THE BEACH

It is the summer of 1981. I just finished college in the spring, and now my younger brother and I are waist deep in Lake Michigan, chicken fighting: His girlfriend, Trish, sits on his shoulders. My friend Serge sits on mine, his crotch pressing against the nape of my neck.

My brother and his girlfriend have no idea that I am gay. I am struggling mightily to stay unaware of it myself. I believe I am destined for a literal hell if I continue to do what Serge and I have been doing in bed at my parents’ house this summer.

As Trish and Serge fight to pull each other into the water, I wage an inner battle against the desire to throw Serge down onto the warm sand and ravish him right here and now: To hell with propriety. To hell with my family learning I am gay. To hell with my burning in everlasting fire.

Big plans, but I don’t act on them.

Later, back on the beach, I scout for a clump of dune grass that might afford Serge and me some privacy. Then I decide not to risk it. I will never openly declare my feelings for this man, but will continue to deny, repress, and hate the love I have for him. I know well the fear of damnation. I do not yet know the world of sorrow, heartache, and grief that awaits my future wife, our children, and me.

This article appeared in The Sun, Issue 412, April 2010

THIS DRAG QUEEN IS NOT A HYR

If there be grace, this must be a part of it: I awaken to frost on the ground and a still-toasty house that has held its heat without the furnace kicking on. I pad about in sleep shirt and cap, naked from the waist down, needing neither sweat pants nor robe. "This is what grace feels like," I tell myself. "Grace warms."

Grace warmed my heart last evening. Coyotes had howled as I locked the chickens in for the night. Yet all my feathered friends were accounted for. Sometimes grace means making it through to bedtime.

I resolve to share my experience of grace with others today, make my world a warmer place. I start by asking myself, "How can I be graceful to Dave this morning?" I find my husband in the kitchen, tell him I enjoyed snuggling with him through the night. I make a small joke ("thank you for sleeping beside me, for not getting out to lie on the cold floor at 3:00 A.M.), then again speak my truth, "You are my north, my south, my east, my west." He looks at me, "I love you, too." And so we restate our love for each other as we do in myriad ways every day. After 14 years it is still brand new. Grace surprises.

When I was growing up, my very conservative church fellowship sang Amazing Grace so often I tuned it out. It's a tired old song, anyway, the crone who shows up at every funeral, black ostrich plume bobbing from her hat. Respectable, uplifting perhaps, and a bit clichéd. Whenever I heard the hymn’s opening notes on the church organ, I wanted to look for the coffin. Nevertheless, I loved an over-the-top rendition by The Impact Brass and Singers. The group toured the country as goodwill ambassadors for one of the Bible colleges our church supported financially. I still remember the first time they sang for us.

Soprano Cindy Phillips had made Amazing Grace her trademark solo. On that last verse, "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun...," Cindy let it rip, jumping several octaves, her voice rising to meet the sun, raising the roof, bringing our staid congregation nearly to its feet. Grace exceeds our expectations.

Even we knew a good thing when we heard it. Our church invited Cindy and the band back for the July 4 festivities, biggest event of the year in our small town. Her solo blew everyone away and scored us points with the community. Especially from Cindy's lips, grace amazes.

Dave and I perform our morning ablutions and leave for work together, he in the pickup, me in the car. I follow him for a mile. Before he turns right, I flash my bright beams three times to say, "I—love—you." He blinks his brake lights three times in response. Sometimes grace speaks in code.

Once at work, I promptly forget all about grace and being grateful, graceful in the riptide of the day. Yet life goes on doing its work without my participation. Fortunately, grace does not need my say-so.

Early afternoon I receive an e-mail message. A good friend died yesterday. Was found by his best friend who is also one of mine. Heart attack? Something quick, sudden, unexpected. No lingering death, his. Grace? If so, sometimes grace sucks.

Tomorrow will bring amazingly strong winds, warns the National Weather Service. Drivers of high profile vehicles should beware. People with lawn chairs, garbage cans, pets or small children should tie them down, adds the radio announcer. Grace sometimes issues bulletins.

