Tag: Phillip Hoyle

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LGBT Spirit, by Phillip Hoyle

I had read and thought a lot about LGBT life (I’ll call it gay in this story), observed it close at hand, knew aspects of traditions that I didn’t easily relate to. Then at age fifty-one I moved to Denver to start living the gay life in a truly gay spirit. I had initiated changing relationships with my wife and with a long career in religious leadership and moved west to secure some kind of employment. I hoped to dedicate most of my time to writing and painting. I needed work I could do for fourteen or fifteen years. I was quite excited. I ended up entering massage school figuring I could work in this therapeutic field part time to afford the rest of my life.

I did not choose massage out of an illegal motivation—meaning I did not choose it in order to have easy access to male bodies. I had given massages for years to my family and knew I could learn to do it well. I already knew how massage can help manage pain. In school I learned much more about the therapeutic effects and the techniques that made them possible. In the ensuing years I also dedicated a lot of time and effort to make massage affordable to persons living with AIDS as a kind of memorial to the life of a deceased friend.

My wife from whom I was separated but with whom I was friendly came to visit me accompanied by a woman friend we had known in another city. I wanted to introduce them to some aspects of my new life: a solo show of my art at a coffee shop, some of my new friends, the place I lived, the clubs in which I danced on weekends, the clinic where I volunteered, and so forth. On Friday night we started out to go dancing. I wanted to begin at a disco with techno music I enjoyed and to end up at a bar with Country Western music I knew they’d enjoy. On the way to the disco our friend Nancy said, “I’d really like to meet some drag queens.” I responded, “We’re headed the right direction and will make it our first stop.” We drove south on Broadway past the disco and arrived at BJ’s Carousel where I knew we could catch a drag show. I introduced Myrna and Nancy to a guy I knew who was in street clothes but who often performed there. He was funny as usual and questioned Nancy about her colors—hair, skin, and makeup. Nancy asked, “Why do you ask?” “Because your colors aren’t right,” he said without a blink. She asked for details and when the guy concluded, she said, “That’s exactly what my cosmetologist said.” My acquaintance Eric turned away from the table and with a flick of his head said back over his shoulder to her, “Come with me.” He led her to the dressing room where he and a bevy of his cronies did a simple change over.

Nancy told us later that when they entered the room everything went silent and everyone stared ice at her. “It’s okay,” Eric retorted to them, “She’s real.” Meaning “She’s no competition.” So they shared their ideas and makeup, and she emerged perfectly colored.

Eric stayed at our table for a drink and chatted on a bit about his life. He then said to Myrna, “You know, Phillip is not really gay.” She and Nancy looked just a little surprised. “I know,” he continued, “because he had beautiful me naked on his massage table and didn’t have sex!” We all laughed. I did have him on my table. He came to me because of back pain, probably related to wearing stiletto heels on weekend nights and sometimes even when he sang in the church choir on Sunday mornings. I worked my darndest to address his discomfort, and the work helped him. I was not interested to have sex not because he was unattractive or unavailable. I just didn’t operate that way. I wasn’t interested to mix sex with my practice or to play the role of an older gay prostitute. I wasn’t interested in gay sex by volume but rather I wanted it accompanied with feelings I thought of as love. Old fashioned? Whatever.

Perhaps I wasn’t gay by his standard. On the other hand he really may have been complimenting me in the presence of my wife. But probably he was just, like usual, blabbing out whatever he thought.

Still, I thought about the exchange. Was I not REALLY gay like he supposed? I knew I was—but in my own way. Not as a caricature of sexuality gone amok but rather as a thoughtful homosexual who had finally decided to simplify his life and open himself to a full measure of gay loving that reached far beyond its hormone-driven component. I knew my own gay vision would at best necessitate more than one partner, but I wasn’t interested in just any partner no matter how eager or open he might be.

When we left the drag bar, we went to the Compound to dance, then to BoyZ’s Town to see the strippers—another Nancy request. And finally we arrived at Charlie’s to dance with each other and with more gay and lesbian, trans-gender and probably bisexual folk. And I thought, what a way to celebrate: my way to celebrate my gay spirit. I knew the rightness of it for any encounter with any spirit will surprise and always resist being boxed in by definition and quantification.

