to have swimming pools, tennis courts, or some other facilities that larger school-systems might have had in bigger cities. Besides, they felt obliged to select footbal, basketball, and baseball as their primary activities, just like most public schools. Instead, my parents had me engaged in all kinds of sports and physical activities for enjoyment and good exercise outside of school.

We had access to the university swimming pool, and we often made use of it. My father set up a good badminton court in our yard; and, for many years, we played badminton so often that we each became quite good. Later on, I even won playing a man from Japan. In the same yard, we often played croquet – – backyard rules, of course, not international rules.

As we became older, we often rode bikes to see friends, which expanded our explorations to outlying neighborhoods. Because the wooded hills were so close by, we often took long hikes, enjoying the beauties of nature as well as getting good exercise. Sometimes during summers, we drove out to two diffferent lakes to go swimming or, once in a while, canoeing.

Starting at age seventeen, I spent a couple of years learning judo. The following year, I also started mainline Japanese karate and continued that for many years. Both disciplined the mind and developed skills often not reached through other activities.

I never did join a team in school. I know that some people claim that there are all kinds of advantages to joining a team, supposedly learning self-discipline, drive, the ability to endure hard-knocks and defeat. Of course, there is the social aspect as well. Apparently in most public schools, the “jocks” often seem to become the most popular.

There appears to be another possible advantage that has nothing to do with actual physical education and recreation, and that is listing those activities on one’s school-record. Many universities seem to prefer accepting applicants who appear to have “well rounded school records.” I know that the ambitious mother of a friend of mine went to extremes in this way. She had him join football for a while, then track, then debate, then this and that, adding them all to his school-record even if he did not remain long with any particular activity. He had reasonably good grades but not great ones, yet he managed to be accepted by Harvard. The captain of our high-school football team also was accepted by Harvard. In contrast, my brother had one of the best academic records the school ever saw, along with high recommendations from his teachers; yet, because he had not joined a team, he was not accepted at Harvard. Apparently, they must have thought that he was not “well-rounded.”

There certainly was one downside for me in junior high. The coach noticed that I was quite good in baseball, pitching and batting. He asked me to join the team. My mother said no because she was concerned about possible injury to my hands. The coach never forgave me for not joining. He happened to be the wolrd-history teacher; and even though I made the highest score on all the tests, he never would give me more than a B. I was terribly upset, but I was too naïve to take this up with my parents or the school principle.

It seems to me that, in these days, people most often think of “sports” as ritualized combat involving lots of money and endless rhetoric by sports-casters, pontificating as though it all were so very important. It has become almost like another religion, so passionate are some people. At the same time, many Americans appear to have become fat and lazy. They seem to think that just sitting and watching others running around is exercise for them, too. It amazes me, and somewhat depresses me, that, just in my own city, 44,000 people showed up to sit for hours in the bleachers just to see a pro-football practice session.

But all may not be lost. I must say that I have seen some evidence of improvement among certain socio-economic groups. I recently have taken some walks in the foothills west of Denver, and I was impressed with seeing a large number of young people hiking, jogging, and mountain-biking; but this may be more evident in Colorado than in many other states. There also were some older folks walking. I continue to go five times per week to adult-swim at the nearby city pool, and I see some familiar faces who regularly swim there, too. And, during good weather, the city park nearby is filled with people bicycling, jogging, playing volleyball, tennis, and Frisbee. So, maybe there is some hope left that there are people who engage in, as I see it, true sports for enjoyment, good health, and re-creation.

© 10 October 2014

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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Grandparents by Ricky

I never met my father’s father, John Leonard Nelson. He died when my father, John Archie Nelson, was only 9 years old. As the oldest of six siblings (2 girls and 4 boys), he became the “man-of-the-house” and had to help his mother, Emma Sophia (Ungar) Nelson, support the family. He ultimately left school after the 8th grade to work full-time. Emma was a short but not frail woman. After I was born, she lived with us in Redondo Beach and Lawndale for awhile. During that time she would dress me like mothers did back in the early 1900’s; in clothes that looked like small girl dresses. I was too young to care, but when, as a teen, I saw the old photographs of those days, I was embarrassed to have a record of how I had been dressed.

As I grew into my teens, I remember Emma as a thinner elderly lady with silver grey hair and a really nice personality. At that time in her life, she was a live-in “nanny” for a downs syndrome girl, Jackie. I first met Jackie when she was about 3 and the last time before she passed away she was about 13. In all those years whenever we would meet, she would run to me and give me a big hug. To my everlasting shame, I always felt awkward and uncomfortable around Jackie, but I can still see her round smiling face and her radiating pure love to this day. Truly, she was one of God’s special gifts to our world.

