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.

ALL THE FATHERS AND ALL THE SONS

The weather forecast promised clear skies, so we did not cover the exposed part of the roof with tarps. But we did scramble the next morning when we heard liquid sunshine pattering overhead. We rolled out tarpaper and tacked it down, laid shingles as fast as we could.

We were three: my husband Dave, his adult son and me. Son’s house sustained hail damage this past spring. We had volunteered to help re-roof the place. At the end of day one, we were soaked with sweat. Throughout day two, intermittent rain showers wet us to the skin. We exchanged tired happy smiles when we finished the job.

Ready to get down, I stood on the ladder alongside the house as Dave and his son walked the ridgeline one last time. They examined their work. They pointed to this and that. I watched them proceed with careful confi dence, one after the other, along the wet roof. I couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, or a blurring brought on by high humidity or exhaustion.

Suddenly, it wasn’t Dave and his son I was looking at on the roof. No. To borrow from the poet Sherman Alexie, it was all the fathers in the world and all the sons in the world. Dave and his father Orville were walking that ridge line. Never mind that Orville, at age 97, uses a wheelchair to get around. It was Orville up there with his son, and he was walking.

It was me and my dead father up there. It was my dad and his dad—my grandpa—walking that ridge line together. It was me and each of my estranged sons—one, two, three—trying to maintain our balance, trying to find a way forward without slipping over, sliding off the edge. It was you and your dad. And your dad and his dad. And his father before him. It was all the fathers in the world and all the sons in the world on

that roof.

It was two men longing for connection. It was two men already more connected than they know. It was father and son separated by death, by prejudice, by action or insult. It was father and son separated by accident, by intent, by geography, by ignorance.

By spite. By life. By wife. By creed. By war. By family pattern. By social pressure. By suicide. By immigration. By disease. By chance. By choice.

It was two men who had labored together toward a common goal sharing pride in a job well done. It was two men who felt connected, who found themselves in a precarious place having to step carefully. It was recognition that even in perilous situations, some degree of safety may be felt.

It was Father and Son. It was Age and Youth. It was Past and Future. It was lessons being passed on—lessons in how to love, how to protect oneself, how to put a roof over one’s head. It was lessons in frugality, in can-do, in practical carpentry. It was lessons in self-reliance and in accepting help. It was lessons in living, in making it through.

It was ending and beginning. It was passing a torch. It was the longing to pass along all the things that never will be handed off, that are non-transferable, that must be learned for oneself.

It was father connecting to son. It was generation touching generation. It was all the fathers and all the sons in the world on that roof, walking that narrow way, one person at a time, the long slide on either hand, danger, pride, peril, accomplishment, hope ahead.

This essay appeared in the October issue of The Letter.

STUNNING THE BLOND GOD

From what I am told, I map the geography of his upper body. A faint trail leads southward from the oasis of navel. Northward, the ridgeline runs through a ripple of abs to where well-defined pecs rise up, capped by salmon-brown peaks of aureole and nipple.

Strong neck, square jaw, stubbled chin. Lips full in the flower of youth. Dusting of moustache, unapologetic nose, blue blue eyes. Windblown bangs drift across his forehead. What in his upbringing could prepare him to fathom his own beauty?

He recently came out to himself after growing up in a conservative, homophobic religious tradition. His rugged good looks and generous endowment garner attention, praise, devotion. Heady stuff, I imagine, for one who spent years denigrating himself and his “sinful” desires.

He has thrown himself into the gay sexual scene with abandon. He supplements his sensual exploration with heavy drug use. He regularly engages in barebacking and other unsafe sexual practices.

“I suppose I should get tested.” he says and laughs. His voice tone says he has no such intention. His behavior says he wants it all, wants it now, wants it with no holds barred. No time to think, no time to consider. Take, taste, feel, feel, feel.

In his poem Syringe, Jim Wise describes

The stunning blond god,

His muscles straining against

The taut flesh of a body he

Was just learning to enjoy.

