Who could know that you,
A man from America's Norseland
With glacier blue eyes and Frankish nose,
With German surname
And quiet resolve,
Would craft a lure made of wood and steel,
and patience and lyric,
Truth spilling out from your troubadour's tongue.
Who could know that I,
A man of olive skin and onyx orbs,
With Spanish nomenclature,
Like so much of my Native Barbary Bay.
Would hear your musical call,
transfixed, by the similar ache and
yearn.
Yet here we are.
Kindred survivors of synonymous strife.
Different and the same.
Grateful for the end of those Warrior days of spring.
Happy in our late summer fruits.
Yearning for our Autumn's harvest and Winter's rest
Knowing that we share all this and more and love
in Common.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Ides Of Grace
Spring is almost here and my heart is light as a lark's warble. I've been happy in my life, but never to the extent I am as of this writing. It's difficult to put into words, but I need to make the attempt.
My folks were barely adults when they had me. We learned the harsh realities of the world together. Like many people, I had my share of difficulties growing up. Yet I always had the blessing of a loving family, despite its disfunction.
Either by uncanny selection or Universal providence, I'm surrounded by loving people. I didn't lose a single person when I came out. Not one. I realize just how rare this is.
I am blessed with many deep, long lasting relationships. It's a bit Capraesque, and like George Bailey, I often forget that good people draw other good people to them. I've recently been reminded of this.
My ex is fast approaching her one year anneversary of her surgery date. Ironically, her transformation date happens to be the day before my birthday. So as I've been ticking off the days to my 43nd birthday, I've also been contemplating her metamorphasis.
It has been a transformative moment for the both of us.
Obviously, she has the larger burden to bear. The release of decades of obfuscation, of pain and denial. I can only imagine the relief she must feel. I can empathize. Most gay men have a similar revelatory moment when they decide to come out.
Yet even that pales in comparison to completely altering one's gender. The scalpel is applied not just to flesh, but psyche as well. It a complete cosmic reordering of one's life and soul. My ex has displayed a courage one reads about, but seldom sees.
She's also had moments of terror and doubt. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been there for her during this transitional time. I've often been asked, "how on earth did you do it? How did you stay friends with your ex in the face of all this?"
The answer has always been the same. "It's who I am."
Teresa and I have a history. You don't spend 7 years in love with someone and then in their darkest moment abandon them. Unconditional Love is giving love expecting none in return. This is the only kind of love I know how to give.
I still love Teresa. Uncondtionally. But for the fact that I am completely and totally unattracted physically to the female form, we would still be a couple.
I am all together graced.
Graced with good friends. Graced with an amazing family. Graced with a man who loves me like I've never been loved.
Graced with the conviction that doing right by someone no matter the emotional cost to yourself, is the only way to live life.
A life with Grace.
My folks were barely adults when they had me. We learned the harsh realities of the world together. Like many people, I had my share of difficulties growing up. Yet I always had the blessing of a loving family, despite its disfunction.
Either by uncanny selection or Universal providence, I'm surrounded by loving people. I didn't lose a single person when I came out. Not one. I realize just how rare this is.
I am blessed with many deep, long lasting relationships. It's a bit Capraesque, and like George Bailey, I often forget that good people draw other good people to them. I've recently been reminded of this.
My ex is fast approaching her one year anneversary of her surgery date. Ironically, her transformation date happens to be the day before my birthday. So as I've been ticking off the days to my 43nd birthday, I've also been contemplating her metamorphasis.
It has been a transformative moment for the both of us.
Obviously, she has the larger burden to bear. The release of decades of obfuscation, of pain and denial. I can only imagine the relief she must feel. I can empathize. Most gay men have a similar revelatory moment when they decide to come out.
Yet even that pales in comparison to completely altering one's gender. The scalpel is applied not just to flesh, but psyche as well. It a complete cosmic reordering of one's life and soul. My ex has displayed a courage one reads about, but seldom sees.
She's also had moments of terror and doubt. I am grateful for the opportunity to have been there for her during this transitional time. I've often been asked, "how on earth did you do it? How did you stay friends with your ex in the face of all this?"
The answer has always been the same. "It's who I am."
Teresa and I have a history. You don't spend 7 years in love with someone and then in their darkest moment abandon them. Unconditional Love is giving love expecting none in return. This is the only kind of love I know how to give.
I still love Teresa. Uncondtionally. But for the fact that I am completely and totally unattracted physically to the female form, we would still be a couple.
I am all together graced.
Graced with good friends. Graced with an amazing family. Graced with a man who loves me like I've never been loved.
Graced with the conviction that doing right by someone no matter the emotional cost to yourself, is the only way to live life.
A life with Grace.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Accretion
Are we like planets?
Formed from bits of stardust,
drawn toward each other like so many
grains of sand?
Do we orbit each other in a pre-ordained,
Galilean/Newtonian cosmic embrace
that comfirms the presence of
gravity?
Or is it chance? The coincidental alignment of
person, place and time?
Is it simply the act of accretion
that binds you, I, us together?
Are we merely the product of an immutible
Universal Law?
The result of a time tested hypothesis
of human desire?
What is our nature?
Is it chaos? Disorder created out
of our teachings, tropes and theories?
What knowledge do we gleen from
Our soul crucibles?
Where you and I apart,
have ground hope and time
into the dust that is failed
love?
Unkowns stacked upon unsolved mysteries.
Yet I do know this;
For good or ill,
Fated or chance,
I find myself within the pull
of your core.
Drawn into the warm ambit of the
life giving daystar that is
your heart.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Shadows On Snow
He drifts across snow,
like a shadow cast by vapor and
mist.
Myth made manifest in a stolen glimpse.
He is sighted, loping across a field of spent blizzard.
A blot of brown on a palid scape.
He glides, over granite.
He thrives on tundra.
A primal sentinel.
The glacier's guardian.
Arctic hermit.
American recluse.
Reaper of the peak.
he finds sustinance on
carrion.
Life from lifelessness.
Nomad of the North,
he roams his winter kingdom
on padded snowshoe paws.
Hooked claws honed on frozen
flesh and bone.
We regard each other across the expanse between us.
I in awe of the winter's last will o' wisp.
This last warrior from a primal
age.
He looks through me rather than at me.
Seeing past me to the horizon,
to the glorious glaciers beyond.
He turns away and lopes on
into his desired desolation.
He travels away from me,
vanishing from view.
Leaving me alone
upon this frozen shelf of
ice and time.
like a shadow cast by vapor and
mist.
Myth made manifest in a stolen glimpse.
He is sighted, loping across a field of spent blizzard.
A blot of brown on a palid scape.
He glides, over granite.
He thrives on tundra.
A primal sentinel.
The glacier's guardian.
Arctic hermit.
American recluse.
Reaper of the peak.
he finds sustinance on
carrion.
Life from lifelessness.
Nomad of the North,
he roams his winter kingdom
on padded snowshoe paws.
Hooked claws honed on frozen
flesh and bone.
We regard each other across the expanse between us.
I in awe of the winter's last will o' wisp.
This last warrior from a primal
age.
He looks through me rather than at me.
Seeing past me to the horizon,
to the glorious glaciers beyond.
He turns away and lopes on
into his desired desolation.
He travels away from me,
vanishing from view.
Leaving me alone
upon this frozen shelf of
ice and time.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Pride
It's been 17 years since I finally acknowledged to family, friends, and myself that I am a gay man. Like many of my brothers and sisters of our age it took much soul searching. I, and many like me grew up in an era when the word "Gay" was synonymnous with "AIDS".
Though I grew up near San Francisco, watching the macabre scene that was the 80's play out on my TV screen, I was largely untouched personally by the AIDS crisis. Born too young for the 70's and scared witless by the late 80's I didn't suffer the loss of a partner or loved one to a satin red ribbon. Though there was one man who I will never forget, and who's death gave me the strength to finally leave my closeted perdition.
I was 16 when, as part of my confirmation process I was in need of community service hours. I had chosen to volunteer at a local hospice, where a few AIDS victims were living out the last of their days. It was there that I met David.
I couldn't begin to tell you what David looked like. I don't recall if he was handsome or his nationality. I don't remember his age, or his skin color, or the shade of his eyes.
But I remember his voice.
My God yes, I still remember that deep and resonate, warm as a summer day in the valley, melodic voice. When I met David it was still strong enough to catch my note. When he'd ask for a glass of water or the day's paper, I'd get all warm and fuzzy in side.
And then he was gone. AIDS took David and so many young men like him. They left a hole in the world as deep as David's voice.
Years later in 1994, I was in college when a flyer went around my history class. the names project was bringing a few of the panels for display over the Cinco de Mayo holiday. I was still in the closet but by this time I was searching for a way out.
It was David who gave me the key.
So I tell myself, "I need to see the quilt. It's an opportunity to see a piece of local history." I arrive at the event early. A number of us students are there waiting for the ceremony to begin.
The quilt caretakers are reverent with their charge. They handle this living archive of those who've been lost with a purpose and solemnity that brings most of us to tears. Once the quilt has been placed, the crowd that has gathered is invited to meander amongst the panels and reflect.
I begin to wander about, noticing how colorful and beautiful many of the panels are. So many names. So many gone. So young.
Too young.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a particular panel. It wasn't particually noticeable. It was white without any adornment to speak of. I make my way to the panel feeling somewhat drawn to it. As I stand in front of it I make out the name.
It's David's panel.
I fall to my knees and cry tears that have been building since I realized a decade earlier that I liked boys. Cathartic, cleansing tears. Tears that dissolve my closet door forever.
My soul has been ressurected by savior with a baritone voice calling out from a silken shroud spread out under an early May sky. On my knees there in front of his panel, I promise David I will never live in fear again.
I will be true to myself. I will love freely. I will live with pride.
Pride.
Though I grew up near San Francisco, watching the macabre scene that was the 80's play out on my TV screen, I was largely untouched personally by the AIDS crisis. Born too young for the 70's and scared witless by the late 80's I didn't suffer the loss of a partner or loved one to a satin red ribbon. Though there was one man who I will never forget, and who's death gave me the strength to finally leave my closeted perdition.
I was 16 when, as part of my confirmation process I was in need of community service hours. I had chosen to volunteer at a local hospice, where a few AIDS victims were living out the last of their days. It was there that I met David.
I couldn't begin to tell you what David looked like. I don't recall if he was handsome or his nationality. I don't remember his age, or his skin color, or the shade of his eyes.
But I remember his voice.
My God yes, I still remember that deep and resonate, warm as a summer day in the valley, melodic voice. When I met David it was still strong enough to catch my note. When he'd ask for a glass of water or the day's paper, I'd get all warm and fuzzy in side.
And then he was gone. AIDS took David and so many young men like him. They left a hole in the world as deep as David's voice.
Years later in 1994, I was in college when a flyer went around my history class. the names project was bringing a few of the panels for display over the Cinco de Mayo holiday. I was still in the closet but by this time I was searching for a way out.
It was David who gave me the key.
So I tell myself, "I need to see the quilt. It's an opportunity to see a piece of local history." I arrive at the event early. A number of us students are there waiting for the ceremony to begin.
The quilt caretakers are reverent with their charge. They handle this living archive of those who've been lost with a purpose and solemnity that brings most of us to tears. Once the quilt has been placed, the crowd that has gathered is invited to meander amongst the panels and reflect.
I begin to wander about, noticing how colorful and beautiful many of the panels are. So many names. So many gone. So young.
Too young.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch a particular panel. It wasn't particually noticeable. It was white without any adornment to speak of. I make my way to the panel feeling somewhat drawn to it. As I stand in front of it I make out the name.
It's David's panel.
I fall to my knees and cry tears that have been building since I realized a decade earlier that I liked boys. Cathartic, cleansing tears. Tears that dissolve my closet door forever.
My soul has been ressurected by savior with a baritone voice calling out from a silken shroud spread out under an early May sky. On my knees there in front of his panel, I promise David I will never live in fear again.
I will be true to myself. I will love freely. I will live with pride.
Pride.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Solar Return II
As we drive up the side of the hill and into the parking space I see several cabins. Ours is aptly named the "Treehouse". It's quaint and well appointed. A wood buring fireplace, exposed redwood beams and a soaking tub greet the two of us. Mark opens the shades on the glass French doors that open to a wooden deck and I gasp.
The view is breathtaking.
Between the sequoia sentinels that flank our cabin, the yawning pacific is in clear view. Gulls wing aloft on an evening zephyr. Again, the urge to break down into a weepy silly mess is strong but I manage to hold it together. The embrace I give Mark comes from the deepest part of my being. In one grand unselfish loving act Mark has done what no other man has been able to;
He's healed my heart.
A sense of absolute peace steals over me. In the scant time we've been together, Mark has shown me capital "L" Love more times than I can count. Mark had become home to me. My shield against the strife that exists in everyday living.
Mark had made reservations for dinner that evening. St. Orres serves world class cuisine, and I must say it was one of the finest meals I've ever had. From the cold pineapple soup, to the perfectly cooked fillet, my palete enjoyed a variety of wonderful flavors that evening. All the while those twinking blue eyes of Mark's gaze across the table at me. Deep soulful eyes filled with love.
Love for me.
The next morning, Breakfast arrives on our cabin porch in a critter proof box that is a marvel. Contained within is more of St Orres fantastic food. Quiche, organic fruit, granola, milk, oj. Nourishment as much for the soul as the body.
