Flying By

Life is speeding up. Flying by. I feel motionless, molasses slow, as it spins around me. I want to get it all out, get it all down, carve it into stone, preserve my words, make my mark before I slump into dust, so many nameless motes and bits.

It's cold and mean outside. Inside, too. I have to fight to care about my own voice. I have to push and punch and grind my teeth. I have to growl to keep the stray dogs away from my morsel of voice. I carry it, warm and vulnerable, in the back of my mouth, beneath my tongue. If I speak it might dart away, may fly, lace wing, stick bug lost in the hurricane.

I let it out to hen scratch on paper, peck at the keyboard, lay eggs beneath the back porch. It clucks and furtively struts, it's chicken and likes to hide in the coop. In its voice nest it dreams, weaves feathers, preens and gobbles shiny pebbles for its gizzard.

Beware the fox. Beware the knife. Beware the sniffing hounds and beware the farmer's wife.

 

Homecoming

Do you remember your homecoming, your prom, your turnabout? Was it exciting, awkward, humiliating, tender? It's probably a mixed bag. Adolescence is a mixed bag. A grab bag. Can I just wear a bag over my head? Stepping on toes, shuffling from side to side, where do I put my hands? Where do I put my heart? Can I hide in the shadows? Can I hide in plain sight?

I went to a faux Homecoming Dance this past weekend, a do-over Homecoming Dance, for all ages. There were young twenty-something couples, elderly couples who REALLY knew how to dance (no shuffling), and everything in between. There were shy wallflowers and brash sunflowers, twilight and limelight. There was a live band that knew how to boogie and knew how to croon, played it fast and strummed it slow. There was the sound of high heels clicking on polished hardwood, petals dropping from crushed corsages, rustle of satin and velvet. You could see that this would be a night to remember. A night when things began or began to end.

I also keenly noticed that there were straight couples, and a few lesbian couples, but no gay male couples. Sure, there were quite a few gay men there who danced, but not with each other. Solo or with an acceptable girl, isn't that appropriate? Acceptable. Careful and civil and proper and straight. In that way, it felt like high school all over again. I felt a shiver of cold, of old loss; I could trace the fleeting shape of it like frost on window glass.

We are trained with wires of convention, bent and styled like bonsai trees, pruned of our upstarts, our quirks, our naughty bits. Snip out, splice in, graft some straight fruit to that queer branch. Oh to be Golden, to be Red, to be Delicious, the apple of everyone's eye, the beau of the ball. Instead, I am quince, I am star fruit, I am horned melon. I am variegated and hybrid, I am other, I am heirloom and throwback. I am not round, I do not roll; I weeble as I wobble and sometimes I fall.

Sometimes I fail. The words fail me and I fail the words. I fear. When I kiss him, I wonder who's watching. I want to hold hands walking down the street, but I don't. I wonder who has a brick, or who has a metal bat. I know what cold sweat feels like between my shoulder blades, the rush of blood and the ringing in my ears when I hear: FAGGOT... HOMO... QUEER... They are bold and capital and blunt, they are hammer and mallet, they sledge and slam. So I want to slam and mosh, punch and shove, dance and dance and then hold you close, I want this to be the night when it began, not when it began to end.

When fear sets up shop, it nests. It infests. It mites and bites and fleas and tease. If you listen, you'll never leave the house. You'll cower under the dark covers of your skull. Fear is syrup and opiate, just a spoonful of shiver makes you sleep, comforts and conforms, keeps you compliant in public.

Lower your voice. Look straight ahead. Pay attention. Use pencil, not pen. No outside food or drink. Follow the signs. BYOB. Merge. Hands behind your back. Please use other entrance. School Zone. Chin up. Stay calm. No shouting. Emergency exit. Safety first. No parking. Stop, drop and roll. Stay in your lane. Enunciate clearly. No smoking allowed. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Walk slowly. Sit still. No dancing. Don't be a fucking faggot.

