He woke before dark, grabbing his bundle, trying to leave the house without anyone having an opportunity to talk him out of what he was about to do.

"Careful," she said in a whisper out of the darkness.

He turned in the dark as his grandmother lit a match, lighting the lantern.

"Careful."

"Ma'am?"

"Great men speak of manifest destiny until they get out there where the grasses spread horizon to horizon for weeks on end. You should see the men that run back here like cowards to this civilization after a couple of weeks west. They come back completely broken, ruined for anything but a life acknowledging that they weren't careful.

Careful to keep your eye on the present moment and how it's leading you the new life. That new life, and your children's new life, that is the only reason to do this. Once you head out there - do not stop till you reach the new life. Do not look backwards, miss nothing here."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"When I was your age, son, I boarded a ship and crossed the sea, to create something new, to find it for myself - for your mother, your uncle. They have," she paused with a small, sad laugh, "Well, they have squandered it. Now you must go - and grasp that new life. The only way to is to only look west and worry yourself little about what's happening here. As we turn to dust here - you shall be planting a new life in Orygone. But you'll only reach it if you are careful. Don't let it swallow you whole, come through it, boy."

His instinct was to reach out to her, but they both knew if he didn't go right now, he'd lose this opportunity. As the dawn started to stir, he arrived on his father's horse to join Master Richmond and the rest of the caravan. He'd be an asset here, a smart boy who already understood horses and riding. He smiled to himself, having successfully evaded the punishment for being on this horse of all of them. He wouldn't miss his Father's anger.

He leaned down along the horse's shoulder, and affectionately whispered in it's ear, "We're both free now, boy, we're both now free."

At 22, I left for the South Pacific, an island city called Fotuna in the small island nation of Tonga. I arrived, bible in hand, for a three year stay as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was bringing untarnished drinking water to a small village - with a firm chaser of the word of God.

Haight and Ashbury had combined genetically to create an artist, my sister, a writer, my brother… Me? well... My parents were so proud to see me take an expensive degree in engineering and put it to work in the Peace Corps. The rest of who I had become truly confounded them.

An atheist and an agnostic had created, a Christian. When I told my parents that I’d found Jesus Christ - it played out a little bit like the stereotypical coming out conversation might have.

“Jesus…. Really?” My mother asked like she hadn’t cared for me enough as a child, and somehow now I needed Jesus.

My pop remained very quiet about it for a while, and told me quietly that I was entitled to my own choices but he wouldn’t tolerate evangelism and discussions of hellfire or damnation, because all that was stuff he’d escaped and become smarter about as a man himself. He’d escaped Jesus - but part of him, he understood Jesus as well.

To go from city life to South Pacific life was surely described as isolating. I was such a blithering stereotype of whiteness, lets just be clear and say I knew nothing and everything at the same time.

Energized by faith, I just let each day roll out before me. If you’d ever read Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms, she often composes little poems and songs to express her feelings or to amuse her siblings. I was completely blind to how ridiculous, naive and infuriating my learned hyper-happiness could be. Nobody had questioned my buoyant, weaponized happiness until Tobias arrived.

He arrived about three months into my stay, and came from the complete opposite world of affluence and white privilege I'd been soaking in before leaving the States. He was a big thick built, curly haired hispanic. He looked like he belonged on the offensive line of a football team than planning well digs for the Peace Corps.

His arms and neck were covered in tattoos. Myself and the other volunteers had suspected were gang related. And on his neck, a christian cross had been both tattooed and dutifully shaved out of his hair and beard. Describing Tobias as intimidating is an understatement.

I started noticing he’d spend meal times by himself and that when services happened he was absent. So one day I took it upon myself to sit with him at mealtime. I learned he’d come from south Los Angeles, and this was his way of escaping some of the problems his siblings had experienced. Completely oblivious to any of the real power of what he’d just told me I started in on my San Francisco childhood and almost immediately complimented him on his cross tattoo, and jumped into meeting Jesus.

He almost hit me out of my chair within a few seconds. He was not amused being so blithely introduced and kindly suggested that if I didn’t temper my faith - that someone was liable to smack it back down throat so hard that I wouldn’t eat, but from a straw, for a few months.

