Color Truth, by Eym

Rainbows display more colors than we may ever know.  As with human beings, the parade of true colors in nature out marches the imagination of anyone.

Some sort of green tulip leaves now flop upward above the dull yet crunchy brown dirt.  They pose near a plastic white fence my dogs and I pass.  We walk by them into many shades of gray pavement.  My little pals reveal shiny ebony with trim of yummy caramel tan.  Tires, like shoes on cars, stand there. Though also black, tires show a different tint next to my short dog boys.  For some reason the cars perching in their stalls display shades of gray pavement.

I do not understand why any safety minded person would make cars the same color as pavement or cement roads.  Perhaps some gone-wild logic of marketing believes that pavement gray cars look convincingly more road worthy.  Maybe we actually need to hide from a hoard of unseen sky marauding aliens that peer down at us as we travel about.  Both of these angles seem to overlook the obvious interpretation I make.  It is harder to safely see gray cars on gray roads.

Amid my gray worry, I must admit I have never walked into any of these gray cars resting there in parking lot 3.  This suggests that even in plain ole boring gray the variety of colors out runs my imagination.  The challenge of trying to match greens while in art school served to restate the same humbling truth.

By standard description our rainbow offers only six colors as it glows against the special backdrop of generous rain clouds.  This short sided summary leads us to miss a good deal of natural wonder.  Springtime will soon give us new encouraging colors.  Could it be that part of this surprise, year after year, stems from the unrealized diversity of true colors in flowers.

It is always springtime when we are really getting know another person, or when we are becoming the person we truly can be.  Just like flowers and rainbows, an amazing variety of true colors unfold in a lovely endless surprise of creation.

© Feb 2016

 

About the Author

A native of Colorado, she followed her Dad to the work bench to develop a love of using tools, building things and solving problems. Her Mother supported her talents in the arts. She sang her first solo at age 8. Childhood memories include playing cowboy with a real horse in the great outdoors. Professional involvements have included music, teaching, human services, and being a helper and handy woman. Her writing reflects her sixties identity and a noted fascination with nature, people and human causes. For Eydie, life is deep and joyous, ever challenging and so much fun.

Where in the World is Nowhere?, by Betsy

Once a week now for three years I have sat down to write on some topic for the Sage Telling My Story group.  These are the steps I take to accomplish that task. First I mull the topic over in my mind and come up with an idea. “Oh, I know,” say I, “I’ll write about the time that........., or I’ll write about my parents, or I’ll write about my trip to......, or I’ll write about coming out to my sister, or I’ll comment on the last election.” Many, many ideas have come to mind. Next, I sit down at my computer and start writing.

A few sentences appear on the screen.  The next step is that I say to myself, “This is going nowhere.”  Well, now that I’m writing about nowhere, I find that today my writing actually has a place to go. Of course, we all know that to say this is going nowhere means there is nothing more to say about this event or this person or this feeling or this whatever I’m writing about.  However in this case I can at least describe what “nowhere” looks like to me.

 In the case of composing a so-called story entitled “Nowhere,” now that I am at stage three of the writing process, I find that what “nowhere” looks like in a piece of writing is “nothing.” It looks like nothing, a blank page, an empty mind, no way to tie anything together or to relate the ending to the beginning thoughts.  A void.

Speaking of a void, the question comes to mind: What is nothing. Is there such thing as “nothing?”  That brings me to the subject of the cosmos. We used to think that space was nothingness. But it turns out that where there appears to be nothing, there is actually quite a lot. The so-called black holes of the cosmos are full of compacted cosmic material. The space in between objects, only APPEARS as nothing.  The space in outer space, apparently empty, is full.  Beyond that, cosmic space itself is full of “dark matter.”  Apparently there is no such thing as nothing, our human senses simply cannot perceive what is there. If there is no such thing as nothing, then I guess there is no such thing as nowhere.  What we call nowhere really is somewhere, a certain place.

I’m am so happy to have come to this conclusion because now I can move on to stage four and work out an ending for this composition.  And here it is.  THE END.

© 1 Feb 2014 

About the Author   

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Compulsion, by Will Stanton

I suppose that it is human nature for many of us to succumb to compulsive behavior.  If we attempted to list every possible form of compulsion, we would be here all day.

Eating certainly is one of the most prevalent compulsions, especially in America.  I once was invited by a 400-pound man to join him and a few others for dim-sung dinner.  I tried to avert my eyes while he ravenously ate multiple courses, along with everything left over from other diners at the table.  I will never subject myself to that kind of disturbing experience again.  America is so notorious for overeating that someone posted on-line a photo-shopped image of Michelangelo's “David” supposedly after visiting here and eating too much American food.