© 23 January 2015, Denver

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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Train Trips, by Phillip Hoyle

As a child I liked to go to Coronado
Park on South Washington Street to ride the miniature train. It puffed around
the perimeter of the park back then and to me seemed as real as could be, an
adventure of movement, a fascination with technology, a feeling of the wind on
one’s face while traveling at imagined breakneck speed. I’m sure I thought of
bandits or Indians like in some western movies I had seen. Of course the kiddy
train was tiny compared with the big black steam engines that pulled box cars,
fuel cars, grain cars, and the like. It was tiny compared with the big Union
Pacific passenger trains that came into our station at Junction City, Kansas.
I also recall sitting on a large
train at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo up above Colorado Springs, a train that for
years took passengers from the zoo to the Shrine to the Sun higher upon the
mountain. To four-year-old me it seemed gigantic but still would have looked puny
next to the Union Pacific trains back home. I was decked out in my western wear
at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Back home I would simply be a little boy, but
even at home the railroad loomed large. My grade-school best friend’s father
was an oil man on the Union Pacific and greeted and lubricated all the trains
on his daily shifts. I fantasized taking a trip by train, a real one that led
to something new.
One Sunday morning many, many years
later, a Sunday morning that turned traumatic for our mid-Missouri congregation,
I heard a train whistle blow as if to call me away.  That morning the senior minister Jack McInnis
died. He and I had worked with the church for seven years. My only thought was to
get on that train and get out of there. I did so two years later when I booked
a seat on the Southwest Chief to Albuquerque. But first I caught a ride on the
Amtrak that stopped at Jefferson City on its way to Kansas City. There I ran
around for a day with a dear friend to say goodbye.  
Finally, I got on the big train to
make my way west. At KC Union Station there was a long delay. We waited and
waited for the very late train. When we boarded, I got comfortable and waited
for the train to start moving. No go! I got out a book to read. (On trips I’m
always prepared to read.) I made my way through several chapters. Still the
train sat in the dark rail yard. Finally after three hours more the train took
off. There had been engine trouble. No quick fixes were available and no extra
engines could be substituted unless the train had been sitting on the track at Chicago
or Emeryville (near San Francisco)! We made our way across the Great Plains at
night.
Before I fell asleep I thought of my
Great Grandfather, Frederick Schmedemann, a German immigrant who in the late
1860s worked for the Union Pacific as its crews laid the first track across
Kansas. He cooked for the crew and during that time met William Cody who was
supplying meat for the workers at the expense of the vast and rapidly dwindling
buffalo population after which he was named. The family story says Buffalo Bill
was so pleased with the meal my great granddad prepared, he gave him a gold
piece. By the time I came along, though, there had been way too many
depressions in the US economy. The gold piece probably went towards improving
the farm or paid some doctor for caring for a family member with the flu. Who
knows? I never saw it, never heard any subsequent stories about it. Maybe it
was lost on a bet or paid for the first year’s coverage when crop insurance
first was introduced. There were such stories about those later days on the
farm, but no gold piece.
As the sun came up in mid-Kansas that
summer morning through the window I watched rabbits, deer, and groups of
domesticated cattle (no buffalo herds of course) and thought more about my
great grandfather, his new life in America, and the new life I was hoping to
begin in Albuquerque. Finally, I got a little breakfast, after which I returned
to my novel.
I felt sorry for elders on that trip
and for parents with little children. But when compared with wagon train travel
down the Santa Fe Trail, this mode of transportation was a breeze.  That afternoon, when we were starting up
Raton Pass, the train slowed to a stop and began backing up. The engineer
announced that a switch had failed. They would change it by hand to get us on
the sidetrack where we would be safe from the train hurtling down the pass
towards us now. When that train sped safely by, we still didn’t move. The
engineer said a computer engineer was on his way from La Junta, Co, to fix the
problem with the switch. I chose this time to clean up and shave so I’d look
good for my family. Finally, finally, finally we pulled into the Albuquerque
station where my family met me and drove me to our new apartment. The reunion
was grand, and a couple of days later I began a new job in that fair city.
© 22 July 2014 
About the Author 
 Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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Death and Growing Up, by Phillip Hoyle

