The Men in My Life, by Pat Gourley

Good grief where to begin with this topic? It could certainly be the title of a book with many, many chapters. As I have written in the past it has been the women in my life who have had the most profound impact of substance. By that I mean they are the ones who have most influenced and shaped my intellectual, philosophical and certainly political bent. The one possible male exception would be Harry Hay.

For this piece though I am not going to write about Harry but rather a person who has been in my life for the past 38 years. This is a man who is now in his late 70’s who I first met I think in the fall of 1978 or perhaps the spring of 1979 that bit of history being somewhat fuzzy. We met for the first time and gloriously fucked at the Empire Baths and then got together the next night at my house for a repeat. That first night at the tubs I had picked him up in the showers and to be honest it was his quite ample and thick cock that first caught my attention.

I really don’t think of myself as a size queen and have thoroughly enjoyed many penises of all sizes and girths over the years and know from lots of experience that it is not the size of the member but rather the skill of the partner that makes all the difference.  It is no longer the case but in my teens, 20’s and 30’s the sight of a large, stiff dick was irresistible with all caution thrown to the wind and if this appendage was attached to a man who also knew how to use it, all the better.  I really most enjoyed unwrapping a package that came with no assembly required.

Over the next few years we came to know one another quite well. I learned that he was married and lived in rural Colorado. And most shocking of all he was a Republican! Amazing how if the sex is really good party affiliation seems to rarely be an issue.

Our get-togethers were always sporadic but consistent over the years and I came to truly appreciate our genuine mutual love and his no strings attached generosity. I did meet his wife on a couple of occasions. She is a wonderful, dynamic woman who he still lives with him in a Western, rural and very Republican state. I never asked and have no idea what she knew or did not.  From the early 1980’s on, at my insistence, our sex became scrupulously safe which turned out to be a good idea after I tested positive for HIV in 1985. He was always the top though so any risk to him and or to his wife was minimal; latex sealed that deal, even with almost all play being just mutual masturbation.

The dramatic difference in out worldviews and every day life has been a recurrent and at times a challenging lesson for me. Our truly loving relationship has been a reminder to not take my own politics too seriously. I do believe if we could get a majority of the world’s men to lie naked with one another, even just on rare occasions, the world would be so much more peaceful and less toxic in general.  Ah, the stuff of dreams.

Though I have only an inkling of how closeted his life may still be I have always been very protective of his identity and his hetero life. He has described himself to me as gay but I don’t ever try to deconstruct that too much. As a good San Francisco friend recently said in describing another queer theorist writing’s in the Gay and Lesbian Review: “his ramblings sound like Tourette’s with a PhD”. No need for me to risk being that sort of analyst with my dear friend.

We most recently got together a few days ago on a visit to Denver. Most of our time was spent soulfully chatting about the recent suicide of a mutual friend and deeply listening to one another grieve and shed a few tears about this loss.

There was a bit of naked play on this visit, nothing to compare to 30 years ago of course, but still enjoyable and generous on his part. No, I did not succumb to lecturing him on the fact that his dick would work much better if he could get the animal product out of his diet.  We got to the point years ago where the quality of our time together was not predicated on the rigidity or complete lack thereof of our hard-ons. Something that seems to be a real barometer of many long-lasting gay male friendships I think.

Speaking only from a gay male perspective here I think it worth mentioning the truly amazing and literally millions of gay male friendship networks that are enduring and often totally non-sexual that characterize so much of our queer lives. This is something that truly differentiates us from many of them. Let me close paraphrasing my favorite Harry Hay quote of all time: “the only thing we have in common with the straight world is what we do in bed”.

© 27 Mar 2016 

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.

Meaningful Vacation -- Massachusetts, by Louis

I cannot remember the lady’s first name, although her last name must have been Inman, but, sometime in the 1970’s, she invited me to stay a week in Bridgewater and North Chathamsport, Massachusetts. Her house was in Bridgewater and her summer house was in North Chathamsport. I remember it was early October because we went swimming in Massachusetts Bay, and the water was still warm. After the swim I would return to her summer cottage and take an outdoor shower to wash off the saltwater. The main event of the vacation was the Inman family reunion, which was very well attended. Whoever these people were, they were my distant cousins.

We then visited several 17^th Century graveyards and found Inman’s, Aldrich, Jenks and Winthrop gravestones. As time went by, I used to think about the original pilgrims -- what was in their minds? What made them tick? There is the version of their first arrival in 1620 that we all heard in school, which was presented as a patriotic story.

