Artistic by Lewis

[To my audience:  Please be forewarned that what you are about to hear may be infused with more than a soupcon (süp- sän) of "artistic license".]

When I was about eleven and on the cusp of discovering that there was something about me that was likely to relegate me to the margins of society, I began to explore the ways in which American popular culture might open up avenues of expression to me that would help me to wrap my arms around who I was and, more importantly, how I might fit in. 

It was 1957 and there were circles of American society wherein people leaving the movie theater or concert hall might be heard to say things like, "You may have noticed that [take your pick] Liberace/Sal Mineo/Anthony Perkins/Montgomery Clift is a bit on the 'artistic' side."

As people who say such things often were prone to doing so in soft voices, I mistakenly heard them to say that the actor at issue was "a bit autistic".  I thought it appalling that a loving god would see fit to bestow two such strikes upon a child from the moment of their birth but I counted my blessings in that I seemed to have been passed over for the autism part and moved on.

Knowing little about autism and anxious to avoid drawing attention to my own proclivities when it comes to members of the male gender, I, thenceforth, associated being "autistic" with anyone exhibiting a combination of three or more of the characteristics of the classical homosexual persona.  That is--as Wikipedia describes Franklin Pangborn, surely one of the most "artistic actors" in Hollywood history--"fussy..., polite, elegant, and highly energetic, often officious, fastidious, somewhat nervous, prone to becoming flustered but essentially upbeat, and with an immediately recognizable high-speed patter-type speech pattern."

I thought I had stumbled upon a fool-proof guide as to how to behave so as not to elicit any suspicion whatsoever that I might be "queer".  I set about to find the movie personality who embodied every antithetical quality so I could emulate him.  He had to be stoic, insensitive, blunt, laid-back, modest (even falsely so), unflappable but downbeat, slow-spoken and have nerves of steel.  In a matter of seconds, it came to me--Rock Hudson.  We all know how that turned out.

© 8 September 2014 

About the Author 

 I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

Pets by Gillian

My mother was a great one for pets. She had pet peeves, pet grievances, pet projects, pet phrases, and, being a school teacher, even teacher's pets! She herself used these expressions.

"Oh, you know that's one of my pet peeves," she'd say as a hand projected from a passing car to deposit unsightly fish-and-chip wrapping in the flowering hedgerow. Split infinitives was another. Star Trek was after her time, but I cannot hear that phrase, to boldly go, without imagining how she would have given a sharp intake of breath, shaken her head sadly, and told the TV, admonishingly, "It's either boldly to go, or to go boldly, NOT to boldly go!"  Split infinitives, she always stated, set her teeth on edge. Fortunately for her, being a teacher, fingernails on the blackboard did not!

I, also, have pet peeves; people who, chatting on their cellphones, crash their grocery carts into my ankles. Or almost crash their car into my car. Or shout into their cellphones at the table next to mine in a restaurant, or in line at the supermarket. Or those who, speaking of the supermarket line, react in astonishment when the clerk implies that they need actually to pay (see, no split infinitive!) for their groceries, and begin an endless hunt, in a bottomless purse, for their checkbook.

Mom's pet grievances, and they were many, were all sub-titles. They related, mostly directly, occasionally indirectly, to the the Grand Category of Grievances: my father. What he had ever done to deserve this, I never could ascertain; but I have written about this before so will not repeat myself. Suffice it to say that I loved my dad, and never truly understood Mom's animosity.

When I say I loved him, I don't mean that he was my dad so of course I loved him in spite of all his faults and wrong-doings. I mean that I loved him because of who he was, not despite it.

I have my own grievances, but most of mine, or so I like to think, are general rather than personal.  "A feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair," says the online dictionary.  Given that definition, yes, I grieve every war and every youth sacrificed to it. I grieve every starving person with no food to eat, and every thirsty person with no water to drink. I grieve man's inhumanity to man, but then you've heard all that before, too. In the last couple of years or so I find myself forced to grieve for young black people killed, no, let's use the right word here, murdered, for no reason other than the color of their skin, by angry bigoted white men.

My mother's pet projects, in the sense of those which go on, year after year, were writing, both poetry and prose, and pressing flowers. I do my best with writing, and truly love doing it, but the pressed flowers somehow passed me by. I do love to photograph them, though, so perhaps that's some kind of higher-tech equivalent. My latest pet project is organizing my photos into a series of theme books.

