Petty Pace

 

            Growing older is catching up with me. I still can’t believe I am in my 50s and not dead yet. It may be cliché but I don’t feel  old. I never have. I am well into the second half of my life and yet, until recently, I really didn’t have a clue. I understood the aging process, I understand all that entails, but I never felt old. Time creeps in that petty pace. The transformation seems to take forever but the results are instantaneous. At some point, we all shift into that “I am going to die” phase of our lives. Having survived a serious suicide attempt back in the 1990s, the experience made me more able to seize each day, to claim my life as my own. Unfortunately, the years flew by and so did my youth. I stand at a precipice, looking back with great appreciation and forward with a little bit of fear. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? 

 

            It seems that the older one gets the younger one feels inside. I have heard it said over and over and over again. Somehow life makes us feel youthful within as it rots away the outside. The decay is a natural event. There are sure fire signs of  doom as we travel on our way. Slowly but surely, one symptom after another, and soon you realize why your Dad slept on the floor so much or your partner took a header off that building. Regardless of your state of mind, time is not really a friend. I suppose it should be easy ignoring the obvious. You can try to disregard your reality but eventually all the aches and the pains and the limitations build up to a point were you can no longer dismiss them as incidental. Decomposition always comes with the territory, it is the most relevant part of living. We all end up at  the same place and we are dying to get there.

 

            Some fight aging. Many people can handle getting older but they can’t handle looking older. Age rejuvenation, cosmetic surgery, and creams coming out the wazoo, are huge business, preying on the idea that you may die but you can look good when you go. I’m sorry but becoming a plastic cat is not better than crow’s-feet and the ravages of time. I don’t understand how these people think they appear better than they might have otherwise. You can tell when someone has had “work” done. I’ve recently noticed the increase in “transformation” among those my age or older. In the 1980s, it was all about sustaining youth but these days it all about hiding your maturation date. Celebrity  icons like Amy Grant and Madonna have given in to the stretch and weave approach. It’s like they are cheating the truth. When I get even older than I am today, I want my scars to show. I will have earned it if I get that far. I do not choose to be in disguise.

 

            Watching my father age rapidly has shifted my sense of what it means to be elderly. It ain’t pretty, this slow and long withdraw of one’s life force. The passage of times seems more like deflating a balloon than growing old gracefully. We puncture and then we die. Since my Mother’s death in 2010, I have been witness to his decline. At times, considering his age and health, its like waiting for him to die. He himself admits that sometimes he feels like that. Still, I cannot believe how strong he remains. He continues to grunt and bear it. Surely, that counts for something in the overall scheme of things. Pearly gates and streets of gold aside, I cannot believe that dying is better for us in the end. If you’re going to resurrect me, do it now. Life should come with some extended warrantee. Make me pretty and make me sweet. Don’t let me wither like we all do.   

 

            In 2022, my first partner will have been dead longer than he was ever alive. On May 1^st, without fail, I have recognized the date of his birth. Unfortunately, just below it on his stone is the date it all ended.  He has been gone longer than he was here. The chunk of time which has passed since he passed has done nothing but to polish up this fact. Sometimes you have to cling to something when there is nothing to cling to. I believe it, all this time that has passed. It’s no surprise; I was there for each second, each moment. For 27 years year I have counted, keeping track so I could see how long surviving takes. Every moment I breathe, I remember. There was a day that my life started over. It was a long, long time ago but it defines me still. I wonder what he would look like now? Would he still stand tall and structured? Would he ripple or would he sag? The best I can do is hope he is happier where he is than where he came from.  Getting older has only highlighted his cost. The best I can do is watch time bring me closer to knowing what happened and that, in the end, he is alright.  

 

            I’m slightly cautious befriending people over 75  years of age. I don’t have issue with anything other than  the closeness to death that comes with them. It like adopting a mature dog, near the end of life. You try to invest, you make the effort, then they die on  your floor. I must admit that I am “once bitten twice shy.” All my friends born before the baby boom generation seem to be dropping like flies and I don’t like it one bit. In the last 10 years, one after another were here one day and dead tomorrow. Most had a peaceful end. Others I know suffered greatly and death was mercy. If there is one thing I have seen more than enough of in my life it is expiration dates. I’ve almost mastered feeling nothing at all. Death becomes like a friend who we never want to run into. Although I have never seen a baby being born, I have witnessed departure after departure. They come without fail and they always occur in the end.