 

Chunky David

I fell pray to overeating for a few years, all because of chronic stress.  My partner died.  He also was my business partner, and I tried to do both jobs.  Further, in our profession, we were required to deal with many people's ongoing problems, which was hard enough.  I also had to be concerned with professional clinical and legal liability.  Worse, most competing clinics were thoroughly corrupt, making tons of money, and stealing away most of my clients.  Big stress.

For a while, a little place close by, B.J.'s Carousel, became the antidote to my own stress.  I must have driven by B.J.'s 10,000 times before someone told me that there was a little restaurant in the back that served solid American-style food at reasonable prices.  In addition, the regular patrons and staff were exceptionally friendly and accommodating.  Frequently, patrons chatted with each other from table to table, fostering a warm, supportive atmosphere.  The restaurant played soft, classical music, rather than the pounding drums and screaming that most restaurants play now-days.  Also in the winter, they had a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the room that made the area very cozy.  That's where I would go to unwind.

Once my evening therapy groups were gone, and I had discussed each person's case with my contract psychologist, and I had prepared the individual sessions notes for the clinical files, I felt drained.  I would jump into my car and race down to B.J.'s, which stayed open late, and order an excess of comfort-food - - meat, potatoes, salad, veggies, and (of course) desert.  This went on for a few years, and I must have been oblivious to the consequence until it became more obvious.  Fortunately, I rarely eat that way now.  The fact that B.J.'s since has shut down probably removed a pit-fall from my path.

Over those many evening dinners and Sunday brunches that I had at B.J.'s, I got to know one of the other regular patrons.  It turns out that this person had a life-long obsession with trains  - - - real trains, model trains, train videos and DVDs, train paintings, train artifacts and clothes.  He even chose what cities in which to work so that he could be around trains.  His compulsion to continually buy train stuff resulted in his living in a house crammed so full that one would need a front-loader to clear it out.  His having a lot of discretionary income in retirement, he could  afford to buy a state-of-the-art Lionel “Big Boy” steam locomotive that lists for $3,000.

Lionel O-gauge model "Big Boy" steam locomotive

I later found out that the front of B.J.'s was a bar that was known as the place where drag-queens could go and to be in occasional drag-shows.  Although popular with some people, I never have had the slightest interest in that phenomenon and don't quite understand the compulsion to dress-up like that.  But, I could not escape noticing them on show-nights when some of them would wander through the back restaurant.  I truly admire natural beauty, but I can't say that any of those individuals fit into that category.  I sense that most of them realize that they never will look like ravishing, natural beauties, and some probably dress up with some sense of satire.  There may be those occasional individuals who do try to look like Hollywood models.  B.J.'s, however, was not Hollywood nor Los Vegas, and I never did see anything appealingly eye-catching.  Instead, homely faces, chunky bodies, big feet, ungraceful movements, and lip-syncing tended to betray any efforts to look truly attractive.

Two-drag-queens

I recall one individual who, from time to time, would come stomping through the restaurant section in a most ungraceful manner, carrying high-heels, on his way to the dressing area.  That poor person's face looked as though he once had suffered a bad case of acne.  Between those pockmarks and his usual grumpy scowl, I might have surmised that this sad person once had worked at McDonald's and possibly had a compulsion to bob for fries.

I suppose that it is inevitable that, wherever there are drag-queens, there is a certain percentage of them who become titillated with the idea of toying with female hormones.  For some time now, I have understood the theory of clinical transgender orientation, and I intellectually can handle that concept.  These are the people who seriously think of themselves as the opposite gender, and their transition is carried out, over time, carefully and seriously, with the assistance and advice of professional doctors and therapists.

However, as naïve as I usually am and until recent years, I was totally unaware of the fact that, throughout the world, there is an amazingly large number of young guys whose compulsion is to take massive doses of female hormone, permanently changing their bodies but with no intention of surgically fully transitioning to female.  They rashly do this with black-market hormones and without the supervision of professional therapists.  Instead, they turn themselves into, what is crudely called, “shemales,” neither male nor female, but individuals with male genitalia and, in addition, breasts, wide hips, and large buttocks.  These are the hybrid individuals who Robin Williams jokingly referred to as “The Swiss Army Knife of Sex.”

Finally made aware of this phenomenon, I have tried to intellectually handle well this phenomenon of hybrid gender, but I have a hard time handling it emotionally.  What disturbs me most is that many of these individuals start out as very good looking young males; yet their masculinity is destroyed forever.  To my personal way of thinking, that is a waste.        

Shemale

I also understand that such unpredictable use of hormones may not always turn out well.  There was one tall, good-looking guy who decided to secretly take hormones.  He told me that he always was afraid that his family might find out.  Oddly enough, his day-job was as a tow-truck driver.  He hid from his coworkers what he was doing by wearing heavy, loose clothes.  Then he would change into women's clothing and go to B.J.'s.  Later, after he had developed breasts, I overheard him lament that he was sorry that he had taken those hormones because now he no longer could take his clothes off and go swimming.