The godlike youth in the poem employs sex as a means of getting heroin into his system. He strips sex of its potential for celebration, emotional connection, a sense of being present to another human being. People make such choices. So do gods. I feel sad when I tot up the costs.

What the gay youth, so recently out, seeks in his headlong rush, I don’t know. To heighten sensation? Numb the pain of losses incurred in coming out? Blot out the confusion of so many new choices? I doubt that he knows himself.

I do not condone his choices, yet I recognize the wild eruption of feeling, the recklessness, the sense that the shackles have been thrown off and anything goes. I felt a similar rush in my coming out journey.

Yet behavior has consequences, understood or not. And desire exerts a powerful pull. The gay poet Cavafy observes (in this translation from the Greek)

He swears every now and then to begin a better life,

But when night comes with its own counsel,

Its own compromises and prospects—

When night comes with its own power

Of a body that needs and demands,

He goes back, lost, to the same fatal pleasure.

In coming out I encountered men who shepherded me, acted as mentors, offered sage advice, modeled appropriate behaviors. I also found men who stood ready to take advantage of my naivete. While I learned something from both sets of men, I have maintained friendships with only one group.

We do others a favor, and bless ourselves and our entire community when we treat others with respect and genuine regard. We can celebrate the body electric—the body erotic, the body taut with pleasure and discovery of its own sexiness—in a way that honors the sacredness of all life, affirms the expression of our sexual selves, and builds community at the same time.

This article appeared in the September issue of the Letter.

BEYOND ALL THE BODY CAN BEAR

From experience, my husband Dave and I know the perfect vacation is the one we’re planning to take next. The one that’s still a bit up in the air, destination fuzzy, dates wide open, details sketchy. That’s when a vacation is absolutely perfect. Once the dates are nailed down, once the packing list is drawn up, once there are bills to pre-pay and animals to be seen to in our absence, already a vacation starts to feel a little less than ideal.

We prefer to keep our plans a bit open-ended. Make room for serendipity. Leave time to stop at roadside attractions, follow the sign pointing left: “antiques, five miles” or right, “historical marker, one mile.”

Last week we were at last ready for vacation. We scheduled a week and a day off work, would head west to Kansas. We would venture into the unknown by attending a men’s gathering billed as “an experiment in community building.” No appointed leader, daily decisions made by group consensus. We’d registered for three of the twelve days. If we liked it, perhaps we’d stay six. Or maybe we’d head south, visit family members in Missouri.

We were ready to start loading the car when I wrenched my lower back. I felt as if a large needle pierced my spine. Whenever I moved, it jabbed further in. I pull my back about once every other year. I have visited my more than my share of chiropractors, medical doctors and physical therapists. I’ve learned the best treatment for me involves a week of lying flat on my back. I headed for bed. I lay very still. Refused to drink. I didn’t want to have to get up to pee.

Dave and I switched plans. We would stay home. He would nurse me whilst I nursed my back. I had anticipated a relaxing vacation, but this wasn’t what I had in mind.

I told Dave I knew what awaited me: at first I would taking enjoy long naps, reading books, writing letters, listening to NPR, taking it easy, but by day four I’d be ready to climb the walls. He circumvented this outcome on day three. He brought a portable DVD player to my bedside along with Terrence McNally’s Angels in America, an hours-long HBO miniseries. He and I have twice seen the two-part stage play. I bought copies of the scripts. But we had never watched the DVD.

Angels in America won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Set in the early years of the AIDS pandemic, it traces the stories of several characters whose stories overlap and intermingle. They must wrestle with ageless themes such as the problem of pain, betrayal, death, forgiveness, politics, religion, sex, love and hope. Some of its scenes have rumbled in my mind ever since the first time I saw it on stage. When tempted to sidestep difficult questions, I often recall the Mormon mother’s response when Harper who asks if the covered wagon ride west was difficult. “You ain’t stupid. So don’t ask stupid. Ask something for real.” When loss lays me low, when I feel sad and bereft, I recall the Mormon mother’s description of how people change: God rips you open with a jagged thumbnail, pulls out your guts, musses them all around, piles them back in. It’s up to you to stitch up the torn flesh. These are not comforting images, yet I find hope in knowing others have felt the way I do, faced similar challenges, survived, fashioned art of pain and loss.