We spend the next couple of days beach combing. We drive up to Point Arena where I collect pieces of abalone, while he gathers bits of colored glass. Both of us facinated by the action of nature on one of mankind's most mundane objects. Flecks of green, brown and blue sanded and polished into little silicone gems.
We drive home along Highway 1. Both of us grateful for different things. Mark happy that the weather forecast turned out wrong. We were blessed with amazing weather for the entire weekend. No rain or fog meant the Mendocino and Sonoma coast were bathed in sunlight. Spring grass and orange poppies greeted us along the meandering coast highway.
My gratitute existing on several levels. As shallow as the bliss afforded by Mark knowing who Dokken is. Or being able to sing the words of "Winds of Change" (The Scorpions for the uninitiated). To the deep well spring of appreciation that here at last is a man who "gets" me. Here is someone who knows me as well as I know myself.
A man who sees my light and loves my dark.
The weekend ends with a trip through Bodega Bay, and a stop at the Freestone Bakery. We walk to the General Store and grab something to drink. Mark and I share a comfort and ease with each other that had always been sensed but never explored.
It's in the comfortable silences that I find revelation.
I no longer have to wish on birthday candles. Never again will I have to tie knots into hankerchiefs when I see a shooting star. Gone are reading tea leaves, tarot cards and horoscopes. I don't have to hope for the future.
My future is now. My future is Mark. That is the best birthday present of all.
And all I want to do is weep.
For joy.
The view is breathtaking.
Between the sequoia sentinels that flank our cabin, the yawning pacific is in clear view. Gulls wing aloft on an evening zephyr. Again, the urge to break down into a weepy silly mess is strong but I manage to hold it together. The embrace I give Mark comes from the deepest part of my being. In one grand unselfish loving act Mark has done what no other man has been able to;
He's healed my heart.
A sense of absolute peace steals over me. In the scant time we've been together, Mark has shown me capital "L" Love more times than I can count. Mark had become home to me. My shield against the strife that exists in everyday living.
Mark had made reservations for dinner that evening. St. Orres serves world class cuisine, and I must say it was one of the finest meals I've ever had. From the cold pineapple soup, to the perfectly cooked fillet, my palete enjoyed a variety of wonderful flavors that evening. All the while those twinking blue eyes of Mark's gaze across the table at me. Deep soulful eyes filled with love.
Love for me.
The next morning, Breakfast arrives on our cabin porch in a critter proof box that is a marvel. Contained within is more of St Orres fantastic food. Quiche, organic fruit, granola, milk, oj. Nourishment as much for the soul as the body.
We spend the next couple of days beach combing. We drive up to Point Arena where I collect pieces of abalone, while he gathers bits of colored glass. Both of us facinated by the action of nature on one of mankind's most mundane objects. Flecks of green, brown and blue sanded and polished into little silicone gems.
We drive home along Highway 1. Both of us grateful for different things. Mark happy that the weather forecast turned out wrong. We were blessed with amazing weather for the entire weekend. No rain or fog meant the Mendocino and Sonoma coast were bathed in sunlight. Spring grass and orange poppies greeted us along the meandering coast highway.
My gratitute existing on several levels. As shallow as the bliss afforded by Mark knowing who Dokken is. Or being able to sing the words of "Winds of Change" (The Scorpions for the uninitiated). To the deep well spring of appreciation that here at last is a man who "gets" me. Here is someone who knows me as well as I know myself.
A man who sees my light and loves my dark.
The weekend ends with a trip through Bodega Bay, and a stop at the Freestone Bakery. We walk to the General Store and grab something to drink. Mark and I share a comfort and ease with each other that had always been sensed but never explored.
It's in the comfortable silences that I find revelation.
I no longer have to wish on birthday candles. Never again will I have to tie knots into hankerchiefs when I see a shooting star. Gone are reading tea leaves, tarot cards and horoscopes. I don't have to hope for the future.
My future is now. My future is Mark. That is the best birthday present of all.
And all I want to do is weep.
For joy.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Solar Return
So here I am in the 42nd year of my life, extremely happy and fulfilled. Thursday past was my birthday and I have to say, the best birthday of my life. I know that sounds like hyperbole but allow me to explain.
I've never seen my birthday as special. My childhood was short courtesy of an alcoholic father. I learned rather early not to belive what I was told, but rather what I was shown. After my father missed my 8th birthday party in favor of a drunken stupor with his buddies, I gave up on seeing my birthday as anything but another day on the calendar.
Not that others haven't tried to make the day special. My mother to her everlasting credit did all she could during my youthful birthdays to make up for my father's missteps. My brothers have always done the same. I've had lovers kick up the biggest fuss and throw the best parties for me. Yet nothing has ever revived the long dormant spirit of child-like wonder birthdays are supposed to have.
Until last Thursday.
So my Great Love meets me at Sundance for a night of 2-stepping on my birthday. This in and of its self is a huge deal for me. As with every other time we've danced it's throughly magical. He truly is my match in so many ways. Our dance chemistry is unique and I've only ever shared such ease on the floor with a handful of dance partners.
We drive to his place, throughly exhausted. We go to bed, me knowing that he has to work in the morning. While I wish he didn't have to I'm excited just to be with him. I look forward to greeting him when he arrives home from teaching his beloved charges. I awake with a start at 7am realizing he's going to be late if he doesn't get up immediately.
I rouse him, he rolls over and nonchalantly intones "I took today off. Go back to sleep." I'm so joyful at the news I bear hug him to the point of hearing joints pop. We happily sleep in, arising only because we do have a bit of work to do.
Mark has an incredibly giving nature. He weekly gathers donated goods from one of the local super stores and delivers them to a day labor center near his home. It's the sort of action that many of us of the liberal ilk speak of but seldom actually do. Yet Mark has been quietly giving of his time and his pocket book to the causes that move him for years.
It's inspiring.
So it's not only a pleasure but a joy to help him on his appointed rounds. As the men from the labor center unload my car, I see a sense of gratitude and relief I've not experienced since I was a boy. The look is the same one I remember as I stood in line with my grandmother to get free government butter and cheese; pride giving way to need.
Poverty knows no era.
For my reward, Mark takes me to lunch near Goat Rock, a promitory in the Pacific just off the Sonoma Coast near Jenner. We dine on amazing Indian food. The mango lasse shared between us seems all the sweeter because it belongs to both of us.
After lunch, Mark suggests a drive up the coast to Whale watch. Loving both the company and my Mini, I eagerly agree. We drive up the coast heading North. It's difficult to describe the drive up the Coast Highway. Beautiful seems such a poor descriptor of Sonoma's natural wonder that time, wind and water have wrought.
We jump out of the car only once. We tumble back to the warmth of the Mini, chased there by cold, wet weather that reminds us both it's still nascent spring on the North Coast. The warmth of his hands and his kiss still linger as I start the car and we continue North.
Somewhere along the drive I see a sign that says the little town of Gualala is a short ride from where we are. I suggest we head there since, that part of Mendocino county has special meaning for me. Mark amiably agrees, suggesting there's a toy store there that he wants to visit.
I need no excuse to point the Mini in the direction of the Menodocino county line. Mark indicates that the toy store is up beyond town. As we crest a ridge I see what can only be described as a Russian Catherdral resting on rise. As I turn into the entrance a sign greets us with the name "St Orres".
We park and venture in. I expect to see toys lining the shelves. Instead I find a beautifully appointed lobby. An inviting bench made up of pew ends sits in front of a fire. As I look around in bewilderment, a silver haired gentleman appears, emerging from a oaken swinging door. he smiles and asks if he can assist us.
Mark intones, "yes we have reservations for 2 nights". He looks at me and a victorious smiles sweeps across his face. He's pulled it off. The surprise is complete. In that moment, in that self satisfied smile of Mark's, I realize that this birthday has been unlike any other. For the first time in more than 30 years I experience the joy of wonder.
I feel like I'm 9 again and all I want to do is weep. Instead, I follow Mark back out to my car, a silly sheepish grin on my face. We follow the directions given us by the innkeeper and we arrive at our abode for the next 2 days.
What happens next will follow in another post.....
I've never seen my birthday as special. My childhood was short courtesy of an alcoholic father. I learned rather early not to belive what I was told, but rather what I was shown. After my father missed my 8th birthday party in favor of a drunken stupor with his buddies, I gave up on seeing my birthday as anything but another day on the calendar.
Not that others haven't tried to make the day special. My mother to her everlasting credit did all she could during my youthful birthdays to make up for my father's missteps. My brothers have always done the same. I've had lovers kick up the biggest fuss and throw the best parties for me. Yet nothing has ever revived the long dormant spirit of child-like wonder birthdays are supposed to have.
Until last Thursday.
So my Great Love meets me at Sundance for a night of 2-stepping on my birthday. This in and of its self is a huge deal for me. As with every other time we've danced it's throughly magical. He truly is my match in so many ways. Our dance chemistry is unique and I've only ever shared such ease on the floor with a handful of dance partners.
We drive to his place, throughly exhausted. We go to bed, me knowing that he has to work in the morning. While I wish he didn't have to I'm excited just to be with him. I look forward to greeting him when he arrives home from teaching his beloved charges. I awake with a start at 7am realizing he's going to be late if he doesn't get up immediately.
I rouse him, he rolls over and nonchalantly intones "I took today off. Go back to sleep." I'm so joyful at the news I bear hug him to the point of hearing joints pop. We happily sleep in, arising only because we do have a bit of work to do.
Mark has an incredibly giving nature. He weekly gathers donated goods from one of the local super stores and delivers them to a day labor center near his home. It's the sort of action that many of us of the liberal ilk speak of but seldom actually do. Yet Mark has been quietly giving of his time and his pocket book to the causes that move him for years.
It's inspiring.
So it's not only a pleasure but a joy to help him on his appointed rounds. As the men from the labor center unload my car, I see a sense of gratitude and relief I've not experienced since I was a boy. The look is the same one I remember as I stood in line with my grandmother to get free government butter and cheese; pride giving way to need.
Poverty knows no era.
For my reward, Mark takes me to lunch near Goat Rock, a promitory in the Pacific just off the Sonoma Coast near Jenner. We dine on amazing Indian food. The mango lasse shared between us seems all the sweeter because it belongs to both of us.
After lunch, Mark suggests a drive up the coast to Whale watch. Loving both the company and my Mini, I eagerly agree. We drive up the coast heading North. It's difficult to describe the drive up the Coast Highway. Beautiful seems such a poor descriptor of Sonoma's natural wonder that time, wind and water have wrought.
We jump out of the car only once. We tumble back to the warmth of the Mini, chased there by cold, wet weather that reminds us both it's still nascent spring on the North Coast. The warmth of his hands and his kiss still linger as I start the car and we continue North.
Somewhere along the drive I see a sign that says the little town of Gualala is a short ride from where we are. I suggest we head there since, that part of Mendocino county has special meaning for me. Mark amiably agrees, suggesting there's a toy store there that he wants to visit.
I need no excuse to point the Mini in the direction of the Menodocino county line. Mark indicates that the toy store is up beyond town. As we crest a ridge I see what can only be described as a Russian Catherdral resting on rise. As I turn into the entrance a sign greets us with the name "St Orres".
We park and venture in. I expect to see toys lining the shelves. Instead I find a beautifully appointed lobby. An inviting bench made up of pew ends sits in front of a fire. As I look around in bewilderment, a silver haired gentleman appears, emerging from a oaken swinging door. he smiles and asks if he can assist us.
Mark intones, "yes we have reservations for 2 nights". He looks at me and a victorious smiles sweeps across his face. He's pulled it off. The surprise is complete. In that moment, in that self satisfied smile of Mark's, I realize that this birthday has been unlike any other. For the first time in more than 30 years I experience the joy of wonder.
I feel like I'm 9 again and all I want to do is weep. Instead, I follow Mark back out to my car, a silly sheepish grin on my face. We follow the directions given us by the innkeeper and we arrive at our abode for the next 2 days.
What happens next will follow in another post.....
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Brown Eyes To Blue Eyes
Brown eyes to blue eyes/
The lies from your youth/
Sown in malice by others/
You've dispelled them with truth.
You've learned a respect/
For the challenges I face/
The struggle life can be/
Because of my race.
Brown eyes to blue eyes/
I know the ease you gave up to be with me/
To honor a culture in which you've never been/
The choices you've made, the challenges you've faced/
You've done with a heart filled with love/
A soul full of grace.
Oh in this moment/
Which our great love provides/
We stand together, hearts in hand/
With nothing left to hide.
And here between us/
As the world fades away/
Our joined souls are mended/
The love we've made is here to stay.
The lies from your youth/
Sown in malice by others/
You've dispelled them with truth.
You've learned a respect/
For the challenges I face/
The struggle life can be/
Because of my race.
Brown eyes to blue eyes/
I know the ease you gave up to be with me/
To honor a culture in which you've never been/
The choices you've made, the challenges you've faced/
You've done with a heart filled with love/
A soul full of grace.
Oh in this moment/
Which our great love provides/
We stand together, hearts in hand/
With nothing left to hide.
And here between us/
As the world fades away/
Our joined souls are mended/
The love we've made is here to stay.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Empire Of Sand
Every now and again, I have to write something down in order to release it. Otherwise, my mind tumbles endlessly in an unending circle. This is one of those moments.
