ON THE WAY FROM HERE TO THERE

The current talk about jump-starting the economy by rebuilding infrastructure has got me thinking about bridges. And asking some questions. 

Marvelous constructions, bridges. They get us from here to there, right? Help us move forward? Not always. A few images come to mind:

Natural bridge

I am nine or so. My family is camping in Kentucky. We are great campers and hikers, all seven of us, along with our dog Buddy. We hike a nature trail that includes a stone arch formed by wind erosion. It spans an abyss. The path goes right down the middle of it—no fence, no handrails. My mother forbids us kids to set foot on it. She likes strong boundaries, fears blurry edges, needs something to hang on to. My father grins, strides out to the center of the rock arch with Buddy. My teenaged sisters follow him. Before I can move, Mom grabs me and my younger brothers. Dad finally convinces her to let us go and, what’s more, coaxes her to join him and us. She totters forward, sinks to her knees, crawls the rest of the way, panting, gasping for air.//

Highway bridge

December, a year ago. My workplace sits alongside the Mississinewa River. I arrive one snowy morning to find tracks where a car has shot off the bridge and down the steep bank. It landed a few feet from my boss’ office window, backed up, and took off across the lawn. Thirty minutes later another car slides on the bridge, crosses the road, plunges down the embankment opposite us. My supervisor Tonya dashes out and up the snowy bank in high heels, no coat. She returns with her arm around a woman who is white-faced, shaking. As Tonya ushers her into the warmth of the boss’ office, we hear a loud crash. A third vehicle spins off the bridge and into the yard. Bits of metal, plastic and glass, a duffel bag, a red and white jacket, sunglasses dot the lawn. Tonya is off again, yanks at the driver’s door. No go. She runs to the passenger’s side. Out climbs a young woman, her face and hands bloodied. Next a young man. “My dad is going to kill me; my dad is going to kill me,” he says. His new car was an early Christmas gift, delivered yesterday.

One-log bridges

Twelve years ago. The summer after my wife and I separate, I move to a small apartment near the White River. On our side of the river long trails wind through wild woods and over a small stream by way of single log bridges. My children and I spend many hours there during our times together. We call it Sherwood Forest. My eldest son plays Robin Hood, his twin brothers Will Scarlet and Little John. I am cast as Sheriff of Nottingham. The implications do not escape me.

Charred bridges

Two years ago. I walk out of a hospital room in Joplin, Missouri and away from my family of origin. The message I hear yet again from my siblings, even from my dying mother: “We love you, but because you’re gay, we do not accept you as a member of this family.”  Something finally snaps. I refuse to swallow that poison one more time. I don’t care if I burn every bridge behind me. I’ve had enough—more than enough. I’m out of here. On the day-long drive home, my husband and I stop at a museum. I weep to see an ancient pottery vessel shaped like a woman holding a baby. It depicts the traditional bond between mother and child, a bond that is broken for me. I ignore my mother’s subsequent phone calls, do not attend her funeral.

Some questions about infrastructure

As we enter the new year, here are some questions I ask myself, and invite you to consider, as well:

Where in my life’s path have I been asked to step though fear? What was my response? How did it serve me?

Along life’s journey, what people, events or circumstances brought me to a sudden halt? What did I learn? How can I apply past lessons to present challenges?

What role do I play in creating my own perceptions of reality? How does my view of the world hold me back, help me move ahead?

What bridges have I burned behind me? How have such actions helped me, hurt me? Is there any bridge repair work I wish to do? What might this entail? Where and when will I begin?

This essay first appeared in The Letter, January 2009

TAKE MY HAND

My hand reaches up to return a high five to the fifth grader with the long frizzy hair. I remember him from last year, all right, even if I’ve lost his name. Jared? Jesse? Jamie? He was one of the rascally boys, the ones who all year long give the fourth grade teacher fits, only to shine bright in the one-day clown class I teach each spring. I’ve been coming back to this little elementary school the first Friday in May for nigh onto 25 years. 

Clown Day is an institution of sorts here, a rite of passage for every ten-year-old in town and the surrounding countryside. The children learn clown techniques, practice skits, apply makeup, present a program to the entire school and a smattering of parents. "The best thing about school is recess, lunch and Clown Day," one fourth grader told me today. Said another, “You taught clowning to my mother.” A fifth grader said she'd forgotten what role she played in last year's clown program. I couldn't remember either. 

I had once hoped to bring my sons along with me to Clown Day, the year each of them was in the fourth grade. A bitter divorce intervened, made time with them hard to come by, time together outside the narrow window of court-ordered visitation almost unheard of. Knowing what her answer would be, I didn't bother to make the request of their mother. I kept mum.

I clown silently in pantomime, and this fifth grader greets me in like language. He waits in silence, black eyes wide, face serious, palm held high. We could be performing together. Me: bulbous red nose, white dress shirt, obscenely long yellow tie, maroon suspenders, tiny black vest, green highwater pants, mismatched shoes. Him: long frizzy hair, black and white mime-striped t-shirt, ragged blue jeans, scuffed black shoes. I smile broadly.

I wasn't smiling last night when I checked the brood hen, would-be mother. She'd jumped ship, changed nests, left her week-left eggs to go stone cold. Found greener pastures one nest box over, abandoned 12 little promises to life for the pleasure of warming a single fresh-laid egg in a new nest. When I see senseless waste, dreams shot down without a chance at life, something dies inside me, just as surely as it died a dozen times over in her old nest. What kinds of mothers are abroad in the world!