“I know Jesus too - but perhaps a different Jesus.” He said leaning at me over the table, “I’ve seen your little black book used to punish and keep entire nations and whole communities controlled. I’ve seen poverty reasserted while gold lined vestments walk the cathedrals in its midst. Jesus was probably an amazing man, but his world was thousands of years ago - and now his church uses the cross to dehumanize and hold once proud cultures under its thumb. I wear this cross on my neck for a sister that was gun downed in drug violence at six years old, playing in our front yard.

I think it's clear from that look on your face, that you actually don't know Jesus as well as you claim, because if you didn't know any of that, then you don’t really understand the faith you so blindly wave around. You keep making assumptions about people based on only that, and you are going to a lonely, friendless man.”

He left me there alone.

There are few life pivots that you can so clearly remember. I remember touching my cheek, as if in an alternate reality his fist had destroyed all the teeth in the side of my jaw. I remember becoming very emotional, almost crying, from the intensity of the moment. His words hit me almost harder than a fist would have, and that was one of his first lessons for me.

Tobias and I finally saw our way through our stumbling first meeting to become friends. We both stared out at the ocean as it raced away from the small islands shore, bonded together by the time both of us dreaming of people we’d left behind to be there.

One morning, I found a neatly wrapped package on my doorstep. I opened it to find a tattered book of poems by a Sufi from Afghanistan named Rumi. Tobias wrote on the card very simply, “Not all prophets walk on water. Learn from all of them….”

dischert - dey - meh - tay

برای دسر چی میل دارید؟

Dischert as a child of Iran, was 'sohan' - a saffron brittle made with wheat sprout, eggs, rosewater, sugar, butter, and cardamom, it is covered in crushed pistachios. Given the crunchy, buttery texture, it is highly addictive, which makes it easy to polish off an entire tin in one sitting, especially when there is a glass of piping hot tea nearby.

Most of our dischert are savory with a hint of sweetness. There are puddings and rice dishes with saffron and cinnamon. The closest we get to a western dessert is the gaz. Gaz is made with the sap of the Angevin plant, native to the Esfahan region; the higher the percentage of sap, the purer the gaz. Combined with rosewater, egg whites, and pistachios mixed with the sap then rolled in flour creates a sticky nougat. Many a great childhood memory of coming home with sticky faces covered in little shards of sticky gaz.

I was 43 the first time I came to New York and experienced the onslaught Americans call dischert. My first encounter was the Dunkins donut. Let us just say that my imagination could not have created such a thing. a ring of dough you deep fry - then frost with sugar and then sprinkle with more sugar. Single chocolate glazed with sprinkles has more single-serving calories in sugar than I experienced before the age of five! So imagine, on a lovely perfect April day in New York when a group of Iranian friends and I stumbled upon Emilio's soft serve. Persian cuisine is based on the idea of “hot & cold”, which is not to be confused as spicy or not spicy, rather it’s whether the food would create a sort of energy in your body or whether it would have a cooling effect. It is our joke that Emilio's soft serve is simultaneously both hot and the cold. The sugar and the exciting creates a distinct, almost mystical energy while eating it most definitely cools you down.

We have become convinced that he only comes to our neighborhood on the most perfect of the perfect days. Someone will mention Emilio's truck - - - And like a spell has been cast, the simple music will start, announcing his arrival in the neighborhood. A pied piper, if you will, for middle-aged Persian men. Emilio's is our heaven and we are his most devoted.

"Do you want to come stay at my place instead of taking the train home?", I said in a drunken late night slur.

Over the crazy loud disco bar music, he leaned in and spoke softly and directly in my ear. “Oh honey, no, sleeping with you? No. That would complicate things and the last thing our darling friendship needs is complications. Don’t fuck where your secrets lay, dearest. Never fuck the grrl who knows the most about you.”

He immediately read the crestfallen look on my face. "Thing is doll, is that we both know you are looking for love. and that is awesome for you. For you. I am not looking for love. I'm looking for red hot fucks that end as quick as they ignited. I've done love a few times, I know the difference. And I'd be a pretty horrible best friend to take advantage of that."

The crazy pace of the summer and autumn seasons are gently but completely eliminated when they arrive. Once we're past Thanksgiving weekend, everyone waits impatiently for their own set of reasons.