In her later years, Grandma Nelson alternately lived with my dad or his oldest sister, Marion, until she finally passed away.

I first saw my mother’s parents, Richard Pearson and Signe (Erickson), when they came from their farm in Minnesota to visit us shortly after my birth. Of course, I don’t remember any of that, but I have seen the photographs of the event. For my 3rd birthday, my “party” and birthday cake were served at the farm because their 25th anniversary was less than 2-weeks after my birthday and our family was there to help celebrate. I don’t remember that event either, but once again, I’ve seen the photographs.

When, at the age of 8, I was sent to the farm to live while my parents divorced, I was able to learn somewhat about them during the 2-years I lived there. Both Richard and Signe were the first children born in America in their respective families, so they were raised in the traditions of the “old” country, Sweden. As such, they were not very “touchy-feely” people. Others would probably classify them as being rather “cold” or “distant” emotionally.

I felt pretty close to both of them; to my grandfather, because I was named after him; John (after my dad and his dad) and Richard (after grandpa). I was “close” to my grandma because my mother was in California and I missed her so much.

While I was there, I was not allowed to do anything with the fun farm equipment, or fun chores, like driving the tractor while plowing, mowing the lawn with a power mower, etc. I suppose that was because I wasn’t raised on the farm from infancy AND because I wasn’t their child only a grandchild. They were very protective of me (irritatingly so).

I was allowed to help feed the cows, stack hay bales onto trailers and then again in the barn. I was no good at milking because the cows were so much bigger than I was and I was VERY hesitant in getting between any two of them in their stalls to install the milking machines onto their business ends. I did watch and laugh, as grandpa would occasionally hand-milk a cow just to squirt milk at all the cats and kittens that would sit on their hind legs and beg like a dog.

Grandpa did allow me to ride on the tractor with him while he would plow, plant, cultivate, and harvest his crops. I could also ride whenever he would mow, rake, and bale hay. I spent many long hours riding with him.

Grandma absolutely refused to let me mow the yard with the power mower. She considered it too dangerous. She did assign me the job of collecting the morning eggs, however. That didn’t even last two days as I was terrified of the rooster or more accurately, of his talons and extremely aggressive behavior.

Grandma made the most delicious dessert, which remains my favorite to this day. It’s called, Cherry Delight and is extremely “rich” in flavor and calories.

Sometimes, I helped her do the laundry, not from any sense of duty but because my part was running the clothes through the “wringer”, (it’s a boy vs machine thing). While grandpa was generally proportionally muscled for his average frame, grandma was a bit on the husky (not fat) side as she was a hard worker who not only managed a two-story farmhouse but also had a nice medium sized garden. Every autumn she would do a lot of canning of her garden vegetables, including the ever-present rhubarb. Even into her older age, she was quite a lovely woman and nice to look at.

Because he spent so much time out in the sun, grandpa resembled one of those ancient cowboys one occasionally sees on greeting cards. He had a very dark tan, but with his shirt off, the sun, reflecting off his alabaster chest could be quite blinding. He was truly a “red neck” but not in intelligence or personality.

One of the chores I got to do, I did because I wanted to, not because they asked me to. I just loved to go out to the fields and trap gophers. My grandpa was the township’s “gopher bounty” paying agent so he paid me 10 cents per gopher trapped. Other farm boys would come over to our farm with their dads and show him the tails from gophers that they had caught and he would pay them 10 cents a tail. I just brought home the whole body. Killing the gophers in my traps was one thing; I did not want to cut the tail off.

I loved all my grandparents and I miss them as much as I miss my own parents.

© January 2012

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 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

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Forbidden Fruits by Phillip Hoyle

I asked myself a silly question about this topic “Forbidden Fruits.” Am I a fruit? I answered it easily. Of course I am, but I still didn’t have a story to tell. I wrote a very long paper exploring different approaches but found myself arguing with an ancient story of origins way back there in the old book. I kept telling myself to write a personal story that in some way connected. If what follows fills the bill, good. If it doesn’t, enjoy it anyway.

I didn’t need a prohibition to make the fruit attractive. No one slithered my way to tempt me, at least not anyone I was very interested in.

As a child I liked sexual games with friends, especially those with other boys. As a teen I was open to the advances of an acquaintance, a boy a year younger than I. When the ensuing months of sexual play ended (he moved away) I didn’t find anyone to relate to in what I was discovering was an experience with social sanctions against it. I went on living my life, realizing more and more about difference (sexual, social, racial, and cultural) and grew more fascinated by the array of perspectives related not only to my sexual desires but also concerning common habits (for example, eating), pallets (such as favorite colors), sounds (like in musical styles), even reality (including visions cultural, philosophical, theological and anthropological). I came to know the great variety of religious values held sacred and true by peoples around the world and even in a single country town. I learned about prejudice and grew to appreciate my parents’ values as they were demonstrated with other people, society, and the world.