 

Outrage Fatigue

I read this quote last October (2006) over at Susan's Visual Voice blog, and it's still timely:

The effort to say nothing that will offend anyone is to say nothing that will benefit anyone. Likewise, a culture that values above all else not offending anyone is a culture whose sole purpose is to maintain superficiality and polite dishonesty among its citizens. It may be the same for the Church.~ Roy Howard

Polite dishonesty. I spend so much time being politely dishonest, embroidering my life and interactions with so many little rules, so many little reminder notes, that I start to lose myself. I don't even know that I'm gone. I turn the other cheek so often that my head spins around in lazy circles like a rotating dessert case down at the corner diner. I'm sweet as pie; would you like me warmed up, sugar? Dollop of whipped cream? Cherry on top?

And in this pre-election season, with the Candidate-critters scurrying around like earnest squirrels, collecting nuts and garnering votes for 2008, there's enough polite dishonesty in the air to set off every bullshit detector in America. My outrage filter is clogged and needs to be replaced so often that I'm experiencing outrage fatigue. I'm tired of being angry, of reading the headlines every morning and being shocked at the pettiness and hatred and bigotry in this country and... and... after a while, I just run out of words. I scan the back pages of newspapers, pick through buried text on websites, I listen to the voices in the electronic wind, and can I find glints of gold? Can I find facts that haven't been stretched like saltwater taffy, bland pap to fill our hungry tummys and make us warm and sleepy? Can I find any indication that we're not being told to live in an epic series of fantasy novels? "Fairy Tales From The Executive Branch"... I would even settle for the naive realism of "My Pet Goat" at this point.

I also hear the rallying cries of bullies in their pulpits, pointing fingers, brandishing verbal torches and pitchfork rhetoric. I hear them spit words like "immigrant" and "alien"... I hear them sneer "gay" and "agenda"... I hear what they say about citizenship and marriage, "family values" and morals, and I hear that they would never call these people son, daughter, brother, sister, father, mother, or beloved. They barely acknowledge them as fellow humans, as real people, let alone family. And they most certainly do not recognize them in their exclusive clubs, in the gated communities of their locked hearts, or in the safety and comfort of their climate-controlled churches.

tipping point

What are any of us capable of when we make selfish, self-serving choices? Any good person is one bad choice away from not being able to look at themselves in the mirror, and several bad choices away from looking at themselves in the mirror and seeing nothing wrong. We're all sitting several tables over from the self that most of us would never want to be, but could be.

If you wear a comfortable groove of bad choices down the center of your soul, it gets harder and harder to jump the tracks, doesn't it? You think it's easy like Sunday morning, all molasses and flow, but the tide is going out and there's an undertow...

If bad people ever decide to make good choices, do they get steadily more good? How deep is that new veneer of sweetness on their nature? Do maggots shit icing, black widows spin sugar, mosquitoes spit back their stolen blood? Do the snakes among us molt out of the slinky layers of dead skin, dung beetles slough off the crusty brown carapace, crocodile teeth cut down to the bone and expose clean, new flesh?

Can I teeter on this totter and see the pendulum swing, the parabolic track between good and evil that makes us do, makes us be? Where is the tipping point, the flash point, the crystallization point where ice spikes out across the still surface of a night-bound pond, the ignition point where a tinder-brittle forest erupts in flames?

Roll the dice, count the pips, read the leaves. The sure, solid step on the balance beam allows you to cross; hesitate or falter and you fall. Better to toss the dice and know, than spend your mayfly time clutching the unformed possibilities in your tight, sweaty palm. Better to eat the apple and spit out the seeds, leaving a trail of trees and tears, a life well-lived. Better to step through the portal, choose a path, make mistakes, tame regrets, than to spend your days and nights staring at the closed door, a stem cell wishing it was a forest, anything but itself.

father's day

I wish I could say something nice about my father today. Bring up a cheery memory and bask in the warmth of it. Feel proud and noble, connected to an endless chain of fathers and sons stretching back to Adam. Something manifest. Something destined. Something good and true.