I've been spending my weekends with my great love and it's been raining reletlessly. Yet for some reason I keep thinking about and dreaming of deserts. Before I reconnected with Mark, I had a brief affair with a man who I loved and loved well.
He ended it as fast as he started it and left me to wonder why. I learned a lot from this fleeing moment of affection. I learned to stand my ground and not settle for a partial heart.
I am so glad I did, because I now have the love of my life with me. Yet I've not been able to completely release my past. This poem I think will finally allow me to vanquish the angst I still feel. At least I hope it ends the dreams of desert scapes I've been having.
Mirage
Even sand is fertile.
Given enough water,
The desert will bloom.
I poured all of my love into you.
Dehydrated myself from the effort.
Blistered my soul in the heat of your self loathing.
My reward for the effort?
A carpet of amethyst.
Cyan and topaz coat silcone.
And for a brief moment,
A barren waste sparkles with the jewels
Of an indian summer.
It was glorious.
But like all desert blooms,
It was fleeting.
I should have known.
Your false words,
Your obsidian promises,
It was all illusion.
Your love was not the oasis,
It was purported to be.
It was all a trick of the mind.
An artfully crafted
Mirage.
You are as empty and barren,
As the lowest point,
On
This
Orb.
A valley where you left my love to die.
I'm not pouring anymore of my love,
Into the granulated glass void that is your soul.
I'm leaving you to rule Your desolate, dessacated, dry,
Empire.
Alone and bereft.
Just as you wished.
But not as I planned.
Alone.
With your scorpions, snakes and
Sand.
I've been spending my weekends with my great love and it's been raining reletlessly. Yet for some reason I keep thinking about and dreaming of deserts. Before I reconnected with Mark, I had a brief affair with a man who I loved and loved well.
He ended it as fast as he started it and left me to wonder why. I learned a lot from this fleeing moment of affection. I learned to stand my ground and not settle for a partial heart.
I am so glad I did, because I now have the love of my life with me. Yet I've not been able to completely release my past. This poem I think will finally allow me to vanquish the angst I still feel. At least I hope it ends the dreams of desert scapes I've been having.
Mirage
Even sand is fertile.
Given enough water,
The desert will bloom.
I poured all of my love into you.
Dehydrated myself from the effort.
Blistered my soul in the heat of your self loathing.
My reward for the effort?
A carpet of amethyst.
Cyan and topaz coat silcone.
And for a brief moment,
A barren waste sparkles with the jewels
Of an indian summer.
It was glorious.
But like all desert blooms,
It was fleeting.
I should have known.
Your false words,
Your obsidian promises,
It was all illusion.
Your love was not the oasis,
It was purported to be.
It was all a trick of the mind.
An artfully crafted
Mirage.
You are as empty and barren,
As the lowest point,
On
This
Orb.
A valley where you left my love to die.
I'm not pouring anymore of my love,
Into the granulated glass void that is your soul.
I'm leaving you to rule Your desolate, dessacated, dry,
Empire.
Alone and bereft.
Just as you wished.
But not as I planned.
Alone.
With your scorpions, snakes and
Sand.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Sonoma
For Mark
It was here amidst the jade vale and a sea bound river
I was found.
Here where ancient Gravenstien orchards yield to youthful
Chardonnay vinyards.
Here where sequoias, acacias and oaks
meander along a quiet horizon.
Here where the North Coast savannah
spills into the sea.
My heart was like that savannah in summer.
yellowing in the unslaked heat,
tinder dry oak chapparal, barren and burnt.
Left blackened by carless stewards
who chose the match over water.
I resolve in my oaken solitude,
That this,
this at last is the future that awaits.
A quiet, acornless autumn and winter season.
I am content with my aloneness.
Peace at last finds me.
In your art I find solace.
Your music that gripped my young heart,
still calls.
Beckons. Beseeches.
Come dance.
And I do.
And you are there.
You are there,
with eyes the color of sky.
You are there as you have always been.
Alive in my heart,
my unspoken love.
My fondest hope.
You who I loved like a dream.
You who I loved before I knew you.
You who I loved when you came to me,
one promise too late.
You stand before me.
You tremble in my arms as we
waltz.
You fix me with a gaze
and at last I know.
Your love matches mine,
and always has.
My savannah is green now.
Verdant from the healing
showers of your love.
Daffodils and Hyacinth bloom
in a late North Coast winter.
You my thoughtful gardner borne here by some cosmic
caretaker, you tend me well.
I can't help but think,
your love is like those Sonoma sequoias.
An evergreen, ageless wonder that sweeps me heavenward.
Lifting me from my earthbound perdition.
I soar into a sky
the color of your eyes.
Swept to a zenith from which I will never descend.
A rarified stratosphere that is our
love.
It was here amidst the jade vale and a sea bound river
I was found.
Here where ancient Gravenstien orchards yield to youthful
Chardonnay vinyards.
Here where sequoias, acacias and oaks
meander along a quiet horizon.
Here where the North Coast savannah
spills into the sea.
My heart was like that savannah in summer.
yellowing in the unslaked heat,
tinder dry oak chapparal, barren and burnt.
Left blackened by carless stewards
who chose the match over water.
I resolve in my oaken solitude,
That this,
this at last is the future that awaits.
A quiet, acornless autumn and winter season.
I am content with my aloneness.
Peace at last finds me.
In your art I find solace.
Your music that gripped my young heart,
still calls.
Beckons. Beseeches.
Come dance.
And I do.
And you are there.
You are there,
with eyes the color of sky.
You are there as you have always been.
Alive in my heart,
my unspoken love.
My fondest hope.
You who I loved like a dream.
You who I loved before I knew you.
You who I loved when you came to me,
one promise too late.
You stand before me.
You tremble in my arms as we
waltz.
You fix me with a gaze
and at last I know.
Your love matches mine,
and always has.
My savannah is green now.
Verdant from the healing
showers of your love.
Daffodils and Hyacinth bloom
in a late North Coast winter.
You my thoughtful gardner borne here by some cosmic
caretaker, you tend me well.
I can't help but think,
your love is like those Sonoma sequoias.
An evergreen, ageless wonder that sweeps me heavenward.
Lifting me from my earthbound perdition.
I soar into a sky
the color of your eyes.
Swept to a zenith from which I will never descend.
A rarified stratosphere that is our
love.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Ascendant
It feels funny writing that title for this post. Considering I've spent the last week laid low by one of the worst bouts of illness I've had in quite sometime. Sick to the tune of a 10 day course of antibiotics. That hasn't happened in 10 years.
I am a hearty cowboy.
But this past weekend I was miserable. Now, I'm not a whiner by any stretch. I keep pretty much to myself when it comes to being sick. I always have. That's primarily because I am a caretaker. I help those in need and try not to impose on people when I'm ill. It has always been my way.
With the men in my life, when they were sick I was the epitome of a mother hen. I would fuss, cater, facilitate every need, whim, desire, fancy they might have. If it would make them feel even the slightest bit better, I would undertake any task to that end.
I could not always expect the same in return.
I was not bitter about this, I knew well in advance that many of them did not share the same trait. I never saw this as a flaw, rather just part of who they were. Something to be accepted and forgotten, lest it stew into some potent malicious brew that would later be hurled back at them in resentment. Besides it always fit well with my "I don't want to be a bother" attitude when I did get sick.
I had a much different experience this past weekend. Mark came to visit and as has been our way since the "rekindling" we'd packed the weekend full of things to do. This included meeting my siblings, their significant others, and my youngest brother's three amazing daughters. So of course I have to pop a fever to steal his spotlight.
I can be such a diva.
Mark was amazing. Nursing me. Indulging my "oh my God I'm sick let's watch a movie" fetish. Fetching me tea. Opening lozenges. Warming soup. Taking me to the Pharmacy to pick up my medication. Moving the truck so I wouldn't have to walk as far once the medicine was secured.
Did I mention that he enlisted my brother's help in moving the rest of the things from the old house that I was too sick to move? That he made several trips with my father? That he did all of this without any prompting, hinting, cajoling, "honey-would-you-mind"-ing?
At all.
None.
My mother commented this morning, "Mijo, no one has taken care of you like Mark. No one". Mamita you have no idea.
Zero, nada, ningun.
She does know the whole story now. I shared Mark's and my star crossed past with her the weekend before last, prior to Mark's first stay here with me. Mom is always pre-disposed to like the men I've brought home simply because she loves me unconditionally and wants me to be happy. The pre-disposition to favor hasn't always survived the initial meeting but as is her way she is always unfailingly kind and cordial. She shared her concerns about my past beaus in private with the deferrential "...but Mijo, it's your life. You need to live it for you."
Yet in two visits, Mark has achieved two landmarks that both of my exes took more than a year to reach and neither attained both goals. First, my mother has already given him a nickname and second, my father has become a chatterbox with him. Both convey a level of comfort with Mark, my choice in partners, that my folks had up until now only shown with my brother's significant others.
It's been a deluge of blessings as of late. I am grateful beyond measure.
Beyond words.
I am a hearty cowboy.
But this past weekend I was miserable. Now, I'm not a whiner by any stretch. I keep pretty much to myself when it comes to being sick. I always have. That's primarily because I am a caretaker. I help those in need and try not to impose on people when I'm ill. It has always been my way.
With the men in my life, when they were sick I was the epitome of a mother hen. I would fuss, cater, facilitate every need, whim, desire, fancy they might have. If it would make them feel even the slightest bit better, I would undertake any task to that end.
I could not always expect the same in return.
I was not bitter about this, I knew well in advance that many of them did not share the same trait. I never saw this as a flaw, rather just part of who they were. Something to be accepted and forgotten, lest it stew into some potent malicious brew that would later be hurled back at them in resentment. Besides it always fit well with my "I don't want to be a bother" attitude when I did get sick.
I had a much different experience this past weekend. Mark came to visit and as has been our way since the "rekindling" we'd packed the weekend full of things to do. This included meeting my siblings, their significant others, and my youngest brother's three amazing daughters. So of course I have to pop a fever to steal his spotlight.
I can be such a diva.
Mark was amazing. Nursing me. Indulging my "oh my God I'm sick let's watch a movie" fetish. Fetching me tea. Opening lozenges. Warming soup. Taking me to the Pharmacy to pick up my medication. Moving the truck so I wouldn't have to walk as far once the medicine was secured.
Did I mention that he enlisted my brother's help in moving the rest of the things from the old house that I was too sick to move? That he made several trips with my father? That he did all of this without any prompting, hinting, cajoling, "honey-would-you-mind"-ing?
At all.
None.
My mother commented this morning, "Mijo, no one has taken care of you like Mark. No one". Mamita you have no idea.
Zero, nada, ningun.
She does know the whole story now. I shared Mark's and my star crossed past with her the weekend before last, prior to Mark's first stay here with me. Mom is always pre-disposed to like the men I've brought home simply because she loves me unconditionally and wants me to be happy. The pre-disposition to favor hasn't always survived the initial meeting but as is her way she is always unfailingly kind and cordial. She shared her concerns about my past beaus in private with the deferrential "...but Mijo, it's your life. You need to live it for you."
Yet in two visits, Mark has achieved two landmarks that both of my exes took more than a year to reach and neither attained both goals. First, my mother has already given him a nickname and second, my father has become a chatterbox with him. Both convey a level of comfort with Mark, my choice in partners, that my folks had up until now only shown with my brother's significant others.
It's been a deluge of blessings as of late. I am grateful beyond measure.
Beyond words.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Two Cowboy Waltz
I am in awe of the Universe.
As I stand there in the presence of a man I've loved for so long hearing that he has loved me with a passion and longing that rivaled my own, I reel from the symmetry that lies beneath the chaos of life. All of it, every bit of it, all of my angst and pain and suffering has meaning. It's lead me to this impossible improbable moment.
And for the first time in my life I am ready to sieze my joy. I have the wisdom, the strentgh, the courage to at last, at long last finally accept happiness.
To reach Elysium.
I hold Mark as I've always wanted to. He trembles in my arms as we waltz together. The surreal nature of the moment is not lost on us. It's as if we're in a Magrit or Dali painting, all clouded eyes and melting clocks.
Mark tells me he's on a date. That the only reason why he's here is because the man who he's with wanted to come. That this action, being here in the country scene again took every ounce of courage he could muster to come. That he was feeling alone, ignored, dejected and bitter. Then he saw me dancing with my friend and he knew why he was here.
And he was thunderstruck.
We spend as much time with each other as propriety will allow. Even now, in this watershed moment for both of us, we must wait. A desire to preserve the feelings of a stranger fills both of us with the same respect we held for our respective former partners. That compassion is at the core of who we both are. It is the strongest link in the chain that binds us together.
We exchange information at the end of the evening and I have the excruciating task of letting Mark go. Yet the pain is tempered by the knowledge that this time there will be a tomorrow. All of the cinders and ashes from my yesterdays wash away in the smile of the man who will be my future.
I begin the drive home my mind a whirl of emotions. I'm listening to Mark's music when suddenly he calls. it's as if the music conjured him.
His music is magic for me. It always has been. At last I finally get to share this. I finally get to share with Mark that I fell in love with him because of his music and because of one song in particular.