I returned to the house, as a spiritual discipline started a love letter to the mother of my children, my former wife, present enemy. I cast it as an opportunity to fight fire with love. Started off boldly enough. Loving words ran out of my pen, soon ran out altogether. I found myself voicing regret, petty pity, spite. Something's died inside me. I feel very sad. I wonder, if nature abhors a vacuum, what has filled the empty space in my heart? In hers?

Clown meets fifth-grader. Clown remains standing at adult height, chooses not to bend sore knees, put rubber nose within pulling range. Returns the high five. Or tries to. Hand meets empty air because boy withdraws his. The promised high-five was but set-up for a joke, fifth-grade sense of humor, getting one over on the clown. The adult feels angry. I've died enough little deaths, kid. 

My adult self elbows out my clown. Man and boy continue the interchange. Boy continues to pull his hand away, but man is ready for him now. Man is quick, manages to tap boy's hand more often than not. Boy's face registers no affect, remains serious. 

I come to my clown senses. What am I doing? Who am I, anyway? What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? My clown's character is one easily duped, readily fooled. I step back into clown shoes, play the dumkoff. 

A teacher's aide approaches. A big smile rings her happy face. "I just wanted to tell you something," she says. "My mother was at Clown Day two years ago. Do you remember her? She was the lady in the blue kerchief, a cancer survivor. Well, anyway, she was at Clown Day two years ago and she had such a good time. She laughed so hard. She's passed on now, but two years ago, you really made her day. She laughed and laughed. I just wanted you to know."

I smile to her telling, pantomime sorrow at the news of her mother's death, doff my hat by way of saying thanks. Nod and smile some more. She leaves. 

As clown, I turn to the boy beside me. Here am I, child, fool me if you will. I will to believe you. I will to trust you. I live in a world where hope springs eternal, where people tell truth, love each other. Here's my hand.

This essay remains unpublished.

WHAT TWO MEN DO IN BED

I crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head, scrunch my knees up to my chin, stick my arm out at an odd angle over my leg, hold up the blankets on that side. My husband Dave finishes brushing his teeth, comes into the bedroom. I lay very still, try not to breathe. His soft snicker is the reward I’ve been hoping for. 

Dave’s gentle laughter means several things: “Up to your old tricks again, hey?” and “You better not be waiting to reach out from under the bed and grab my ankle” and “So you’re not in bed. But where exactly are you? And how long before I find out? And what is going to happen to me if I do? If I don’t?”

I hold very still. Again the snicker, for me an expression of exquisite joy, of being in the moment, suspending blankets and time, waiting, watching, aware of my breath, aware of his unseen presence. Aware of the love that cords between us, a shared bond 10 years strong, seven times that in dog years, twice that again in gay male couple years.

“It'd be some sweet life,” Jack tells Ennis in the movie Brokeback Mountain, proposing the two men make a life together. Ennis refuses point blank. "Told you, ain't goin' to be that way." Jack's heart fails, hopes fall. He knows a life is built in part on choices made. “Some sweet life” has become a catch phrase betwixt Dave and me, a reminder of what we have, of the hard choices we’ve made to get here, the pain we’ve walked through, this very present blessing of our shared life.

Nights like this, when I actually am under the covers, I try to make it look as if I am not. Other nights I artfully arrange pillows and extra quilts in the shape of my recumbent frame. After 10 years, Dave’s getting harder and harder to fool. 

I successfully employed a new stratagem the other night. I arranged the buffalo robe under the sheets, crouched on the floor beside the bed, slipped my arm up under the bedclothes, let my hand stick out beside the pillow. When Dave turned in, turned out the bedside lamp, I withdrew my hand. He snuggled up against me only to find it wasn’t me at all. He burst out laughing, as did I. After so many years together, new tricks are both hard to come by and doubly appreciated.

There are several old stand-bys. Dousing the lights before he comes in, so he has to walk through the dark to reach the bedside lamp. (Prime the imagination and those few steps can be harrowing.) Hiding in the closet, under the bed, beside it, in it or in another room altogether. Calling out to him, “I’m going to bed now. I’ll be waiting for you.” Even when I am. Slipping out the far side of the bed as he slips in the near side. Laying in bed—and staying there—upside down. 

These antics are by now a ritual between us. A way of showing affection. Of sharing laughter. Being playful with life. Of reminding ourselves that all is not what it seems.

In coming out as gay men whole worlds opened to us. Life. Vitality. Living in integrity, true to our deeper selves. In coming out as gay men, whole worlds closed to us. Society’s easy acceptance and approval. Relationships with spouses, children, family, friends. Our religious communities. Employers.

We chose to face our pain, feel our feelings. Discovered that deep pain hollows out a place inside that may later be filled with deep joy. Learned that what lurks in fearful darkness may after all be love. Learned not to trust the initial form of things but to ask: Does this warm to my touch? Does it hold life for me?

Tonight my breathing gives me away. Dave sees the rise and fall of the covers. I am found out. This my consolation prize: “I didn’t think you were in bed,” he says as we snuggle in together, share each other’s warmth, our sweet life.   

A version of this essay appeared in the anthology Charmed Lives, edited by Toby Johnson and Steve Berman, White Crane Books, New York, NY, 2006