 

            When I look in the mirror I see change. I recognize this line and that line. My beard is turning blond instead of grey. My back hurts. Diabetes is a fucking pain in the ass (actually, upper leg or abdomen). Almost every time I look at my present, its been unwrapped and thrown on the naughty pile. In moments when I am aware, I take a good look at myself in that mirror. I notice the difference every time there is one. They are like comic books which have waited to be read or badges of  honour screaming that you somehow made it this far. It’s a race, I swear. We are all going to the same destruction so I have decided to take my time. Distractions like beauty and youth somehow seems less important when you’re already ugly. Inevitably, we run the race thinking death will always come later. There is no such thing as a long life. We forget, you don’t have to get old to die but you always die when you get old.

 

            I remember watching the winds blow sands about the dunes of Cape Cod. Nothing remains the same there. The shift and pull of environmental factors insures than such things never ever stay the same. From what I recall, sand dunes don’t come with crow’s-feet or grey pubic hair.

 

 

 

Photo

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/03/04/magazine/30000-steps-cape-cod-three-day-walking-tour/

Gwen Stacey

  

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

(The Tempest, William Shakespeare 1611)

 

            Religion has always served a purpose. It primarily allows human beings to have hope that they will see their loved ones again. Life is eternal and so are they. It doesn’t matter what your Faith is, people cling to the chance that they might one day reunite with the dead and live forever. Believing you will see the deceased in some other place and/or time is a cultural expectation just like immortality. The ideology itself has evolved from a sacred base. People  have always believed there was more to this life than mere living. Sometimes the idea of heavenly resurrection was the only thing that carried a person through their grief and struggle. It still does in many cases. Religion has pacified death. This has allowed almost anyone with an opinion about it to have a voice which they have no problem sharing. The computer age has allowed for expression and therefore convolution. Death itself has always remained the same.

            It’s strange how when someone dies we automatically think of them in terms of heaven. It is rare that we imagine the deceased in terms of hell. We don’t send people to fire and brimstone, we picture them floating on clouds and listening to Mozart or Elvis. We don’t stop to think. We rarely engage the thought. When we do recognize it, it is a frightful thing. Death is hard enough to deal with without the constant call of religious chaos. There is no real way we can ever know what happens when we die. Only one person I can think of ever seemed to return after they were definitely dead (so I have been told). As a NDE experiencer, it is hard to ignore the fact. If you are here and now, if you still breathe and exist, then you did not die. Where you end up after life apparently depends entirely on what other people who think like you think.

 

            You would think that the death of my maternal Great-Grandfather Pascuzzo, or my favoured pet Charlotte, would constitute as my most influential encounters with early questions regarding the afterlife but they were not. The mouse was a simple lesson from life. While Giuseppe  passed away and was buried in 1975, a few years before I was exposed to death in print. In the spring of 1973, when Gwen Stacey died in The Amazing Spider-Man issue #121 and #122, I was beside myself. I did not understand why she would no longer appear with Peter Parker or in any Marvel comic book title. She was dead and the implications were  hard to ignore. My religious upbringing determined where this fictional persona was destined.  She may  have been a cartoon character but from her death began my speculation. I had to know if what my family and my Church preached was true. Where was Gwen Stacey?  

 

 

            Early on, comic books taught me a lot about alternate realities and the multiverse. Years before the scientific notions regarding this new dimensional awareness became forefront, I imagined poor Gwen tossed into the construct called hell because she wasn’t a Christian. I knew she wasn’t an actual person but, as a child,  I hoped that the world of superheroes was at least possible, some otherland, somewhere in another place and another  time. It is here that I learnt to distinguish between true reality and imagination. Gwen’s comic book death brought questions that a 7 year old shouldn’t really have to consider. I paid attention to everything and eventually realized there is a difference between mythos and legend and actuality.

 

            Despite the dichotomy in my thinking, I continued to fear, and somewhat follow, the implications my religious foundation claimed as true. As an adult, I found it difficult to consider anything but what I had been conditioned to believe. Although my parental influences were much more ecumenical in their approach than more extreme Christian points of view, I still believed what I had been told was fact not fiction. Regardless of a benevolent deity, almost every time I turned around someone else was being thrown into “the Pit,” including myself. People have little trouble casting someone  else into such a place. Hell was as real for me as any hero or mutant might have once been. Unfortunately, we don’t really stop to think about who just might “dwell” in this place of suffering. Like coins in a fountain, it can seem rather random and irrelevant, pick and choose. God doesn’t have to consider, he doesn’t even have to think about it. Apparently, its not up to Him but rather his followers and the scripture they adhere to.   