Tomorrow will deliver a tragic accident to the highway near my workplace. A semi-tractor trailer, turn signal flashing, will wait to cross traffic. As my coworker sails by, slows to turn into our parking lot, a panel van will ram the back of the semi. My coworker will describe the explosion of glass, metal and colored plastic: "It was like fireworks!" Rescue workers will close the highway for over an hour as they clear debris, minister to the living. Sometimes grace is sailing on by.

How great our need for grace, for awareness of the moment, of the day, of the gifts given us every minute. An ostrich feather tickles my ear. That old drag queen Amazing Grace leans over, tells me to rise above complaining, self-pity, petty jealousies, thinking I'm not good enough. Life is short, honey, she says. Get a move on. Go all out. Hit the high notes.

This essay appeared in the April issue of The Letter.

PRACTICE NOW FOR YOUR NEXT TRANSITION

A small place, where I work–a specialty design agency and print shop. A dozen of us employed here all together. The principal's office sits right up at the front of the building. This morning my supervisor comes tearing out of this room screaming, "Call an ambulance! Quick!" My first thought: The big boss has had a heart attack. Then I see my supervisor spin on her heel and head out the front door. My second: Here we go again.

A heavily traveled state highway runs along the east side of our workplace and crosses the Mississinewa River a stone's throw north of us. Our building sits on the river's south bank. In cold wet weather, our front yard is often the landing site for airborne vehicles that hit the icy bridge and launch out over the steep embankment.

In my 10 years tenure, we've seen one fatality, a few motorists left with cuts and bruises, assorted vehicles in various states of disrepair and a fair number of drive-offs where the only signs of an accident are tire tracks in the front yard.

"Here we go again," I think to myself, as I rush outside. "I hope no one's hurt." A white van steams on the front lawn while two of my coworkers help a thin gray-haired man with a gorgeous full gray beard climb out of the vehicle. The van's windshield is gone, its back windows are smashed in; pieces of bumper and our neighbor's sheered-off mailbox dot the embankment. The driver stares about blankly. He can talk. He can walk. I am thankful.

Later my supervisor recounts her story. She was in with the boss, telling him that while money is tight for small businesses like ours, it's not the end of the world. "Bryn reminded me the other day about the Y2K scare, how people thought the world was going to end 10 years ago," she said. "The world's not going to end this year. Maybe in 2040 or 4020, but not this year."

No sooner were these words out of her mouth than it looked as if the world were indeed ending. She saw a white van skittering down the embankment, ploughing up turf, scattering car parts, heading directly for the her. The vehicle stopped short of slamming into the building.

The driver was delivering hot meals to elderly and home-bound clients. I imagine several people went hungry today or had to make alternate dinner plans.

Here at work a baker's dozen of us were served up a heart-stopping reminder of how quickly, how very quickly events can spin out of control. Our forward momentum can turn on a dime; our world can come to an end.

Perhaps the wonder of it is how often this does not happen, how many people even today crossed the Mississinewa without incident. Call it what you will–grace or chance or providence or love or business as usual–it manifests every day in myriad ways unseen, unnoticed.

The challenge lies in the getting through, in crossing bridges (or not) as we come to them. Coming out, going in, starting over, dying–life is full of transitions. Those in-between times–when we're airborne, when we have no firm footing, when everything crashes in around us–those are the challenging times. The liminal moments when anything can happen. Perhaps the wonder is that we get through them at all. Yet we do.

Even when we don't, we do. My husband works in hospice. Death is not the most scary thing that can happen to a person, he says. People in the dying process often say they are not so much afraid of death as of the getting from here to there, the in-between, the process.

Let's practice now, I say. I bet life will soon enough offer you and me both a chance to experience transition, to hang in mid-air, to face the feelings and reactions this brings up for us. I wish you soft landings. Always. I'll look for your tire tracks in the yard.

This essay appeared in the March issue of The Letter.

IS THAT GOOD COMING?

I stand at my window and watch enthralled as huge snowflakes waft my way. A quote from a George McDonald novel drifts into mind. My paraphrase: "Good is coming to me; good is always coming to me, in the best possible form for me at this particular moment. Even if I do not know it, even if I cannot recognize it, good is coming to me."