Much has been written about the pilgrims, but the two books that I think best describe what the original pilgrims believed in are Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan and The Protestant Ethic by Max Weber, sociologist.

17^th Century Puritan society of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had its drawbacks. Gay people were unmentionable. Most Jews and Quakers went to live in Providence, Rhode Island where tolerance for different people was the order of the day. The strength of the Puritan society depended largely on killing the native American population. Religious non-conformity and political dissent were not tolerated. And then the Salem witch trials came along in 1690. The Puritan neighbors were constantly going to court and suing each other over small and large plots of land, and water rights. The plentiful court records indicate why we have such good genealogical records for that period.

It is true that the modern version of Puritan society is a world-wide empire called the United States of America, but does this world-wide empire live up to the standards of the original Pilgrims? Do its moral drawbacks outweigh its so-called moral superiority?

Bernie Sanders claims the U. S. government has been corrupted by Wall Street. I would say that this is one example of immorality that modern-day Puritans should disapprove of. The U. S. empire tends to bully third world countries and has not solved the problem of white people in the U. S. bullying black people and rich people bullying poor people. Our foreign policy seems much too bellicose. Our whole capitalist system seems to be based on greed rather than on sincere Judeo-Christian moral precepts.

Protestant Work Ethic

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Cover of the original German edition of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

The Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work ethic) is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes that hard work, discipline and frugality^[1] are a result of a person's salvation in the Protestant faith, particularly in Calvinism, in contrast to the focus upon religious attendance, confession, and ceremonial sacrament in the Catholic tradition.

The Protestant work ethic is often credited with helping to define the societies of Northern Europe, such as in Britain, Scandinavia, Latvia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. British colonists and later Germanic immigrants brought their work ethic to British North America and later the United States of America. As such a person does not need to be religious in order to follow the Protestant work ethic, as it is a part of certain cultures.

The phrase was initially coined in 1904–05 by Max Weber in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.^[2]

The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come; Delivered under the Similitude of a Dream is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature,^[1][2][3][4] has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been out of print.^[5][6]

When I read The Pilgrim’s Progress, I found it extremely entertaining; the bad aspect of the book was its apparent emphasis on being narrow-minded and humility meaning self-deprecation. It trivialized many aspects of Christianity such as the sacraments. But it did explain how 17^th century Puritans thought.

© 21 Apr 2016 

About the Author 

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City, Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA's. I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.

The Women in My Life, by Lewis

I.  TRUDY

I think I am on safe ground in saying that I am likely the serendipitous product of the unlikely coupling of a lesbian with a man who never seems to have had a prurient thought in his lifetime.

I wrote extensively about my mother back on December 2nd of last year.  Back then, I did not delve into the circumstantial evidence for my mother's lesbianism.  I will wade into that somewhat sticky thicket today, however, as it is the earliest historical instance of the almost fantastical history of the women in my experience.

Let us turn the imaginary clock back to May 15th, 1939.  The scene is Pratt, Kansas, a place scarcely touched by the Renaissance, let alone the Enlightenment.  Married to Bernard for 12-years with children, B.J., aged 10, and Joyce, aged 8, Mother filed for divorce on the grounds of "extreme cruelty".  The Divorce Agreement goes on to claim that "unfortunate differences and disputes have arisen between the parties and they have separated with the intention of living separate and apart from each other during the remainder of their natural life [sic]".

The only complaints Mother ever expressed to me about Bernard were that he was an alcoholic and once came onto their porch distraught and tearfully imploring her to take him back.  She berated his lack of manliness.  My half-sister and -brother, who continued to see their father until his death, told me that he was not an alcoholic.

Here's where the Divorce Agreement gets bizarre:  "There have been two children born of this marriage…They are now living with the husband and he is to have the care and custody of said children in the future.  In this connection the said husband agrees to be responsible for the support and maintenance of said children.  It is further agreed that the wife shall be permitted to see and visit said children and said children are to be allowed to see and visit with her.

"It is further understood and agreed that the husband and wife, since their marriage, have accumulated but little real and personal property...and they have some personal property, including an automobile.  All of said property is to belong to the husband, except any items of personal property belonging to the wife."

Then, comes this little tidbit:  "...[T]he said wife does hereby release and discharge the said husband from all obligations of support and from all claims and duties arising out of their marital relations."