 

 

            In the 1999 animated film, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, hell is addressed in the most dark yet humorous manner. Groups of deceased and well known celebrities, including social/political icons, can be seen floating in hellfire or partying with Satan in a palpable version of the “place of torment.”  I was shocked, disturbed and yet somehow enlightened. Princess Diana, JFK, and even Gandhi, swam as ghouls or sang and danced with Hitler and a hand full of demons playing musical instruments at a luau. I’ve never been sure if laughing at damnation was blasphemy or half expected. I had never really stopped to think about the implications of  the New Testament parable promoting separation by sin. I suppose I believed what my father once instructed. Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell, but we all eat grass. Apparently, the sermon on the mount was more literature then lecture. To make claims of peace and love while damming children, the elderly and the handicapped to eternal suffering is simply preposterous. It cannot be any clearer, we should “do as I say not as I do.”.

 

Kenny goes to hell @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boIgHd9hXiA

 

One Hell of a party @

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INHhsR3t5pM

 

            Watching the image of Princess Diana laughing with Chairman Mao  sent shivers through me. It was true and I knew it. According to scripture she most certainly was burning in hell, or at least partying in it. Gandhi was not a Christian and therefore the promises assured in scripture did not apply to him. In the end, I was remarkably moved by this brutally honest piece of animation. It was not only the examples that made me stop and think but also the implication for the rest of us. The point of the mockery was clear and effectively opened my eyes to the idea that perhaps the God of Christianity wasn’t all He was cracked up to be. If these things were true, if damnation really existed, I no longer wanted any part of this God. Only a human being could be such an asshole.

 

 "I'll go to Heaven for the climate and Hell for the company."

(Mark Twain, American author)

 

            Scripture, no matter the source, is more literature than it is reality. All along, collecting comic books taught me more about religion than any ancient treatise or tale of divine manifestation. The characters in comic books are not real. The stories told do not conform to modern science nor do they represent the essence of anything beyond a human projection. Most comic books represent the battle between good and evil, light and darkness. Comic books are a fictional account of something not meant to be considered as real. Comic book stories are more about the message rather than just the messenger. Comic books contain the fundamental ideas that contribute to a better society and a more just one at that. Comic books are one expression of who we are as a people. They represent the mortal struggle and the challenges met in the world they represent.

            The history of hell is as diverse as the history of Jesus or even Spiderman, for that matter. The concept has evolved from an ancient garbage pit into a “literal” place of fire and eternal suffering. Along the way, mankind has not struggled with the idea of hell. We embraced it rather easily considering its implications. Divine punishment was really the only justice man has ever known, at least in his own mind.. Hell gave mankind a place to send those who failed to live up to the standards of the society in which they lived. It isn’t just the demagogues or murders who find themselves cast into the fire. Anyone, according to the New Testament, who does not proclaim Jesus is Lord and believe He is God cannot, will not, enter the kingdom of heaven

 

A few are the Elect, the rest are doomed.

 

            My father is in his mid-80s and has been a practicing Christian for most of his life. He outlived my mother by much more than a decade. I hate watching him go. Some old timers go quickly, like my Mom, and some linger like my Dad. Their exit can be long and hard and painful. Life is unfair, especially at the end. I can imagine how he feels waiting to join his spouse in heavenly bliss. If I regard Christian scripture, she is not waiting for him in Glory but rather in clouds of brimstone and hopelessness. She is definitely not part of the Elect. If one measures by biblical standard, my father has little to concern himself with other than his own eternal peril. I don’t think Jesus would let him in either. Don’t mention the afterlife to my Dad. He doesn’t want to think about it and he doesn’t want to talk about it. I think he knows. After all the years of standing with Jesus he has started to stand for himself. It is my guess he would rather spend eternity with his true love in hell than forever alone in heaven without her. At least, it’s a dry heat.

 

            Time has demonstrated the importance of questioning accepted social ideals, as it is the only manner by which new knowledge can be produced. As a child, I think I knew something was amiss regarding hell but my youth and Jesus confused me. I see things clearer now. It is very interesting to watch the spiritual conflict within an omniscient God who is also very much human. In the end, you kinda get stuck with what you’re given. Whether from the Bible, a comic book or a cartoon set in Hades, you always find exactly what you’re looking for. You can even make the claim that God is high fiction. If there is one thing I have learned on my own journey, sometimes the God we do worship is more monster than messiah. Be careful what you wish for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/6507/the_amazing_spider-man_1963_121

 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0158983/

Twice Shy

 