Really.

But I just sit here at the keyboard, and wonder what kind of sly sob story he's telling his new wife today, his new friends, his new church, anyone who will listen to and feel sorry for him. His sons have rejected him, especially his cruel, thoughtless, angry eldest son (the gay one? Really? Oh, that's such a shame), and on father's day, it's just so sad... Isn't that a sad thing, for a father to be alone on father's day? Isn't that the saddest thing in the whole fucking world? Can we do shots of his crocodile tears with some salt and a twist of lime?

If you feel sorry for him, he has you where he wants you. He'll slither up into your head along the silvery-slime trail of your pity, nesting in your brain pan, laying eggs in your compassion. And if you love him, well, that's a tether, bit and bridle that he'll yank you around with until you're broken, jawless, and then he'll just drag around your corpse, smearing the black rot of your love on his face like war paint. He's his own tribe, a tribe of one, and there's no room for others.

I made my decision. I won't be a trophy he can hang on the wall in the den, between the hunting rifles, above the zebra skin. I won't look good for him. I won't let him use me. I won't let him wear me like a glove, puppet strings making me bow and smile, mouthing his words and never wondering, never wondering what it's like... to be free.

I made my decision to be free.

No matter the scratchings at the door in the middle of the night, the mewling, the big eyes moist and full of pathos. I won't be a part of his passion play.

No matter the years of silence. He can bide his time. He can whisper things in my brother's ear, things that wend their way to mine, depth charges meant only for me. He can leave comments on the Internet like dung, like spoor, marking his territory with little piles of circular logic, hate masked as reason, lies masked as Divinity, shit and God mixed up together in the mud... would you like a mud pie? Oh, he can bide his sweet time.

I expose him to the light.

Forgive him again and again.

Let him fall to inconsequential dust in the back of my head, a daily mantra, an exorcising psalm, a mandala of protection, a prayer of absolution.

I can say something nice about my father today.

He didn't kill me, or my spirit, even though he tried every day for decades. He made me who I am, because I made the choice to never be like him. I made the choice to love. I made the choice to be exactly who God made me to be. I made the choice to never give up. I made the choice to take risks. I daily choose the path of mindfulness and not mindlessness.

He made me who I am today, and I couldn't have asked for a better anti-role model.

trojan

I delete his digits from my cellphone,
cut his name from my email with swift clicks,
sever the dedicated connection of his trojan
trust, remove the flickring pics of his face,
his smile, his eyes, his laugh, his fingers,
the feel of his skin to the recycle bin,
wipe his memory from my harddrive and
punch him in the software, block his handles
and avatars, his podcasts and profiles,
his webbed words and IMs, his voicemails
and texts, all the digital roads that led to my
analog heart.

February

You have to give yourself permission to stop, hold the breath in, hold the breath in until you know your lungs are wet bags of wind aching to gust, and then let it out. Let it all out.

You have to give yourself permission to stop, take a good look at how far you've run, the footsteps in the snow trailing off behind you into the distance, the footsteps in the grass dipping over the horizon, the footsteps, the holes in the ground, the peaks and valleys are all you have left to show where you've been.

You have to acknowledge the breath and the footsteps, the grief and joy and distance. You have to sit with the grief, read it from cover to cover, live with it until the sharp edges wear down, hold it in your hand until it's warm and the chill fades.

You have to acknowledge the joy too, creeping up behind you, stalking you, hunting, tracking you by the scent of your grief. You can weigh life down, tie it up with cement blocks and dump it in the river, but it will bubble back up. Life always finds a way to surface.