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

I don’t know why people freak out over getting old. I suspect they may be worshipping at the Shrine of Madison Avenue, a power so great that in the span of a couple of hours of TV watching promises the worshipper a plan to get over the fear of running out of money in retirement, others for long life, clear skin, non-wrinkly skin, beauty, medicines to counter every ill, all for dedication to the eternal worship of youthfulness. This menu doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t believe a bit of it! Deceitful is the god that promises eternal youth. The TV shrine can never deliver its promise since Chronos keeps ticking away at the same rate for everyone: for young, middle aged, and elders, even those of great old age. Crisis over old age seems most likely if one doesn’t look into the promises and judge the reality of eternal youth. Talk about a religious scam. We hear, “Just buy our product.” That’s like, “Send us your money and we’ll pray for you,” the line of too many TV evangelists. Or was that “…and we’ll prey on you”?

I’m old. When I was turning 25 I realized I would be old someday. I also knew that 30 would not be the end of the world and my life, and so I decided then that at 50 would be old, the time I would enter the final third of my expected survival to age 75. I announced that on my 25th birthday to my surprised co-workers. We laughed together, but I was serious.

So when I get old… Oh, Chronos just reminded me; that happened 17 ½ years ago according to my standard.

And I wonder: what have I learned since that time? Here’s a partial list: 

I can live well on very little money. 
I can thrive in a very small space. 
I can feed myself—meaning shop for, cook, and still lift the spoon to my mouth. 
I learned I can retire, to cut back on my productivity (even though that productivity in my adulthood occurred in the service arena). 
I learned I can still lead a group, still write a story, still paint a picture, still love my friends, still support my family, still help out folk I don’t even know by contributing to their welfare, and still maintain my own vital life.

I’m going to have to say something here about “when I get old, old.” That will take imagination because if I last beyond 75, I’ll be getting closer that that categorization and will have to think out a plan!

I’ll do the things I’ve discussed above. Plus I’ll hope to find someone to listen to my stories of the good ol’ days. I’ll hope someone will accompany me to my favorite museums—you know push the wheelchair. I’ll hope not to become a terrible burden on my family or society. If I can’t walk, I’ll still hope to be able to think!

Of course, I don’t know. So right now I’m saying through my writing and painting what I want to say. I do it with a sense of purpose and hope for the world my kids, grand kids, and great grand kids will live in. I express my ideas in ways I hope others will find helpful—at least pleasing or entertaining. I think that’s enough; I sure do hope so. Life goes on even if it is not my life. Eventually may I be caught up in the great mystical one however it may be described or may actually occur.

Denver, © 9 February 2015

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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Pets by Phillip Hoyle

I can easily list my pets. I had one, Tippy, a brown and white beagle.

There were other pets around me. For instance, Mother always had a cat or several. Thus I recall Deetle-eye Jones. My eldest sister got a cat, an almost pink Persian who was a real scaredy cat. My youngest sister brought home a cat one rainy afternoon, a cat who stayed around many years. Mascot could raise a ruckus. And there were Sylvester and his mate. This was around the time Tippy moved in next door and eventually into our family. And I recall when Myrna and I had little kids a church office worker gave us Marcie, a cute black miniature poodle. But then we moved and took her off to live with friends in Colorado. 

My son Michael had a tortoise he found on a woodland path. That pet loved to eat earthworms and strawberries and made little comment. My daughter Desma brought home a white rat from science class in school. He lived with us quite awhile until he was nine inches in length with a nine inch tail. We never told our African son Francis about these two critters. He was always complaining about how Americans fed the children’s food to pets. 
Finally Desma’s boyfriend gave her a white bunny for Christmas. I said to the kids she’d be grown up by Easter and could be our Easter dinner. The thing must have overheard me because she hopped away into the neighboring woods. Desma later reported she saw brown and white bunnies hopping in the woods.

I have made friends with a few more pets. My good friend Big Tony had two very nice white miniature poodles. I sometimes dog sat them. My partner Michael O had two dogs, one friendly the other grumpy and nervous. As Michael got ill I took more and more care of those dogs. They were present at his death. 