            At first, I liked the idea. Having someone from your past make the effort to reintroduce themselves initially brought me simple delight. Rediscovering people who were part of my history was quite amusing, when the game began. While I have maintained several long-term (20+ years) relationships, the majority of people I “drifted” away from remained the same. This is particularly true of my high school associates. You move on, you let it go and it becomes like every other might have been. In our time, each of us crosses paths with countless souls. The endless sea of faces from our past tends to make a person rather “cold” towards something that has become so irrelevant. It is a rare thing to be able to go home again. You can give it a good try, embrace the now of it, but in the end there was usually a reason why the relationship in question failed in the first place. People may claim age has changed them but usually, once established, there is little room beyond the original experience. Once bitten, twice shy, I say.

 

 

            When I started using Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms on a regular basis, like a fool I spent great energy trying to find people from my past. At first, I wanted the second chance. I gathered as many as possible and with great expectation attempted to re-establish myself to them. Apparently, moss gathers on rock. It was strange, perhaps surreal, even laughable. It was like nothing had really changed at all. The dynamics were almost exactly the same.

            Rather quickly together, yet one by one, what was became what is. Like with the  lemming mythos, they all headed over the horizon and gestured goodbye once again. In my mind, I wanted to restore the past and that is exactly what happened. Be careful what you wish for. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Clichés aside, I recognized rather quickly that sometimes you want to go home but once you get there, you realize why you moved out.

            I have a few friends from my distant past I remain in contact with. One I have known as long as any other person outside my family. This encouraged me to try my hand at the experiment known as social networking. I really wanted to, at least, make contact with a few old friends but that did not come to pass. With the exception of previously established contacts, trying to revisit that past was like rotting teeth; at first, you can handle it but eventually the decay is just too much. Not one of these contacts replied or responded to anything I posted on their profile or my news feed. It was a graveyard and only zombies seemed to roam it now. I didn’t understand how you could add someone to your platform then ghost them to their face. I grew tired of the game rather quickly and soon enough, each one of them was purged from my online presence for good. Some even took my memories of the memories of them.

 

            It may seem egotistical but I look great for my age. If there is one thing consistent with all my suffering, it is that I dazzled along the way. I have to admit, being handsome helped me (it sure didn’t hurt me). Despite all the inner conflict, all the struggle with Bipolar disorder, all the challenges, being pretty was one of the only things I felt went my way. Some people appear intact but at least I looked intact. Once I started using different social platforms, I soon realized that time was not as kind to many of my former “friends” (for lack of a better term). I suppose I am petty for enjoying their ugly. It just goes to show, from a cosmetic point of view, we think some things never change but they sure age. My point is, you can try to recapture what has gone before but more often than not it has corrupted. Time guarantees nothing remains the same and yet nothing really changes. Then again, some things maintain their luster in spite of the ravages of time. With proper care and attention, you can try to preserve what once might have been but in the end, it is not really worth it. Unlike a good antique, value mostly diminishes.

 

            She was one of my closest friends throughout my late teens. I knew her better than anyone. Despite certain events, and much passing time, we managed to stay in contact with each other up until the time of my first partner’s death. Years later, we found each other again on Facebook. She looked good, I must say. Yes, her passage left wrinkles and lines but she pretty much looked the same as when I once knew her. At first, we politely liked each other’s memes and posts. We made casual remarks, slight endeavors into recapturing what once was between us. Although she remains on my “friend list”, we do not interact with each other very much. She is different. I am different. Our priorities are not the same as in our youth. Still, the reward is knowing that my chum is okay and appears to be happy.

            Recently, someone I briefly “dated” 30 years ago sent a friend request through Facebook. He had run across my writing online and discovered I was the author. It was a pleasant gesture but I had no idea who the hell he was. Even after we discussed our mutual past, I had no clue. I still don’t. I felt bad, assuming how insulting this would be for anyone. I wasn’t sure why he contacted me. According to him, it’s not like we were ever friends or met outside of our arrangement. I felt he had certain expectations but I did not. It was nice to be recognized but in a day or two, I realized the entire endeavor was all pre-coitus. It’s true, often you cannot go back but when you do, you have no idea where you are or how you ever got there.