I've shared earlier of the one song that stood out from all others on Mark's first album. A song that captured a singular moment in time for me. The essense of my love of country dancing. So I tell Mark of my love for the song. What it means to me. What I did with Doug that first night in our new home. Consecrating our love and abode with the strains of that sweet country waltz that for me is Mark's heart and soul.
And as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings, "In the age of miracles another is on the way".
Mark reveals to me that he wrote Two Cowboy Waltz to express how he felt the first time he saw cowboys dancing together at the Rawhide. I'm stunned by the knowledge. We are linked Mark and I even in our epiphanies.
We spend hours on the phone sharing with each other. Being in each other's presense. His voice the salve my wounded heart has needed for so long now. We agree to see each other the following weekend. To finally be with each other as we've always wished and dreamed.
Needless to say we couldn't wait.
Tuesday past I invite Mark to join me at 1220 in Walnut Creek. The East Bay version of Sundance. Small, intimate, peopled with long time veterans of the Bay Area country scene, it is a warm inviting space that many of my dearest friends attend. It's the antithesis of the High Church Sundance is. In my mind a perfect venue in which to ease Mark back into a scene from which he once fled.
He arrives a bit earlier than me. So I have the pleasure of driving up and seeing him in his car. My excitement and giddiness is uncontainable and uncontrolable. I have no need or desire to hold back any longer.
We embrace, we kiss. We weep. We are at long last we.
One.
We venture out into the cool Walnut Creek evening. We dine, joke, laugh. We are both electric with the tension and the energy that our love is at long last free to exhibit. We share our meals with each other. Joyous in knowing this is the first of many opportunities to share.
We head back to 1220. I hold his hand as we walk back to my car. I walk in to my holy of holies with the man of my dreams on my arm.
My arm.
Euphoria seems such a weak description of what I was feeling.
We mingle around. I get to introduce Mark to my friends who I've known and loved even longer than I've pined for Mark. It is a homecoming of sorts. Then my new/old love does something I had only dreamed of.
I hear the DJ announce that the next song is a dedication to me. I catch the strains of music that have nourished and sustained the love I've held for Mark all these years. The chords of love that bind me to Mark as no other element on this planet or Universe could. And then as if out of the pages of a fairytale, Mark asks me to waltz with him.
A two cowboy waltz.
In that moment, we are sealed. Everything fades away and it is just Mark, me and his glorious music. We spin and sway basking in the glow of a deep abiding love that has survived the abuses of time and distance it's innocence and purity unscathed.
My hearts desire born all those years ago, on the cover of that CD, between the liner notes and minor chords I have at last found solace.
Home.
My handsome midwestern cowboy wrote a song that speaks of the longing he once held. Though the song predates our meeting and is about a fictional man, it applies so well to the both of us. It's as if this song summoned the unrequited nature of our love. With the greatest respect and humility for the work of the man I love I post his words here as a reminder to all. Be true to the love you hold for others. Someday, Universe willing, that love may rise like a Phoenix to set the ice blue winter sky ablaze.
I confess/
that I told a friend or two about this man I met the day I met you/
I confess I remember what you wore/
that Tweety bird t-shirt that you don’t wear no more.
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best/
I confess.
I confess/
every time you say my name/
it’s not coincidental that a smile comes to my face/
I confess/
that when you hug me your goodbyes/
I listen to my heart beat and I close my eyes.
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best/
I confess.
And one time your sister watched me while I was watching you/
She caught my eye and said/
“I know ‘cause I love him too.”
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best.
I confess.---Mark W.
As I stand there in the presence of a man I've loved for so long hearing that he has loved me with a passion and longing that rivaled my own, I reel from the symmetry that lies beneath the chaos of life. All of it, every bit of it, all of my angst and pain and suffering has meaning. It's lead me to this impossible improbable moment.
And for the first time in my life I am ready to sieze my joy. I have the wisdom, the strentgh, the courage to at last, at long last finally accept happiness.
To reach Elysium.
I hold Mark as I've always wanted to. He trembles in my arms as we waltz together. The surreal nature of the moment is not lost on us. It's as if we're in a Magrit or Dali painting, all clouded eyes and melting clocks.
Mark tells me he's on a date. That the only reason why he's here is because the man who he's with wanted to come. That this action, being here in the country scene again took every ounce of courage he could muster to come. That he was feeling alone, ignored, dejected and bitter. Then he saw me dancing with my friend and he knew why he was here.
And he was thunderstruck.
We spend as much time with each other as propriety will allow. Even now, in this watershed moment for both of us, we must wait. A desire to preserve the feelings of a stranger fills both of us with the same respect we held for our respective former partners. That compassion is at the core of who we both are. It is the strongest link in the chain that binds us together.
We exchange information at the end of the evening and I have the excruciating task of letting Mark go. Yet the pain is tempered by the knowledge that this time there will be a tomorrow. All of the cinders and ashes from my yesterdays wash away in the smile of the man who will be my future.
I begin the drive home my mind a whirl of emotions. I'm listening to Mark's music when suddenly he calls. it's as if the music conjured him.
His music is magic for me. It always has been. At last I finally get to share this. I finally get to share with Mark that I fell in love with him because of his music and because of one song in particular.
I've shared earlier of the one song that stood out from all others on Mark's first album. A song that captured a singular moment in time for me. The essense of my love of country dancing. So I tell Mark of my love for the song. What it means to me. What I did with Doug that first night in our new home. Consecrating our love and abode with the strains of that sweet country waltz that for me is Mark's heart and soul.
And as Mary Chapin Carpenter sings, "In the age of miracles another is on the way".
Mark reveals to me that he wrote Two Cowboy Waltz to express how he felt the first time he saw cowboys dancing together at the Rawhide. I'm stunned by the knowledge. We are linked Mark and I even in our epiphanies.
We spend hours on the phone sharing with each other. Being in each other's presense. His voice the salve my wounded heart has needed for so long now. We agree to see each other the following weekend. To finally be with each other as we've always wished and dreamed.
Needless to say we couldn't wait.
Tuesday past I invite Mark to join me at 1220 in Walnut Creek. The East Bay version of Sundance. Small, intimate, peopled with long time veterans of the Bay Area country scene, it is a warm inviting space that many of my dearest friends attend. It's the antithesis of the High Church Sundance is. In my mind a perfect venue in which to ease Mark back into a scene from which he once fled.
He arrives a bit earlier than me. So I have the pleasure of driving up and seeing him in his car. My excitement and giddiness is uncontainable and uncontrolable. I have no need or desire to hold back any longer.
We embrace, we kiss. We weep. We are at long last we.
One.
We venture out into the cool Walnut Creek evening. We dine, joke, laugh. We are both electric with the tension and the energy that our love is at long last free to exhibit. We share our meals with each other. Joyous in knowing this is the first of many opportunities to share.
We head back to 1220. I hold his hand as we walk back to my car. I walk in to my holy of holies with the man of my dreams on my arm.
My arm.
Euphoria seems such a weak description of what I was feeling.
We mingle around. I get to introduce Mark to my friends who I've known and loved even longer than I've pined for Mark. It is a homecoming of sorts. Then my new/old love does something I had only dreamed of.
I hear the DJ announce that the next song is a dedication to me. I catch the strains of music that have nourished and sustained the love I've held for Mark all these years. The chords of love that bind me to Mark as no other element on this planet or Universe could. And then as if out of the pages of a fairytale, Mark asks me to waltz with him.
A two cowboy waltz.
In that moment, we are sealed. Everything fades away and it is just Mark, me and his glorious music. We spin and sway basking in the glow of a deep abiding love that has survived the abuses of time and distance it's innocence and purity unscathed.
My hearts desire born all those years ago, on the cover of that CD, between the liner notes and minor chords I have at last found solace.
Home.
My handsome midwestern cowboy wrote a song that speaks of the longing he once held. Though the song predates our meeting and is about a fictional man, it applies so well to the both of us. It's as if this song summoned the unrequited nature of our love. With the greatest respect and humility for the work of the man I love I post his words here as a reminder to all. Be true to the love you hold for others. Someday, Universe willing, that love may rise like a Phoenix to set the ice blue winter sky ablaze.
I confess/
that I told a friend or two about this man I met the day I met you/
I confess I remember what you wore/
that Tweety bird t-shirt that you don’t wear no more.
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best/
I confess.
I confess/
every time you say my name/
it’s not coincidental that a smile comes to my face/
I confess/
that when you hug me your goodbyes/
I listen to my heart beat and I close my eyes.
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best/
I confess.
And one time your sister watched me while I was watching you/
She caught my eye and said/
“I know ‘cause I love him too.”
I confess/
I confess that when I am next to you/
I never have my breath/
I confess/
I confess that being friends with you it’s the worst because it’s the best.
I confess.---Mark W.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Requited
So I've been away again for an extended period. Much has changed, much is still the same. I've had a few love affairs since my last foray into relationship building. Some have been fun others painful. Yet they have all left me wiser and richer for the experience. I had come to the realization that I may have to spend the rest of my days alone.
And I was ok with that. I've been blessed enough to have loved and to have love returned by two wonderful men in my life. Steven and Doug were and are still incredible sources of strentgh, inspiration and growth. I am the man I am today because of their love, wisdom, patience and acceptance.
Just recently after a short love affair bloomed and faded over the fall I came to accept that I've been so very lucky to have had love twice when so many never have it at all. If my fate was to be the good son caring for my senior parents and being a great uncle to my neices, so be it. I'd made my peace with what the Universe was offering.
Funny how just when you think you know where you're life is headed, life shifts gears, changes direction and you find something completely different. Or rather, you are presented with an alternative. Sometimes the past becomes present.
Allow me to explain.
When I was near the end of my first relationship, my then partner gave me a rather meaningful gift for my birthday that year. It was a CD by a gay country artist. Steven knew just how much country dancing meant to me and as was his way, he found the perfect gift to show me that he "saw" me.
So I open the package and this CD falls out. On the cover is the most amazing set of blue eyes I've ever seen, within a face that I find so incredibly beautiful. Later I would discover that the beauty of the music equaled the man who sang it.
As I listened to the CD one song stood out above all the others. The song captured how I felt the first time I watched cowboys dancing at the Rawhide. I was transported to, what at that moment was the most joyful experience I'd had to that point in my life. Mark's music spoke to me in a way no other music had.
And in that moment, I began to love Mark.
It seems silly and childish, but it was the truth. This man who I never met, had provoked a longing I'd never known before or since. His music filled a chamber in my heart with such ache and need and desire I closed it off to contain it.
Steven and I ended not long after. The first love of my life faded like a tin daguerrotype photograph. Full of nostalgia and pleasant reflection but outdated and lacking color.
Not long after I met the first great love of my life, Doug. As fate (or Universal design) would have it, Doug was a country singer. I mentioned my great love for the music of Mark and found to my disbelief that Doug knew Mark. They had been friendly being cut from the same musical cloth.
My love for Doug was in full bloom when one fateful June day at Pride in SF, my love and I are walking around and we happen upon Mark's booth where he is selling his latest CD. Doug spots him and takes me over to meet Mark.
I am terrified and excited all at once. Here at last I am going to meet the man who I've been crushing on for the past 4 years. I don't know what to expect as we approach the booth.
Mark is even more beautiful in person. It becomes clear as he is hawking his wares that the energy and beauty and longing in his music is not artiface. It is as genuine and real and honest as that beaming smile, those twinking eyes and open demeanor of this amazing singer songwriter.
Doug attracts Mark's attention and my heart catches in my throat as my eyes meet Mark's gaze for the first time.
I am thunderstruck.
All the emotions I had bottled away in that secret chamber of my heart begin to roil. I fight hard to maintain myself and reach out to shake Mark's hand. He is easy and familar. We fall into talking and I find myself longing for a man who now has appeared one promise too late. We leave a short time later. My intial impressions comfirmed beyond doubt that Mark is indeed as sweet and wonderful and amazing as his music.
Doug and I begin to spend time with Mark and his partner. We hang out together, Mark even coming to Doug's and my housewarming a year later. Mark never knowing that the first act I performed in that new house was to waltz with Doug on our empty hardwood floor. Sweeping around the oak in 3/4 time to the song which reflected the Rawhide for me, and the music that drew me to Mark.
We'd share dinner occasionally. Walk around Lake Merrit. Two couples sharing a communion of friendship and camraderie. The angst I felt over being torn between My Love and this inexplicable, inexorable attraction for Mark I kept to myself, never betraying for a moment the torch I am carrying.
Then, suddenly Mark is gone. Emails go unanswered, phone calls unreturned. Mark fades into the distance like a ship sailing beyond a curved quiet horzion. I am crestfallen. Not only can I never speak of how I feel or express the love I carry for him, I've now lost the friendship I'd begun to build. The solace and comfort of, "well at least I have him in my life, if only as a friend" had ended as well.
So I am left with just his music and the bittersweet agony of listening to it, wondering what might have been. I close the chamber of my heart where Mark lives. Doug and I carry on until the unexpected curtain fell on our last act two years ago.
I pinball from man to man, short relationship to short relationship. Fleeting moments full of a promise that never comes to fruition. All the while me gaining knowledge about myself, what I want from another man, accepting that the life I have settled into may be one of permanence.