More bizarrely, I saw one evening a short, previously normally built teenager, who had been named  “Miss Teen Queen,” who, from taking hormones, quickly put on a vast amount of weight and ended up with huge, bulging belly, drooping breasts, and bizarrely wide hips.  I found that sight very disturbing.  I was very puzzled as to why that boy had such a irresistible   compulsion to so dramatically change his body.  Did he imagine the results being different?

Then, a skinny, drag-queen waiter told me that he once had considered taking hormones until he saw what happened to one of his friends who had succumbed to that compulsion.  His friend took lots of black-market hormones and then (in the waiter's own words) “really freaked out and totally lost it” when he saw how dramatically his body had changed and also realized that those changes were permanent, especially the expanded bone-structure of his hips.  Just the idea of his doing that to himself freaks me out, especially since the friend obviously never thoroughly thought through what he was doing or sought advice from any therapists.

I guess that the “trains-on-the-brains” guy's compulsion to continually buy model trains, train artifacts and clothes, especially since he has the money to do so, is pretty mild in contrast to the kid who totally freaked out.  At least, compulsive train-guy can trade or sell-off his trains if he wants to.  And as for me, I can fairly safely continue my obsession with classical music by spending an inordinate amount of time playing and listening to good music.  The freaked-out kid, however, will have to live a long time with the all-too obvious consequences of his compulsion.

© 6 October 2015 

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.

Queer as a Two Dollar Bill, by Terry Dart

How queer am I? Butch and Fem are ancient concepts, just not dealt only with except for the Greeks, the ancient ones, well maybe the Frat Boys too, well some anyway.

Now, I had always thought of myself as Butch, because of being athletic and competitive. And I have a high opinion of many Butch men. So what was I? Proudly Butch. But somewhere along the way I became a clothes horse. I probably caught that from Mom, who was also a tomboy in her youth and who also gave me her sense of color and who has been a model, locally in Minot, N Dak, for J. C. Penney. I no longer have her figure, but then neither has she.

Now back to the How Queerness of Queer.

For Lesbis and Bi Lesbis

For Fems and Butches (not Bitches)

Are you Fem because you wear makeup and dress in matching colors, and wear high heels once in awhile? (Turns me on!)

What if a Lesbian is a Fem who likes other Fems? Should we call her a Fem-Fem?

Is a Butch Butch woman a super Lesbian?

And what about a woman who wears a see-through blouse with no modesty packs, who drops it all and steps menacingly into grimy pair of overalls and steel-toed combat boots to crawl underneath a VW Bus?

What about the girl who we might call a Slide-Bi-Butch, who hangs out at baseball fields, spikes tread and over the shoulders, and keeps an eagle eye on batting practice to scout out the Butch Catcher who swings both ways in order to slide into her at home.

Here we have a menagerie of soft and muscular Lesbians. God bless us all, every one.

© 14 March 2016 

About the Author 

I am an artist and writer after having spent the greater part of my career serving variously as a child care counselor, a special needs teacher, a mental health worker with teens and young adults, and a home health care giver for elderly and Alzheimer patients. Now that I am in my senior years I have returned to writing and art, which I have enjoyed throughout my life.

The Fractured History of Clothes, by Ricky

The first case of sunburn resulted in the slang term “red skins” to differentiate the early humans into two groups; the clothed and the nudists.

Clothes!  What a wonderful invention.  The first recorded version of clothes was fig leaves, which were then exchanged for animal skins; a much needed improvement for winter and colder climates.  We should all be grateful for those two “cave” people who had the foresight to switch from leaves to animal hides.  This had the added benefit to reduce the excessively sunburned population so that today the only few remaining “red skins” are those very few that play professional baseball.

Over time the cave people moved into communities and the hunter-gatherer peoples prospered.  But as populations of these people increased and the animals used for food and skins began to shun the presence of hunters, some enterprising gatherers sought out some means of supplementing the animal skin shortage.  Eventually, they found a way to process animal fur, vegetable fibers, and worm cocoons into a suitable product for making something to wear.

Since this was something completely new, there was no name for it.  Clothes are what they wanted to make out of the new product but they needed a catchy new word to market their product.  Finally some pundit from “Madison on the Avenue” in the ancient village of York reasoned that since “clothes” was a plural word and this new product is what is used to make clothes, the product should be named “cloth” using the singular form of “clothes”.  The community of merchants quickly adapting to the new word, needed a generic way to indicate the multitude of different furs, vegetable, and worm based products they had for sale in their possession.  They decided to use the word “clothes” but were quickly corrected by their language instructors that “clothes” and “clothes” were spelled the same but pronounced differently.  Since homonyms had not yet been invented, the merchants were compelled by their instructors to use the word “fabrics” to avoid confusion.