My kids and their kids have pets. My neighbors have pets. Sometimes I massage them (the pets, that is). They think I’m their friend or treat me as their pet.

© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Surprising and Compelling, by Phillip Hoyle

In
the boys’ dorm at the church-related college I attended (actually an
undergraduate co-educational seminary), guys spent an inordinate amount of time
talking about their requirements in a mate. They wanted wives who were
personable, outgoing, good with children and old folks, dedicated to Christian
education, musically adept, and deeply spiritual. I found myself put off by their
calculations that seemed like job descriptions for a ministerial assistant, not
a life partner, and I wondered if any of them could ever be satisfied with the
slim pickin’s at our tiny school. There just weren’t that many pianists. In
this rarefied microcosm of the church, I wondered how anyone could judge the
interest and ability related to children and elders. Perhaps spirituality could
be observed there, but I doubted the accuracy of such evaluations in the
religious hothouse of a miniscule Bible college. None of these standards seemed
helpful. And what about the real young women? Did they count? Or was this
decision process just another tired topic of a worn out bull session?
I
was aware of the women at the school. My first year there I saw musical talent
in a couple of them but not a personality I could imagine surviving in any of
them. The second year my roommate told me about a new student who was very
spiritual (his word). He thought I should meet her. We met. She certainly was
spirited (but of course that might not meet some criteria of spiritual). We
both liked Coca Cola so started having some Coke dates as they were called. In
our conversations and interactions I observed and really liked her deep independence.
And her! Eventually we married and enjoyed a loving, peaceful, and event-filled
life together for twenty-nine years. She turned out to be spectacularly able as
a minister herself but with no tolerance for the endless meetings that
characterize church work in large congregations. But all that that was years
ago. I separated from my wife and left my career as a minister.
I
then moved into a new gay life and wondered about things like dating and
relationships. I had affairs with men before and figured they might hold some
clues for me. For instance, the first guy I really fell in love with surprised
me with his nasal sometimes whiny voice and effeminate gestures. I wasn’t
really put off by them but surprised that I was perhaps even attracted to them?
We shared similar educational backgrounds; both saw ourselves as liberal, both
on the same vocational track, both married, and both obviously interested in
one another. We laughed easily and wanted to spend time together, time alone
together.
The
second guy I got very into surprised me by being chubby. Still I found
compelling his humor, smile, energy, and openness to me. I enjoyed his pursuit
of me and saw how his access to our home (being first a friend of my wife) to
be advantageous. And as we moved into sexual intimacy, his positioning away
from romantic feelings seemed wise for I was not planning to break up my family.
The
third guy surprised me with his tall and skinny stature, his emotionalism, his
idealism in love, and his overly-deep needs. One friend aptly described him as
a black hole of need. I found especially compelling his art and music talents, his
business and financial sense, his attraction to me, and his mental and
emotional intensity. I also loved him.
In
the years after my separation from my wife, the fourth guy surprised me with
his nasal whine, and eventually with his not being out to his family. His
compelling traits included his droll humor, art, cleanliness, network of
friends, and interest in sex. Of course, there was his attraction to me and
mine to him. With him I developed my first full-out, live-in relationship with
a man I loved.
The
fifth guy surprised me with his high-pitched scratchy voice that I found cute
and his lack of money management that I found strange in a person with a
business degree. He thrillingly compelled me with his personal beauty,
openness, exotic background, deep interest in sex, and his sense of freedom. We
deeply loved one another.
There
were many more factors and influences in all these gay relationships, and there
were a few other men over the years, men with whom I never lived but did attain
an important sense of connection. In compiling my list of surprising and
compelling traits I found out that I don’t have much of a list of preferences,
certainly not ones for a bull session! I also saw clearly that I like the less
ordinary—those unexpected surprises discovered in almost any person—and I
respond favorably to bright humor. I like to be liked—call it love. That’s what
I consider it. More than  that, my
current partnership with Jim shows me I like being connected with
family, like not worrying over the financial habits of my partner, and like the
thing I am best at—accommodating myself to the diverse lives of those with whom
I choose to live.
© 22 July 2014 
About
the Author 

Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”

Posted on

The Big Bang, by Phillip Hoyle

I
don’t easily relate to the expression “The Big Bang” because it sounds too much
like a public relations title for a military campaign, religious movement, or
rock group. It lacks the respect that my theistic background would deem
necessary for anyone’s cosmological explanation. Ironically, the idea was first
conceived by the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and scientist Georges Lemaître. Other
scientists kept working with the idea that eventually was called the Big Bang
by some distant relative of mine, Fred Hoyle, for a 1949 BBC radio show on
cosmology. The theory was denounced by most American fundamentalists as
atheistic. Eventually Roman Catholic and protestant proponents of a variety of
creative evolution approaches offered more sanely conciliatory ways to view the
Big Bang idea. There’s much more to it, but I’m not here to philosophize;
rather I’m here to tell a story—the story of my own Big Bang.
In
contrast to the Big Bang of science, mine did not begin at birth (although my
mother may have had a conservative view of my life as beginning at coitus). My
big bang took place in a San Antonio motel room when I was thirty-two years
old. That night I for the first time got posteriorly assaulted. But do not
mistake my use of the verb assaulted. I wanted it to happen.
My
primordial homosexual atom showed itself present a long time earlier, if not as
early as my mom’s experience, certainly when I began to respond to men as a
sexual, emotional, and relational necessity. My awareness began to take form
when running around with my childhood best friend and learning to kiss with my
male teenage lover. It matured when I experienced what I supposed were
extraordinary attractions to men in my young adult years, feelings that went
far beyond the pangs of sexual desire toward some fuller kind of love like that
described in a poem of the biblical hero David who at the death of his adult
friend Jonathan lamented, “your love to me was wonderful/passing the love of
women” (2 Samuel 1:26 NRSV). I had a quite fulfilling life with my wife and
kids, but still I knew I was missing more, a missing that felt fundamentally
important.
That
night in the motel I came to understand something more I needed. That night I
had kisses and the open male-to-male sex I wanted with an adult. The man, a
really bright, educated minister and a passionately expressive lover introduced
me to the complications of gay life I had read about and was in that motel
experiencing. I was thrilled and fascinated. Apparently it was something
different for him as well—not the sex of it—for he had lived in New York City
as a young man and I’m sure there he learned or at least practiced up on the
ways of gay sex. He had settled into a straight life with gay sex on the side.
But the night of my Big Bang he also experienced something extraordinary that
prompted him to say, “I think I could fall in love with you.”
Like
in the scientific theory, the bang set off an unending series of results. I was
quite taken by him, especially when he followed up later with a contact to see
how I was doing. His care seemed more than pastoral. I would fantasize much
more from our connection but in a couple of subsequent phone calls I heard in
his voice the workings of guilt feelings. At that point I cut off our potential
affair. I wasn’t going to mess up my marriage and developing career to run
around with a guilt-mongering and perhaps paranoid person even if he was male
and sexy and smart. Besides I already had a man I loved and who loved me
although we didn’t have sex.
The
Big Bang opened me to a world of gay complication, something both like and unlike
the Eden preached by heterosexual-championing, marriage-normalizing clergy and Sunday
school teachers, to say nothing of American culture and law. It taught me that
all life occurs in an expanding universe that is potentially as treacherous as it
can be satisfying. That universe continues to move me into much more life and
imagination. I don’t say this as a slogan, but it has been a never-ending
process of expansion since my big bang night. That expansion is the truth I
continue to live.
© 22 July 2014 
About
the Author 
Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com 
Posted on