And so to pet phrases!

Do as you would be done by. If the whole world lives by those few words, what a wonderful world it would be!

If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. We, as a society, definitely have abandoned that one!

Oh dear! What will people think? Mom, a product of an age when appearances greatly mattered, said that quite frequently to both me and my dad, neither of us great respecters of neighbors' judgments.  

This one was somewhat at odds with another pet phrase of Mom's.

"Just be comfortable," she'd respond, in any discussion of what to wear, but then proceed to "what will people think?" when I arrived in slacks or my dad without a tie. Mom was not without her inconsistencies, but we learned easily enough how to deal with them and my mother was, on the whole, considerate, sweet, and kind. As with my dad, I loved her very much, simply for who she was.

My mother had, quite literally, generations of teacher's pets. She began teaching in the local two-room school in 1928 and retired in the early 1970's, so, except for few years out in the 40's, she taught in the same room for about forty years. At the end she was teaching some whose grandparents she had taught.  

"Oh that little Johnny Batchett!" she'd exclaim. She never denied having favorites but she would never have treated them as the classic teachers’ pets. She would have taken great care never to show any hint of favoritism.

"He's got that same little cheeky smile as his granddad! He's got his mother's dimples though. The girls are going to be round him like bees around the honey! Of course, his dad was just the same. All 'love them and leave them' young Tom was, till those dimples hooked him fair and square ..... " and off she'd go.

" ...... but that Yvonne Atkins! What a little madam! Still, what can you expect? Her mum and dad, both such discipline problems at that age. I'll never forget the time ......."  My dad would give me his covert wink, and we'd settle down to listen, or at least pretend we were.

Recalling Mom's pet thises and thats reminds me, once again, how the world has changed over the course of my life. Not too many people these days are taught by the same person who taught their grandparents, or even their parents. Or even, come to that, an older sibling.

Most of us care little what anyone thinks of the way we look, or often even the way we act.  Those old admonitions such as the Golden Rule, once painstakingly embroidered and hung on the wall, have more or less disappeared; I'm quite sure they aren't about to go viral any time soon. I'm not suggesting we abided by such things in our day, but at least we were aware of the concept; perhaps we tried.

Yes, I am being an old curmudgeon. My own pet peeves and grievances grow apace.  Well why not? There is much of this Brave New World I do not like.  But there would, I suspect, be more to dislike, knowing what I now know, if I returned to that rose-colored past, than there is in the reality of the present. Why would I want to return to a world where homosexuality was illegal? A woman having a baby was forced to quit her job, and for this reason could not get a loan to buy a house or car in her own name, no matter how well paid she was. And even after the birth control pill gave women much better control over their own reproductive rights, it was illegal to provide [or] prescribe them for an unmarried woman.  No. I really want np part of it.

As for the future, who knows?

As Jay Asher says, in his novel Thirteen Reasons Why -

"You can't stop the future

You can't rewind the past

The only way to learn the secret

... is to press play."

So as I'm not yet quite ready to press the stop button, and certainly not the eject, I guess I'd better do just that!

© 18 August 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.

Camping by Will Stanton

I am one of those fortunate people who grew up in an era that was not overwhelmed, as we appear to be now-days, with digital technology.  We found ways of entertaining ourselves and choosing enjoyable activities that were more natural.  Camping was one of those.

My mother and father thought that camping was a good way to spend summer vacations.  Part of that stemmed from the fact that we did not have much money and were not well-healed enough to take world cruises, go to luxury resorts, or stay in fancy hotels.  My father was able to pick up some army-surplus camping supplies, all of it rather primitive by today's camping standards.  He bought a heavy-canvas tent, big enough to stand up in and to hold the five of us.  He bought five army cots made of heavy oak supports and canvas.  We had a gas Coleman lantern that, when lit, hissed and provided us with plenty  of light.  We had a plywood icebox that he made, lined with Celotex for insulation.

So for several summers, we traveled in our station wagon to various states in central, north, and eastern U.S., setting up camp in preselected campsites.  Undoubtedly, these travels sparked my love of nature that has lasted all my life.