But sometimes you have to help the life along. Give it a nudge to set it in the right direction. Or set it back on the right track if it's gone astray.

blood oranges

blood oranges, sweet burnt setting suns,
stain my fingers amber and red;
I will dry the peels, thick citrus skins
thinned to tatters, bits, sticky strips
of rind and sky.

forsythia blooms in sprays, rockets, spring
fireworks of searing yellow, crazed graffiti
against retinas, afterimage upon afterimage,
unveiling layer upon layer, unbearably bright
after winter's brown and white.

unfurling bud and pendant bulge, crocus and
sparrow, heave and twitch, coil and tense,
snap and fuzz, soft and scent, burst and rush.

the green sap swell breaks the cold dam of April
and all is well again, all is well again.

green witth envy, green with guilt

It was a small staff meeting like any other I'd come to expect. Barbara* started with her notes from last week's meeting, then discussed the progress she'd made on a new employee handbook. She chirped along, energetically jumping from point to point, while the rest of us smiled and nodded mechanically.

Our manager, Chuck, leaned back in his chair and sighed. His middle-age spread strained against his too-tight leather belt and threatened to burst the lower buttons of his blue plaid shirt. Joe, the lead technician, leaned forward on his elbows and drummed the conference room table with his calloused fingers. He and Chuck both had big Ford trucks, and frequently traded tips on accessories and upgrades. Anna sat quietly, a nervous, tall woman with intense eyes; she knew all the juicy inter-company gossip and ferreted out new tidbits on a daily basis.

We discussed the finer points of processes and programs, line items and acceptable business language, internal company memorandums that no one really cared about but had to pay attention to. As the meeting drew to a close, we stacked our pads of lined paper and stapled hand-outs, clicked our ballpoint pens, talked about the upcoming company picnic.

Chuck sighed and stretched, clasping his hands behind his neck.

With a wry, knowing grin he said to everyone, "Is it just me, or are there more homos around every day?"

Laughter erupted around the long conference table.

Joe quickly chimed in, "No doubt man! Where do they all come from? They're like roaches, I swear..."

More spontaneous laughter filled the small room.

Anna said, "Well someone needs to find an exterminator then; if I can buy a roach bomb for my house, why can't I buy a fag bomb for my neighborhood?

Barbara chirped, "What they really need to do is round them all up and ship them off somewhere..."

Joe finished her sentence, "...and when they get there, blow them up."

Chuck and Joe laughed until they were practically crying, Anna's face tight and red with mirth, Barbara tittering like it was the funniest thing she'd ever heard in her life.

And I laughed too. Laughed as hard as any of them, hoping and praying that if there was a God, somehow, that they wouldn't find out, that they wouldn't quiet from their laughter and as one all turn and look at me. That they wouldn't all just suddenly KNOW. That I was one of the cockroaches, one of the homos they'd like to round up and ship off and exterminate. I was a young 'un too, just twenty-three, practically larval.

They bonded in their hatred. I could see the invisible ties, the primal, tribal strands that bound them tighter with each burst of laughter, their collective joining against a dangerous threat. A threat to their families, their schools, their workplaces, their way of thought, their way of life. They all took turns swinging at this big rainbow pinata in their heads, this garish caricature of real life; they wanted to kill it, kill it dead, burst it open and then wallow in the sweetness of its absence.

With each second more of laughter, something inside me fled deeper, pushed down into the shadows, held its breath and averted its eyes as the predator stalked by. If I don't look at them, they won't see me. If I act just like they do I can fit in, I can pass, I can blend. Really. If I act just like they do, I can die inside a little more with each chuckle and comment until it won't hurt anymore. Until one day I'll forget that I'm gay, right? You have to die to yourself, die to your sinful desires, die and die and die some more. Gorge yourself on death, forget as fast as you can, turn your face to the wall until your neck breaks. If you keep on stabbing the darkness, you'll let the light in. If I keep pretending... if I just keep repeating that I'm not gay, then eventually I'll believe the lie. And isn't that preferable to the truth?