The makers of fabrics tended to be women and were referred to as “loomies” because “fabric makers” was too hard to say and “loomers” sounded to close to “losers” which had already been assigned to those who did not win at arm wrestling and “weavers” was used to label people who would drink too much fermented liquids and thus could not walk a straight or gay line.

The merchants quickly discovered that the majority of people who purchased their fabrics were male.  Indeed, in those ancient times and into our modern day the males would wear highly colored fabrics with varied glyphs, runes, borders, and designs to make themselves look more important than another.  This became a quasi-universal trait among males of any community.  They were easily recognized by their plain or elaborate dresses, robes, and evening gowns.  Eventually, these men became known as “men-of-the-cloth” because “men-of-the-fabric” seemed too formal.

As the cost of the fabrics became prohibitive for the poorer members of a community, the “men-of-the-cloth” were looked upon as being wise and knowledgeable because they could afford to buy clothing made of fabric.  So, gradually the men-of-the-cloth were granted leadership positions and the power of authority over other community members.  This did not always work out well.

There are remnants of this practice today.  Traditional men-of-the-cloth still exist nearly everywhere, but they are not as powerful as they once were.  Modern men-of-the-cloth can be identified by the red color of their neckties and can still be heard talking as if they were all wise and knowledgeable.  In our day, the most flamboyant of the men-of-the-cloth often attend after work establishments and entertain the crowds.  Reportedly, they are well respected and revered by everyone except those known as being “dragaphobic”.

With hindsight, perhaps it would have been better if the ancient fig leaf wearing cave people had stayed nudists.

© 22 September 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 was sent to live 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.

Believe, by Ray S

Dear Friends,

I come to this meeting in hopes to gain some insight into what you have to write about this subject. For me “seeing is believing” is irrefutable.

But, then when we are so often confronted with America’s bumper sticker mentality “BELIEVE,” dare we ask in what? There are the declarations of the drivers’ school, fraternity, fish sign or amphibious fish, sexual persuasion, political beliefs, etc., etc.

Now this is where BELIEVE becomes nebulous, it’s every man or woman to his/her best. Watch out as this can sometimes be disastrous, and sometimes mind enlightening—depends on which side of the bed you got up on and sometimes with whom.

I expect to hear some inspiring and personally emotional beliefs. Thinking about how much of a private belief one owns can often be so much so that it is never shared or open for inspection.

The beliefs worn on the sleeves are far too often imposed on us by the “true believers.” They are the ones who are enlightened and always available for an opinion or argument—that is one of the negatives that arise more times than you would wish for. On the positive e side as is evidenced here we or most of us do have some self-evident beliefs that we share when the appropriate time shows up. These are the spiritual beliefs, not the ones you see, except in the responses by your friend or neighbor to your actions. This action has many names, but can be consolidated with the word LOVE. 

Denver, © 2016

Practical Joke, by Phillip Hoyle

Recalling clearly my eldest sister’s evaluation of the girls in her dorm five years before, [“They’re all so immature,” she said,] I wondered what I’d find in the boys dorm at the same small church-related college in north central Kansas five years later. Would there be a lot of horseplay, silliness, competition? Would the talk be rough, derisive, pious? I was pretty excited by the prospect of living around so many other guys because I had no brothers. Would I find a brother there? If so, would I like it? Who would I room with? Questions. What would be the answers? I already knew a little about the small burdens in that dorm, of needing to keep the room clean in order to pass periodic inspections, to fulfill duties of dust mopping hallways, straightening lounges, or cleaning shower rooms. Would I enjoy bull sessions?

I trudged up the steps of the rather new dorm toting my bags and boxes, depositing them in my room. Then in came my roommate—Roy his name—from a small southwest Kansas town out in the Great Plains where one can drive for a hundred miles without seeing trees or hills, where the wind blew without stop, where he attended a school with one hundred students including elementary and high school. I was lucky for, like me, Roy was studious, a seriously mature student. That helped both of us to get in good shape academically. And he was nice this slender, strong, black haired boy with a resonant voice and good manners. And he was clean.

I came to school with a stereo, a small LP collection, artwork to hang on the dorm room wall, and a two-drawer file cabinet. He came with some books, a basketball, running shoes, and a car. I came with years of musical experience; he with years of playing high school sports. We had both worked regular jobs. We shared our room, shared respect, and shared some classes for we were both ministerial students. We got along well.

Roy was athletic. He’d been the all-around great student in his graduating class: going out for all the sports, singing in the choir, dating the girls, even entering the state speech and debate tournament where he presented an interpretation of T. S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” for which he was awarded recognition. My eighteen-year-old mind didn’t grasp that serious poem; I wonder if his did. Some nights when Roy and I were studying in the dorm, he at his desk beneath the window, I in the middle of the room, I’d notice the floor vibrating. The first time I looked up for an explanation, I found Roy unconsciously bouncing his legs, setting the room shaking. This nervous habit may have been related to his fast speech, his hand movements when making some point, his fast metabolism that kept him slender.