There is a wagering case of beer down at Asterbar on who guesses the time and date correctly.

Eager elementary school artists have been frantically creating and decorating construction paper replicas in hopes of calling them from their hiding place in the sky.

Bickman's Foods has stocked up knowing that they will keep people close from heading to the Walmart on the freeway or the food court at the mall a few exits down.

Gilman's hardware store displays a gleaming array of the newest in winter shovels. Just inside their front door, in a top lit case is the new fangled heated windshield scraper you've seen on TV.

Teachers will wake up and upon looking out the window, smile while putting the kettle on, having earned respite from the usual morning routine.

If there is a true magic spell, they are definitely it. The snowflake's earned reputation for blanketing our small town with calm and serenity is generations earned.

I spent a great majority of my youth staring at the stars and imagined reaching for them. I had a poster of the astronauts that reached the moon on the wall of my bedroom till I was 20. I had hanging models of lunar modules and the space shuttle.

I have this book from my childhood that tracks what my aspirations were and every year on the line where it says "what do I want to be when I grow up?" - it says 'Astronaut' or 'Airline Pilot' or any number of aspirations.

I was a smart kid and wanted to do smart things.

"Look at your grades, I'm always after you about how lazy you are, you are nobody's future astronaut," he said to me nonchalantly.

It's amazing looking back on those years how much impact that single conversation had on me.

Pilot. no.

Engineer. impossible.

School Teacher. never.

Forest Ranger? too hard, too much biology. no.

By middle school, all of my greatest career aspirations were dissuaded.

Pop has been gone now for sixteen years and I'm fifty-two years old.

Every time I'm out in the country and I look up at the stars I stop and sigh, replaying that conversation like it just happened. Why did I let myself spend so many years whispering to myself, "not for me."?

I stop, rewarding myself with a big smile, realizing that childhood tape is playing in my head. I hit the firm stop button on it, take a deep breath - and I purposefully look back up at the night sky and reach for the stars.

The call came through for medical assistance from Stately Meadows at 2am. It's that large assisted living center over on Wilkers street?
We laughed in the ambulance on the way over about what kind of trouble could they possibly be in at this hour.

We parked and grabbed our kits. Standing out front was a clearly upset female nurse, smoking a cigarette.

"I'm Nurse Higgins, the night supervisor," she said, angrily extinguishing her cigarette with her foot, "Sorry ta bother ya'll but we've got a mess on our hands."

She leads us into the facility and up a wide staircase into a set of rooms labeled "EXERCISE FOR LIFE!" - and in the center of one the room was a group of six men in a pile on top of a twister board.

"I told these fools that Twister in your 90s was a bad idea, but they don't be listening to me."

A bookish man with an unkempt mop of greying hair sat nervously fumbling through large pieces of parchment. Stepping up into the soft mauve spotlight, staring up nervously, he began to speak.

"Are you reminded of your youth when you have a mouthful of fresh hot french fries? Of lost loves at the taste of a lemon poppyseed cake. Of your drunk aunty the way your tongue rolls around in your mouth over a perfect risotto. How he tasted in the shower that November morning before he left when you crunch into a crumpet laden with butter and honey. Your father who used to embarrass you screaming at waiters in restaurants when you are served a slightly over-toasted sourdough crouton in a caesar salad.

Carbs are........

Carbs.................

are killing you softly. Yet, despite this soft death, we cannot help ourselves.

Carbs are love,

our intimacies,

our memories,

Carbs are sex.

All this and more when I cried a small tear this morning when I woke up alone, without donuts."

Finger snaps moved across the room like the wave at a football stadium, the room filling with affirmative murmurs of no longer hushed observations.

You’d have caught us stealing thick, bourbon-filled kisses in the kitchen at a dinner party full of house guests. The house decorated from floor to ceiling with a collected Christmas cheer that was legendary. Fearless and beautiful - we were covered in thick syrupy confidence and swagger.

Interrupting him, "Pardon, but are you breaking up with me, in your underwear, over morning coffee?", I didn't honestly expect him to reply, "well, yeah, I guess I am."