Within a year-and-a-half, my mother had married again, this time to my father.  It was his first marriage.  I'm not certain of the date of their first meeting, but I do know where it took place.  Dad had an office on the second floor of the Sears department store in downtown Pratt where my mother and another woman operated a beauty parlor.  At some point in this interval between "Hello" and "I do", Mom's business partner unceremoniously departed for California.  My suspicion is that Mom got caught in a gay tryst and surrendered all rights to parentage and property to silence Bernard.  That would also explain the sudden departure of mom's business partner for the west coast.

Since I have covered some of this ground before, I will not repeat myself.  Suffice it to say that for as long as I can remember, Mom and Dad slept in twin beds.  From the time I was six, Dad dressed in another room.  I never remember seeing them kissing or hugging or showing any form of physical affection during their 49-year marriage.  Was Mom gay?  Dad?  Both?  Neither?  Perhaps they were perfectly suited marital partners--each as cover for the other at a time when being gay was strictly verboten.  I'll probably never know for certain. 

II.  JOYCE

Joyce was Mom's second child by her first husband, Bernard.  I have mentioned her before in one of these stories as the young woman who gave me such a thrill when she stayed overnight in my bed when I was about 3 or 4 years old.  She was truly beautiful and a dear, sweet person.  I adored her and so did my mother.

As long as I can remember, Joyce was married to Moe.  Moe was an engineer on the railroad.  They lived in Pratt.  They had two children, a boy, Damon, followed a couple years later by a girl, DeeAnn.  I was an uncle at the age of 9.  When they came to visit, Mom and Joyce would go shopping and I would play with my niece and nephew.  We all got along famously.

When she was 55, Joyce was afflicted with pancreatic cancer and soon died.  It was a terrible blow to the family, and my mother in particular.  I will treasure her memory forever.

III.  SANDY SUE

Before I started school, my best friend was Sandy Sue.  She lived in a corner house at the far end of the block.  She had a basement where we could play hide-and-seek.  Sometimes, when other kids were around, we would play spin-the-bottle.  On one occasion, Sandy Sue and I were in the basement playing with matches.  Somehow--I'm pretty certain I had a roll to play--a wastebasket was set on fire.  The flames shot up as high as my head.  We both panicked.   Sandy's mother must have heard something or smelled smoke because she came running down the stairs and put out the fire.  I was sent home, now as a persona non grata. 

IV.  JUDY

When I was half-way through kindergarten, my parents moved into a small ranch house with three bedrooms so my maternal Granddad could live with us and Dad could have an office at home.  On moving day, I was standing in the front yard taking in the new surroundings when I heard a voice approaching from behind.   It was Judy.  She was what they used to call a tomboy.  She grew up with three older brothers and liked to do things that boys like to do.  Although I was pretty shy, we became the best of friends.

I should have known by then that playing in basements invited risky behaviors.  When we were about 10--Judy was 12 days younger than I--we were playing hide-and-seek in her basement when she said, "Let's play doctor!"

"How do you play 'doctor'?", I naively queried.

"Well, I'll be the doctor first and you'll be the patient, then we'll switch", she replied.  "You'll start by taking off your clothes."

"Oh, no,” I blurted out.

"Don't worry.  I do it with my brother and he doesn't mind."

"If you insist, I'm leaving."

"OK, I won't insist," she said.

I've often wondered whether, had I not been so unaccustomed to being naked in the presence of others or had I not been an inchoate gay boy, might I have responded differently to Judy's entreaty.

When we were 5th graders, Judy and her family moved to Wichita.  Much later, on a visit when we were 19, she proposed to me.  By that time, I understood why "playing doctor" with her had not aroused my curiosity.  I told her "No", once again.  By that time, her family was living in Evergreen, CO, and I saw her only infrequently.  She married, then divorced, then married again and is now living in Arvada.  We are still friends though no longer close.

V.  JANET

After graduating from the University of Kansas with a Mechanical Engineering degree in January of 1970, I took a job with Ford in Dearborn, MI.  For the first time in my life, I had neither school nor friends to keep me busy.  I had lots of time to think about who I was and where my life was going.  I decided to get some professional counseling.  After many visits, I told my psychologist that I was sexually attracted to men.  His advice was to tell me that I would be happy if I simply found the right woman.  Within less than a year, I had met a woman and we started dating.  I was very uncomfortable and must have telegraphed my discomfort.  It only lasted a couple of months. 

Soon, I was feeling secure enough in my orientation that I wanted to come out to my parents back in Kansas.  I told my therapist that I was thinking of writing them a "coming out" letter.  He said that would be a terrible mistake, so I didn't.