There were some shenanigans in the dorm; what else would one expect from a group of undergraduates thrown together in close proximity with dorm hours that gathered us in at 10:00 pm. There was the din that finally quieted around 11:30. There were wrestling matches organized at odd hours. In general, we lived surrounded by other guys about our age, nice guys at that.

I noticed that most afternoons at the same hour Roy would return to the room following one of his classes. That particular afternoon I was reading at my desk when I got the idea, surely inspired by a current scary movie or simply by remembering life at home where one of us kids would scare another. I wondered if I’d really pull the practical joke becoming as immature as some of my dorm mates. When Roy was due to return, I turned off the light, crawled under his bed, and waited. It seemed a long wait, but finally the door opened. Roy walked over to put his books on his desk, then opened his closet door. All I could see were his feet. I was trying to figure out how most effectively to scare him: scream, grab, jump? Waiting I decided simply to reach out and clasp his ankles. Finally he took a step toward the bed and turned around into the perfect position with his back turned. I reached out, clasped his ankles and said nothing.

He said something, probably not anything he’d say from the pulpit, and screaming jumped. I suppressed my laughter and crawled from my hiding place. That was it. Fortunately Roy didn’t faint, and the practical joke did not end our friendship. It probably didn’t strengthen it though. We lived together two years more before the summer we both married our girlfriends. In fact, I gave my girlfriend an engagement ring in the backseat of his car while we were on a double date. My best guess? He forgave me.

© 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

Moving by Pat Gourley

Moving from one abode to another has been something I have done quite a bit of since moving to Colorado in December of 1972. A quick and probably incomplete count would indicate at least 13 moves and different living situations. And as of today I am seriously entertaining the possibility of a move back to San Francisco after the 1st of the year.

Now I suppose this could be viewed as an immature and possibly pathological inability to settle down but I prefer to look at as a chance to cleanse. This was brought home to me in a short comment on Facebook that someone made to a friend’s post about “moving again”. The commenter said he viewed his many moves as cleansing behavior since these changes in locale usually resulted in the jettisoning of fair amount of accumulated stuff.

I suppose if I tried to further rationalize my frequent moves I could put a Buddhist spin on it and think of it as one more lesson in impermanence. Now this lesson of impermanence certainly has come easier to me in my life than say a Syrian refugee whose home has been blown to bits or the Palestinian family who have repeatedly had their homes demolished by the Israeli army. It is even hard for me to imagine the loss experienced by people whose homes in South Carolina that were recently flooded or abodes blown completely away by a Kansas tornado.

When I think about it though my major lesson in impermanence has not been related to any physical moves I have made but rather by the death of my loving companion David in September of 1995. In the last days before his death when he would lay down to try to temper the significant pain he was experiencing and that liquid morphine was only dulling he would ask to be covered in a purple sarong I had purchased at some Grateful Dead concert a few years earlier. It was this simple piece of cloth that somewhat soothed his soul. It wasn’t his nice car, his extensive Haviland China collection, our nice home or the many of his beautiful stain glass creations but rather my foot rubs and then covering him with that shawl.

I still have that shawl now tattered and frayed and it lives on my zafu as stark reminder of my own impermanence. These days as I contemplate a move back to OZ the main driver for this planned relocation is to get back to the strong village aspect to living at the B&B. I have many more friends here but I don’t live with any of them and this is really a bit of a lonely situation. The likelihood of an old wrinkled HIV+ queen finding another partner is slim to non-existent.

I have used my current job at Urgent Care to partially fill this void of being alone and though I like and enjoy the company of my co-workers the seemingly endless stream of folks with abdominal pain, bleeding vaginas, heroin addiction and homelessness can be taxing.

I do enjoy people being in my business on a daily basis in my actual living situation. If I were to die at home now my cat would eat me before anyone would find me. In San Francisco I would have folks looking for me frequently if for no other reason than that they want their breakfast and it would be highly unlikely that they are seeking me out because their vagina is bleeding or they are jonesing bad for their next smack pop.

So once again I will be moving as a way of dealing with my own inevitable impermanence and hoping my last dance is in the company of folks who love me and I them.

Addendum February 18th, 2016: I will not be moving back to San Francisco but rather staying in Denver and making a concerted effort to incorporate even more fully the many friends I have here into my everyday life. Details on this decision will follow in future ramblings.

© November 2015

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

We're Not Done Yet, by Nicholas

I’m terrible at giving directions. I love maps but I don’t carry one in my head, so I have to pause and really think through how to get somewhere when asked. I also have set routine routes which, if departed from, leave me momentarily confused. I sometimes have to remind myself where I’m headed so I don’t automatically go somewhere else more familiar. And, of course, it’s hard to figure out where you should be going when, really, you’re not going anywhere at all.