            Just after Christmas 2021, I got another friend request. I had not heard from him in more than two decades. Back then, we just faded away. His gesture was a surprise and much welcomed. It was awkward and a little messy at first, like trying to fit a watermelon into a Dixie cup. We both made an effort in spite of those two decades and the silence it had manifested. So far, the endeavor has lasted beyond a few weeks. It has been rather strange, however. My entire world is different, I am different but our past is exactly the same. The entire process has been an adjustment although not an unpleasant one. You get so used to a person then they are gone. Should they return one day, it can be hard to find a place for them. The old hole made from their departure filled over years ago but now you are digging it up again. We shall see what the future brings but I must admit that in spite of anything awkward, I am glad to have left myself open for such an experience. Digging up the past can sometimes remind us of why we shouldn’t dig up the past. It is the past for a reason. The wind has stoked the fire. Sometimes the past becomes the present and you just have to go with it. Things change and people change. My faith in online social networking has been moderately restored. Sometimes recapturing a relationship is just like going home. Usually, you have already paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

 

            The worst part of my online experience has been developing new friends who end up just the same as any real-time friends. There have been many contacts I have established, then nurtured, only to have them wither and die. It’s easier to say goodbye to someone you have never met but those pleasant hours interacting with a stranger can be as rewarding as any lunch date or movie night. Back in public school, my friend Nicole was pen pals with a Nigerian girl. I see no difference really. After years of correspondence only, Nicole considered her pen pal more a sister than a transcript. Relationships are defined through effort, not platform. I am closer to several of my online friends than I am to certain members of my own family. I suppose I should get used to it. Logging on one morning to a funeral is bewildering, to say the least. One day here, next day gone. Unfortunately, most people don’t pass away in cyberspace, they linger in a creepy profile that reeks of desperation. Every once in a while, you’ll see something they posted 8 years ago or a comment they made on your birthday in 2017. While the grief is, obviously, different, what remains is the same. When it all comes down, just to remember them is a testament to their existence and the connection you made with them, even if it’s only in a cloud. 

 

            Instead of trying to restore what was, start again and make something new. People want so much to fix their past instead of using the past to make a better day and a brighter tomorrow. I have to admit I am often resistant. I remain twice shy. I have learned not to trust anyone online until they establish the substance of their character. You could be old, you could be an idiot, you could even be ugly but what matters is who you are now, not who you were then. Life can be surprising no matter how old one gets. Some things are meant to be and some things are not. You can revisit the past but more often than not, you end up glad for what you don’t have.

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://thewordcounter.com/what-does-once-bitten-twice-shy-mean/

The Duck Test

  

The duck test is a form of deductive reasoning.

This is its usual expression:

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck,

then it probably is a duck.”

 

It sure ain’t a tree.

 

The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject

by observing that subject's habitual characteristics.

 

 

 

            I suppose I was lucky growing up. I never really had to deal with homophobia or gender hate because of who I am. Back then, I was witness to a few incidents involving this type of assault but for the most part, my own sexual identity remained rather safe and quite hidden until well into my 30th year. Self-realization had mostly been a silent mission for me, the turning from child to adult with a few little hairs. I was, for the most part, alone in my sin. My urges at times were consuming. The crescendo of early manic depression led my way. In secret, I managed to absorb any ideas gay culture may have propagated. I had never been called a faggot or demeaned because of my sexual orientation. People really had no clue. I was sheltered behind my heterosexual concealment. My colleagues would claim me as stereotypically butch, a real man by someone else’s standard. I didn’t have to try to pretend, it just came naturally to me. I hid in plain sight and, to varying degrees, could continue to do so if I still cared what others think of me. I have to admit that the lack of exposure I had to such homophobic circumstances left me slightly at ease. I didn’t have to bear concern because no one ever really put me in a position where I had to fight back. Well, almost no one. It is very true that some lessons cannot be ignored, even if they linger in silence. Whether we want it to or not, the truth always finds a way.

 

            I find most things ironic. The one homophobic and hate-based exposure I had as a teenager came from one of the same forces that would soon enough find me cast against a brick wall, waiting for him and his friends to finish. I suppose it’s my own fault for being queer. There was great hate between us from the get-go. I don’t believe I ever had a regular conversation with him, not since the first day of high school. No matter the avenue, we never really saw eye to eye, not that the option ever manifested. For some unexposed reason, he seemed to project his hate, particularly whenever I got near him. He was a dink. I never fought back. I never defended my honour or stood up to the bully. There was a schism, since I myself was often a bully, although not to this degree. I let it all go in an attempt at making it all go away. Like an idiot, I disregarded my own voice of reason. I flipped him the bird as he passed. I had no idea that the car turned around just down the street. I sat with my friend in her car when suddenly he knocked on my window. When I opened the door he punched me full on the nose and called me “homo.”  I looked at him and sat waiting for more. I was frozen, lost in my early manifesting panic. He looked at me, waiting for me to give him another reason to prove he was a man. I suppose at hockey practice he must of had to do the same with his lie. A year or so later and he proved his inclination. The louder one screams, the harder one sucks. It’s about deflection and projection and deciding who you are and may one day turn out to be. Granted, size matters so I could barely tell when the later physical assault turned over to his turn. His impulse revealed everything that one would need to make a conclusion. It just proves, you can run, you may even get away, but you cannot hide from yourself and who you really are underneath it all. Sometimes it is clear, these types of personalities protest way too much. I suppose, in a sense, it is who they really are. Figuratively and literally, some people are in desperate need of a good blow job.