I didn't even unpack any of it this year. It was hard enough sorting through them impatiently into our own boxes the previous summer.

I've grown used to that shocked coffee shop welcoming smile that quickly frowns at "well, he and I broke up." It's not like I'm angry. Honestly, I'm not. if anything I'm just disappointed. It had always felt to me that we had enough in each other - that our togetherness was enough. I am a little embarrassed that I was wrong.

I've spent most of the winter just working hard, working out, reading by the fireplace - just trying not to notice the holiday. I'd convinced myself it was better to hibernate.

But then I saw it. In the window of a shop down the street appears the most perfect single glass ornament. The way it shimmers in the light from the street makes it look more like a snowflake than a simple ornament. I look through it with satisfaction as I hang the single ornament up in the window in the front of my apartment.

There would be new traditions, new stories. One day I'd tell the old stories of him and me without it hurting so much. It's perfectly okay that today is not that day.

I know this is your first adventure without me. Kindergarten is a big deal! We both want it to be the bestest thing ever.

So - as a sign of solidarity - I want you to take my favorite toy with you. I take it from room to room with me everywhere I go. I sleep with it at night up against you under the covers. I set it down somedays only to eat kibble, but even then it is right here next to the bowl. We play tug-o-war over it.

Because it's my favorite toy is precisely why I'm bringing it to you now. When you need an extra dose of bravery, or need to know I'm there for you even though I'm here at the house waiting for your return? You can reach in your backpack and give this toy a squeeze. I know doing so always makes me feel better.

"I see lots of challenges for you," said the soothsayer, "Life can only be understood backward; but it must be lived forwards. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. I see a romantic interest in your life, he's handsome, brunette and likes walks on the beach.... in fact I see a beach, a romantic trip to Puerto Vallarta."

"Okay - Morgan Le Faggot. First off, people read TEA leaves, not dramatically spilled cinnamon sugar cookie extra foam double-shot lattes. Second, you are mixing Eleanor Roosevelt and Søren Kierkegaard; finally, Puerto has been booked for months so it's hardly spontaneous."

"I didn't say my magic was high quality - I just said that I'm magical. so different," he said, excitedly looking up, "....and look - more proof - that cute tattooey muscley ginger beardy barista is coming to clean up this mess and flex for us. So I think that's a win-win."

....you insist on remaining a mystery. We spent much of the last year with a brave face. I can't live that dream any longer. You think you can bluff your way through life, you need to learn to lie better. The truth you are avoiding is written on your face. It's like an honest, uncomplicated romance is too easy for you like you consider it emotional laziness. You write sonnets searching for it. "We’re livin’ in the same world under the same pale moon, together." Beauty apparently without substance. I fell in love that humid Saturday afternoon many months ago. The crazy searing kind of love that was setting our world on fire. It's hard to walk away from, but by the time you read this, it will finally be over. You claim to love - but it strikes me you've searched the world to find something, you know nothing of...

Baptismal promises are only the beginning of life as a Catholic. These promises are made to God and to the child itself. We are witnessing the spiritual sunrise for the young spirit placed in my arms. I will kiss them gently and welcome them.

I will always tell people that I enjoy baptisms far more than marriage ceremonies. While the love between two people can burn brightly and beautifully. truly. The softest light we pass onto our children at baptism is the basis for our understanding of love throughout our entire life.

Sin is humankind’s estrangement and alienation from God. But the youngest babe knows nothing of this. They know nothing of the struggles about to be present in their path for decades to come.

Every time I anoint a fussing newborn I am reminded of Thomas Merton: "I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. Amen."

The force of the shotgun blast blows him clear off his feet into the corner. Most men would be screaming from the agony, but he is not most men.

He sits there matter-of-factly as his life drains out all around him. He reaches down into it, the gushing wound in his groin, his hand lifting away covered in gore.

From that, he looks up at me with his night-colored eyes, beautiful and terrible all at once.

“For a time now,” he says, “I wondered if it was you who would stop me.”

“And what made you decide it was?”

He grins up at me like a five-year-old caught stealing extra sweets after supper.

“When I realized he was your child. It was the only way I knew I'd ever be able to pay.”

He looks away for a moment, and with a small sigh, the last breath escapes his lips.