I ponder this as I watch snowflakes drift down over the waking world. Maybe this is how life is: maybe good is always falling gently upon us, a unique good, crowning the individual moment, covering our particular needs. Maybe we don't know it's coming. Maybe we can't see it all the time. Maybe we see it only through eyes of faith.

Or maybe this is all so much hooey. Our cat O.B. presented us with a large brown field mouse yesterday. Was good coming–always coming–to that mouse even as feline claws sank into soft yielding flesh, as razor-sharp teeth cut short a mousey life?

My father-in-law may know now if what Walt Whitman says is true: Death is far different than we imagine. And luckier. Orville died recently at age 97. His was a gentle going–a precipitous two-week decline after two years in a nursing home. Even there, he had continued to look after others–staff, residents and visitors alike. He policed the halls, watching for anything out of place. He wept with those who wept, smiled at most everyone he met.

At his funeral people recalled his pulling weeds from his soybean field at age 92, and the cats he kept in his dotage. A grandson told of the time he found his grandpa sad one morning, having buried his favorite cat after it was hit on the road. Later that day Orville had a big smile on his face. He must have buried someone else's cat. His favorite 'Snoopy' had come rubbing up against his legs. Today Snoopy lives on, while his master's body lies buried in the cold ground. Good is coming, Orville, good is always coming.

Or is it? I had a hard time believing so this past fall when a routine blood test suggested my husband Dave had an aggressive form of cancer. The news hit us hard. I went into overdrive, researching the latest treatments, reading what I could find on the subject, talking about cancer with anyone who would listen. Meanwhile, Dave explored taking early retirement, made lists of what furniture would go to which child, reflected aloud on happy memories. He finally took me aside and said, "Look, your talk of 'cancer, cancer, cancer' is not helpful to me. If I do have a shortened life expectancy, I want to focus on being grateful for the time I have had; I want to make the most of what I have left. Please support me in this."

Follow-up test results indicated no cancer. Dave shelved his plans for early retirement. Good always coming.

Meanwhile, my three adult sons remain estranged from me. No response to my continued overtures. Good always coming?

New fallen snow blankets the tree limbs as far as eye can see. I catch my breath as a squirrel in the maple tree crawls out near the end of a slippery branch, leaps into the air towards a snowy oak's outstretched arms, four or five feet away. It lands safely. I sigh with relief.

And I wonder: what leaps are you and I being called to make? In relationships, jobs, healthcare decisions, inner and outer life journeys? No guarantee we won't grab for the branch and get an armful of air instead. Sometimes all we have to go on is hope. Is that enough? Snowflakes plummet faster now. Good is coming, good is always coming. I hope so. Maybe hope helps us move forward, take great leaps of faith, meet whatever comes with open arms. May the branches hold.

This essay appeared in the February issue of The Letter.

LONG NIGHT COMING: BETTER GET ROLLIN'

We were soon to host seven people for dinner. From the state of our kitchen, you'd have thought we expected an army. My husband Dave and I spent an entire daylight hours cooking and baking up a storm. He used my grandma's recipe for never-fail pie dough, rolled out crust after crust using the huge wooden rolling pin that came from Emil Cager, the white-haired soft-spoken gentleman I remember from Organic Gardening Club days of my youth.

Emil and Gladys Cajer lived somewhere past the railroad bridge coming into Valparaiso, Indiana. Their house was squirreled away down a shady lane. If you didn't know to look for it, you'd drive right on by. Their place offered a taste of country living inside the city limits. Like my parents, the Cajers belonged to the local Organic Gardening Club, a group of mostly elderly people who met once a month for two-hour meetings that included programs on such scintillating topics as making compost and all-natural insect repellents. My siblings and I were privileged (read "forced") to attend.

Emil had retired as a professional baker by the time we came to know him, but he remained an avid gardener to the very end of his life. He gave my parents one of his monstrous rolling pins. I asked my mother for it before she died. It occupies a place of honor in our home--when not being pressed into service for rolling out pie dough, it serves to remind me of dreary talks in a basement meeting room each winter and (weather permitting) outdoor garden gatherings the rest of the year.