 

          He had been in the ground just under a month. The snow covered the new mound like carpet, all white and soiled and settling to begin. It was a horror, initially a dark place, one I had surrendered to myself mere weeks before. To claim that I missed him was an over-simplification and, although with great reservation, I decided it was time to free the truth. I felt like I was somehow betraying him by continuing to hide who we had been all along. I suppose I was lucky not having to show all my cards. I appeared to be a breeder, I sure could play the part. Nothing could have been further from the truth. It was a brief nightmare when I attempted to remove the frozen endearments from their place on his grave. Stepping onto a foreign soil only brought greater horror and a rather cold soaking. I sank into it and screamed in good measure. Having just been released from hospital, I managed to change into fresh apparel on the way back to my parent’s place. I asked them to stop somewhere casual, for lunch before we got back home. The experience was much like clearing that sink hole, it was messy but I knew that it had to be done. Climbing out became my mission.

            The irony continued when we stopped at the Little Beaver for déjeuner. I revealed myself over fries and gravy. I was made pleasantly aware but not surprised by my parent’s reaction. I had never really thought they would respond any different but I did not want anyone to know, especially my very Christian family members. Whether by fear, a continual shame and embarrassment (thanks Jesus), or a simple need for privacy, I never felt the urge to tell someone I was gay. If it was relevant, you could tell all on your own. I am sure there were signs along the way but my silence seems to have settled those doubts deep in denial. My parents had not been sure what to believe. Their reaction was exactly what every LGBTQ person craves. It would never be an issue, it never has been, not once. Unfortunately, not everyone was happy to meet the real me. Not everyone was as gracious as my Mom and Dad. If one more person told me “they respect but don’t agree with my lifestyle choice” I might well have busted open and spilled myself out in bipolar angst. It is still difficult not judging someone so judgmental.

            We judge ourselves and in so doing become the very thing we hate most. It is not an uncommon thing for a gay man to be homophobic or a lesbian couple to be counter queer culture. Often hate from others becomes a justification for how we see and treat ourselves. We become our own excuse for hating. Coming out to my parents was one of the very best decisions I have made in my lifetime. They not only accepted me but not once said they loved me in spite of any “sin” I might carry. Most gay people I have known are not as fortunate to have the same upbringing as me and my siblings. We were taught early on not to judge someone who sinned differently than us. Unfortunately, internal and outside forces tend to dictate how we judge ourselves. 

  

 

            People stand there, angry, fuming that someone would have the audacity to question who they are. Let’s be honest. If it looks like chocolate pudding, smells like chocolate pudding and tastes like chocolate pudding then it ain’t tapioca. It’s easy to figure out if someone is gay or not. There are always indicators. Behaviour always gives one away. Gaydar is simply an awareness, the ability to recognize similar indicants. Had anyone bothered to notice anything during the 6 years I was with my first partner they might have had a clue before I came out to them after his death. I really should not have had to tell anyone anything but grief and solace and abandon left me weak enough to not care anymore. Still, I came out of the closet kicking and screaming. I just assumed that my life in general would have already given me away. The most transparent disguise does not necessarily come with conscious effort. If someone actually stands shrieking that they are not queer, for all to hear, there is usually a hidden reason. This is an obvious signal. No heterosexual is really affected by homosexuality, outside their own limitations on the matter. If you call a true heterosexual gay, there is rarely a response outside ambivalence. People don’t care about anything, including what someone thinks, unless it affects them first. I believe it to be true that the louder someone protests as to not being gay then chances are they are deflecting and projecting at the very same time.  At some point, a tintinnabulate should go off, a cacophony of bells that chime and it ain’t because some angels just got their wings. It’s strange how a gay person can still exert homophobia. This state does not just come as/with self hate but also a directed hate, usually at the thing they want the most but cannot have due to their own darkness. People who hate themselves tend to attack others for those very same reasons. In the end, all that hate has to rise to the surface. I’m sorry but aggressively declaring you are not gay defines you, whether you care to admit it or not. To be offended means there is a reason to be. I suppose, you are what you think. You still get to choose if you come out to others or not but sometimes all that protesting, ‘me thinks’, seems too much. 