Then this past Sunday I am at my place of communion and healing. My temple of two-step and waltz, Sundance Saloon. It's Trailer Trash night and the carnival that is Sundance is in full swing. As I leave the floor briefly, a song I recognize comes on. It's one of my former love's songs which I've never heard at Sundance. I am struck with a moment of melancholy and longing, but it passes immediately as my friend asks me to dance.
As we sweep around the floor my friend asks me; "Isn't that Mark over there?" I reply; " I haven't seen Mark at Sundance in years, it's probably not him." As I say this I look over to where my friend has pointed and there I see the face of the man I've secretly loved for years smiling at me.
And I am thunderstuck.
That feeling I felt the first time I heard Mark, the first time I saw Mark, the first time I met Mark is still there. As strong as powerful as purposeful as the San Joaquin river full of Sierra snowmelt churning toward my Native Bay.
I walk over and embrace him. Hold him. Scold him for being gone so long. Eager to hear where he's been, how he is doing and is he happy. Then something amazing happens. For the first time in years I notice the same longing, the same desire, the same conviction I have carried for Mark all these years, reflected back at me.
Mark loves me.
He confesses why he's been gone. Because it was too hard. Too hard to be around Doug and I. Too hard to be around our love. Too hard to be around me. Too hard to want to be with me. Too hard to surpress his feelings.
And I realize that we have spent the last 7 years in love from a distance. Unrequited. Unspoken.
Suddenly, the path I've been on, the lessons I've been given, the trials I have faced, have all had purpose. And I stand there realizing that I am in the presence of the last great love of my life. In that moment the chamber bursts and out spills pure unadulterated, untainted, unspoiled, joy.
It's cosmic. It's karmic. It's miraculous.
It's love.
What happend next, will follow in another post.
And I was ok with that. I've been blessed enough to have loved and to have love returned by two wonderful men in my life. Steven and Doug were and are still incredible sources of strentgh, inspiration and growth. I am the man I am today because of their love, wisdom, patience and acceptance.
Just recently after a short love affair bloomed and faded over the fall I came to accept that I've been so very lucky to have had love twice when so many never have it at all. If my fate was to be the good son caring for my senior parents and being a great uncle to my neices, so be it. I'd made my peace with what the Universe was offering.
Funny how just when you think you know where you're life is headed, life shifts gears, changes direction and you find something completely different. Or rather, you are presented with an alternative. Sometimes the past becomes present.
Allow me to explain.
When I was near the end of my first relationship, my then partner gave me a rather meaningful gift for my birthday that year. It was a CD by a gay country artist. Steven knew just how much country dancing meant to me and as was his way, he found the perfect gift to show me that he "saw" me.
So I open the package and this CD falls out. On the cover is the most amazing set of blue eyes I've ever seen, within a face that I find so incredibly beautiful. Later I would discover that the beauty of the music equaled the man who sang it.
As I listened to the CD one song stood out above all the others. The song captured how I felt the first time I watched cowboys dancing at the Rawhide. I was transported to, what at that moment was the most joyful experience I'd had to that point in my life. Mark's music spoke to me in a way no other music had.
And in that moment, I began to love Mark.
It seems silly and childish, but it was the truth. This man who I never met, had provoked a longing I'd never known before or since. His music filled a chamber in my heart with such ache and need and desire I closed it off to contain it.
Steven and I ended not long after. The first love of my life faded like a tin daguerrotype photograph. Full of nostalgia and pleasant reflection but outdated and lacking color.
Not long after I met the first great love of my life, Doug. As fate (or Universal design) would have it, Doug was a country singer. I mentioned my great love for the music of Mark and found to my disbelief that Doug knew Mark. They had been friendly being cut from the same musical cloth.
My love for Doug was in full bloom when one fateful June day at Pride in SF, my love and I are walking around and we happen upon Mark's booth where he is selling his latest CD. Doug spots him and takes me over to meet Mark.
I am terrified and excited all at once. Here at last I am going to meet the man who I've been crushing on for the past 4 years. I don't know what to expect as we approach the booth.
Mark is even more beautiful in person. It becomes clear as he is hawking his wares that the energy and beauty and longing in his music is not artiface. It is as genuine and real and honest as that beaming smile, those twinking eyes and open demeanor of this amazing singer songwriter.
Doug attracts Mark's attention and my heart catches in my throat as my eyes meet Mark's gaze for the first time.
I am thunderstruck.
All the emotions I had bottled away in that secret chamber of my heart begin to roil. I fight hard to maintain myself and reach out to shake Mark's hand. He is easy and familar. We fall into talking and I find myself longing for a man who now has appeared one promise too late. We leave a short time later. My intial impressions comfirmed beyond doubt that Mark is indeed as sweet and wonderful and amazing as his music.
Doug and I begin to spend time with Mark and his partner. We hang out together, Mark even coming to Doug's and my housewarming a year later. Mark never knowing that the first act I performed in that new house was to waltz with Doug on our empty hardwood floor. Sweeping around the oak in 3/4 time to the song which reflected the Rawhide for me, and the music that drew me to Mark.
We'd share dinner occasionally. Walk around Lake Merrit. Two couples sharing a communion of friendship and camraderie. The angst I felt over being torn between My Love and this inexplicable, inexorable attraction for Mark I kept to myself, never betraying for a moment the torch I am carrying.
Then, suddenly Mark is gone. Emails go unanswered, phone calls unreturned. Mark fades into the distance like a ship sailing beyond a curved quiet horzion. I am crestfallen. Not only can I never speak of how I feel or express the love I carry for him, I've now lost the friendship I'd begun to build. The solace and comfort of, "well at least I have him in my life, if only as a friend" had ended as well.
So I am left with just his music and the bittersweet agony of listening to it, wondering what might have been. I close the chamber of my heart where Mark lives. Doug and I carry on until the unexpected curtain fell on our last act two years ago.
I pinball from man to man, short relationship to short relationship. Fleeting moments full of a promise that never comes to fruition. All the while me gaining knowledge about myself, what I want from another man, accepting that the life I have settled into may be one of permanence.
Then this past Sunday I am at my place of communion and healing. My temple of two-step and waltz, Sundance Saloon. It's Trailer Trash night and the carnival that is Sundance is in full swing. As I leave the floor briefly, a song I recognize comes on. It's one of my former love's songs which I've never heard at Sundance. I am struck with a moment of melancholy and longing, but it passes immediately as my friend asks me to dance.
As we sweep around the floor my friend asks me; "Isn't that Mark over there?" I reply; " I haven't seen Mark at Sundance in years, it's probably not him." As I say this I look over to where my friend has pointed and there I see the face of the man I've secretly loved for years smiling at me.
And I am thunderstuck.
That feeling I felt the first time I heard Mark, the first time I saw Mark, the first time I met Mark is still there. As strong as powerful as purposeful as the San Joaquin river full of Sierra snowmelt churning toward my Native Bay.
I walk over and embrace him. Hold him. Scold him for being gone so long. Eager to hear where he's been, how he is doing and is he happy. Then something amazing happens. For the first time in years I notice the same longing, the same desire, the same conviction I have carried for Mark all these years, reflected back at me.
Mark loves me.
He confesses why he's been gone. Because it was too hard. Too hard to be around Doug and I. Too hard to be around our love. Too hard to be around me. Too hard to want to be with me. Too hard to surpress his feelings.
And I realize that we have spent the last 7 years in love from a distance. Unrequited. Unspoken.
Suddenly, the path I've been on, the lessons I've been given, the trials I have faced, have all had purpose. And I stand there realizing that I am in the presence of the last great love of my life. In that moment the chamber bursts and out spills pure unadulterated, untainted, unspoiled, joy.
It's cosmic. It's karmic. It's miraculous.
It's love.
What happend next, will follow in another post.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Letting Go
Ok so every gay man has one of these posts. It's obligitory. Standard issue.
So why should I be any different.
So for the record, I'm a top. For various reasons my last relationship lacked the amount of sexual play I was and am used to. Contrary to whay you might think, this did not disturb me.
My libido is a changeable thing. It ebbs and flows with the level of my partner's. When I had the urge, and my partner's were not in the mood, I had the freedom to find release elsewhere.
On occasion I would. Usually though I was quite content taking charge of my own release. I would excuse myself from our bed with the stock phrase, "I'm going downstairs to take care of business". I would usually finish quickly and head back to bed to snuggle with Bobby.
This was a routine I had accepted and become accustomed to.
So now that 1/3 of my relationship is over, and the other 1/3 is in this nether region of "are we/aren't we", I've taken to getting my sexual needs met more frequently by other men. I travel a bit more to do this, since I no longer live with Bob and have moved back to my home in Mountain House, where my parents live with me.
Needless to say, this tends to cramp one's style.
It's a situation that has grown organically. I'm actually a little proud of myself for recapturing the sense of adventure I had back in my 20's. Two relationships, age and changing tastes had caused a shift toward a more conservative approach to getting off;
Me "taking care of business".
In my younger days, I was a bit wild. I experimented and tried many things. Yet for all of those forays into kinkier play three things never changed.
First, I'd never had an orgasm from making love to a man. Second, I'd never been given an orgasm by a man orally. Lastly, I'd only ever been able to reach climax by manual stimulation either on my own or with the assistance of another.
I had long ago resigned myself to not ever having an orgasm induced by oral or anal sex. I concluded that for me, it would remain the mythical holy grail. Sought after but unattainable.
Several things had to be just right for my partner to get me to orgasm. I had to feel comfortable. They had to be patient to learn what sent me over the edge. I had to feel no pressure like I "had" to have an orgasm or the world would just end for my sexual partner.
Needless to say, I've not had much success with someone else getting me to the point of orgasm. Hence my drive and desire to be able to cause an orgasm in my partners. I became a giver. It is what I do best afterall.
My most recent attempt at partner intimacy was for the most part very unsatisfying. Attempts to engage me were few and far between. When the mood was there, it was laden with pressure to "get off" and little patience to find what made me tick. Phrases like "I give up!" and "you're too much in your head!" did little to spark confidence in me and just made things worse.
Is it any wonder why both partners were able to induce a grand total of one orgasm each from me? I on the other hand had much greater success with them. I paid attention to what felt good for them, focused on that and voila! I am and always have been an attentive lover.
Of course this is neither hear or there. I can count on both hands with fingers left over the number of times I had sex with either or both of them. There wasn't much opportunity or desire on their parts to learn what works for me.
Selfish? Maybe. But they are after all men. Most men are incredibly selfish when it comes to sexual release. How many women complain to their girlfriends about how their lover had an orgasm, promptly rolled over and went to sleep?
Gay men are no different. I can hardly fault them for what is a basic trait found in my gender. You accept it and move on, or spend a lifetime feeling bad about it. I chose to accept it.
So I've been playing more with other men as of late. This has been fun and instructive. As always, I'm still focused on the pleasure of the other person. But I have taken the statement "you're too much in your head" to heart and have tried to just let go.
I've had some success.
My most recent encounters have been the day to my previous night. Did I say day? I meant luminous sun filled summer solstice.
Tonight was just incredible.
I men this man on one of the many gay hook-up websites out there. An attractive man, Latino, older. Very much my type.
After several near misses, tonight we finally met. There's chemistry. We joke and talk first. Eventually we end up on his bed and play ensues.
He's thoughtful, attentive. He pays attention to me, notices what makes me excited. He focuses on those things.
He is, for lack of a better description, another me.
And something marvelous happens.
First. Ever. Blowjob. Orgasm.
I'm still seeing stars.
I'm so cranked about it, I'm writing this post because I can't sleep. I am filled with all sorts of emotions about this moment. Relief, astonishment, a sense of "oh my God, this is what I've been missing?!?!?!"
And one other feeling that overrides all the others. A sensation I haven't felt in months. An emotion I've sorely missed;
Joy.
Manny, thank you for returning that special sense of joy sex can sometimes have. I couldn't have had a sweeter, kinder Percival. Thank you for bringing me the Grail.
I will always be grateful.
So why should I be any different.
So for the record, I'm a top. For various reasons my last relationship lacked the amount of sexual play I was and am used to. Contrary to whay you might think, this did not disturb me.
My libido is a changeable thing. It ebbs and flows with the level of my partner's. When I had the urge, and my partner's were not in the mood, I had the freedom to find release elsewhere.
On occasion I would. Usually though I was quite content taking charge of my own release. I would excuse myself from our bed with the stock phrase, "I'm going downstairs to take care of business". I would usually finish quickly and head back to bed to snuggle with Bobby.
This was a routine I had accepted and become accustomed to.
So now that 1/3 of my relationship is over, and the other 1/3 is in this nether region of "are we/aren't we", I've taken to getting my sexual needs met more frequently by other men. I travel a bit more to do this, since I no longer live with Bob and have moved back to my home in Mountain House, where my parents live with me.
Needless to say, this tends to cramp one's style.
It's a situation that has grown organically. I'm actually a little proud of myself for recapturing the sense of adventure I had back in my 20's. Two relationships, age and changing tastes had caused a shift toward a more conservative approach to getting off;
Me "taking care of business".
In my younger days, I was a bit wild. I experimented and tried many things. Yet for all of those forays into kinkier play three things never changed.
First, I'd never had an orgasm from making love to a man. Second, I'd never been given an orgasm by a man orally. Lastly, I'd only ever been able to reach climax by manual stimulation either on my own or with the assistance of another.