The phone vibrated in his pocket. Must be his mother, or worse, his ex-wife.

Thanksgiving planning was in full swing - trying to decide who sits next to who, who pissed in whose Cheerios during the year, which young spawn had new boyfriends or girlfriends or non-binary companions or whatever the horse shit one of Jack’s kids had come up with at fourth-of-July

- - and, again the phone vibrated. He reached down and turned it off, and returned to his meeting.

“Technology is next on the list, Jason, you’re up.”

Walking to the front of the room, he flipped up his laptop.

He plugged in and brought up his first slide, “As you can see, revenues from our social sharing…”

The round video conferencing speaker let out a short chirp, “Network connection lost, call ended.”

“Fuck. The network is down.,” said one of the sales directors.

“Today is obvious duh, huh dip shit? Its month end how are we going to get work done?”, said someone.

“Great, Jason, you could have just said your presentation wasn’t ready.”, someone said in the room making the others chuckle.

He stood mournfully in front of the slowly emptying room. He unplugged his laptop and followed everyone else out.

As he turned the corner towards his desk the lights in the office flickered, then went out. The slow whine of everything electric spinning down was quickly replaced by an eerie silence.

The office manager eventually came through and said it was a rolling blackout - and that if you could work from home you should probably do that. He methodically collected up his stuff, giving out a big sigh as left the office.

“Today was supposed to be my big day,” he mumbled to himself, “my big day.”

He got in his car, punched ‘home’ on his navigation and started the drive home when the red engine light came on.

“Perfect.” He mumbled.

He soon found himself walking home, having left his Prius with a dubious mechanic for diagnosis.

“My big day,” he mumbled to himself.

“I’m sorry I ruined your big day,” said a youthful, but apologetic voice.

He looked up to see a little girl standing in the road in front of his house. Was it a little girl? The hood on the coat made him not so sure. She wore a strand of white Christmas tree lights that were curiously plugged into her pocket somehow.

“I’m new at this - and well, my aim is not the best that it could be?”

“Pardon?”

“My aim.”

“I’m sorry - this isn’t making any sense.”

“Death rarely does, I suppose?”

“Death? What about death?”

“Well - I killed your network, then your car - and I was supposed to kill you. But my aim was off.”

“Kill me?”

“Well, your fate was to die of a heart attack this morning at your desk. But- you were so excited about your presentation. 

It didn’t seem fair 

     - so I killed the network instead. 

But my bosses were like - killing a network is not the same. 

'You march right back down there and give that man his heart attack.' 

So I came back - and saw that you didn’t get to make your presentation, you looked so sad, so I killed the electricity.”

“And my Prius?” he said nonchalantly, playing along with the logic of the strange little girl.

“Well, that brings us to right now. I tried to kill you again and managed just a red engine light. so embarrassing - - but at the Toyota dealership, I tried one last time and instead killed the Prius - - which fell off the hoist that belongs to the dubious mechanic, well, and onto you, while you were waiting….

but I couldn’t let you realize I’d killed you by dropping a car on you...

 like something out of looney tunes. 

So I waited to tell you once you’d gotten home.”

“So my body is actually back at the dealer crushed under a broken Prius?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“That’s actually a lot nicer of a death than a heart attack at my desk.”

“You think so? That’s kind of you to say.”

“Tell me, is there powerpoint in the afterlife?”

“Oh dear me, no.”

“I’m liking the thereafter better already….”

"I grew up like a neglected weed – ignorant of liberty, having no experience of it." - Harriet Tubman said that 163 years ago. For a lot of us it might as well have been said yesterday. 

You ask most folks how they describe liberty today? They respond with learned vague platitudes - a home, a good job, a healthy family. I grew up watching the generations before me come home at night completely ruined chasing that liberty down. Chasing that definition of freedom. 

What good does do us if there is nothing left of us to enjoy any moment of it. Running ourselves ragged? People tie themselves down t'all these preconceptions. A home - you could be free there, if home didn't mean church cuz momma tells you to, if home hadn't mean neighborhoods with bullet holes in the sidin', if home meant my opinion had any value because I'm a girl. A good job? I can clean hotel rooms or fight in a kitchen for minimum wage. Go out and beg for the professional scraps left at someone else's table just so we can say we have a good job? and don't even start me on a healthy family -  we all know that doesn't even exist anymore? Nope - the scars on all of us show us that truth.