Right Now, by Phillip Hoyle

Right now I’m packing my bags to make
a road trip to Mid-Missouri, there to celebrate Christmas with my children,
grandchildren, ex-wife, and probably a few old friends.
Right now I am closing the massage
practice that I’ve sustained for fifteen years.  
Right now I’m cleaning out the massage
studio, distributing furnishings and equipment, and packing up too many things
to take home. My partner is happy for me but not keen on my bringing more
things to the house. Due to the trip, I need to clear the room by Saturday
afternoon if at all possible.
Right now I’m finishing my Christmas
preparations, all of them that I can remember to do.
Right now I’m tending to new
responsibilities related to the co-op art gallery I’ve joined within the past
month.
Right now I’m dealing with feelings
related to my retirement that will occur along with the closing of my practice.
Right now I’m reading a story I
barely found time to write.
Right now I’m tired but hopeful.
All this activity alongside today’s
theme—right now—reminds me of feelings I experienced in my late twenties. I had
left one position in an up-and-coming congregation in order to attend graduate
school. Although I was receiving a nice grant for my studies, I still needed to
supplement my income with a part-time job. I secured one at another church
where I served as a youth minister. In my four years at the prior church I had
learned quite a lot about my work style, both its good habits and not so good
habits. In my new office right above my desk I hung an all-caps note that read:
DO IT NOW. This represented my attempt to overcome a habit of procrastination
especially in tasks that I didn’t relish. I thought I would simply make the
phone call ASAP and become much more efficient. I needed to be efficient. I was
going to school, working (no church job can ever really part-time), and living
with my wife, two children, and sometimes other adults or foster children. My
life was full, busy, exciting, and demanding. I couldn’t waste any time
worrying over some phone call, recruitment task, or arrangement. Do it now seemed wise. It helped
somewhat. Right now is good advice for over-busy folk.
Last Saturday I talked with my friend
Sue about my complicated “right now” feelings. I told her that I wonder how the
loss of intimacy that for years has been provided almost daily through massage
will affect me. I then contrasted the feelings of closing a private practice in
order to retire with those of leaving ministry. In my leaving a congregation some
congregational members may have felt sadden, but they still had their church, a
minister, and their community. By contrast my massage practice is not a
community for the folks who visit me. It’s a service, even if in some instances
a kind of emotional relationship emerges. Even if a client and I continue to
see one another socially, the relationship without the massage practice will be
changed. Individually they must seek massage services. I am not leaving them in
someone else’s care, and I am not leaving Denver. Since I have never done
anything like this before, it feels different.
This made sense to Sue and gave her
more insight into my feelings of pressure and upset. The problem has to do with
schedule—too many things needing resolution in too short a time! RIGHT NOW. Of
course I assume I will survive. I know I will enjoy my trip, and I am looking
forward to the automatic deposits of money into my bank account. Right now I
remind myself how good life is, even for this tired old man. I assured Sue and
myself that I am celebrating my life. I always do. I do so right now with you.
© 17 Dec
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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Preparation for Grief, by Phillip Hoyle

There is no prep work for grief. Still we can discover resources to assist us in adapting to and recovering from grief. For instance, ritual, conceptual, and relational props of congregational life surrounded me as I grew up. Of course, my perception of them changed greatly over the years of my life. I knew something about death due to losing pets and finding dead animals. These we buried beneath the forsythia bush in the backyard. I don’t remember ceremonies, but we kids may have said something. Because my dad was a church organist I grew up hearing of many funeral services and had attended those of my grandfathers and a grandmother. Emotionally our family was not very demonstrative, so scenes from movies in which people let loose to sob and scream, seemed terribly over-played and somehow inappropriate. I didn’t understand it but did accept that some people made a show of their emotions. Then, in what seemed like a few short years, (I was twenty) I was leading those services but with little personal perception of grief’s dimensions.

Being aware of the dynamics of dying, of doctrines that may comfort, of meanings attached to rites and rituals prepared this minister for dealing with a parishioner’s death, but that preparation did not serve so well when I myself faced grief. Around age fifty I really came to know the feelings that accompany deep loss. In short order I lost a long-time friend to HIV; then I lost my father to an automobile accident that also left my mother bedfast. I realized I was going to leave my marriage to a fine woman and leave my ministry in a fine church. My mother died. My father-in-law died. I did separate from my wife and then left my career. I was learning about the personal dimensions of grief quickly, too quickly.

In Denver I learned even more when I gave massages at a free AIDS clinic. There I learned a new grief related to when a client no longer showed up for appointments, a grief of uncertainty. Had the client moved away or died from the disease or found another, better therapist? I tried to find out information but the protocols of the organization did not allow the release of such facts to volunteers in the program. I also realized that the organization didn’t always know as much as I did. In churches, by comparison, there was always a supporting community, always access, always information in the organization even if its responses were sometimes inept. I had to imagine my way into experiencing grief without ceremony or formal community.