New Year’s Day is always a time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we might want to go. A new year always provides the illusion of hope for a new start, a change from old bad habits before we sink back to those comfortable old bad habits.

This topic also seems to be buzzing around the blogosphere with online commentators—of whom there are about ten million—pondering where the LGBT movement is headed now that so much of the agenda that we always denied having has been accomplished. Some advocacy organizations, like Freedom to Marry, are actually closing up shop since they have accomplished their mission. Of course, we will still get funding solicitations from them. Other groups have begun to scale back their operations now that LGB, but maybe not T, issues have gone mainstream.

There needs to be a new agenda, say the blog masters. We’re at a point of having seen many—though not all—statutory barriers to living life gay or lesbian, and sometimes even trans, removed. Now what do we do?

Well, as the line goes, it ain’t over till it’s over. And, guess what, it ain’t over. I get suspicious or maybe even just paranoid when someone declares a movement over. Here it seems to mean that straight-acting, white men have gotten what they want, so everybody else should just quiet down and get on with things, like making money now that Big Money has found that the gay community is very easy to get along with.

So, we still have kids living on the street with practically no chance of a decent future without an education and a home. Bullying is still rampant in schools and school administrators are still reluctant to do anything about it.

If you’re in any way an effeminate male, a drag queen, a fairy, don’t expect the corporate law firms to welcome you. If you’re too strong a woman, your chances for success are probably reduced as well. And trans still makes most people squirm in their executive suites. Remember, in the TV show Will and Grace, Will operated in the corporate office while his flamboyant friend Jack was always scheming for ways to make it.

And, then, there’s us. The aging lesbian and gay and trans segment of the population that the still youth-obsessed society still doesn’t want to face. Many of us live in fearful isolation. Many, if not most, of us still fear being trapped and vulnerable in hostile situations such as nursing homes that are clueless if not simply hateful to LGBT elders. I don’t see myself as shy about who I am and who I live with, but I dread being consigned to some miserable and hostile facility. If school principals are reluctant to deal with bullying, nursing home administrators are about two centuries behind them.

Plenty of LGBT people are still marginalized and there is something we can do about it. Gay marriage was never the whole agenda and now that we have that we can get back to the original idea. We still need to build communities. We still need to figure out in a positive light who we are, how we are different, what we have to offer. In a way, the assimilation phase is over with marriage. Now we can go back to being ourselves. Not just dealing with needs and demands and issues, but with supporting one another and valuing one another in all our crazy diversity. We still need to find each other and join together.

Till death do us part, you might say.

© 4 January 2016

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.

Keeping the Peace, by Lewis

KEEPING THE PEACE

...IN EIGHT EXTREMELY DIFFICULT STEPS

(OR LEWIS' RULES OF ORDER)

1. Don't interrupt your adversary. Listen fully until you understand completely their position.

2. Say back to him or her what you think they said. "Did I get that right?"

3. If they say, "That's not what I said (or meant)", ask them to repeat. If they say, "Yes, that's right", continue.

4. Tell them specifically why you disagree. Ask them to repeat what you just said.

5. When the area of disagreement is clear to both parties, then: a) agree to disagree, or b) agree to break off the discussion until another day or until a mediator can be brought in or until areas of disagreement can be clarified or fact-finding takes place.

6. Never shout, threaten, or resort to ad hominem attacks.

7. Never make the argument personal or ego-centered.

8. Apologize if you step over the line. [Never be afraid to admit that you are wrong.]

9. Remember, above all, that cutting the baby in half is no substitute for lacking humility.

© 10 June 2013

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.

Believing, by Gillian

'I believe in one god, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of all things visible and invisible.'

So begins the Nicene Creed which I learned in Sunday School and for a while repeated most Sundays of the year. But sometime in my ninth year I had a kind of epiphany, accepting that I didn't believe a word of anything that went along with organized religion. I continued to accompany my mother to church, just being supportive, but determinedly kept my mouth shut when we proclaimed our religious beliefs of which I had, and still have, absolutely none.

So I never say 'I believe .... ' using the words to denote, as Voltaire puts it, believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe. That kind of belief is, to me, as cast in stone as sexual orientation. I cannot make myself believe something I don't believe any more than I can make myself be straight. I can pretend, as so many of us did once upon a time when we played it straight, I can say the Creed along with the best of them, but I cannot make myself believe.

I do use those words, as many people use them, to mean that I have seen or heard enough evidence to believe that, based on sound reasoning, something is true. This, according to many definitions, puts me firmly in the skeptics' box - relying on the rational and empirical: valuing thinking and seeing rather than making that blind leap of faith to belief.

In my own, albeit skeptical, way, I believe many many things.