Unlike many other boys who found enjoyable experiences camping through joining the Cub Scouts, Boys Scouts, or (as portrayed in the movie “Moonlight Kingdom”) the Khaki Scouts, my brief participation in the scouts included almost no camping trips.  I don't recall whether our local troops just did not offer that many trips, or if my mother just did not bother to sign me up.  As a consequence, I missed out on some scouting experiences, enjoyable or less so, that many other boys have had.

I do recall that one of the older boys, seventeen-year-old Bruce, apparently was very proud of his developing masculinity, which was expressed in his being the hairiest individual I ever had seen, to that date, outside of a zoo.  Between his questionable personality, very chunky build, rather common features, and a mat of black hair covering almost the entirety of his body, I did not find him to be a particularly attractive person.

Bruce was noted for two exceptional habits while on camping trips.  One was that he prided himself on carrying with him a battery-pack and electric razor to mow each morning the inevitable black stubble on his face.  The other habit, which to this day I have not been able to explain, was that he liked to spend the night in his sleeping bag nude.  Boys being boys, neither of these facts went unobserved.  And boys being who they are, they decided to play a practical joke on Bruce.  All they had to do was hook up his electric razor to his battery-pack, slip it down into his sleeping back, turn it on, and then shout, “Snake!  Snake!” 

Bruce, waking up to the warning shouts, along with the buzz and vibration down in his sleeping bag, naturally panicked.  Terrified, and struggling to extricate himself from the sleeping bag, Bruce quickly wiggled out of the bag, stood up, and without stopping to further assess the situation, took off running into the woods.  It took a while for the boys to coax Bruce back into the camp.  He was relieved but also irritated to find that there never was a snake in his sleeping bag.  He was even more irritated with the new Indian name that the boys assigned to him, “Running Bare.”

© 23 January 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.

Feeling Loved by Ricky

In hindsight, I am sure my parents sort of loved me.  Early photographs clearly show me smiling, especially on my birthdays, Halloweens, and Christmases.  I did not feel loved during my frequent spankings for being disobedient.  I am fairly sure that my dad did not like spanking me but felt that he had to; the old “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy.

It is rather ironic how our brains tend to be very selective about which memories it chooses to give us access.  For example, I get glimpses or figments of some happy or pleasing moments, but not a lengthy detailed viewing.  I know I was cared for and nourished, except for those darned stewed tomatoes, and yet I have no memories of being hugged or kissed.  I am sure I got hugs and kisses or I would be a complete basket case by now; I just don’t remember any.

My maternal grandparents loved me but were not demonstrative in showing it with hugs or kisses.  Instead my grandfather pulled a trick on me by pre-filling my lunch drinking glass with yogurt-like “liquid” accurately named “long milk”, as it was thick like honey or molasses but lacked a decent flavor.  That he, my “hero” surrogate father, would do such a thing really hurt my feelings and I definitely did not feel loved at that point.

At the end of my first summer with them on their farm in Minnesota (June thru August 1956), my mother called me on the phone and talked me into staying there for my 3^rd grade school year.  I didn’t know about the divorce proceedings yet, but I still did not feel loved by her.  When she came out later that year to attend her sister’s wedding, I thought I would be returning to California with her.  It did not happen and I felt unloved again.

When I did not get to go home at the end of that school year and had to stay for the 4^th grade too, I began to wonder why can’t I go home but no one would tell me anything truthful.  I was loved, but didn’t feel loved.

When my dad came to visit at Christmas in 1957, I finally was told the important part of the truth and why I could not go home with him.  I know he wanted to take me home but was constrained by the law.  Nonetheless, when he left I began to feel that I was unlovable.  At the end of May 1958, my mother came to the farm with my infant twin brother and sister and my new step-father to introduce him and them to her parents and to take me back to California.  I still did not feel loved, but I was very happy to go back to a new home.

While living at Lake Tahoe, we had three different residences but all felt like some kind of home.  The last place is the one I refer to as “home” during conversations.  It was while living in that particular house, I began to feel loved again, but not by people.  Of course my baby siblings grew to love me of a sort since I was practically their parent until I left for college, but the love I am referring to came from our pet female dog, Peewee.  She was a lap-dog, with long shaggy fur; a mixed breed of ¾ Oriental Poodle and ¼ Pomeranian. 