About six months later I went to a Christmas party attended by clients of my therapist's two group sessions.  I struck up a conversation with a young woman who was a member of the other group or, should I say, she struck up a conversation with me.  Her name was Janet and we talked for two hours.  Like Judy, she was extroverted, very down-to-earth, and knew her own mind.  Not liking to linger at parties, I politely excused myself, said my "goodbyes" and left.  As I was getting into my car, a man known to both Janet and me came rushing out of the house with a note in his hand.  It was Janet's phone number.

Well, I did call her a few days later.  We had many interests in common and began to see each other regularly.  I even told her of my interest in men.  Janet had been "around the block", shall I say, sexually, having once been a member of the Sexual Freedom League, an organization formed in 1963 in New York City which, to quote Wikipedia, "existed to promote and conduct sexual activity among its members and to agitate for political reform, especially for the repeal of laws against abortion and censorship, and had many female leaders".  The fact that Janet had been raised in a Polish Catholic family but had rejected the Church while still in college for its sexism, only made her more attractive to me.

Within three months or so, we were having sex regularly.  I can remember driving to work from her apartment after spending the night wondering if my co-workers could detect the odor of our coupling. 

We were about to have sex in my bedroom on one day that July of 1972 when Janet asked me if I was still attracted to men.  I answered truthfully, "Yes".  She then wanted to know if I was still committed to marital monogamy, a subject we had discussed at length.  I answered in the affirmative.  She was happy with that. 

We married that fall in the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockford, IL.  The minister had been at the Detroit UU Church when we first met.  Her family came from Michigan, mine from Minnesota and Kansas, so the location was a good compromise. 

That night, there was no latex involved in our love-making.  By Thanksgiving, Janet began spotting.  Something was wrong.  I have already told this story, so I'll spare you now, except to say that we lost that child.  Eventually, luck being with us, we had two children, a girl and a boy.

I was absolutely true to my word and remained faithful to Janet throughout the 26 years of our marriage, as she was to me.  Oh, I had a rich fantasy life and that kept me going, so to speak.  We both had careers, she as an elementary school teacher and I as an automotive engineer.  Neither of us lived to work, however, and no housework nor child care activity was beneath either of our dignities.

As time went on, however, I found it increasingly difficult to sublimate my gay inner persona.  I began to focus more and more at home on my hobby, thinking that merely being "present" was parenting enough.  It wasn't, though it took me many years to figure that out--at a cost of much pain to my kids.  I won't dwell on this now.  That will be the subject for another Monday afternoon.

Let it suffice to say that Janet and I are still friends to this day, despite divorcing in 1999.  Janet stated emphatically that she would never remarry and she has held true to that conviction.  She lives close enough to both kids to see them regularly.  She spends her time playing clarinet in three community bands, taking watercolor classes, and visiting friends.  She has a number of serious health issues and is scheduled for hip replacement surgery in December.

For a quarter century, we were as close as any man and woman I have ever known.  She brought me blessings by the bucketful.  I couldn't have asked for a more loving companion and partner. 

LAURA/CALIX

I have already written about Laura's difficult delivery using forceps on her head while the doctor pulled the delivery table, a nurse, and me across the delivery room floor.  I also told about the first time I held her in my arms when she was less than a day old, removing the hospital gown I had been given only to find a blob of baby poop on my dress shirt.  Yes, it was very early in my daughter's life that I knew who was calling the shots.

Calix was not the name Janet and I gave her at birth.  That was "Laura".  "Calix" is the name our daughter assumed when she became an adult.  Other than both consisting of five letters, the second of which is 'a', the two names could hardly sound more different.  It was just another milestone on her journey toward becoming her own person.

Is it a rule of parenting that, if one of your children is neat, punctual, compliant, unassuming and shy, the other will be passive-aggressive, messy, contrary, and stubborn?  If so, how much of that is rebellion, how much life experience, and how much luck-of-the-draw?

In 1980, Janet and I, with our daughter about to enter kindergarten, moved from Detroit to the tony suburb of Grosse Pointe Farms, where Janet taught 4th grade.  For the 7-1/2 years we lived in the big city, we had not had so much as a lawn sprinkler stolen, although it had been slightly unnerving to watch the tree limbs drop to the ground as the next-door neighbors and their friends fired their guns into the sky on New Years' Eve.

Five months after moving in, Janet and I attended a Detroit Symphony Orchestra concert.  The baby-sitter we had hired--and her parents--were known to Janet through her teaching.  The girl was 13 but kind of new to baby-sitting, certainly new to us.  After the concert, we had been invited to the home of one of Janet's fellow teachers for coffee.  Driving home around 12:30 AM, we could see from a couple of blocks away flashing red lights in the vicinity of our house.  As we pulled into the drive, the side door opened and a plainclothes policeman approached the car.  He ushered us inside.  There had been some trouble.