With clients in the clinic I was only an occasional touch point in what was still widely perceived as a death sentence. The realization that these persons were sometimes alone grew as I heard too often that I was the only person who touched them. I did my work but knew the important touch of massage couldn’t relieve their fears of dying or do much or even anything at the end. I wasn’t there to touch and love and reassure. I was neither called nor available. Such is life, but I had to learn to deal with my grief in new ways.

Grief changed again with my lover Michael. At least I had the dying person with me and got to trace his whole dying process, right to his last breaths. Then too soon it happened again. Within two and a half years I had lost two partners, two men I tended to as their bodies betrayed them. I touched, caressed, cleaned up after, talked, kissed, and otherwise loved them throughout their final months. Then I wept, wrote, and weathered my own losses.

In the process I saw the truth of so much that Kuebler-Ross analyzed in her clinical theory of dying and grief. I already knew so much theory but got even more insight thorough my direct experiences. The doing was most helpful for me, serving my lovers in myriad ways. But still there was the being over, being alone, just being itself, being myself.

Live. I heard the word, its challenge, and believed its possibility.

Yes. I am alive. Now I must forgive myself for not always understanding. I must continue on: laughing at death’s often ugly face, laughing into life, getting back into life’s dance. But getting back into the light fantastic is never easy, not even for one like me who is sometimes perceived as somewhat light in the loafers. I know I will again and again face grief, yes unprepared and often unanticipated. But life and the music go on whether one feels prepared or not!

Denver © 17 August 2015

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

Posted on

Moonlight, by Phillip Hoyle

The approach of the full moon makes my partner cranky, occasionally not very pleasant at all. We just went through that phase. Now the moonlight is still intense but the mood is changing. I’ve never quite understood these lunar changes, but they’ve been a part of human behavior for millennia. In fact lunacy has its root in Luna, the moon goddess of Rome. And Monday is the ancient day of the moon. At some point I read of a folk tradition that warned not to sleep in the light of the moon, especially on Monday; one might go crazy in doing so. The idea seemed quaint and unlikely to me.

Still I really like those nights when the moon is in its full stage and its reflected light even makes shadows. That light changes the perception of what it illuminates, sometimes sharpening, sometimes soften what I see. The eerie beauty of it has inspired in me some moonlight art with white Prismacolor® pencil and black ink on black paper, white moon and wispy clouds setting off black trees and housetops. I really do like at least some imaginative aspects of moonlight.

As a teenager I began to pick up hints of the moon’s part in romance. Perhaps it was a moonlit autumn night when I drove my new college girlfriend Myrna up to the hilltop parking lot of the Manhattan, Kansas, City Zoo to talk. The night sky was beautiful—bright shining stars and planets overhead, a few clouds on the western horizon, occasional orange lights flashing beneath those clouds from war games being practiced by US Army Units at neighboring Fort Riley, a full moon overseeing it all. I leaned over and kissed Myrna. I don’t know if she meant to (she later claimed she was just nervous), but she bit my earlobe in response to that first kiss. I don’t know if right then a fake bomb went off at the Fort or if the full moon winked, but electricity shot through my body, and I was sure I was in love.

Oh that moonlight!

Now I realize that a culture of romance can convince one of many things. I guess it did that to me, a boy who had seldom felt much deep emotion except when singing classical music, seeing children baptized, or kissing with his boyfriend when he was fifteen lying with him naked in bed. I kissed Myrna that electric night and a few weeks later in public and felt sure we were on our way into a wonderful relationship with marriage, sex, children, and a shared life of meaning and romance. We did enjoy a wonderful marriage, but eventually I did have to pay attention to a sense of love and life beyond what my central Kansas culture had taught, one that seriously altered my perception of moonlit romance. Myrna and I are still friends, even while I have lived with three different men in the past sixteen years. I still like the moonlight even with its unpredictable and confusing glow.

© 6 July 2015

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