Peewee’s previous owner was a woman who was moving and could not take her pet to the new location, so my mother brought the dog home.  Being a small dog, she was shaking with fear when she arrived and ran under the couch to keep away from me (13) and the little-ones (both 3) whom all wanted to touch and hold her.  After the twins went to bed, I was still lying on the floor with my hand under the front of the couch, while watching the television.  After a while, I felt the dog licking my fingers.  I slowly pulled my hand back and she followed and then walked to my side and cuddled with me.  At that moment, we bonded and from then on, I was her’s and she was mine.  That dog loved me and I loved her back.  We both felt loved for many years until I left for college and then the military.  I was stationed in Florida when I learned that she had passed away.  In spite of my traumatized emotions, I grieved for the loss of my first love, the one who was always there and never made demands.  Since then, I have always had deep affection for my pets.

When I was 11, 12, 13, and 14, my paternal grandmother babysat a Downs Syndrome pre-teen girl named, Jackie.  When my dad took me over to visit my grandmother, I also got to meet Jackie who always remembered me after our first meeting and who also greeted me with a huge smile and strong hug.  That was the way she greeted every one, with pure innocent happiness and radiant love.  I have often wondered if Jesus would welcome me like that someday.

Eventually, I met my soul-mate and we were married.  I felt loved again.  With each child we both felt an increase in love.  Naturally, a child’s love for his parents fluctuates with the pangs of growing-up, but eventually equilibrium is obtained and love makes its presence known again, unless the parent or child has done something to destroy it along the way.

After my wife passed away, I thought love was gone from this life.  The love of my children is there but just is not the same.  Since attending the SAGE Telling Your Story group sessions, I am receiving the love of friends, both close and casual when I am around them.  I feel loved but not the kind that lasts.  This kind of love needs frequent refreshing just as if we were all partners or married and living together.

To close with a borrowed quote from two movies, The Boy with Green Hair and Moulin Rouge, I leave you with, “The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love and be loved in return.”

© 21 October 2013

About the Author  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com.

The Wisdom of an LGBT Identity by Phillip Hoyle

Cecelia started it when she told me about a book she wanted me to teach. The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron was no ordinary book but, rather, a spiritual process of self-examination, exercises, and disciplines to help the reader overcome barriers to self-expression as an artist. The content and activities were meant for writers, visual artists, performers, and just about anyone who wanted to explore his or her own artistic bent. I was skeptical, but Cecelia was persistent. Agreeing to share the task of facilitating the thirteen sessions, we settled on an approach that seemed well balanced.

A group of writers, poets, painters, illustrators, sculptors, musicians, and educators—all members of the church where I worked—assembled that first night. They received their copies of the book and listened patiently as we explained the process for both the group and the individual participants. The work focused daily on the infamous “Morning Pages,” periodically on completing short writing and art exercises, and weekly on “Artist Dates.” Oh, we read the book, too, and met each week to share our work, objections, pains, elation, pasts, and dreams.

What Cecelia knew and I hoped would happen did occur. We changed our views of ourselves, our appreciation of one another, and our ability to engage in creative work. Due to our weeks together, our lives have continued to change to this day.

For example, some seventeen years later I am still writing my three hand-written, first-thing-in-the-morning pages. I have been writing and painting on a regular basis. I know others have as well. Since that time I have led several other groups through Cameron’s process, often sharing the leadership with others as Cecelia taught me. People are still changing. But the most unexpected change occurred in me, and it wasn’t directly related to seeing myself as an artist.

The child, the inner child, a concept with which I was familiar, showed up prominently in The Artist's Way. I had always been slightly put off by the concept, not because it made no sense, but because I heard it used so trivially so often. I read Cameron critically and did not find her explications very enlightening, but I did respond to her process. As a teacher I had pledged myself to engage fully in the process the book proffered. I answered all the questions the author posed, made all the lists she asked for, and on Artist Dates took my inner child to the museums, through parks, down streets of mansions, to mountain meadows, streams and caves, into paper shops, hardware stores and artist supply companies just like the writer instructed. During our times together I recalled many childhood scenes. Somehow Cameron showed me that my inner child is not just some kind of memory of past events but that I am still all that I have ever been at whatever age: confident or afraid, victorious or at a loss, praised or put down.