Although my mother was a prohibitionist as relates to alcohol, she still taught an open attitude toward life and allowed great freedom for her children. Both she and my dad had personal standards that they chose to teach through their consistent practice rather than judgmental and manipulative badgering. Although we kids really liked each other, we bickered a lot. Some activity might be judged inappropriate by one of us prompting a pointed finger and the words ‘shame on you’ just like a national politico may do today over a personal misbehavior of someone in the opposing party. I realized that the very voice that said ‘shame on you’ one minute in the next chanted ‘finders keepers; losers weepers.’ Oh the world I discovered and loved revealed itself in ways quiet varied and often inconsistent.

Of course, my parents and siblings were not the only teachers. The culture with its lore and assumptions, history and laws taught much more and powerfully. I keep thinking about the dynamics of the second Genesis creation story, that ‘just so’ tale that still defines so many peoples’ attitudes toward men and women, toward animals and earth, toward sin and salvation, toward action and consequence—that truly ethos forming mythos (Genesis 2:4b-3:24). The word temptation seems defined by that story, but the temptation is impossible without the forbidding. The story’s power comes from its heavenly array of a very human god, his angels, his creations, his prohibitions, his curse which focused only on the snake, and his explanations of consequences related to behaviors he as the assumed creator made possible in his plants, animals, and new people. It’s a story of guilt mongering. To say so may sound cheeky. So be it.

What eventually gets to me is the misogyny of the whole scene. The god Yahweh is too human meaning way too male with too much power. He, this desert god, is too egotistical. Of course, this was eons before Moses and other prophets started training him for international diplomacy, eons before the Greeks insisted he be consistent and perfect, before they demanded that if he was going to insist on a purity code for his creatures, he act that way himself. By the time I met whatever was left of that footloose deity, he’d become so pure and abstract as to seem missing. Eventually I learned more about how the prophet Jesus undid purity laws and taught a justice based on consistent standards that sought a dynamic goodness honoring the spirit of law rather than a legalistic adherence to wooden rules.

AND so much more had occurred that I would never know of but that still informs the cultural understanding around and even within me. One thing I escaped in all this was the feeling of guilt. I don’t know if such a proclivity in me was related to the home and circumstance in which I was reared or arose genetically or developed for some other undefinable reason. I did see the beauty of some men, an unconventional male beauty not based on Greek-like muscles or shape of face, not based on the accrual of power and influence and money, but something more elusive and simple. I liked that attraction and wondered when it would become consequential for me. I knew I could not resist it out of some feeling of prohibition or guilt. It would be like my experience of finally finding a piano teacher who succeeded in establishing a technical approach to the keyboard, or a voice teacher who actually helped focus my voice away from the throat tension that had compromised its fluidity, or finding myself in my best job of a lifetime, or working in a church I actually loved—all these what I call do-not-expect-a-repeat experiences. So at age thirty I fell in love with an unlikely man. At fifty-five I had another such experience that went far beyond the one a quarter of a century earlier. I tended these relationships both against convention and as acts of love. Of course, in conventional sin-and-redemption, prohibition-and-disobedience terms, I am just hopeless.

But where in all this was I in line with the powerful Hebrew story? It seems to me it was in the VERY IMPORTANT FACT that I was not egotistical in my acts. I was not trying to have the same powers as God. I was not vaunting my own importance. And in the desires and acts of love with these other fruits in God’s great garden, I was discovering new aspects of the ultimately loving God—trained as he was by generations of prophets and philosophers. I found so much love as to transform me into a useful vessel of the eternal and lively divinity. Surely there’s no shame that.

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

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Believe It – Death Started at the Big Bang by Pat Gourley

So since I have missed the past two sessions and I have had thoughts on the three most recent topics I am going to write a single piece addressing all three: “Believe it or not this really happened to me…”, “Death” and “The Big Bang”.

My human birth is by far and away the most remarkable thing that has ever happened to me. The chance of that occurring was so infinitesimally unlikely and remote as to be more than mind boggling.

I have always liked the way the Buddha addressed this amazing reality. Speaking to a group of monks he said: “…suppose that the great earth were totally covered with water and a man were to toss a yoke with a single hole into the water…and suppose a blind turtle was in that great expanse. It would come up to the surface only once every 100 years. Now what do you suppose the chances would be that a blind turtle coming to the surface every 100 years would stick its nose into the yoke with a single hole?” The monks thought his very unlikely to which the Buddha replied: “ And just so, it is very, very rare that one attains the human state.”