Earlier in the evening, a woman known only superficially to Janet had been in the emergency waiting room of a local hospital with a couple of friends.  They were trying to get her committed for psychiatric care but needed the signature of a second doctor because it was without the patient's consent.  At some point, the distraught woman had simply walked out of the hospital and took off on foot in the direction of our house.  She had gone nearly two miles when a neighbor noticed her in the middle of the street, shedding clothes as she went.  The neighbor called the police.  We had left the side porch light on.  Whether that was what attracted the woman to our house or not, I don't know.  She walked up to the side door naked from the waist up and rang the bell.  I'm sure she was verbalizing, as well.

When the baby-sitter saw her, she turned back and ran to the kitchen, where there was a phone.  She called her home.  Her dad answered.  Meanwhile, the woman broke a small window glass in the side door and let herself in.  She walked up to the sitter and began running her fingers through the girl's hair, upon which the babysitter dropped the phone and ran out the door.  At this point, the woman began rummaging through the kitchen drawers, looking for something to use as a weapon.  All she found, luckily, was a pair of vegetable shears.  She set out looking for a victim. 

The babysitter ran screaming toward a couple across the street walking their dog.  She tried to tell them which house she had come from but, in her panic and unfamiliarity, wasn't sure.  At just this moment, a cop car came down the street in response to the phone call reporting that a woman was taking off her clothes and dropping them on the street.

The distraught woman walked right past the bedroom where our two-year-old son was sleeping to the far end of the ranch house and into Laura's bedroom.  Waking her, she knelt over her and began to make mostly superficial stab wounds over Laura's face, torso, and near her vagina.  The most serious of the wounds penetrated Laura's lower lip.

When the police entered the house, they saw the woman wielding the scissors while repeating, "I have to kill the children".  It took three officers to wrestle the woman to the floor and put her coat back on to take her away.

Laura was not seriously hurt physically.  All of the wounds healed on their own except for the one to the lip, which required a stitch or two.  At the commitment hearing for the woman, I sat just in front of her husband, who whispered to me that all women are just a hair away from mental instability once a month anyway.  She was committed to a mental hospital for 90 days, after which she was released to the care of her loving husband.

Janet and I sought counseling for Laura immediately.  Some of the advice we got was less than useful, though we did not realize it right away.  I'm sure some of it did more harm than good, including setting up a point system to reward good behavior and punish bad.  Laura had always been late for everything, slow to dress, having to be coaxed to get ready for school, on and on.  She started sucking her thumb and continued doing it into high school.  It caused her mother and me no end of frustration.

In high school, Laura befriended a girl who also was an outsider.  Their relationship was so close that other kids thought they were lesbians.  Our son, Nolan, two years younger, was teased about that when he started high school.  In their senior year, Laura and the other girl had a falling out.  The other girl brought a knife to school and threatened Laura with it.  Laura became depressed.  She was hospitalized and diagnosed with PTSD, probably from the incident when she was four.

Calix was a talented poet and artist.  She went on to college hoping to teach philosophy but ran into a brick wall when it came to writing term papers.  She not only had PTSD but also ADD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder.  At age 38, she is still a year away from a bachelor's degree and works for $9 an hour at a clothes cleaning establishment.

Four years ago, she married the love of her life, Scott.  He works at Walgreen's as a clerk though he holds an MBA which he earned online.  Together, they made $25K last year and have, between them, over $70K in college loan debt.  They are living almost from hand-to-mouth and their future is far from bright.   They seem happy, though they cannot afford to have the child they so much desire, and I am happy for them.  It's nothing like the life Janet and I wanted for her but it will have to do.

EPILOGUE

There is another woman who has played a critical role in my life.  She was my son's girlfriend back in 2008.  Her name was Jasmine.  Nolan has a penchant for dating women with exotic names--Alethea, Jasmine, and Destiny among them.

One night in late February of 2008, Jasmine came to confront Nolan in his apartment after he had sought to break off the relationship.  Jasmine picked up a knife and stabbed Nolan in the throat, just missing his carotid artery by 2 mm.  He ran down the stairs and into the attached garage.  He got into his car and pressed the garage door opener.  Jasmine followed him to the garage and used the button near the inside door to close the garage door again.  She still clutched the knife.  Nolan got out of the car, ducked under the closing door and ran from neighbor to neighbor, barefoot, pajama-clad and bleeding in the snow, seeking help.  After several rebuffs, an elderly woman let him in.  Jasmine was tried and went to jail for four months following a plea bargain, despite evidence that she had used Nolan's computer to research the anatomy of the human neck, including the location of the critical artery.