So I got reacquainted with my inner child’s hurt even though the idea seemed corny. Then I wrote about my fifth grade teacher who derided my Purple Cow illustration but offered me no help with my drawing. I was embarrassed and convinced I couldn’t draw. Two years later I enrolled in seventh grade woodshop instead of the art class I really wanted. But in shop I discovered I couldn’t do the projects very well not being strong enough to control the awkward tools I had to use. My only really fine work that year was the design I burned in the wooden bookends I made. I wrote about these things in the exercises and in my Morning Pages and grew more and more to love my hurt inner artist child.

The more Artist Dates I went on the more artistic and the more gay I got! That’s when I remembered the comment a gay friend of mine said about my work in religious education. “It’s more like art than education,” he observed. I trusted the judgment of this fellow minister, educator, and artist but felt confused. Looking critically into my own experience I finally I realized what was right about his analysis, that my play with religious ideas, symbols, and characters was enacted through art forms. And then I started to wonder if my fifth grade teacher was wrong. I quit planning art processes for children and began doing them for myself.

Cameron’s process expanded. She wanted us to costume on our Artist Dates wearing artsy clothes—surely black outfits with berets and scarves. She encouraged us to hang around with other artists. She suggested we introduce ourselves as artists. In so doing, she opened my imagination by encouraging an identity. In my response I discovered that not only was the artist child wounded in me but the gay child as well.

Then the goofy New Age intruded. Cameron wanted us to make affirmations, to write over and over certain sentences. I did so even though I hated doing it. But how else does one learn? I still write one of these sentences, still slightly irritated because, I’m sure, I hear a writing teacher telling me not to write in the first person and because to me the affirmation seems exaggerated, not exactly true. Stifling my objections I write: “I, Phillip Hoyle, am a brilliant and prolific artist.” The first time I encountered it, I simply filled in the blank with my name, first and last, just as she instructed. Then I started writing it at the end of the Morning Pages sometimes as an additional page of mantra-like affirmations, at other times to fill out the third page when I felt like I was running out of time or ideas to write.

What I learned through identifying myself as an artist transformed me. I sought out other artists. I laughed when I dressed in black like our church organist. I continued the artist dates long after the thirteen weeks ended. I continued to write the Morning Pages. And the more I did all these exercises, I found my artistic intertwined with my gay. I was doubly identified. My hurt artist child was always an artist and was always gay. That’s me. 

My mantra now included this: I am Phillip Hoyle. I am an artist. AND I am gay. I was always an artist, and I was always gay.

The advantage of this identity? I was able to change my life knowing a community of acceptance, understanding, and living. A way to see myself. A structure of self-acceptance and understanding. A way to find friends. The wisdom of LGBTQA coalition identity. Something more than politics. Rather the creation of a world-view of inclusion, tolerance, acceptance, relationship, and growth within diversity.

© Denver, 2012

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

Clothes by Lewis

[I would like to begin by looking back at what happened last week with the topic being "The Person I Fall in Love with Should Be...".  As we were leaving, I was feeling disheartened for two reasons:  1) I realized that the topic I had been responsible for was not inclusive of those in the group who are in a committed relationship.  It essentially left them with almost nothing to say.  I apologize for that and will not allow that to happen again.  2) One of our participants made it very clear that they were not at all happy with the word "should" and made quite a point of saying that "should" is a word that should never be used as part of a topic.  I wonder if we want to engage in such disparagement of a topic, especially if, as was the case last week, the originator of that topic is present.

One more comment:  We have been very clear that no one is required to write on the "topic of the week".  However, I think that it is conducive to the creative process to make those deviations the exception, rather than the rule. Hearing diverse perspectives on the same topic is what makes for a stimulating hour-and-a-half and also forces us to channel our creative forces in constructive ways.  'Nuff said about process.]

Clothes are worn for many purposes:  style, status, and modesty for three.  I'm going to talk about a fourth:  body image.  People tend to model what they think is going to "surprise and delight" the casual observer or, perhaps, significant other.  Popular opinion has a way of letting someone know when they have stepped over the line of decorum and/or vogue.  As a repressed exhibitionist with an eroticized libido, I have been an avid follower of these taboos for most of my life.  There exists in modern American society a very distinct double-standard when it comes to the line between dress that titillates and that which commits sensory trespass. 