 

            You don’t have to be anyone you don’t want to be. You do not have to give into what one might call impulse anymore than you have to give into the practice of self- abnegation. There is nothing that says you have to come out of the closet. You are free to swim in denial or hide, if that’s how you really want to be. It can seem easier living behind some wardrobe door. Regardless, just because you are confused, and fractured, does not give you the right to treat people badly. Gay people get to evaluate each homophobe not only by their words but also by their actions. It’s in the pudding. Some people may go through their entire life not saying a word about who they really are deep down inside. My late friend Bob was married, with 2 boys, for almost 30 years before he left his family for a more 1980s groove. Unfortunately, he was soon infected and quickly passed away from AIDS.  Some might argue that his new found sexual lifestyle sealed his fate. If he had stayed with his wife and children like Jesus wanted him to do then he would not have ended in such a dire fashion. His greatest regret (however) was not being true to himself for all those 30 years. When my first partner was outed, he chose to jump off a building rather than facing a new reality. In hindsight, his fears were not that far from reality. It’s like he knew what would come from it. Apparently, he felt disposable.  

            I did not have the experience of bells going off when I came out of the closet. Many do and that is significant for them. For me, I was forced by circumstance to reveal my inclination. A quarter century since and it can still be awkward for me. Just by saying you are homosexual prescribes certain insight into one’s sexual proclivity. The same can be said about heterosexuals. You assume certain sexual behaviours result from just that. Homophobia is the expression of prejudice towards people of the “queer” persuasion. It can be angry and it can even be deadly, just ask Matthew Shepard. Most of the time it can be subtle and discreet. Other times, it can be in your face and pure hate. Either way, I would argue that, in most cases, the hatred is a defensive posturing. Again, the louder they scream the harder they suck. Some don’t even realize what they are doing. Some people protest. Some say nothing. Some quack.

 

“The first time it felt really dangerous, like the sort of thing you had to lock the doors and close the curtains on because if anybody saw you, God would strike you down with a thunderbolt. But I took to it like a duck to water.” (Jamie Muir, Scottish entertainer)

 

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/gJ2ylP

 

 

 

 

Sources

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

the Wind

 

            At this point, nothing about this life surprises me. Whether the good or the bad, I seem to be able to survive no matter the cost. One might argue life has been unfair to me, not that it is fair to anyone really. I have paid quite the price just to get where I am. I have always just assumed it was like this for most people. From what I understand even those we would imagine to have a blessed life curl up in a ball and scream out loud in their head. Life is hard for everyone. We are all on the same road just at divergent marks, at unique intersections only we experience. We are all going to the same place, we just try not to think about it. It is all just one big dead end, whether we care to admit it or not.

             Sometimes I feel like Job, the Biblical figure from the Old Testament. His entire life he tried to be a good man, and his prosperity seemed to validate God’s favour.  One day God must have gotten bored so he gambled Job’s welfare away in a game of test with Satan. Suddenly, horrendous disasters and events take away everything that Job ever held dear. There is no bet, no prize to claim when the game was all done. God, in his infinite glory, simply wanted to make sure Job was faithful and, apparently, granted the devil much power to really push the point. As Job struggles with his new reality, and greatly suffers along the way, he refuses to curse God.

            Things happen to us as we travel. Some are beautiful and suggest that life can be a wonderful thing. Other circumstances are not so affirming. Each of us has our own route to follow and our own struggles to face, often on a daily basis. It would appear that God tests all of us. Most people fall short, blaming god for all their troubles. According to scripture, it is God’s fault. How cavalier, how pompous, to wage a war of strife on someone worthy of your favour. How unfair life was for Job, even though he really did nothing wrong but to exist. In the end, Job stands righteous. What a patient man. Then just for fun, God restores Job to a state previous to the gamble. All that pain and all that strife and it was all for not.

 

            We all have an inventory of pain and strife that we carry with us all the days of our lives. It’s unending. Sometimes it feels like a literal hell on this earth. From the most innocent child to the most aged soul, life tosses one circumstance after another at us until each one of us is dead. The random assaults never really ever stop. It is one thing after another after another after another. For each of us, it may seem like a collection, a gathering of all our suffering and struggle and misery. In contrast, I have always felt that God was punishing me rather than playing some  malevolent game of chance with the devil. I guess I have always taken it personally when climatic and senseless tragedy refuses to leave me alone. Unlike Job, I often curse the Christian God for His apathy. Apparently, our lives are full of strife because, in actuality, God loves us.