I believe I am truly unique in the fact that both of my children were at one point in their lives stabbed by emotionally distraught, if not downright loony, women.  I think that gives me a somewhat unique perspective although I have no idea as to what.

© 24 Nov 2012 

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.

Bricks, by Gillian

My mother, not someone I would identify as a religious person, used to read me stories from the Bible. She favored the New Testament, particularly the Parables. I think she believed, quite rightly in my opinion, that they would have a more positive influence on me than Fairy Tales, many of which seem to be about little girls coming to bad ends through little or no fault of their own.

Occasionally she chose readings from the Old Testament, and one of these was the tale of Making Bricks Without Straw. (This is how it is generally thought of, anyway, though to be accurate that is incorrect. Pharaoh did not tell the Israelites they had to make bricks without straw but rather that straw would no longer be provided for them; they would have to get it themselves.) I suspect that she liked the tale because, in this post-war time of severe rationing, she felt that she spent her life trying to create the necessities of life without the basic ingredients.

Be all of that as it may, it was my introduction to bricks.

The house I grew up in, like most homes in rural Britain, was made of local stone, not brick nor wood. Various ambitious British monarchs building various ambitious fleets of wooden ships had depleted British woodlands almost to the point of oblivion. Brick was expensive. Stone was frequently there for the taking. The problem is, rough-hewn stone such as that of my childhood home, is rather like a badly-cut jigsaw puzzle. The pieces don't fit together well, and require great amounts of mortar to keep things stable. The mortar requires constant repair, and even with that the incessant rain finds it's way into and through the walls. The house was always cold and damp.

When I rode the local bus to to the local town, with it's burgeoning suburbia, I looked upon the brick homes with envy. Perhaps they did, as my mother said with sniffing disdain, all look alike. But that look was warm, and snug, and cozy; none of which adjectives could be applied to our home. They were, perhaps, 150 years younger, but that failed to register. In the event, I moved from English fieldstone to American wood siding and never did live in a brick house until Betsy and I got together. Over the twenty-eight years we have been together we have had three houses, all brick, and all living up to my dreams of warm and cozy.

In the Britain of my childhood, I'm not sure about nowadays, we would call a certain type of person a brick. Ooh, you really are a brick! you'd say to the kind neighbor who, unasked, took your children to her house for a few days so that you could go to bed with that awful flu. He's such a brick, you'd say, about the friend who was always there to lend a practical hand in times of trouble. A brick is someone thoughtful, kind, reliable, generous. Betsy is a brick. It's a large part of why I love her so much.

Several years ago I signed up for a tour of Lakewood Brick Company. It was scheduled to start quite early in the morning, and we lived in Park Hill at that time, so I left home about 7.00 a.m.  There was surprisingly little traffic about. Was it some holiday I'd forgotten? Rather than wondering about it I gave thanks for quiet streets which gave me time to pop into the grocery store to get a snack for lunch. The store somehow had an odd feeling to it, rather the way the roads had. The few customers all seemed to be standing in little groups engaged in serious conversations rather than actually shopping. I was getting a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.

'What's going on?' I asked two employees who stood muttering together.

'Oh! Haven't you heard?' They stumbled over each other to give me the news.

'A plane crashed into one of the New York sky-scrapers,' said one.  'Only, then there was another crash so they don't know what's happening,' added the other.

I forgot lunch and went back to the car to listen to the radio. Clearly what they had told me was what was being reported, but all in total confusion. The newscasters obviously had no clear picture of what exactly had happened and what continued to happen. The only certainty was; it was not good. It was serious. It was some kind of national emergency.

What to do? Should I go back home? To do what? Would they cancel the Brick Company tour?

Uncertainly I turned through the high fence gates and parked, to be joined in the next few minutes by a few other cars. The tour began as scheduled but with about a quarter of the number expected. Those of us who had turned up gave it our best but it was hopeless. The man leading the tour tried, but was clearly distracted. He wasn't concentrating on what he was saying and no-one was really listening. Cell Phones kept chiming and chirping. The recipient would listen, disconnect, and pass on the latest to the rest of us. Pretty soon, by some kind of unspoken but unanimous decision, we gave up and went home through streets that were, if anything, even more silent than before, to sit at home and stare in horrified disbelief at our televisions along with everyone else.