I had long ago resigned myself to not ever having an orgasm induced by oral or anal sex. I concluded that for me, it would remain the mythical holy grail. Sought after but unattainable.
Several things had to be just right for my partner to get me to orgasm. I had to feel comfortable. They had to be patient to learn what sent me over the edge. I had to feel no pressure like I "had" to have an orgasm or the world would just end for my sexual partner.
Needless to say, I've not had much success with someone else getting me to the point of orgasm. Hence my drive and desire to be able to cause an orgasm in my partners. I became a giver. It is what I do best afterall.
My most recent attempt at partner intimacy was for the most part very unsatisfying. Attempts to engage me were few and far between. When the mood was there, it was laden with pressure to "get off" and little patience to find what made me tick. Phrases like "I give up!" and "you're too much in your head!" did little to spark confidence in me and just made things worse.
Is it any wonder why both partners were able to induce a grand total of one orgasm each from me? I on the other hand had much greater success with them. I paid attention to what felt good for them, focused on that and voila! I am and always have been an attentive lover.
Of course this is neither hear or there. I can count on both hands with fingers left over the number of times I had sex with either or both of them. There wasn't much opportunity or desire on their parts to learn what works for me.
Selfish? Maybe. But they are after all men. Most men are incredibly selfish when it comes to sexual release. How many women complain to their girlfriends about how their lover had an orgasm, promptly rolled over and went to sleep?
Gay men are no different. I can hardly fault them for what is a basic trait found in my gender. You accept it and move on, or spend a lifetime feeling bad about it. I chose to accept it.
So I've been playing more with other men as of late. This has been fun and instructive. As always, I'm still focused on the pleasure of the other person. But I have taken the statement "you're too much in your head" to heart and have tried to just let go.
I've had some success.
My most recent encounters have been the day to my previous night. Did I say day? I meant luminous sun filled summer solstice.
Tonight was just incredible.
I men this man on one of the many gay hook-up websites out there. An attractive man, Latino, older. Very much my type.
After several near misses, tonight we finally met. There's chemistry. We joke and talk first. Eventually we end up on his bed and play ensues.
He's thoughtful, attentive. He pays attention to me, notices what makes me excited. He focuses on those things.
He is, for lack of a better description, another me.
And something marvelous happens.
First. Ever. Blowjob. Orgasm.
I'm still seeing stars.
I'm so cranked about it, I'm writing this post because I can't sleep. I am filled with all sorts of emotions about this moment. Relief, astonishment, a sense of "oh my God, this is what I've been missing?!?!?!"
And one other feeling that overrides all the others. A sensation I haven't felt in months. An emotion I've sorely missed;
Joy.
Manny, thank you for returning that special sense of joy sex can sometimes have. I couldn't have had a sweeter, kinder Percival. Thank you for bringing me the Grail.
I will always be grateful.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Catharsis
It's not enough to tear me up
You need to watch me as I drop
Lying here in the wreckage of a life
Hit me hard, push me down
While you stand your holy ground
Blame it all on the one you blew away
But don't you just feel fine
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
Tell me how it's for the best
You left me such a pretty mess
Cast away like flowers on the floor
Swimming in your scent and all the words you never meant
But you always knew to leave me wanting more
But don't you look so nice
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
I've had enough of the blood and the blame
Down in the dust and the rust and the shame
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
Do you realize this
It's all coming back
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
Back to you
It's not enough to tear you up
I need to watch you as you drop--Matt Scannell
You need to watch me as I drop
Lying here in the wreckage of a life
Hit me hard, push me down
While you stand your holy ground
Blame it all on the one you blew away
But don't you just feel fine
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
Tell me how it's for the best
You left me such a pretty mess
Cast away like flowers on the floor
Swimming in your scent and all the words you never meant
But you always knew to leave me wanting more
But don't you look so nice
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
I've had enough of the blood and the blame
Down in the dust and the rust and the shame
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
Do you realize this
It's all coming back
All of your kindness
All of your blindness
I hope you realize this
I'm giving it back to you
All of your hatred
That you hold so sacred
I am elated
To give it back to you
Back to you
It's not enough to tear you up
I need to watch you as you drop--Matt Scannell
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Daybreak
It's always darkest before the dawn.
I've had some time to process Saturday's events. It's been a rough couple of days. I've come to realize much.
First, I've let fear run my life for far to long. Second, my love is valuable. Third, I am worthy of that which I seek most:
Love.
I had two very important conversations today. The first was with my best friend from high school, Jason. The second was with my brother Joe. Both of these voices have been very important in my life. The former has always been a clarion call of truth, honesty and focus. The latter has always offered a loving, compassionate wisdom that belies the fact he is my junior by 5 years.
They both said the same thing today. Their words hit me like a thunderbolt. The haze I've been in for the past two days was swept away by what they said:
"You are worthy of love. You're love is as valuable as those from whom you seek love. You did all you could. You didn't ask for anything more than you were willing to give. It wasn't all your fault."
They gave wise council. "Find out where you stand. Be sure that you have the same understanding and expectations. Be true to yourself."
So tonight I did that.
I spoke with Bobby tonight. It was a difficult conversation to have. I know he's in the middle of his own battle right now. Bobby is torn between two men who love him, and whom he loves.
My place is nothing compared to that.
But I couldn't be silent. I had to seize the moment and speak my needs and concerns. I was not about to allow fear to rob me of my voice again. No this time I would stand up for myself, what I want and what I need.
I need.
We discussed the central tenets of our relationship. We found common ground. But there was also disagreement.
Of course Saturday's events returned. It was difficult to not have the conversation without discussing Kenny. For my part the matter was simple. Kenny left. he didn't just leave me, he left us.
It's clear Bob sees things differently.
I am to blame for all of this. I brought Kenny into the relationship. Kenny left because I couldn't tell him I wanted him here. I am the reason the possibility even existed for Bobby to fall in love with Kenny.
Tonight, I asked Bob to let that go.
If I am to stay, my feelings must come first with Bob. I need to know that. Why?
Because I didn't leave.
I stayed.
I bared all of my insecurities for both of them to see. I agreed that I must grow and began to change. I did the work I was asked to do. I bore all of their fears and concerns alone. I did all of this.
Here.
Right here.
I was willing to do more. I was willing to work with Ken on fixing what was broken between us. I was willing to put aside my doubts and try. I took all these steps toward the middle, all I was asking for was one, single, solitary step in my direction. One word of assurance, that I never got from Ken.
I don't get why.
When Ken was at the beginning of his journey in attempting to bond with Bob, it was I who reassured him. I was the one saying, "it's ok, it'll work I love you, Bob will love you too." It was my mantra to him. I salved his insecurities and fears. I was there for Ken when he needed me.
And it happened. He bonded with Bob. Bobby fell in love with him.
I'm sorry it may be petty and small, but I have to ask the universe; Where was my reassurance? When I was struggling with my fears and insecurities where was the kind word, the loving look?
It was nowhere.
I was told early on, "I won't coddle you. I can't be in a relationship where all the focus is on one person's insecurities." How does one respond to that? How does one not feel more insecure and fearful, when one of the people who is supposed to love you says that? What can you do?
You can doubt. That's what you can do. You can lose trust.
You can lose faith.
In spite of all this. I stayed. Right here.
I could have run. I had many opportunities to call it quits. I have a place of my own to live. I have people who love me. I have emotional resources.
I could have left them together. I could have given into my fears and insecurities. Once again I could have employed self destructive tendancies.
I could have seen Bob's choice to put Ken's feelings ahead of mine as a betrayal. I could have seen Bob's silence as his contribution to the end of the relationship between Ken and I. I could have taken the viewpoint that Bobby had the knowledge to save the relationship. Bobby had the tools in his hands to fashion the middle ground Ken and I needed and did nothing. I could chose to be bitter about that.
I could have made those choices but I didn't.
I stayed. I didn't quit. I did the hard thing. I stayed where I thought I was not wanted.
Because I believed. Because I didn't lose heart. Because I had faith in Bob and in Ken.
Which makes it all the harder to bear the accusation that this is my fault.
I didn't leave you Bobby. Kenny did. He left us both. All because he couldn't say "I want to be with you Jerry. Do you want me to be with you?"
I didn't have the knowledge that you did. I didn't know what you knew. I didn't make the choice to remain silent when action was needed to save all of this.
Kenny had his line in the sand. I had mine. Neither was crossed by the other. You didn't help bridge the gap and now you're left in the no man's land between.
I am heartsick about that.
But the reality is, I'm still here. Regardless of both of your choices. One choosing to leave the other choosing not to act.
I chose to stay.
Now I must wait.
Again.
I have to wait for you to decide what you want Bob.
So I will. I'll wait. Right here.
No matter the outcome, I can and have survived as witnessed by this blog, much bigger, much harder hits to my heart and psyche. If you decide to let me go to be with Ken, I'll be here. If you decide that I'm the one you want, I'll be here. If you chose to try and bring Ken and I together, or to end it with both of us, I will be here.
The point is Bobby, I. Am. Here. I have always been here. I didn't give into my fears. I didn't give up on the love I have for you. I didn't quit when things were hardest. I stayed.
My choice to stay has meaning. If that doesn't tell you how much I love you nothing else I do or say will. Nothing.
So I'll wait. Again.
But this time, I wait without my nemisis;
Fear.
No Day But Today
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future
There is no past
Thank God this moment's not the last
There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret-- or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today
There's only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what is alright
No other course
No other way
No day but today
I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be
There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today--Rent
I've had some time to process Saturday's events. It's been a rough couple of days. I've come to realize much.
First, I've let fear run my life for far to long. Second, my love is valuable. Third, I am worthy of that which I seek most:
Love.
I had two very important conversations today. The first was with my best friend from high school, Jason. The second was with my brother Joe. Both of these voices have been very important in my life. The former has always been a clarion call of truth, honesty and focus. The latter has always offered a loving, compassionate wisdom that belies the fact he is my junior by 5 years.
They both said the same thing today. Their words hit me like a thunderbolt. The haze I've been in for the past two days was swept away by what they said:
"You are worthy of love. You're love is as valuable as those from whom you seek love. You did all you could. You didn't ask for anything more than you were willing to give. It wasn't all your fault."
They gave wise council. "Find out where you stand. Be sure that you have the same understanding and expectations. Be true to yourself."
So tonight I did that.
I spoke with Bobby tonight. It was a difficult conversation to have. I know he's in the middle of his own battle right now. Bobby is torn between two men who love him, and whom he loves.
My place is nothing compared to that.
But I couldn't be silent. I had to seize the moment and speak my needs and concerns. I was not about to allow fear to rob me of my voice again. No this time I would stand up for myself, what I want and what I need.
I need.
We discussed the central tenets of our relationship. We found common ground. But there was also disagreement.
Of course Saturday's events returned. It was difficult to not have the conversation without discussing Kenny. For my part the matter was simple. Kenny left. he didn't just leave me, he left us.
It's clear Bob sees things differently.
I am to blame for all of this. I brought Kenny into the relationship. Kenny left because I couldn't tell him I wanted him here. I am the reason the possibility even existed for Bobby to fall in love with Kenny.
Tonight, I asked Bob to let that go.
If I am to stay, my feelings must come first with Bob. I need to know that. Why?
Because I didn't leave.
I stayed.
I bared all of my insecurities for both of them to see. I agreed that I must grow and began to change. I did the work I was asked to do. I bore all of their fears and concerns alone. I did all of this.
Here.
Right here.
I was willing to do more. I was willing to work with Ken on fixing what was broken between us. I was willing to put aside my doubts and try. I took all these steps toward the middle, all I was asking for was one, single, solitary step in my direction. One word of assurance, that I never got from Ken.
I don't get why.
When Ken was at the beginning of his journey in attempting to bond with Bob, it was I who reassured him. I was the one saying, "it's ok, it'll work I love you, Bob will love you too." It was my mantra to him. I salved his insecurities and fears. I was there for Ken when he needed me.
And it happened. He bonded with Bob. Bobby fell in love with him.
I'm sorry it may be petty and small, but I have to ask the universe; Where was my reassurance? When I was struggling with my fears and insecurities where was the kind word, the loving look?
It was nowhere.
I was told early on, "I won't coddle you. I can't be in a relationship where all the focus is on one person's insecurities." How does one respond to that? How does one not feel more insecure and fearful, when one of the people who is supposed to love you says that? What can you do?
You can doubt. That's what you can do. You can lose trust.
You can lose faith.
In spite of all this. I stayed. Right here.
I could have run. I had many opportunities to call it quits. I have a place of my own to live. I have people who love me. I have emotional resources.
I could have left them together. I could have given into my fears and insecurities. Once again I could have employed self destructive tendancies.
I could have seen Bob's choice to put Ken's feelings ahead of mine as a betrayal. I could have seen Bob's silence as his contribution to the end of the relationship between Ken and I. I could have taken the viewpoint that Bobby had the knowledge to save the relationship. Bobby had the tools in his hands to fashion the middle ground Ken and I needed and did nothing. I could chose to be bitter about that.
I could have made those choices but I didn't.
I stayed. I didn't quit. I did the hard thing. I stayed where I thought I was not wanted.
Because I believed. Because I didn't lose heart. Because I had faith in Bob and in Ken.
Which makes it all the harder to bear the accusation that this is my fault.
