Tag: Writing

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Writing by Michael King

Off and on in the past, I attempted to do some writing. The stories were probably OK but I never did anything with them. They may be in some notebook that I will never open again. My spelling was atrocious and I printed so that even I might be able to read it. I didn’t use the dictionary until more recently and then along with the arrival of Merlyn there is a computer and spell-check.

About four and a half years ago I started attending the men’s coffee at the GLBT Center when it was still on Broadway. When I found out that Jackie, Ken’s intern with the SAGE program was doing a “Telling your story” group, I decided to attend. At first I did a couple of oral reports based on the topic. Then I decided to write the stories. It seems that no matter what the topic was, some suppressed memory, baggage of the past would appear. I would choke up. I had no idea how much childhood pain I had hidden from myself. I’m sure it is a form of self-protection to ignore unpleasant and traumatic experiences so we can continue on. Having been unable to resolve the situation and not having the skills to confront those family members that I depended on, I tried to ignore all unpleasantness. Some things that nearly brought on tears and caused me to feel like I was falling apart had been forgotten for well over 60 years.

Within a few weeks of these emotional breakdowns, I realized that I started feeling a resolve, a freedom, an understanding. I recognized that as a child I could not possibly have known how to be perfect, wise, in control, etc.

As time went on I had less and less flashbacks. I had a new freedom and was realizing that for me to really be comfortable with myself I had to discover my own truths, my now unencumbered potentials. I needed to examine what I wanted to do with my life all over again. I no longer had the old encumbered paradigm of how to be. I could more freely create a future that is based on my wishes and desires, hopes and dreams, freed from outside limitations and expectations.

This new awareness allowed for subtle changes, no dramatic or immediately recognizable differences. Mostly I could be without guilt or self-doubt. I could say “No” without getting emotional. And interestingly enough, I could have critical thoughts and not feel I had to say anything or sense regret. I could just keep them to myself or I could, if I so desired, raise a stink or attempt to change things without the accompanying embarrassment.

Now what happens when I write is that I have little concern what other people think. I seldom get emotional and I find that writing is a fantastic tool for more self-discovery, for a kind of inner growth and allows me to critically examine what I think and feel in areas that I’ve previously given no thought to. I am very thankful for “Story Time”. Writing has opened many doors and has come to be something to look forward to each week. It also is an activity that Merlyn and I do at the same time and share with each other before we come to the group. I’m so glad we got Phil to take charge and build the program that Jackie started. I think it is one of the best programs at the GLBT Center and that seems to be the opinion of all the regular participants. It has been not only an activity for personal gratification but an environment where we have developed friendships, better understanding of one another and we get insights from the disclosures that can only be made in such a loving and trusting group.

© 13 May 2013

About the Author

  

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities, “Telling your Story,” “Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio.” I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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One Monday Afternoon by Betsy

When I retired I was quite elated that I would no longer have to do any work. That is work other than the menial chores of maintaining a household. The rest of the time I would play–perpetual play for the rest of my life. This attitude only lasted for about the first week of retirement. I soon found myself redefining what for me was work and what was play and just exactly what was rest and recreation anyway? Since I did quite a bit of writing in the last 10 years of my job, it seemed like writing was work.

I soon adjusted to retired life. The only writing I did was in our travel log as we journeyed here and there in our beloved VW camper van to many different parts of the U. S. “Mileage today was 350. Spent the night at Frigid Frosty Forest Service campground. Woke up to snow and froze our butts,” would be a typical entry into the journal.

Then one day about twelve years into retirement my partner Gill and I were presented with the opportunity to join a certain writing group at the LGBT Center. Currently I was told the group is made up of about 10-15 men–zero women, but surely more women would be joining the group. Well, that’s okay I said. I like men. But do I want to do the work of writing?

How often does the group meet, I ask? Every week. Surely, I say to myself, we don’t all write something every week. Probably we take turns so that each individual ends up writing something maybe once a month. I suppose I could try this out. When I learned that there is an assigned topic about which every one writes and shares with the group, it did seem for a moment like this would be burdensome. But Gill was enthused about doing it so why not give it a try. After all, I could pass or just not attend when I had nothing to share.

I must confess. The fact that this group was made up of men did get my attention. I had always had men in my life. I was close to my father and adored him. I was married for 25 years to my best friend, and I have a son and grandson whom I love very much. Life as a lesbian leaves little room for men and I had missed the contacts.

I made some close male friends years ago when I answered an announcement in the LGBT community for anyone interested in forming a tennis group. I showed up on the appointed day at Congress Park tennis courts with 20 men–no women. Our group maintained the same twenty-something to one gender ratio for several years. I became very good friends with some of these men and consider a couple of them still my friends although the group broke up several years ago after about 7-8 years of tennis and friendship.

But a writing group? Creating a piece of writing EVERY week. Telling my story. That sounds like work to me. I’ll have to exercise my brain and delve into memories and emotional stuff of the past and present. Do I really want to do that? Writing. Much harder than talking or thinking or imagining. After all, I thought, writing my story I will have to finish my dangling thoughts as well as correcting my dangling participles. Do I really want to get into that?