Where we live now is not very far from Lakewood Brick Company. We drive past it quite often.  But no matter how many times I pass it, it never fails to take me back to that terrible day which so changed this country, and indeed the world, forever.

Until I started to write this piece, I don't think I had ever realized that bricks actually loom quite large in my psyche, one way and another. Amazing what you discover about yourself writing these little Monday afternoon vignettes.

© 12 Oct 2015 

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.

Vibrations of Time, by Carlos

A ghost abides in my house, although the word ghost is hardly the appropriate word to use, for I think both he and I prefer to use the word spirit. He is an inconspicuous energy that lingers around me like the aroma of mint tea on a frosty day or the taste of orange blossom honey on a warm croissant. I have only seen him once, a snippet of a shadow that appeared in my periphery vision and was gone like a summer beam of light. I was working in the garden and happened to look up at small window above the staircase, catching him as he spied down on me. He is a fine-featured, tall gentleman dressed in what looks like an Edwardian morning coat and silk ascot. And although I dismissed him as an overactive imagination borne perhaps from too many hours under the summer sun or from the expectation that a spirit should after all reside in a Victorian home, I have never, until now, spoken of him. I’ve given him the name John, and he seems most content that I should name him so.

This is not to say that John has always been a quiet energy, satisfied to waft through the air like the first sublime notes of Karl Jenkins’ Benedictus. When I first moved into our 1888 Queen Anne, she looked like a dollhouse that had been touched inappropriately by too many who had taken from her, but never loved her unconditionally. The windows were broken, and the rooms frigid. Her fine details were gone, ripped out and sold or simply discarded and replaced by the more modern contrivances of evolving tastes. As for her garden, only two century-old maples and two weathered apple trees remained, no doubt, an attempt by early homesteaders to tame the wild grasslands of a former time. Nevertheless, our attraction to each other was instantaneous, like two would-be lovers who meet on a quiet dance floor and see each other’s souls through the haze and shadowy darkness. Putting an offer, and finalizing the closing, within weeks our destinies were linked. On my first day in my proud, but sad, house, I sat on the floor and envisioned hopes and promises yet to be birthed. I sat in terror, pondering whether I would be worthy enough to respect her and restore her faded self-esteem. Upon moving in, I immediately hanged my treasured cuckoo clock upon a wall, taking great joy in calibrating the weights every week to enjoy the automaton’s hourly call. It became a symbol of my own nesting.

Often the vibrations between house and me were at odds and tenuous, much like a newly wedded couple in an arranged marriage. She was suspicious of my intentions; I remained dubious as to whether I could do right by her, whether I could be faithful to just one. The energy within the house was impudent, challenging me as though to undermine me and determine my reaction.  After the water pipes froze and water fountained throughout the first floor one frigid winter night, I repaired the damage and remained, proving to both us that I was not about to retreat in spite of our apprehensions. As I cleaned from the deluge and pulled up nasty, old carpeting, I connected with the past, discovering sheaves of 1920’s vintage newspapers, now soaked, that had been laid down by a former tenant to insulate the floors. Later, she tested my vows as when during a small dinner party, I shame-faced discovered I had served gritty sand in our soup bowls. Thinking I had been guilty of not washing the vegetables, I, to my dismay, ladled out a chunk of horsehair plaster from the ceiling that had unexpectedly fallen into the kettle. It was not long after that that John’s presences made itself known. One night something touched my toe as I lay in bed. I spent a few sleepless hours in a frigid room, not sure whether I was more frustrated with the blustery winds that tumbled and shrieked through the dark hallways or the unwarranted caress from the unknown. When I demolished the upstairs walls, since they were but cheap cardboard sheathing unceremoniously nailed down between rows of wood furring strips, giving the rooms a prison-like aura, John was angry, perhaps because he thought that like others before me, my intentions were to dismantle his world even further. I heard him stomping angrily upstairs with fury, convincing me I was about to be pummeled by a would-be intruder. However, when I ran upstairs to investigate, the sound ceased; he had retreated. Over the ensuing years, the energy in the house gradually changed to a live-and-let-live ambiance as I jacked up foundations, replaced floors and windows, brought the plumbing and electricity up to code, and strengthened the bones of the house. Eventually, chandeliers and fretwork, stained glass and tile, roses and violets and sweet woodruff gardens graced my home, mirroring her former self and solidifying my intentions to honor a promise made when I was young and naive. Years earlier, I had concluded that John did not care for the raucous sounds of my cuckoo clock since as long as the clock chimed, his presence lingered nearby; thus, I decided to put the clock in storage.  I suspect that in doing so, I finally banished him, for the energy in the house became peaceful and sedate, a true nest of repose. Yet, in truth, I missed his child-like antics, his protective aura that pushed away suitors who were not good enough for me, but welcomed those bathed in an evanescent light. Today, although he never reveals his presence and rarely leaves a calling card of his ethereal essence, I know he is still as close as my heart. Ever vigilant and circumspect, I know he watches protectively over the house, over my now husband and me. We felt his presence reaching out the night our Jonathan died as though reminding us that death is a return back home, with a promise of reuniting. I feel his presence as he keeps guard over me in the garden, trying to coax another poppy or hollyhock to reveal the scarlet garment encased within her burgeoning bud. I feel his presence when I am afraid of death and tired of living. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I walk downstairs and meditate, and although always unobtrusive, he waits nearby, shielding me from evil. Because I’ve come to understand his intentions as being altruistic and benign, I’ve decided to unpack the cuckoo clock and restore its warbling mechanic bird.  It is time to let him know he is not banished; it is time to restore him to his rightful place in our home.