 

“because the Lord disciplines those he loves”

(Proverbs 3:12a NIV)

 

 

            I’m  not much of a whiner. I tend to use the experiences from my life as example in my writing but I don’t let them “gather moss,” so to speak. I don’t walk around blaming life for those things which have been placed before me, I blame the Trinity. At any random point a benevolent and compassionate God would most certainly interfere just to spare his “children” from his imposed suffering. This God sits silently, century after century, watching man destroy himself and his planet. He doesn’t say a word. He simply sits up in his heaven and tosses down  infliction like candy to a baby. Just when you think you have gained his favour yet another disaster, another scramble meets you. Life is unfair and to believe that the Abrahamic deity presented in the Old and New Testaments actually wants things that way presents a challenge for my Faith. I still believe in god, I just don’t believe in this God.

 

            I do not believe that god punishes or chastises us. I don’t believe he has anything to do with our lives here on earth. Obviously, god cannot interfere or it would have long ago. I can’t believe there is pleasure or purpose for a celestial being to impose harm and hurt upon anyone, including its own offspring. God is watching us from a distance, not for entertainment value but rather like the wind. You can tell it is there but you do not know where it has come from nor do you know where it is going. The very idea that God is a human creature, floating in the skies, is anthropomorphic to a fault. To imagine such mortal restraints placed upon something Holy and pure is one of the main reasons so many people are abandoning their faith structures for a more palatable dogma. I refuse to listen to the advice from a God who has more faults than me.

 

“It blows and nobody knows where it's going to

Like the wind

It blows and nobody knows what it’s gonna do

Like the wind

At night you can hear it cry as the teardrops fall

from heaven's eyes and somehow you know it's true

These tears that fall

Could be falling for you

Like the wind”

(The Wind, Michael English 1996)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpNeDMfoyAQ

            When I was 12 years old, Jesus pushed a 450 pound steam radiator down a flight of stairs and directed it to land on my left foot then leg. I was  in the hospital for months. At the time, I did not understand how God could have allowed such a thing to be done to me so I went with the punishment explanation. A few years later and I internalized the reason I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder as a result of my sinful nature. My physical manifestation was much like Job being assaulted by God with horrible skin sores. These specifics, and many similar experiences with chaos were directed, my consequence for whatever might be wrong with me on any given day. On Sunday, I thanked the Father just the same. I grew up believing that if I did something bad, something sinful, I would be punished by God. Karma aside, I was intimidated, to say the least. 

  

“We cannot achieve more in life than what we believe in our heart of hearts we deserve to have.” (James R. Ball, American author)

 

            If the consequence of this mortal condition is misery then, to quote the Buddha, “life is suffering.” Such awareness can be difficult to accept in a world where Godly  rewards are seemingly handed out like N95 masks at the liquor store (usually to white people). The Christian God seems to display his favour to those who claim membership to this exclusive club. Over and over, the Bible tells me so. The secret, the one those Elect care not to mention, is regardless of what your believe or what Savior you might follow, nothing is any different. The shit will still hit the fan and life will continue to be the same challenge it was before you placed your trust in something that has remained aloof for more than 2000 years.

            Its true, with all the nastiness life can bring, it also brings great joy and mercy. This is why religion has always, and continues, to attract members. Out with the old and in with the new. The divine promises of protection and inclusion mean little in the long run. Believing you are exempt from the struggles of this life because you found Jesus, or Allah, or whatever other deity you prefer, is all good and well until all that noise does nothing but to signify nothing.  Unlike Job, you cannot help but to take it personally. Life is a bitch and you will die regardless. 

            The argument goes, since God is omnipotent, merciful and just, therefore evil and suffering must be part of God's plan for humanity. Bull shit. Life doesn’t need God’s help. It brings enough gloom and grief and pandemonium without something pseudo-divine playing in the fields of some Lord. One can assume that the consequence for a godless life is punishment. A God-filled life must therefore be one of bliss. Reality does not work that way. Even the most contrite and righteous soul will face the very same challenges, the very same horrors, as the rest of us. In times of suffering and misery human beings look beyond their fray to the promise of a better life.

 

Good luck with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo

 

https://timehrhardt.com/2021/02/10/job-61-13-a-response-to-suffering/