Writing is Like a Gondola Ride, by Carlos

Writing is an Exploration. You start from nothing

and learn as you go….E. L. Doctorow

Last week when my husband Ron and I first boarded the Venetian-inspired gondola intent on riding the canals of Fort Lauderdale, I felt a bit self-conscious. After all, we are not overt crusaders of gay rights, instead changing the world one grain of sand at a time. Yet, here we were about to draft a testament declaring our emancipation. As sole passengers of our flat-bottomed boat decked out in sensuous cushions, billowing curtains, and floral bouquets, we were making an emotive and political statement about our right to love as our gondolier guided us through the circuitous waterways. Tito, our gondolier, greeted us warmly, taking pictures of the happy couple as we smiled in romantic bliss, I probably smiling more like a shy bridegroom than a well-seasoned lover. At the table next to a divan in which we reclined, we laid out a feast, cold English ginger ale, honeyed matzo crackers, a disc of Boursin cheese flecked with cracked black pepper, and strawberries with sensuous nipples begging to be tongued, nibbled and devoured. Having requested classical romantic music, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, I soon discovered that the music wafted out into the canals and walkways, enrapturing the world around us with love’s hymns. We made an adorable couple, as we lounged and fed each other blissfully, basking in the gentle heartbeats of lyrical watery refrains. 

The gentle waves beneath us gurgled in a rhythmical flow as they massed and fell like the breathing of my beloved sleeping under a field of stars keeping watch. The gondola sliced through the water slow and steady, its bow knifing through the glassy reflection and creating undulating waves measuring a beat out to shore. The sound of the waters kissing the shoreline commingled with the soft strains of piano and violins billowing around us. We nuzzled against each other, toasting our relationship like a candle flame damning the night as we drifted off into inner worlds so infrequently traversed. Visually, we could not get enough of Camelot; with every turn, we were met by tiered pagodas crowned with brass finials, red-tiled Mediterranean villas, and by expansive lush grounds populated by strutting peafowl, colorful Muscovy ducks, and oblivious loons sauntering amidst Eden. Although I subconsciously rebelled at the ostentatious wealth surrounding me, where money built empires on the backs of the working class, at this particular moment in time, I decided to suspend my political sensibilities, recognizing that my own feet are often unwashed.

Around us, the scarlet pendants of flamboyant blossoms dangled from leafy canopies like ruby earrings worn by a royal Persian bride, contrasting with the rosy fingers of the tenderly setting sun in the horizon. When the sea breezes tickled them, coconut palms sashayed in unison, like a well-syncopated troupe performing a choreographed repertoire. We drifted through the sun-dappled canals, surrounded by a Crayola calliope of rainbow colors, citron, Bahama water blues, egg yolk yellows, and the ever present shades of island paradise greens.

In the downtown section of the canals, boatloads of tourists shared the waterway with us. On the river walk, they sauntered along the meandering sidewalks graced by restaurants, art galleries, and parkways. Ron and I noticed numerous interesting, but for the most part gratifying, reactions to our presence in the slow-moving gondola as we cuddled and kissed openly. Certainly, we were not attempting to be the standard of a gay couple in love. We simply sought our rightful place as two men standing before the altar of history.  Some people, especially older men with paunchy bellies and Republican scowls on their face, simply ignored us as though choosing to deny our presence by cloaking themselves in the vestments of moral indignation. Some just gawked at us with an incredulous did-we-really-see-what-we-thought-we-saw open-mouthed gape. However, most, and especially the millennial generation, smiled and waved at us, clearly conveying that despite the Scalias and Alitos slithering under their rocks, despite homophobic political and religious ideologues, America is changing. Violators of human rights may continue to reject our rights to love, refusing to condone our way of life to justify their holier-than-thou prejudices, but America is evolving as it comes to recognize that I love him and he loves me, and that’s all that matters. Fortune has sided with those who dare!

Writing is the equivalent of a gay couple gliding on a gondola scrutinized by the world. Writing requires courage and conviction. It requires standing up against the fear that we will divulge too much of our souls, placing ourselves in a position of being misunderstood, judged, rejected. When we write, we open ourselves up to the eyes of others, never knowing whether our creation, our lives, our authentic voices will be validated or whether reviewers’ accusations will have us shrivel up, becoming small and voiceless. Thus, to be a writer requires taking risks, recognizing that fear has the potential to open up new venues, new worlds, new ideals for the writer as well as for those fortunate enough to be a part of the sacred journey. A writer needs to unleash her/his fears, embrace his identity, and glide, not necessarily fearlessly, but with conviction that only when he is true to himself, will others smile back and be transformed. The writer himself shall be transformed. He will give himself permission to sit on a beach and witness the rising of the sun; he will recline upon the earth and in a blade of grass commune with the cosmos as it unfolds majestically before him; he will dance with the stars above him, and know that he originated from some deep longing out there, as well as within him. Writers do not work in a vacuum. We are aware of the coconut palms’ calypso waltzes, of the droplets of water that nourish the countless ancestors of our pasts as well as the progeny of our futures. As Toni Morrison wrote, “all water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.”  As a writer, I capture, awkward and unevolved as it may be, a moment of time, a beam of sunlight glistening on the surface, a coiled blossom whose epicenter holds intangible truths. I am a wayfarer blissfully celebrating as I glide  down the currents that are but a Mobius strip of eternity. Writers are listeners and observers and thus responsible for capturing moments that will dissipate as quickly as a lifetime, but in surrendering to those moments, our explorations come to an end, and we arrive where we started, recognizing the point where it all began. Like all artists and philosophers, we embrace what and where we are, we face our fears, swim the currents, and remind our fellow wayfarers that we are all enlightened mediators on the canals in which we are carried. Therefore, if my good reader will excuse me, I will return to the embrace of my beloved word, knowing that the journey begins with a cadenced breath.

© 27 July 2015 – Denver

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.