Compass Points

So I've been feeling like an old jalopy as of late. Backfiring and sputtering my way from one moment to the next never sure if I'm going to make my destination. It's disconcerting, yet I'm glad for the forward motion even if sometimes it's nothing more then inertia.

One thing I am enjoying is the rediscovery of the country and western dance scene. When I was a gay sapling back in the day I was introduced to the Rawhide in San Francisco by a rather circuitous route. I'll set the scene.

It's 1995. 26 year old overweight, shy and scared young homo boy discovers gay.com. He makes some great online friends. A group of them decide to meet. Dinner at Bagdad cafe in the Castro. A grand time is had by all. Until.....

My gay bretheren discover I have never been to a gay bar. Looks ranging from shock to understanding to a mischevious twinkle pass over the faces of my dinner companions. It is decided we shall venture to a bar for a nightcap to expose said young homo to his first meat market...er....gay bar.

And thus was born my first visit to the Midnight Sun, the quintesential twinkie stand and model bar in the Castro. The place is packed. Liza is on the video screen above, and the twinkies look derisively down their noses at said young fat homo boy. I have never in my life felt so out of place and ugly in my life. The only things missing were flying tampons and shouts of "plug it up! plug it up!"

Oh and telekenitic powers that I use to exact my revenge, but I digress.

I flee the Sun. I vow never to return to the Castro where I'm worse than invisible. I'm fat.

A few days later, one of my "friends" calls to apologize. It was all a joke gone horribly wrong. Can I ever forgive them blah blah blah. Sure, I say. I don't hold grudges. My psyche and self esteem will heal.....eventually.

As a gesture my friend says he want's to make it up to me. Meet him at 7th and Folsom on Saturday, and bring my boots and cowboy hat if I have them. I remark I spent my summers on a ranch in the Central Valley, boots and straws are standard issue, and I happen to have both.

So there I am, standing on 7th and Folsom at the appointed time looking up at a sign identifying the bar as the Rawhide II and what appears before my wondering eyes?

Cowboys.

Hot Cowboys.

Hot Gay Cowboys.

The Rawhide is dark and smoky. A small dance space lies just beyond a rutted wooden floor. There is a Remmington bronze perched near the entryway. Steel saddle stools line the bar and the strains of country music poor from a small DJ booth at the far end of the dance floor.

Then I see them. Two men dancing, two stepping across the slanted wooden floor. I swallow hard to clear the welling emotion. My friend sees me and smiles. He steps over and gives me a hug that would become a familar and desired embrace and he gently whispers "welcome home".

And it was. It was warm and familiar and known. I knew these men, and this place even though I'd never set foot in the Rawhide in my life. For once, I finally knew in my deepest being what it felt like to simply belong.

It was glorious.

And yet, twice now I've let that slip away. Twice I've allowed the men in my life to pull me away from that warmth, that sense of belonging. As I blog this, I still don't know why.

In both relationships, initially they shared this communion with me. I'd push them around the dance floor, blissfully sharing the joy that spills from me when I dance with my lovers. We'd smile and sway keeping the 3/4 time of a slow country waltz.

But then we'd go less often. Desires to do other things, or pleas of exahustion, or gripes about the long drive would find me home on dance nights. My joy and relationships slipping away like so many grains of sand.

Yet in my most trying times, I've always come back to country dancing. It has been my safe harbor, my solace and comfort. My place of healing.

I step onto a different dance floor now, as Sundance has supplanted the Rawhide. Though the venue has changed the feeling has not. The magic of that night when I discovered the joy of partner dancing has never faded for me. After 14 years and two husbands it is the dancing that has remained.

My constant, unwaivering pole star.