Another little factoid, that is well worth pondering if you are wondering about being here at all or perhaps looking to expose the absolute ridiculousness of the “personhood amendment’ on the ballot again in Colorado this year. The reality is that a significant majority of all conceived embryos are simply flushed out totally unnoticed in normal menstrual flow without anyone being aware. Embryologists estimate that 60% – 80% of all conceived embryos by day seven have already gotten the bums rush out the vagina if you count back to the moment of conception. This occurs naturally and is unrelated to any form of birth control. Remember this “personhood amendment” states that ‘life’ begins at conception, however not very often as it turns out.

It is very amazing and truly hard to believe that the cellular beginnings of my embryonic conception did not wind up in the septic tank buried outside our rural Indiana farmhouse. The fact that I was born alive and healthy on January 12th of 1949 is quite spectacular really and its all been down hill from there. The successful conception nine months prior was the beginning of my death dance called life on earth for Patrick J. Gourley, though if you take a big picture look it more likely began at the moment of the Big Bang, estimated to have occurred about 13.8 billion years ago.

My profession as a nurse, work for several decades in an AIDS clinic, my own HIV infection and the loss of many friends and lovers have all significantly informed my own personal relationship with the inevitability of my own death. Being in the presence of someone dying can be a very potent moment of clarity. For me personally over the years these many moments of clarity have in part pushed me to a firm atheist perspective on it all. This is it baby and since you were extremely lucky to get the chance to live a human life at all do try to make the most of it everyday. Though I now describe myself as an atheist I am open to spirituality and more on this further in this piece.

Trying to ponder what it means to die and not be “me” any more has always been a challenging meditation for me personally. A striking and certainly very plausible explanation for what it may be like to be dead, i.e. not ‘me’ anymore, came my way by some of the work of the great philosopher Ken Wilbur. Wilbur pointed out three states of consciousness waking, dreaming and deep dreamless sleep. He also acknowledges the possibility of other more advanced states where one is able to be “aware” if you will of what’s happening even while engaged in deep dreamless sleep. That would be a level of consciousness I certainly don’t possess and don’t ever expect to. For the vast majority of us deep dreamless sleep is really quite similar to death. No recollection of this state at all and we go there most every night, most of us ‘die’ then at least once every twenty-four hours.

This can also occur for example when under anesthesia for various medical procedures. Most recently this happened for me during a colonoscopy I had last week. Once my IV was in, oxygen on, pulse oximetry on my finger and lying on my side butt to the doctor he introduced himself and we shook hands, a truly odd formality it seemed given the situation. I would think a playful pat on the butt would have been a more appropriate physical greeting than the handshake.

The doc then said I am going to give you some medicine to relax you and his next statement was now I am going to do a rectal exam. My next conscious memory was the nurse saying you did great and everything looked good. This was at least 20 minutes later. So not only did I miss a good rectal exam while high no less I also sort of died. I mean my heart kept beating and I continued to breathe but these were not actions I was aware of on any level I could comprehend. I didn’t “exist” for those twenty minutes and if my heart had stopped that would have been the end. Oh maybe there would have been a tunnel with a bright light at the end but that would just be few synapses sparking and freaking out from a lack of oxygen I suspect and the doorway to heaven. Not a bad way to dance out I might add but not usually how it occurs.

Since I have been lucky enough to “be” it raises the question where did I come from. Looks like it may very well have all started with the Big Band some many billions of years ago. My physical makeup is literally stardust that coalesced into this majestic planet and one thing led to about a billion trillion other things and here I am babbling on.

I was recently gifted Sam Harris’ new book Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion by a dear friend. Harris has been in the news of late around his recent appearance on Bill Maher’s Real Time and for his controversial views on religion and Islam in particular. This book doesn’t really step specifically into those waters but it is a great exploration of the reality of self as illusion and how one can cultivate a genuine spiritual perspective with no need of any organized religion. Reading Harris’ book has pushed me back to the cushion. He sums up the reason to do this quite eloquently in the last two lines of the book: “However numerous your faults, something in you at this moment is pristine – and only you can recognize it. Open your eyes and see.” (Sam Harris/2014.)

I do not however spend every waking moment pondering the illusion of self, my pending death or how the hell I got here but often of an evening I engage in much more mundane activities. After a day of work in a local Urgent Care Clinic having the infinite suffering of humanity thrust in my face repeatedly or absorbing the mind-numbing onslaught of the current mid-term elections, or the latest ISIS beheadings or the current Ebola hysteria and realizing I am still not enlightened I often seek solace and escape by watching, often several times over, reruns of the great hit sit-com The Big Bang Theory!

© October 2014

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.