I didn't leave you Bobby. Kenny did. He left us both. All because he couldn't say "I want to be with you Jerry. Do you want me to be with you?"
I didn't have the knowledge that you did. I didn't know what you knew. I didn't make the choice to remain silent when action was needed to save all of this.
Kenny had his line in the sand. I had mine. Neither was crossed by the other. You didn't help bridge the gap and now you're left in the no man's land between.
I am heartsick about that.
But the reality is, I'm still here. Regardless of both of your choices. One choosing to leave the other choosing not to act.
I chose to stay.
Now I must wait.
Again.
I have to wait for you to decide what you want Bob.
So I will. I'll wait. Right here.
No matter the outcome, I can and have survived as witnessed by this blog, much bigger, much harder hits to my heart and psyche. If you decide to let me go to be with Ken, I'll be here. If you decide that I'm the one you want, I'll be here. If you chose to try and bring Ken and I together, or to end it with both of us, I will be here.
The point is Bobby, I. Am. Here. I have always been here. I didn't give into my fears. I didn't give up on the love I have for you. I didn't quit when things were hardest. I stayed.
My choice to stay has meaning. If that doesn't tell you how much I love you nothing else I do or say will. Nothing.
So I'll wait. Again.
But this time, I wait without my nemisis;
Fear.
No Day But Today
The heart may freeze or it can burn
The pain will ease if I can learn
There is no future
There is no past
Thank God this moment's not the last
There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret-- or life is yours to miss.
No other road
No other way
No day but today
There's only yes
Only tonight
We must let go
To know what is alright
No other course
No other way
No day but today
I can't control
My destiny
I trust my soul
My only hope
is just to be
There's only now
There's only here
Give in to love
Or live in fear
No other path
No other way
No day but today--Rent
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Kenny
I can't fix this.
I've never been good at expressing myself emotionally in the heat of the moment. I get tangled and twisted in my insecurities. I stumble and fall when trying to describe the truth of something deep within. You see that as deception. It's a lie. I'm trying to put a happy face on something or cover up what I really feel.
For me it's fear.
Fear of truth. Fear of pain. Fear of loss.
It results in so many unintended consequences.
So I'm going to write down what I feel. That is something that has always been easy for me to do. So here on this page I'm going to say what is actually going on in my heart.
There are moments when I want you, and when I don't. There are times when I love you and I don't. The push and pull you describe is real and it's relevant.
You helped fashion that feeling. I wasn't alone in crafting it. Maybe someday you'll be able to understand this. I don't know.
My sins and transgressions are legion. In fairness I need to say where I failed you. I allowed you to imput assumptions because I failed to share what I felt.
You once asked if you were a surrogate for my sexual needs. Yes that was one of the reasons I wanted you here with me and Bob. But it was only one reason, and it was only at the start. It was selfish. I own that.
Yet you failed to remember a confession I made at the outset of all of this. I told you that I had feelings for you. Those feelings existed after we first met. They existed after we first played.
The night we first had sex you told me clearly "don't fall for you". Yet that afternoon on our first trip to Sundance alone without Bob, I told you that I had fallen for you but you were gone on your trip and I had met Bob. You knew that, because I told you so.
So your insistance that the relationship was started under a false pretense, is mistaken. I wanted you here for more than sex. I wanted you here because I had feelings for you and I wanted to see if it could grow to be something more.
For a time it had.
Where all this changed for me came from one critical night. Bob was asleep and you and I started to play. In the midst of this, you stopped. I wondered why and then you told me you couldn't. You felt close to me, so you needed the space to get close to Bob.
I agreed.
So I told you that I would give you that space to find the balance you needed to make it work. I also told you that I would leave things to you to tell me when balance had been achieved.
So I watched while you got closer to Bob. I gave into my insecurities and I started to act out. I will own that too.
Yet you did nothing to alieveate them. No reassurance. No "it'll be ok I still love you". Instead you choose to focus on how my insecurities made you feel, not on what was causing them in the first place.
So I struggled to check myself. I became a tangled mess of emotion. Unsure, scared defensive. All because I began to doubt that you loved me. That you wanted me.
I didn't share this. I kept this to myself. I was too scared that it might be true. So I allowed you to believe what you were feeling, that I didn't want you here anymore.
I lied. To myself and to you. I own that one as well.
Yet you did little to convince me otherwise. The one time you did say something it was after a weekend's barrage of "here's what you're doing wrong and how I feel about it". You came to me and said hey I don't want you to think you're a bad guy, you're a good person.
It was an afterthought.
It felt like you trying to make yourself feel better about what you said. That statement wasn't about me, it was about you. Had it been about me you would have said something much simpler like:
"It's ok, I love you this will all work out."
You didn't.
That's where you failed.
All this time you've spent thinking that I didn't want you here. You were here under false pretenses. You share all of this with Bob and none of it with me.
Because you thought I couldn't handle it.
Maybe it's true. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Maybe I would have denied it all. We'll never know because you never tried. You failed there too.
So all of the doubt I've sown in your mind finally comes to a head. The week after I think I've made progress. The week after I finally feel ok with you being close to Bob because now, surely now after balance has been achieved you'll want to be close to me again.
No.
Instead I'm confronted with the knowledge that you won't be here on Friday. You need time to reflect. Instead your actions fill me with doubt again.
You confess all you need to again to Bob and leave me out. Because it all deals with me and for whatever reason, you can't say these things to me. So you leave me to wonder on my own what this is all about.
Talking myself with Bob, I find he's sworn to secrecy. In that moment I know. I know my greatest fear has been realized.
You're leaving.
So I prepare as best I can. I prep myself for the worst. I wait for Saturday's time bomb to come. It does.
You say the words. Yet even after that, there's still hope. Room for a change of heart.
Now it comes to it. The moment I'm waiting for you to ask plainly, directly. You don't. Instead I get "How can anyone stay where they are not wanted?"
I respond with the only thing that pops into my head "I don't know anyone one who could." Then I begin to think. I want to say something, but I pause because I doubt. I doubt if you love me. I doubt if you actually want to be here.
The months of doubt we've both been experiencing crystalize in that moment. Before I can say anything other that "I don't want to parse words" You say that my silence says everything and you leave, forever.
Had at any time during all of this, at anytime you simply said "I love you I want to be with you", had you said, "I think we can make this work", had you given me "I love Bob and I think I can love you again" That would have been enough, because for me love makes everything fixable. I would have been able to instantly say:
You are wanted.
I want you.
But you didn't. You never gave me the assurance I needed, so I could give you the assurance you needed. You need to own that.
I see now that despite all of this, despite all of my doubts and fears I have always wanted you. Not for the right reasons initially. But that changed for me. Along the way I fell in love with you.
I became angry at you for what you were building with Bobby and at the same time denying me. I became fearful of being left alone. I was afraid you and he would no longer care. I felt you were taking something from me, not Bob:
Yourself.
It wasn't true, any of it. But if felt that way. I didn't understand that I was a part of what was being built.
I lost you because of it.
I lost you because I gave into the easy thing. I chose to not say what I really felt because it would be easier without you here. Today, when I needed to use what you and Bob have taught me over the past 3 months, I failed.
In the moment, I felt I didn't want you here. That I wasn't in love with you anymore. That things would be so much easier without you here. That I would be better off with Bobby alone.
So that's what came out.
But it's not true.
What's true is that I want you here. I need you here. You are the reason why I have begun to change. To grow. I am better today because of you. Why would I want to let that go?
Why would I want to let go of the source of my transformation into a better person?
You'll never believe this or me. I know that. I know that this is an exercise in futility. I am saying all of this because I need to speak the truth to myself. This is more for me than you, since you will never read this.
But I need to speak the truth. That what began with a lie, ended with another.
Had I just been truthful at the moment I needed to be, you would be here.
And I wouldn't need to ask your forgiveness. I would feel the awful sense of lost and failure and pain I feel now. My life would be better than it is now.
Instead I am left in between here and gone.
Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
Is it in a photograph, or a dashboard poet's song?
Will I have missed my chance to right some ancient wrong,
Should I find myself between here and gone?
Now I could grab my keys, clear out in my truck,
With every saint on board bringing me their luck.
An' I could drive too fast, like a midnight sleeve,
As if there was a way to outrun the grief.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
In a song that's left behind in the dream I couldn't wake from.
Could I have felt the brush of a soul that's passing on,
Somewhere in between here and gone?
Up above me,
Wayward angels,
A blur of wings and grace.
One for courage,
One for safety,
One for "just in case".
I thought a light went out, but now the candle shines.
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, then I dried my eyes.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here,
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear.
Yeah, I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong,
After all the journeys made, and the journeys yet to come.
When I feel like giving up instead of going on,
Somewhere in between.
Yeah, I'm just wondering how we know where we belong.
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn?
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn,
Singing in between here and gone. ---Mary Chapin Carpenter
I've never been good at expressing myself emotionally in the heat of the moment. I get tangled and twisted in my insecurities. I stumble and fall when trying to describe the truth of something deep within. You see that as deception. It's a lie. I'm trying to put a happy face on something or cover up what I really feel.
For me it's fear.
Fear of truth. Fear of pain. Fear of loss.
It results in so many unintended consequences.
So I'm going to write down what I feel. That is something that has always been easy for me to do. So here on this page I'm going to say what is actually going on in my heart.
There are moments when I want you, and when I don't. There are times when I love you and I don't. The push and pull you describe is real and it's relevant.
You helped fashion that feeling. I wasn't alone in crafting it. Maybe someday you'll be able to understand this. I don't know.
My sins and transgressions are legion. In fairness I need to say where I failed you. I allowed you to imput assumptions because I failed to share what I felt.
You once asked if you were a surrogate for my sexual needs. Yes that was one of the reasons I wanted you here with me and Bob. But it was only one reason, and it was only at the start. It was selfish. I own that.
Yet you failed to remember a confession I made at the outset of all of this. I told you that I had feelings for you. Those feelings existed after we first met. They existed after we first played.
The night we first had sex you told me clearly "don't fall for you". Yet that afternoon on our first trip to Sundance alone without Bob, I told you that I had fallen for you but you were gone on your trip and I had met Bob. You knew that, because I told you so.
So your insistance that the relationship was started under a false pretense, is mistaken. I wanted you here for more than sex. I wanted you here because I had feelings for you and I wanted to see if it could grow to be something more.
For a time it had.
Where all this changed for me came from one critical night. Bob was asleep and you and I started to play. In the midst of this, you stopped. I wondered why and then you told me you couldn't. You felt close to me, so you needed the space to get close to Bob.
I agreed.
So I told you that I would give you that space to find the balance you needed to make it work. I also told you that I would leave things to you to tell me when balance had been achieved.
So I watched while you got closer to Bob. I gave into my insecurities and I started to act out. I will own that too.
Yet you did nothing to alieveate them. No reassurance. No "it'll be ok I still love you". Instead you choose to focus on how my insecurities made you feel, not on what was causing them in the first place.
So I struggled to check myself. I became a tangled mess of emotion. Unsure, scared defensive. All because I began to doubt that you loved me. That you wanted me.
I didn't share this. I kept this to myself. I was too scared that it might be true. So I allowed you to believe what you were feeling, that I didn't want you here anymore.
I lied. To myself and to you. I own that one as well.
Yet you did little to convince me otherwise. The one time you did say something it was after a weekend's barrage of "here's what you're doing wrong and how I feel about it". You came to me and said hey I don't want you to think you're a bad guy, you're a good person.
It was an afterthought.
It felt like you trying to make yourself feel better about what you said. That statement wasn't about me, it was about you. Had it been about me you would have said something much simpler like:
"It's ok, I love you this will all work out."
You didn't.
That's where you failed.
All this time you've spent thinking that I didn't want you here. You were here under false pretenses. You share all of this with Bob and none of it with me.
Because you thought I couldn't handle it.
Maybe it's true. Maybe I wouldn't have been able to handle it. Maybe I would have denied it all. We'll never know because you never tried. You failed there too.
So all of the doubt I've sown in your mind finally comes to a head. The week after I think I've made progress. The week after I finally feel ok with you being close to Bob because now, surely now after balance has been achieved you'll want to be close to me again.
No.
Instead I'm confronted with the knowledge that you won't be here on Friday. You need time to reflect. Instead your actions fill me with doubt again.
You confess all you need to again to Bob and leave me out. Because it all deals with me and for whatever reason, you can't say these things to me. So you leave me to wonder on my own what this is all about.
Talking myself with Bob, I find he's sworn to secrecy. In that moment I know. I know my greatest fear has been realized.
You're leaving.
So I prepare as best I can. I prep myself for the worst. I wait for Saturday's time bomb to come. It does.
You say the words. Yet even after that, there's still hope. Room for a change of heart.
Now it comes to it. The moment I'm waiting for you to ask plainly, directly. You don't. Instead I get "How can anyone stay where they are not wanted?"
I respond with the only thing that pops into my head "I don't know anyone one who could." Then I begin to think. I want to say something, but I pause because I doubt. I doubt if you love me. I doubt if you actually want to be here.
The months of doubt we've both been experiencing crystalize in that moment. Before I can say anything other that "I don't want to parse words" You say that my silence says everything and you leave, forever.
Had at any time during all of this, at anytime you simply said "I love you I want to be with you", had you said, "I think we can make this work", had you given me "I love Bob and I think I can love you again" That would have been enough, because for me love makes everything fixable. I would have been able to instantly say:
You are wanted.