For example: I believe that history will judge Obama well, for his sincerity and constant struggle to do what he truly believes to be the right thing. (Though he might do well to follow Churchill's plan; he said he knew history would be kind to him because he intended to write it.) And, speaking of Sir Winston, I believe that had I ever met him I would probably have disliked him. If he were running for office in November I doubt I would vote for him. Nevertheless, I believe most sincerely that I am forever in his debt. Without his inimicable stand against the Nazis, I believe that my life would have been very very different; quite possibly a lot shorter. Similarly, I believe I would not be casting my vote for Teddy Roosevelt with his bluster and his gunboats, but I also owe him a huge debt of gratitude. Without his foresight in initiating the National Park system, I would never be able to appreciate the magnificence of nature that was once this country. It would all be unrecognizable, long ago torn away by mining and drilling, or covered in concrete jungles of shopping malls and mansions. And these realizations make me believe, in turn, that few people - yes, even politicians - are an influence solely for good or evil, though there are some notable exceptions. Life is endlessly complex, as are the people and issues we encounter in it.

My most vehemently held belief, right now, is in the reality of global climate change. As I see it, everything else pales by comparison. What does it really matter that we finally have gay marriage, or that Syria is a failed state, or that, in spite of the efforts Obama is promising to make, we are so far from getting fire arms under any kind of meaningful control in this country? If we continue not only to ignore but actively to deny that climate change is now in our faces, what does anything else matter? It will change the lives of every single person on this earth. How anyone cannot see it is a total mystery to me. 2015 was example enough for anyone. It was the hottest year on record over the entire world in 135 years of modern record-keeping. Global sea-

level surged to new heights. Glaciers retreated for the thirty-first year in a row. Record greenhouse gases fill our atmosphere. And if global statistics don't impress you, aren't we watching it all happening almost every day on our televisions? Tornado alley now stretches from the Gulf to Canada, and every year it is harder to define 'tornado season' or 'hurricane season' - we simply have to expect anything anywhere anytime. There were more tornado-related deaths in this country during December of 2015 than in any previous December on record. Merry Xmas, all you deniers!

Almost more maddening, to me, than such idiots as those who toss snowballs about as proof against global warming, are those who acknowledge its existence but insist that it is a completely natural climate swing, such as there have always been, and therefor of no consequence. What?? During the last ice age, which I think we can all agree was not human-induced, the area that is now New York lay under a sheet of ice a mile thick. Should mankind be around for the next ice age, which I personally doubt, will we all shrug our shoulders as the wall of ice approaches and ignore it simply because it's a purely natural phenomenon? Surely we need to decide how we are going to survive global climate change rather than indulge in endless wrangles over the cause.

So does this mean that I believe climate change will cause the human race to be just one more species that goes extinct? There would be some justice in that, as we are, ourselves, causing the extinction of so many. But I cannot claim to believe that, per se, because there are simply not enough facts available. I think there's certainly some chance of an extinction in our relatively near future, but possibly not. We have survived many disasters: plagues and pestilence, wars and famines, earthquakes and volcanoes. But seeing that an estimated 99% of all species which ever existed are now extinct, I certainly believe that we will not go on forever.

One day we will be gone, our Little Blue Dot will heal itself from all our depredations, and humankind will leave no more than a hiccup in the geologic history of Planet Earth.

That, I, proud skeptic, do believe.

© January 2016

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 been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.

How Being Gay Has Directed My Spiritual Journey, by Carol White

For me, being gay has had everything to do with my spiritual journey. As you already know from prior stories, I was born a Methodist Christian and I was also born gay, and 27 years later those two things would come into great conflict with each other.

Growing up in the church I truly believed in Christianity, mainly because of the music associated with it. I sang in all the church choirs and felt as though I actually experienced the presence of God through the music. The last verse to one of the hymns we sang expresses the extent of my commitment:

“Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were an offering far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all.”

So it was off to SMU to major in sacred music and become a minister of music in 1963 at a large Methodist church in Houston. Since SMU and Perkins School of Theology was a liberal college, I became a liberal Christian.

However, in my second year of graduate school I had come out to myself and had my first sexual experience with another woman. I had been in love with a couple of other girls in junior high and high school, but had not acted on it in any way, even though I wanted to more than anything in the world. Still, I waited ten years after my first crush to actually kiss another woman, and all of the fireworks went off. It was finally everything I had imagined and hoped for. I knew that I was a homosexual and I did not want to be one, because it was not accepted at the time and it seemed to be anathema to my chosen profession.

Simultaneously with starting to work at the church, I also started psychotherapy to try to be “cured” of my homosexuality, but the therapist that I had was very informed and instead helped me to accept myself as I am.