Those meetings were the one social event our family attended that did not revolve around our conservative church. It came as revelation to me that there could be kind caring people like Emil and Gladys who did not share our theological beliefs--and from whom we could learn things. Lessons of another sort were delivered courtesy of "Nurse," an ancient wheelchair-bound lady who attended the summer garden parties. She swore like a sailor. My good-boy ears flushed red in her company.

So the rolling pin serves me as more than a simple kitchen tool. It forges an early link to a worldview bigger than the one I bought into as a youth and young man, one I didn't embrace until after I came out. It reminds me that there are all kinds of people in the world, and that some part of who we are and what we love and how we live our lives does implant itself in those around us whether we are aware of it or not. Whether we live to see it come to fruition or not.

Truth to tell, the rolling pin most often serves Dave in its original function. He makes the pie crusts in our family. He has the patience and finesse to roll them out thin so they'll be flaky and light. He takes his time, works at it in a way that would make Emil proud. Dave and I have seen the results of my rolling out pie dough. Think thick rubber strips. Think cardboard. Think fruit leather, chewy and stretchy as you tear into it with your teeth. No, Dave rolls out the pie crusts in our family.

Pie baking became an all-day affair. Darkness had long since fallen before we finished supper dishes. We'd be off to bed in an hour or so.

I turned to Dave. "Maybe this is a metaphor for all of life, but what would you like to do with this little time that remains to us?"

He looked at me. He's used to these kinds of questions, this way of looking at the world. "How about Scrabble?"

And so we played with words, made vampires and orgy and query and zit, then ziti, then zitis. The first word down was "mere," in itself a comment on who we are, how much time we have, what we may hope to accomplish.

All around me, reminders, reminders. Time is short, shorter than I know. Actions do have consequence and impact on those watching. What will I do with the little time before the darkness falls? Care to ask yourself the same question?

This essay appeared in the January issue of The Letter.

TIGHT BUTTS AND HARD QUESTIONS

Open seating at the university theater tonight, so my husband and I arrive early. It is a love story. They cannot begin to pack all of the actors and actresses involved in this drama onto one little stage. So they make do with those called for in the script. I realize this as my husband and I wait for the curtain to rise.

Nearby, two college men capture our attention. Surrounded by people, they are absolutely ensconced in their own little world — a world bounded by each other. The (slightly) younger of the two has a peaches-and-cream complexion and short curly red hair. In profile he reminds me of a Roman Caesar. Red waves his hands about as he talks, but hardly keeps pace with his companion whose arms fly here and there, punctuating the discussion. He wears a blue plaid shirt. He has curly blond hair — thinning on top — and a matching beard. Both are tall and lanky, but Plaid is the taller of the two. They are equally animated. They almost bounce out of their seats.

Just before the play begins, Plaid moves halfway across the auditorium, sits opposite us. He crosses his arms, remains impassive through much of the show, even the funny parts. The woman to his left leans away from him, rests her chin in her hand, elbow on her left knee. The woman to his right sits with her arms crossed. No sign of him being acquainted with either.

The lights dim, the action begins. The play has a fair proportion of women in it. I keep my eyes on the men. They have slim builds, flat stomachs, tight butts. The play calls for the men to drop to one knee with a regularity I appreciate — the fabric of their trousers pulls tight, rounds off the buttock.

At intermission, Plaid appears glum as ever. Off to his right, I see my friend Joe. As a teenager, Joe wrapped his car around a telephone pole. He barely survived. The accident left him crippled and disfigured. He walks with difficulty. He slurs his speech. He wears plaids and stripes together. When he came out in middle age, he learned first-hand how mercilessly cruel members of the gay subculture can be to people who do not fit cultural standards of physical beauty. Joe has never had an intimate relationship. He has friends but no boyfriends. Dave and I go over and chat with him until the lights dim. Then I go back to ogling sexy actors.

In Act Two, the audience must face the stage death of an endearing character. We welcome the finale, a joyous celebration of the survivors falling in love, one after another. Life will not be easy, they acknowledge, but love will see them through. Love makes life worth living.

I listen to them proclaim their love. And I wonder. I wonder about Joe. I wonder about my friend Scott, who padlocks his heart, refuses to open it to anyone. He will not share his home with a dog, a cat, a fish, a bird — a houseplant, even. He believes that if he loves anyone or anything he will get hurt. He was present when his mother died. Hearing his sister's immediate wail of grief, he said to himself, "See? See? This is what happens when you love someone. You get hurt."