I would like to share with you a letter written to Annie's Mailbox advice column that was published in the Denver Post on June 29, 2003, along with the response from the columnists, Kathy Mitchell and Marcy Sugar, 

[Read letter from photocopy.]

The key to understanding the present state of our society is in the first paragraph of the response: 

"Most 14-year-old boys would not be willing to put up with the teasing that Jonah is getting from his peers. Stylish or not, they would stop wearing the swimsuits.  Either Jonah has tremendous self-assurance or he is enjoying these bikinis on an entirely different level."

I have to wonder--what level would that be?  The same level upon which girls of that age might enjoy wearing a bikini?  I don't think that is what is meant at all.  As the responders also write, "Bikinis and thongs usually indicate something more sensual.  Exhibitionism and cross-dressing are possibilities but they aren't the only ones."  What, exactly might the others be?  Homosexuality?  Pedophilia?  Has anyone ever asked models for the Sports Illustrated swim suit issue if they are exhibitionists?  And to even suggest that "Jonah" might be a cross-dresser is to imply that thongs and bikinis are the sole province of the female gender, which is begging the very question that I am asking:  Isn't what is good for the gander also good for the goose?

When I was about 10 years old, I took a swimming class at the Hutchinson, KS, YMCA.  The rules were that swimming suits were not allowed in the pool, as they might carry germs.  We had to shower before we got into the pool, as well as after.  I was terrified but soon got comfortable with letting it all hang out.  By the time my own children were about that age, boys did not even take their swimming suits off to shower after swimming.  Why the vast difference?  I would welcome any and all ideas on this.

In 1990, my wife, kids and I set out for Disney World in Orlando.  Wanting to appear "with it", I bought my first pair of "surfer-style" swim trunks just for the occasion.  When we went to the water park, the first thing on the kids' agenda was the huge, serpentine water slide.  Not wanting to appear skittish or square, I enthusiastically joined them.  Just one problem:  about 6 feet down the slide, my ridiculously bulky "trunks" grabbed hold of the slide and held on for dear life.  I had to "scoot" down the remaining three stories of slide while trying not to get "rear-ended" by an unsuspecting kiddie.  I have worn nothing but trusty Speedos ever since.  Yes, sometimes I do feel a little "over-exposed" but at least I don't carry a gallon of water with me whenever I get out of the pool.

[As an illustration of the fact that America's discomfort with the male form is not universal, I am passing around a copy of Down Under:  To glorify the Australian lifesaver.  I have flagged a few pertinent pages.]

© 22 September 2014 

About the Author  

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way. 

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.

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.

The Bells Toll at Midnight by Ricky

BYU Carillon

Boy and man, I have always been very mischievous.  In 1977, I was a senior at BYU and working part time as an armed Campus Security Officer assigned to night duty as a patrolman.  During my shifts, I would occasionally explore the underground maintenance tunnels to learn my way around in preparation for any needed response to an incident.  Using my pass key one night, I entered the carillon tower about 2 AM via the maintenance entrance and began to explore the ground floor level.  (I must note here that the carillon would automatically chime the hours from 6AM to 10PM and remain silent between 10PM and 6AM.)

I previously read about the mechanism used to play the carillon manually, which is located near the bells at the top of the tower, but I did not climb the stairs to see it or the bells.  I did discover a small concrete room on the main level that contained a piano or organ style keyboard against the wall.  It was electric, so I flipped the switch and began to play a little.  I did not hear any bells, just the keyboard tones.

Better-late-than-never, the analytical part of my mind finally wondered, “Why is a keyboard down here?  Could it actually be connected to the bells?”  I hit the lowest note key, ran out of the room and opened the outside door just in time to hear the bell’s echo.  I turned off the keyboard and fled as fast as I could–still unseen through the underground tunnels.

In October, I again went into the tower unobserved via the maintenance access, turned on the keyboard, and at midnight I played the Big Ben Chime Theme followed by “bongs” to mark the hour.  In later years, my wife and I met a married graduate who remembered that particular Halloween in 1977 when the carillon struck 13 at midnight.

BYU Carillon

© 6 May 2014

About the Author

  

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach.  Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966.  After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11-2001 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010.   I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is, TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com. 

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