I want you.
But you didn't. You never gave me the assurance I needed, so I could give you the assurance you needed. You need to own that.
I see now that despite all of this, despite all of my doubts and fears I have always wanted you. Not for the right reasons initially. But that changed for me. Along the way I fell in love with you.
I became angry at you for what you were building with Bobby and at the same time denying me. I became fearful of being left alone. I was afraid you and he would no longer care. I felt you were taking something from me, not Bob:
Yourself.
It wasn't true, any of it. But if felt that way. I didn't understand that I was a part of what was being built.
I lost you because of it.
I lost you because I gave into the easy thing. I chose to not say what I really felt because it would be easier without you here. Today, when I needed to use what you and Bob have taught me over the past 3 months, I failed.
In the moment, I felt I didn't want you here. That I wasn't in love with you anymore. That things would be so much easier without you here. That I would be better off with Bobby alone.
So that's what came out.
But it's not true.
What's true is that I want you here. I need you here. You are the reason why I have begun to change. To grow. I am better today because of you. Why would I want to let that go?
Why would I want to let go of the source of my transformation into a better person?
You'll never believe this or me. I know that. I know that this is an exercise in futility. I am saying all of this because I need to speak the truth to myself. This is more for me than you, since you will never read this.
But I need to speak the truth. That what began with a lie, ended with another.
Had I just been truthful at the moment I needed to be, you would be here.
And I wouldn't need to ask your forgiveness. I would feel the awful sense of lost and failure and pain I feel now. My life would be better than it is now.
Instead I am left in between here and gone.
Tonight, the moon came out, it was nearly full.
Way down here on earth, I could feel it's pull.
The weight of gravity or just the lure of life,
Made me want to leave my only home tonight.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
Is it in a photograph, or a dashboard poet's song?
Will I have missed my chance to right some ancient wrong,
Should I find myself between here and gone?
Now I could grab my keys, clear out in my truck,
With every saint on board bringing me their luck.
An' I could drive too fast, like a midnight sleeve,
As if there was a way to outrun the grief.
Now I'm just wonderin' how we know where we belong.
In a song that's left behind in the dream I couldn't wake from.
Could I have felt the brush of a soul that's passing on,
Somewhere in between here and gone?
Up above me,
Wayward angels,
A blur of wings and grace.
One for courage,
One for safety,
One for "just in case".
I thought a light went out, but now the candle shines.
I thought my tears wouldn't stop, then I dried my eyes.
And after all of this, the truth that holds me here,
Is that this emptiness is something not to fear.
Yeah, I'll keep wondering how we know where we belong,
After all the journeys made, and the journeys yet to come.
When I feel like giving up instead of going on,
Somewhere in between.
Yeah, I'm just wondering how we know where we belong.
Is it in the arc of the moon, leaving shadows on the lawn?
In the path of fireflies and a single bird at dawn,
Singing in between here and gone. ---Mary Chapin Carpenter
I will be better. I will be honest. I will.
Because wishing doesn't make it so.
I know I screwed up, but you did too. All I can say now is that I will always love you, Kenny. It's not enough, but its' all I have.
Its' all I've ever had.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Triumvirate
How complicated can my life become?
Seriously, I've been trying to simplify things and the more I do, the more involved things become. I've gone and fallen in love with two men. Yes you read that right.
Two men.
What's even more interesting is that they have fallen in love with each other. Confused? Yeah keep reading.
I've become one leg of a triad. Initially what started out as me falling in love with a handsome blue eyed boy has evolved. We've both fallen in love with a brown eyed, gorgeous older man, and he has fallen in love with us.
Oh the Bard was right. It is a tangled web we weave.
It's no wonder so many of us end up like the fly.
Yet for all my discomfiture about this new situation, it has provoked growth. I've begun to face some deep seeded issues that have plagued me from boyhood. It's been hard and painful, but despite that it's been good.
I have to credit my two men for starting me on this journey, however I need to be a bit self congradulatory in that I'm the one who was willing to make the journey in the first place. Not for them, but for myself.
I needed to change. Years of being wounded has provoked a sense of profound desire to end my previous condition. I had chosen to exist in my broken state because it was easy, simple and all I had known.
Yet it was exactly that, a choice.
Just as it's been a choice to walk away from what was easy simple and known for hard, difficult and foreign.
While I have always adapted to change well, I've seldom accepted change gracefully. I've always stumbled my way though emotional evolution, slashing, bruising and bleeding along the way. It's never been pretty.
This instance is no exception.
It's taken harsh words, difficult conversations and pregnant statements full of implications to force the issue for me. My world view has been challenged. I've been forced to look in the mirror and see things I've not been happy seeing.
I've had to accept the darker parts of who I am, and acknowledge that I, like everyone, can at times have bad thoughts. I've wished ill. I've hoped for bad things to happen to good people.
This has not been an easy thing to accept.
Yet the honesty has been liberating. I find myself feeling freer to say what needs to be said. To be honest with myself about how I'm actually feeling and having the strength to say so.
I owe that to my partners.
The previous week I finally shared the deep dark secret I've feared giving voice to. I admitted to both my partners that I have never trusted anyone I loved. I have always expected that someone I love would lie to me and then leave.
Because, I saw myself as unloveable.
So my life has been one big exercise in self sabotage. I would create the conditions in relationships by which my belief would be proven true. I would pull away from those that I love so I could say to myself "See! They left! You are unlovable!"
Except this time, as I began to create the conditions, these two refused to allow it. Both are far more in tune with who they are and are far more evolved than I in many ways. It was their love for me that created in me a sense of trust for one of the few times in my life.
And as I told them what I needed to, neither ran screaming from the building. This proved critical. Their actions disproved my believe that I am unlovable.
So now I need to find a new foundation stone to build my psyche on. I need something much firmer than the quicksand I've been living on for so long. I feel so unsettled an unmoored.
Yet that is so much better than the fear and loathing I've been in all my adult life.
That has to be good. Right?
Seriously, I've been trying to simplify things and the more I do, the more involved things become. I've gone and fallen in love with two men. Yes you read that right.
Two men.
What's even more interesting is that they have fallen in love with each other. Confused? Yeah keep reading.
I've become one leg of a triad. Initially what started out as me falling in love with a handsome blue eyed boy has evolved. We've both fallen in love with a brown eyed, gorgeous older man, and he has fallen in love with us.
Oh the Bard was right. It is a tangled web we weave.
It's no wonder so many of us end up like the fly.
Yet for all my discomfiture about this new situation, it has provoked growth. I've begun to face some deep seeded issues that have plagued me from boyhood. It's been hard and painful, but despite that it's been good.
I have to credit my two men for starting me on this journey, however I need to be a bit self congradulatory in that I'm the one who was willing to make the journey in the first place. Not for them, but for myself.
I needed to change. Years of being wounded has provoked a sense of profound desire to end my previous condition. I had chosen to exist in my broken state because it was easy, simple and all I had known.
Yet it was exactly that, a choice.
Just as it's been a choice to walk away from what was easy simple and known for hard, difficult and foreign.
While I have always adapted to change well, I've seldom accepted change gracefully. I've always stumbled my way though emotional evolution, slashing, bruising and bleeding along the way. It's never been pretty.
This instance is no exception.
It's taken harsh words, difficult conversations and pregnant statements full of implications to force the issue for me. My world view has been challenged. I've been forced to look in the mirror and see things I've not been happy seeing.
I've had to accept the darker parts of who I am, and acknowledge that I, like everyone, can at times have bad thoughts. I've wished ill. I've hoped for bad things to happen to good people.
This has not been an easy thing to accept.
Yet the honesty has been liberating. I find myself feeling freer to say what needs to be said. To be honest with myself about how I'm actually feeling and having the strength to say so.
I owe that to my partners.
The previous week I finally shared the deep dark secret I've feared giving voice to. I admitted to both my partners that I have never trusted anyone I loved. I have always expected that someone I love would lie to me and then leave.
Because, I saw myself as unloveable.
So my life has been one big exercise in self sabotage. I would create the conditions in relationships by which my belief would be proven true. I would pull away from those that I love so I could say to myself "See! They left! You are unlovable!"
Except this time, as I began to create the conditions, these two refused to allow it. Both are far more in tune with who they are and are far more evolved than I in many ways. It was their love for me that created in me a sense of trust for one of the few times in my life.
And as I told them what I needed to, neither ran screaming from the building. This proved critical. Their actions disproved my believe that I am unlovable.
So now I need to find a new foundation stone to build my psyche on. I need something much firmer than the quicksand I've been living on for so long. I feel so unsettled an unmoored.
Yet that is so much better than the fear and loathing I've been in all my adult life.
That has to be good. Right?
Friday, June 18, 2010
For Good
At the risk of being a typically cliched gay man, or a typical man unable to share his emotions in his own words, a selection some of you may be familiar with:
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share
And none of it seems to matter anymore
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood
Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better
And because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good...
Tere, For all I have done and all I failed to do, I am so very very sorry. I was unable and unwilling to see my flaws, my failings and I pushed you away. I drew away from the one person who loved me despite all my insecurities and fears. I hope you can forgive me. Though I know you may never read this, know that I forgive you. I have been changed forever because of your love, kindness and wisdom.
Though I've had to release and mourn the death and loss of my sweet southern cowboy partner and lover, I can now embrace and rejoice at the birth of my beautiful, wonderful sister and friend.
Goodbye Douglas, I will always love and remember you.
Hello Teresa I will always love and treasure you.
I have been changed for good.
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for
But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share
And none of it seems to matter anymore
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood
Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better
And because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good...
Tere, For all I have done and all I failed to do, I am so very very sorry. I was unable and unwilling to see my flaws, my failings and I pushed you away. I drew away from the one person who loved me despite all my insecurities and fears. I hope you can forgive me. Though I know you may never read this, know that I forgive you. I have been changed forever because of your love, kindness and wisdom.
Though I've had to release and mourn the death and loss of my sweet southern cowboy partner and lover, I can now embrace and rejoice at the birth of my beautiful, wonderful sister and friend.
Goodbye Douglas, I will always love and remember you.
Hello Teresa I will always love and treasure you.
I have been changed for good.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Searching for Grace....Again
Ugh.
Why do I do these things to myself? I've fallen in love again. With two men.
Two.
I truly am fortune's fool.
The worst part is, I'm not totally sure if either feels what I feel. I'm sure they do feel something for me. But if it's what I conceive Love to be or not, is another matter.
For me Love truly is what the ancient Greeks described it as. A triad of emotions. Philas, Agape and Eros.
And in what has become typical of my life's progress, my circumstance mirrors my desire. I am involved in a polyamorous relationship in which both my partners seem to lack a feeling of Eros for me.
One claims it's because he lacks the ability to have connective emotional sex with anyone he loves. The other, because he fears getting too close to me will alienate our other partner. So I am left with the brotherly, family love while lacking the passion I so despair for .
This trip down the path of my insecurities was spured on by a meaningless sexual escapade I had yesterday afternoon. I had just spent a wonderful weekend with both my partners. Friday saw us in the throws of sexual passion and both my men experienced release.
I did not.
So yesterday I decided I would take matters into my own hands. I found a boy and had my fun. Release was achieved. But boy did I pay for it. I've been unsettled all day.
I've been wondering if either of my partners is physically attracted to me. They both claim to be yet neither initiates sex with me. Oh sure I get my share of passionate kisses and hugs. They both say I love you.
Yet I still doubt both of them.
The passion that was shared on Friday was between them. I was untouched sexually. I severed only as a medium for both of their orgasms.
I wish I could let this go, but I can't.
I want more from both of them and they seem unable to give the most important part of themselves to me. It's frustrating, infuriating and irritating.
And it hurts.
Why do I do these things to myself? I've fallen in love again. With two men.
Two.
I truly am fortune's fool.
The worst part is, I'm not totally sure if either feels what I feel. I'm sure they do feel something for me. But if it's what I conceive Love to be or not, is another matter.
For me Love truly is what the ancient Greeks described it as. A triad of emotions. Philas, Agape and Eros.
And in what has become typical of my life's progress, my circumstance mirrors my desire. I am involved in a polyamorous relationship in which both my partners seem to lack a feeling of Eros for me.
One claims it's because he lacks the ability to have connective emotional sex with anyone he loves. The other, because he fears getting too close to me will alienate our other partner. So I am left with the brotherly, family love while lacking the passion I so despair for .
This trip down the path of my insecurities was spured on by a meaningless sexual escapade I had yesterday afternoon. I had just spent a wonderful weekend with both my partners. Friday saw us in the throws of sexual passion and both my men experienced release.
I did not.
So yesterday I decided I would take matters into my own hands. I found a boy and had my fun. Release was achieved. But boy did I pay for it. I've been unsettled all day.
I've been wondering if either of my partners is physically attracted to me. They both claim to be yet neither initiates sex with me. Oh sure I get my share of passionate kisses and hugs. They both say I love you.
Yet I still doubt both of them.
The passion that was shared on Friday was between them. I was untouched sexually. I severed only as a medium for both of their orgasms.
I wish I could let this go, but I can't.
I want more from both of them and they seem unable to give the most important part of themselves to me. It's frustrating, infuriating and irritating.
And it hurts.
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