The fourth year of my job at Chapelwood in Houston was an extremely chaotic one emotionally. One of the women in my choir who was also single and who was my same age, 27, approached me and we began to have a very brief affair. As it turned out, she was the preacher’s mistress, and she told him about me and me about him. One of us had to go, and of course, it was me, since I was the woman and I was the gay one, and he was the man and straight, even though he was married and having an affair with a woman in his church which had been going on for years.

Leaving that church was the most difficult time of my life, since I was out on the street with two worthless masters degrees, no job, no profession, no friends, no money, and nowhere to turn. Spiritually speaking, I knew that I was okay with God, but I was not okay with the church.

I went to a gay bar, met another woman that I stayed with for eleven years, spent five years trying to settle in another profession, and had thirteen years of no spirituality at all.

In 1980 I became involved with PFLAG Denver, where I met Bishop Wheatley and his wife. Mel Wheatley said, “PFLAG is what church ought to be.” I will never forget that. It was a place where we observed and practiced unconditional love.

About that same time I started going to Mile Hi Church of Religious Science, where I learned the difference between spirituality and religion. They seemed to accept gay people as we were, and I felt once again that I had a community to belong to where I learned meditation and positive thinking and felt that I had re-established a relationship with God.

After about ten years of that, I realized that Science of Mind was just not true for me anymore, and stopped going to that church.

I had read a lot of spiritual books, but then I began reading Ken Wilber, a brilliant philosopher who lived in Denver, and I was truly struck by his philosophy, particularly Spiral Dynamics, and the spirituality that they talked about and espoused, Integral Spirituality, which was more similar to Buddhism but incorporated things from all the religions with meditation and mysticism. Being gay was not an issue at all.

I attended an Integral workshop and joined a Ken Wilber meetup group, where I found a spiritual home for about five years.

Since then, I have drifted away from that group and now — well, now I have no spiritual life or meditation practice or community. Now I am just going along with life and trying to be open to whatever might come next.

We shall see what happens.

© 2015

About the Author

I was born in Louisiana in 1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963, with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay in 1967. After five years of searching, I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter. From 1980 forward I have been involved with PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses: the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and Harmony. I am enjoying my 11-year retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes, going to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.

What I Did for Love, by Will Stanton

It often has been said that love is the most powerful force in the world. I feel that this belief might have some merit, although it's hard for me to say. Perhaps I have had too little experience with love to know for sure. I have had brief moments in my life that felt like love, sometimes even somewhat prolonged feelings. I am very thankful for those moments and cherish their memory. In retrospect, however, thinking over my life, it feels as though I had very little love growing up and only moments of it since. Fate conspired against it.

That is why I procrastinated writing this short piece, even though I already had completed, way in advance, all the other subjects on our topic-list. I sensed that this would not be a particularly easy nor happy piece for me to write.

I seem to remember from childhood, rather than familial support and love, more prolonged feelings of tension, anxiety, confusion, dread, even draining of my spirit. It was only later when I learned more about psychology that I realized that my family was what is called a “looking good family,” that is, one that appears from the outside to be stable and normal; however, within, the family is dysfunctional. No, I do not recall much in the way of love in those years.

I had a partner for a while. I know that I was loved. The last years, however, turned out to be very stressful, for he suffered six years with lung and brain cancer. I took care of him the whole time. I know that he continued to love me, but the shadow of death took away much of the joy.

Since then, I have had a few really good, close friends. We care for each other. Yet, I have my own issues now to deal with, and those now predominate my thinking and feelings. Such concerns make it hard to for me at this time to love myself sufficiently enough to reach out and to love another.

During hardship and stress, I have turned to an antidote that is not practical, but does take my mind away from my sadness. In all likelihood, friends would advise me to dispense with this unproductive antidote; but, over time, it became a habit. At times, my mind is drawn back into its imaginings of being totally healthy, being the type of person who is capable of truly accepting and loving himself, and, therefore, has found love with another imagined companion of like kind. I have a creative, vivid imagination; therefore, I can construct scenarios that are superlatively idyllic. They are made of enduring beauty and love.

No, those imaginings are not the real thing; and, assuredly, they take away from my time and energy that, otherwise, could be spent reaching out to worthwhile people who might extend love in a realistic way. Yet, I am set in my ways. Without better health and greater spirit, I suppose that I shall remain as I am—and dream.

Painting by Maxfield Parrish

© 16 November 2015

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.

Aw Shucks, by Ricky

Aw Shucks! I have to work today and will miss SAGE’s Telling Your Story group. I was going to regale you with an awesome story of living and working on my grandparent’s farm. I got so dirty shucking corn husks that I had to shuck off my clothes and bathe in a galvanized wash tub at night. I guess you could say I was a dirty little shucker. In any case, since I must shuck off story group and go to work on Monday, there is no point in writing that awesome story. So, I guess I will just shuck off my clothes and go to bed instead. Night night.

© 5 April 5, 2015

About the Author

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

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

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

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com