Our home remains a work- in-progress, as well as a financial behemoth. More important, however, it is a haven, a reminder that past sunbeams continue to blaze and undulating rhythms continue to resonate, reminding me that I am but a traveler temporarily away from home. I rejoice that time’s vibrations echo in my life; I acknowledge energy’s immortality. I suspect that when I finally awaken from my slumber, John, whether he is real or simply an abstract, metaphysical self-deception, will serve as a reminder of the bewildering ripples of time. Thus, I conclude that oscillations of time and space ultimately act like concentric circles radiating from their source, the effect expanding outward until equilibrium is again restored.

© 23 May 2016 (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.

How Being Lesbian Has Directed My Spiritual Journey - A Journey to Serenity, by Betsy

I was recently reminded of the huge respect I have for the 12 Step Program when I attended an Al-anon meeting as a guest.  I had some knowledge of the 12 steps from some previous experiences, but have never actually worked the program. 

I was amazed to hear a member share that he was thankful for the alcoholism in his family as it is because of that that the man had been introduced to the 12 steps program.

For the next couple of days, I attempted to draw parallels in my life to what I had heard in the meeting and to apply my experiences to some of the steps.  It finally occurred to me that I could make an analogy with my experience of growing up gay and coming out.

Consider the first step, for example.  “We admitted that we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.”  Apply this to coming out, I mused.  I acknowledged, accepted that I was homosexual and powerless to change that fact.”

Growing up pretending to be straight, living the life-style of a heterosexual person can be seen as resistance to nature itself. A self-imposed resistance put in place by societal norms and the culture around sexual behavior of the time.  Admitting, that is, giving in to the reality that I am homosexual, not heterosexual, accepting this fact and being totally aware of it could be seen as the first step to take in managing a large problem in one’s life. Clearly I prefer using the word “acknowledge” or accept” to the word “admit” in this context. Making others aware of our true self reinforces one’s resolve and strength to manage that life and to live honestly.

Being gay, of course, is not a direct parallel to abuse of alcohol. Although there are those who may see homosexuality as an addiction and something of which one should diligently work to deny him/herself and to be rid of.  Fortunately, it appears that most people today know better.  Today we are anxiously waiting to see whether our Supreme Court wants to be included in that majority group.

Step 2: “We came to see that a power greater than ourselves restored us to sanity.”  I see my sexuality as part of my Being and my being represents, according to my belief, the power of God within me.  This is not something I control any more than I can control the color of my eyes, the shape of my face, or any other aspect of my tangible or intangible form.

Steps 3, 4, and 5 further reflect the healing effect of acknowledging who I truly am both in word and life style.

I’m going to skip step 6—“We’re entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.”

However, I can see interpreting this as a supplication to God to forgive me for not honoring my true self at an earlier time in my life.

The rest of the steps are more directly applicable to issues other than coming out/being out. However, I see them as very powerful concepts to put into practice for any one any time.

I also was reminded of the Serenity Prayer which is used to open and close the Al-anon meetings.  I have a miniature of the Serenity Prayer on my bedside table.  It’s been there a long time and I usually forget it is there. I am very happy to be reminded of its powerful words—very appropriate for GLBT’s—and I hope to remember to utter them or at least think of them every day.

“God, give me the strength to accept what I cannot change,

The courage to change that which I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.”

© 10 Jun 2015 

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.