Dave and I watched the DVD together—all six hours—nearly straight through. Then I watched it again. Then I read through the script of the stage play as I watched the screen adaptation, noted where lines had been cut, scenes shifted around.

The story’s main characters include a young man living with AIDS, his Jewish lover, a big-city lawyer dying of AIDS, a closeted young law clerk and his wife. In the troubled relationship between these latter two, Joe and Harper, I hear echoes of my previous marriage. All through the piece I hear the very human drama of life—harrowing, heavenly, poignant beyond words, laugh-out-loud funny, sobering. The action centers in New York with side trips to Antarctica and heaven.

I lost count of how many times I watched Angels in America during our vacation. As long as it kept speaking to me I kept listening. I'm like that. I can eat the same food for nearly a week. I have more than once downed an entire pecan pie at a sitting. Recently I compiled a CD of Leonard Cohen's song, Hallelujah, sung by 17 different artists. I play it when Dave is not around.

I replayed the Angels DVD time and again, some scenes even more times than that. Especially the one in which the hunky law clerk strips naked on a cold windy beach. The camera focuses on his face and bare chest as he begins to undress. Then it cuts to a back view as he pulls off his temple undergarments revealing his bare back, buttocks, thighs and calves. I played this scene at regular speed, in slow-motion and in stop-action. Twice a day I masturbated to the sight of that gorgeous man on screen. Spent, I'd let the DVD play on, watch through to the end of the movie, then start in again from the beginning.

I quoted lines from the movie in casual conversation with Dave. "Even in New York in the 80s, that is strange," I'd say, and "Respect the delicate ecology of your delusions." Sometimes we quoted lines to each other. I'd thank him for bringing me yet another meal in bed with, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers" and he'd reply (per the script), "Well, that's a stupid thing to do." We'd both laugh.

Angels wove itself into my dreams. I found myself wandering a heaven that looked very much as its depicted in the movie. I talked to angels, wrestled with issues far beyond my ken.

For much of our vacation, Angels became the lens through which I looked at the world. I read from Emerson's Essays and connected what he has to say with what Louis yammers on about on page such and such. I read a Mary Oliver poem and thought, "That's what Mother Pitt expresses when she, Prior, Louis and Belize are talking at Bethesda Fountain." I pondered my life in terms of the play, thought about the people on my "to forgive" list. Can I forgive them before I die? Before they die? I wondered if, like one of the supporting characters, I could take my hate and condense it to a pinpoint of light up in the night sky. What color of light would it emit?

Angels brings up all sorts of questions for me. What does it mean that humans have wrestled with many of the same themes for millennia? Or have we? And what is it to look back at the 80s through the eyes of Angels from the perspective of 2009? Do I know how it all turns out? Many of these characters would be my age now. How will they have grown? What will be their thinking now?

Do all stories end happily? No, of course not. Does this one? Will mine? And what is a truly happy ending? Is there truly an ending?

The main character in Angels goes to heaven and talks with the heavenly messengers. They encourage him to stay. He refuses heaven, returns to earth saying (in my paraphrase), “I can’t help it. I want more life. It’s not enough, it is so not enough, and yet we humans we keep hoping beyond hope, beyond all the body can bear, when hope should be gone, still we say, 'More life.' It’s in our nature."

More life. That's what I was after when I came out, when I stepped into the death of my known self, launched into the unknown, the unknowable. Some part of me was saying, still says, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." Some part of me has long been wrestling with the angels.

More life. That's one translation of the Hebrew word that is also rendered as "blessing." Our vacation afforded my an unlooked for opportunity to wrestle with angels. To look at the world through different eyes. And I come away feeling blessed.

This essay remains unpublished.