Because that's what God wanted for me, right? To follow His path, I had to walk the straight and narrow, I had to trust that He knew what He was doing and that I'd eventually see the fruit of His promise. If I stuck to the program, I was guaranteed results. That's a promise in the Bible. I wasn't sure where exactly, but that's what all my good friends at church would say. That's what my pastor would say. They'd pray over me and praise God for my witness to them, and they just knew that good things were in store for me, God's rich store of blessings saved up for his children who were faithful. Maybe God would even send me a wife who would be understanding and overlook my weakness, wouldn't that be great? I should pray for God's will in that area, and He would raise up a Godly woman for me. Now wouldn't that be a phenomenal witness to all the unsaved homosexuals? What a ministry that would be, they'd say, a rich bounty for the Lord, and they'd get a far away and dreamy look in their eyes, counting homo converts like chickens before they'd hatched.

Whether chickens or cockroaches, in the hand or under foot, that still doesn't make me quite human though, does it? Not... exactly... normal. Saved for sure, but it's really more of a trial period; I better read the small print for the special terms and conditions of my salvation. I'm the black sheep, the pink sheep, the bride of Christ that needs a pre-nup. I mean, God is merciful but not *stupid*, right? Well, all Christians fall short of the glory of God, but Gay Christians need a fucking booster chair at the Lord's Table, don't they?

Barbara would send all her coworkers emails on the National Day of Prayer, inviting them to gather with her out in the parking lot to pray for our troubled world. Our troubled world so in need of saving from the gays, the gangs, the terrorists, and bad people who would take away our guns so we couldn't defend ourselves. Amen. I was so young then, so green with envy, green with guilt and their world seemed so straightforward, their path so uncluttered, while mine seemed to be a neverending obstacle course.

That Amen, that "so be it," was so full of yearning for me. I would have given anything for that road to be mine then, would have given up all the things that made me ME, just to live in their simple yet troubled world, wholly and completely. How comforting it would be to know everything for certain, to bisect the world into clearly defined black and white, good and evil, all questions answered in the Good Book. I would have sat under the Lord's Table and begged for scraps, old gristle and secondhand glory, if only they'd have truly let me in.



*all names have been changed

faces

From my early childhood, I remember a coffee table book that my parents owned. It was called "The Faces of Jesus," and it contained images of Jesus as interpreted through the art of myriad cultures and time periods. Jesus as many different ethnicities and ages; Jesus as infant, Jesus as old man, Jesus as corpse, Jesus resurrected. In wood and metal, paint and ink, gilt and glass, ceramic and bone. I loved all of the wonderful textures and colors and shapes. I had no concept of which was the "right" Jesus, the correct one. I didn't have to choose the proper and acceptable Jesus; I loved all of them.

I was told in Sunday school that Jesus loved little children. I saw drawings of him holding children, smiling and talking to them. He was strong and gentle, kind and smart. And yet, he didn't use these attributes to gain unfair advantage over others. I was puzzled. How could you be strong, and not use your strength to hurt others? How could you be gentle, and not use your gentleness to trick people into letting their guard down? How could you be smart, and not use your intelligence to humiliate and oppress?

Because in my small, young world, my father's strength and gentleness, kindness and intelligence were weapons used against his family. I had to guard against them. If I even left a crack, a smile, an openness behind my eyes, it was all over. I would have to pay for trusting. If I gave away my heart, all I got back was ashes. If I offered an outstretched hand, it got slammed in a door. If I spoke a kind word, I got a fat lip. See my beautiful necklace of bruises? These plum and amethyst jewels, set in skin fading to green and yellow, these are my prizes. They are hidden so no one can see them, but they are precious, they are hard won these trophies. They mean my father loves me, that he cares enough to notice me. I collect them, wrapped with care, here beneath my clothes. And when they disappear, past their expiration date, I have to go dig for more, mined from his anger.

I remember what Christ became to me, His perceived faces, the abusive, judgmental, all or nothing faces that drove me away from Christianity in my teens. There's a song by the band Nine Inch Nails that really encapsulated the impression of Jesus I had in high school. Jesus, God, Father, blind and indifferent to my pain, the impression that I had been fooled and lied to, that the joke was on me; "Terrible Lie"...