That was two years ago. Here I am cranking out the words to share just about every darn week. I feel deprived if I miss a week. I had no idea I would get so much out of being a part of this group when I was considering whether or not to join.

I have learned more than I can measure from the stories I hear from others on Monday afternoons. Sometimes funny and entertaining, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes informative, sometimes insightful, sometimes inspiring. I believe these Monday afternoons hone not only my writing skills, but also my listening skills. I don’t want to miss a word most of the time.

Furthermore, there is tremendous value to me in documenting experiences I have had, feelings I now have or have had in the past, beliefs I hold dear; ie, documenting who I am. The process of telling one’s story is not always easy, but with practice it gets easier. How much value the stories have for anyone else I will never know. But I find it oddly comforting knowing that I am leaving them behind when I depart this life.

Finally I believe this Monday afternoon activity of telling our stories gives a broader perspective on our own lives–a perspective perhaps not otherwise attained and certainly a perspective not easily attained.

March 3, 2013

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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Pig Latin by Phillip Hoyle

I feel like the kid on the playground who feels left out, the one chosen last for a team, the one who has to read to the class but knows she won’t do well, the only one that doesn’t know Pig Latin. I feel like my father did when he picked up one of his grandsons at middle school. My nephew and a friend sat together in the back seat and talked with one another about their computers. Dad said he didn’t understand a thing they said for the duration of the twenty-minute drive home. I feel like I’ve fallen behind the whole world, sure I’d find questions on the current GED test incomprehensible. I feel like I’m falling off the grid. “Stop the world, I want to get off” captures some of my sentiment, but why this despair? I get around life just fine, enjoy reasonable work, nice enough friends, and occasionally even leadership. I’m not sure what I feel is despair, but I do feel pressures of a new job, one that I am interested to do but realize that it pushes me into a world of assumed knowledge that I don’t possess.

Computers are not new to me. In the late 1980s I met several PCs with their word processors. For ten years I successfully wrote book-length manuscripts using my PC WPs. To my family’s consternation, I’d tie up the home phone line in order to visit a friend’s bulletin board that gave me access to Shareware and some games. I heard the talk, appreciated the crude graphics, and came to appreciate the advantages my computer and word processor gave me. I enjoyed my experiments with Paint Brush and even tried my hand with some simple data bases.

I had bought the PC in order to write. I bought it at the suggestion of a writer and an editor, purchasing it at the outset of a project I had agreed to do and finished paying it off when I received my writer’s fee. I learned on the job by making mistake after mistake and solving the problems sometimes on my own, sometimes following the advice of others more experienced than I. So I learned to adopt my software and computer function with DOS smart commands, a few new programs, and several creative uses. I paid attention to what the computer needed and became at least moderately efficient in my applications. In the 1990s I entered a conversation—one of those on-line things now usually called a blog—one concerned with topics of professional interest; but I didn’t find the discussions all that interesting or pertinent. I think my life was changing too quickly, my interests moving towards the visual arts.

Still, I wrote. Still I maintained some records in a database. Still I experimented with Paint Brush. But most of my attention was focused on my art table with paper and ink, canvass and paint, design and technique. When my editors at the publishing house no longer could tolerate my antique technology, I got an Apple, then another more modern PC, and finally my PC laptop that went so fast I could never keep up. By then I had lost the curiosity factor. The WP was okay although not as convenient as the writers software I’d liked for years. Word for Windows didn’t thrill me. In fact, I never really got used to Windows. It seemed as if the attempt to make the computer more user-friendly just irritated me. I couldn’t see what was happening.

I believe my quick forays into Cyberspace were really the most intimidating factor, the ones that left me feeling like I wasn’t cutting it. I recall scares when my computer would start doing frightening things. I wondered would it die a cruel death? Explode into flames? I didn’t know but timidly accommodated myself to this unfriendly playground world.

Oh it’s gotten better for me in the 2000s. I am more at home, but suddenly I am working with “The SAGE Blog”—it always reminds me of the old movie “The Blob”—and threatens to engulf me, taking over my time and attention, and threatening to alter me in ways I don’t invite. I guess the problem is that the Blog is so social in its nature: its contributions, comments, and maintenance. I’ve always worked with people successfully, but now it seems too many of them are speaking Pig Latin or some other language I don’t easily understand. One very friendly and helpful techie said, “Well, Phillip, welcome to the cyber world.” But I’m not a techie or even a Treckie. I’m on a journey of learning but feel like I’m floating through this new, endless space with no thrusters. Still I am learning.

This in Pig Latin:

Omesay aysday Iway eelfay atthay Iway annotcay understandway atwhay isway expectedway ofway emay. Easeplay ebay atientpay. Iway aymay otnay understandway ethay echnicaltay eedsnay ofway ybercay ommunicationscay ellway, utbay Iway amway oingday ethay objay. Eoplepay owhay oday understandway areway akingmay itway appenhay inway itespay ofway ymay eeblefay attemptsway. Ifway ingsthay ogay ellway, ouyay ancay eginbay eadingray oriesstay onway ourway ownway ogblay extnay Ondaymay. Atwhay unfay itway illway ebay.