Easy enough for the actors and actresses to make stirring speeches about love, proclaim its primacy, its role in saving us from ourselves — after all, they are reciting their lines. But are they feeding us one? Is this how love works? For Joe? For Scott? For Red and Plaid? For Dave and me? Does love always triumph? Does it for everyone?

Perhaps the answer is too big to fit on the little stage of my mind. Perhaps the answer envelops me, every day, enacted in the lives of those I pass. Perhaps it plays out in this season of the year as our planet turns from the dark powers of winter towards life-giving light once again. Do I have a role in this cosmic drama? Do you?

This essay appeared in the December issue of The Letter.

RE-RIGHTING OUR LIVES

Ever wish you could rewrite the past? At a friend’s urging I tried this re-righting exercise: “Recall a painful life episode and retell it with an alternate, positive outcome. Include the presence of a supportive, powerful character.” I chose to examine my real-life memories of a high school bully I’ll call Mack.

* * *

I riffle through the tumble of books, notes and papers and pull out what I need for the next three classes: advanced biology, college math and English. Almost there now, almost there. I’ll breathe easy once I reach Mrs. Bush’s classroom. I swing the locker door shut. A hand lands on my shoulder, a piece of lead in my gut.

Mack shoves me against the beige lockers. A silver handle stabs at my back. “Where you going in such a hurry.”

It is not a question.

He jabs a hand under my chin, jerks my head up and back against cold steel.

Mack is not the biggest boy in our class, nor the meanest. But for four years he has loomed large in my school life; for nine months out of every twelve I have let him make my weekdays hell. He seeks me out, baits me, calls me names, teases me, pushes me around, gets in my face. And I let him. I play the good boy, turn the other cheek, pray for his soul to burn in hell.

What does Mack see in my countenance that gives him license to treat me with such disdain? What do I see in his that stops me from standing up for myself? These are questions I won’t ask until years later.

“Where do you get your clothes.” Again, it is not a question. “Fetla’s.” Mack spits out the name of the discount surplus store in Valparaiso, our county seat. “I bet your mom bought that shirt at Fetla’s.” He fingers my shirt collar. “Why do you wear clothes like that anyway. If I had clothes like that, I wouldn’t wear them to school.”

I keep my mouth shut. Long ago I learned there’s no reasoning with him. He steps in close, pushes my chin up again, my head back, presses his chest to mine. “I asked you a question, pud.”

“Mack, please. I have to get to class.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Anything is the wrong thing to say. His chest swells. “Didn’t you hear me, faggot? I asked you a question. You’re not smart enough to—”

“Oh, no you don’t!”

Everything happens at once. One second Mack is on me, over me, the next he’s not even touching me. A loud shout. An “oof.” His body slams into the lockers to my right.

“I’ve had enough of you, Mack.”

It’s Frank Stassek who last year, even as a sophomore, played varsity basketball. Next year he’ll help our school capture the conference triple crown and whup big city Valparaiso—a first-ever feat. In this corner of basketball-crazed Indiana, in this small school where grades K through 12 gather under one roof, jocks are gods.

Blinking, Mack looks up into the face of an angry god.

“You leave this guy alone, hear me? Keep your paws to yourself. I don’t want to see you touching him again.”

Curly ringlets of dark hair frame Frank’s deep brown eyes and gorgeous face. Although I hate sports, I attend every home basketball game I can to watch Frank’s thighs pound the length of the court, his muscled arms pull down yet another rebound, his chest heave under the blue and white jersey marked with a large number 20.

It’s my chest that’s heaving at the moment. Frank takes my arm, pulls me forward. He slips an arm around my shoulder. “C’mon. Mrs. Bush will be looking for us. You don’t want to be late for class, do you?”

It is not a question. It is an answer to prayer.

* * *

In “real life,” neither Frank nor I ever came to my rescue. But in retelling this story, I catch a glimpse of the Frank who lives inside me. Maybe I will call on his power next time I need his protection.

This essay appeared in the November issue of The Letter.