"Hey god, I really don't know what you mean.
Seems like salvation comes only in our dreams.
I feel my hatred grow all the more extreme.
Hey god, can this world really be as sad as it seems..."

How could all of the adults in my life be such complete and utter fools? What was the Church but a place for sociopaths to nest and move unhindered, the flock tended by wolves who ate the sick and the weak and the gullible? Sweet incense, smoke and mirrors. Hymns to lull and seduce. Sunday school and Vacation Bible Camp to reprogram and brainwash. But not me, suckers. Couldn't all the bleating sheep see what was behind the curtain? I had been cheated and lied to, and I was so angry I could spit, spit in all their saved, self-righteous, arrogant faces.

But it's not in me to be angry for years and years; outrage isn't fuel efficient. I come to a conclusion, give it its due, and then move past it. The Terrible Lie of the Church changed for me into a more aloof, distant understanding of God... why should I expend energy praying to an empty dream? Here was a new Jesus who didn't have the energy to lie, as He was so disinterested and detached from the world. Dragged along through history by word of mouth, a projection of people's desperate hopes and even more desperate fears. Powerless, mummified, a dry and desiccated God buried beneath the shifting sands, lost, lost, His angels blowing in the wind like dead moths, tumbleweeds, husks...

In college, I clearly remember reading the following excerpt by Walter Benjamin in the forward of the poet Carolyn Forche's collection "The Angel of History":

"This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward."

A God of good intentions? Maybe. But still no horn to blow, no cavalry to call, no spine, no guts. Trapped behind a mirror, He can pound all He wants but we can't hear Him, can't see Him. When we scream into the wind, into the night, lost and wandering on the moor, why is there only deafening silence? Why do the crickets continue their periodic songs, the lightning bugs blink endless ellipses, the night birds sleep undisturbed? Down the path, between the olive trees, in the bruise-colored shadows of Gethsemane, God is either dead or indifferent. Up the path to Golgotha, between the rocks and dust, God either exists or does not.

What good is this Dry God, this figure bound and static between perfect covers? What good are the words, unchanged for millennia, black links in an endless chain binding us to paper? They can throw the book at me, hide behind verses that they grip like prison bars, flay me with phrases that they strip like birch bark, peel like skin from the pages, but convince me to believe?

How can our lives, all life, be the embodiment of change, adaptation, cycles, seasons, biorhythms, ebb and flow, birth and death, and yet we're asked to believe that this Word is immutable, infallible, unchanging, frozen. If every book ever written was burned, every psalm ever sung silenced, every verse on every tongue vanished, would God cease to exist?

I will not believe in a God so leashed, even for our love. I will not believe in a God so confined, even for our comfort. I will not believe in a spitty-wet thumbsucking God, even for our benefit.

I will not believe in the proper and acceptable God. Neither heavenfire nor hellfire, bookworm nor brimstone, fisherman nor fearmonger, megaphone nor megachurch.

I will not believe in a God who hikes up Her skirts and runs at the first sign of science, nor is frightened by doubt or dialogue. God needs no defense, no war with method and measure, no puppet, no scapegoat, no scarecrow to protect the harvest.

All of the Faces are and are not Jesus. Awful and awesome, terrible and terrific; the truth isn't any easier to winnow or swallow than the lie. Serendipity or premeditation? Metaphor or formula? Chance or choice? Mystery or mistake? Living fruit or dried fruit roll-up?

I choose to see Jesus as many different people, ethnicities and ages; Jesus as son and mother, fruit and father, tree and seed, root and resurrected. In wood and metal, ivory and ink, ceramic and glass, flesh and bone. I love all of His wonderful textures and colors and shapes. I have no concept of who is the "right" Jesus, the correct one. I don't have to choose the proper and acceptable Jesus; I love all of them.