Quick; back to English.

Some days I feel that I cannot understand what is expected of me. Please be patient. I may not understand the technical needs of cyber communications well, but I am doing the job. People who do understand are making it happen in spite of my feeble attempts. If things go well, you can begin reading stories on our own blog next Monday. What fun it will be.

Again, thanks for your patience. I’m learning. Say a prayer or something for me that I will do the work well.

Note: This piece was read to the SAGE Telling Our Stories group at the end of September last year, just before this blog appeared. We’re celebrating the completion of our first year this month!


About the Author


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing. His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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The Storylines by Nicholas

A singer has settled into my neighborhood. I heard him the other morning as the first gray feathers of dawn lightened the eastern sky. Every morning very early he starts his quest way before I am ready to start mine for that day. Sometimes he’s close enough to wake me from a sound sleep—like outside my window. It’s a robin, I think, and he is looking for a mate. He will sing out his sweet, melancholy notes until he finds one.

It’s clearly a song he’s singing, not just bird chatter chirping away. There’s a melody and a pattern that he repeats over and over. In some sort of bird language I imagine him singing, “I am here. I am here for you. Come and find me or let me find you so we can make beautiful love together.”

This spring morning ritual comes from a bird not normally thought of as a songbird, like a canary. It’ll go on for another month or so and then the robin will return to his normal quiet with an occasional chirp or tweet. But for now he needs to communicate and let the world know where he is.

When Jamie and I designed our wedding ceremony, we included a favorite poem by a friend of ours. It goes like this: “When I have bidden/ farewell to Time,/ what claim might win me entry/ into Bliss? /Just this:/ foolish and sinful as I was,/ my true Love heard my song/ and I heard His.”

Songs, like poetry and other writing, are a form of communication and not just entertainment. Singing is one way we have of defining ourselves, reaching out to others, and establishing our place in the world.

Australian native people have a thing called the Songlines in which they navigate their surroundings by singing songs in a precise sequence to find local landmarks such as waterholes that tell them just where they are. These navigations also guarantee their survival in a vast and harsh land. Some songlines are short, some span long routes and use different languages. Beyond being a navigational tool, the songs also tell of a people’s place in the world. They are sometimes even called Dreamlines. Bruce Chatwin, a gay writer, traced many of the Aboriginal songs and dreams in his 1986 book The Songlines.

Every Monday afternoon, we gather here and sing our songs to each other. By telling our stories that are our individual songs, we announce our place in the world. We are defining ourselves by our stories, our tales, our songs. We are noting the landmarks in our vast landscapes as we say who we are, where we’ve been and what we’ve done. We are saying that we are here, we are here for each other and for whomever wants to join us. And maybe we have been there too. Watch out for that danger; be ready for great joy when you make it up that hill; when that happened to me, this is what I did about it. Our stories tell of our shared experiences as a community and a people. Our stories are creating, as well as reflecting, our lives.

To all those like us, we say, join the song. You don’t have to be a songbird to join in. You just have to want to let your presence be known so we can find each other in the dim light of a spring dawn in a hard land.

About the Author

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

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Writing by Merlyn

I have never been and will never be what I consider a good writer.
Most of my life I made a real good living fixing things
The only writing I needed to use until story time was filling out the work orders,

I was real good at writing the three C’s. (Complaint-Cause-Correction)
I never wanted the people that approved paying me to question what I did to fix whatever I worked on.
I used the least amount of words possible and used just the facts that I knew they needed to know.

I enjoyed working on something that no one else could fix. 
Everyone likes a challenge. Some people like to work on crossword puzzles. I loved to work on the unfixable. I would get so wrapped up in what was causing the complaint that the day would fly by until I found the cause.

I had to help a new kid fill out the three C’s once after he had turned in the paperwork.
(Complaint: won’t run. Cause: broke. Correction: replace broken part). He used 6 words but left out all of the facts.

I have been coming to the Telling My Story group every Monday afternoon for almost two years, most of the time I do have a story to share but the words don’t flow from my thoughts to the keyboard. When I first started I would peck away at my keyboard for hours till I had about 900 words in the Document, then I would I edit all the crap out of the story and end up with a round 300 words. I’m getting better, I find it a lot easier to get what I’m feeling into my stories but I can’t honestly say that I don’t enjoy the writing part of Telling My Story. This story has 381 words.

I really come to story time to hear everyone else tell their stories. Almost everyone in the group has been writing all of their lives. When I listen to them tell their stories I can feel the emotions they feel about the subject. I can tell how much thought they put into each sentence as they wrote it and I think they have a lot of fun writing their stories.

About the Author

I’m a retired gay man now living in Denver Colorado with my partner Michael. I grew up in the Detroit area. Through the various kinds of work I have done I have seen most of the United States. I have been involved in technical and mechanical areas my whole life, all kinds of motors and computer systems. I like travel, searching for the unusual and enjoying life each day.