I went from high school graduation - right down to the school of beauty. I learned how to craft someone from caterpillar, through chrysalis, and onto a full on butterfly in just an hour's time. 

When I was a girl, I took all of Harriet's words, all those painful lessons she left for us to learn? I took it all for granted until I got the first month's books done at the salon. That's when I realized that I hadn't had any experience of the liberty - and I was ignorant of it as generations before me. My next choices would define me.  Not what I was expected to do by anyone else, but what my heart told me was right. 

Tubman said proudly once, "I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." Now before we get all too up at it, its not like a chair in a salon is part of some grand underground railroad. 

However, when you see a sad woman's eyes light up with surprise when I turn her towards the mirror, you know this is their first step on the way to something else. None of my business where they pivot to, as long as when they are with me they achieve that moment where they 'see' beauty. You have never seen transformation like a black woman who looks in the mirror and for the first time in however long, sees how beautiful she is. She sees how she won't ever let herself be seen otherwise again. The power of having that as a truth always inside you? 

Weaponized, realized beauty. 

So, you ask me how I define liberty? I see it as an untetheredness. None of those other expectations weighin' me down like an anchor. I don't have a whole lot, but what I have I am putting to work. That's me putting MY freedom to work. 

I may have grown up one of the neglected weeds, but baby - Baby, watch me now. I'm just starting to bloom. And you'd do best by just makin' way.

It's that situation we've all found ourselves in where someone serves you a food you absolutely fucking hate. You are assured that obviously someone hadn't "made it the right way" for you yet. That kind of bullshit is never true, because now there you are, sitting in front of a giant pile of something you hate, except 'this time' it's served pureed with a sprinkling of pine nuts.

I'd come to the beach to attend to a 'Spiritual Rebelfest' on the recommendation of my friend Fran.

Fran is now firmly on the coal list come christmas time. Real dark, sooty, gross, earth-destroying coal.

I'd accepted Fran's challenge to come with a deliberately cleared mind. So much good that did. The introductory meet and greet was followed by nearly two hours non-genderspecific-splaining of the fucking rules.

I'm all for like minded folks to do stuff - but if it all that comes tightly wrapped in a bunch of rules meant to keep you from taking any kind of real risk, it's like planning an orgy and asking people to not fuck. Exactly - where is the fun in that? Purposefully zero fun environments make me a grumpy son-of-a-bitch.

I should have known better when the featured speaker was described in the Rebelfest guide as "a Jedi-infused, interspiritual smorgasbord of universally attuned awareness with stories that which will awaken and encourage the depth and breadth of ourselves to flourish, even in the chaos of our times." They left out - "hasn't been laid in a decade and blames everyone else. It couldn't possibly be him."

I used to think that compulsory conformity was part of just how gay people interact. The awfulness that can come from 'organized gay.' Pissy gangs of queens permanently choosing to trade snark and sarcasm for compassion and sensible wit. Some of uglier parts of humanity I've had the displeasure to view. Normal mean behavior but on fire. Mean behavior you'd never tolerate anywhere else in your life - but on fire, and usually involving the penis.

Rebelfest had truly opened my eyes, the truth was that organized ANYTHING was a giant steaming pile of fuck-you-I'm-out. They could be straight, gender binary, vegan, --- I've even encountered this dehumanizing shitshow behavior at silent retreats. It takes a PhD in complete human dysfunction to even fuck up silence.

As I left the "Welcome Plenary", one of the moderators greeted me in a stepford-wife voice.

"Remember that after 9p.m.," she said pointing at my device. (Because actually saying the term 'iPhone' is supporting income disparity and slave labor on circuit boards overseas), "Those are forbidden, they block the energy of the mind chakra. Ppeace will be with you."

Without answering, I took out my fucking iPhone - and before reaching my dormitory I had booked myself into an AirBnb down the coast. I spent the weekend bouncing on the mattress, occasionally taking breaks to drink giant big-gulp sized glasses of Pinot Noir, not giving a fuck if it broke any rules. That's some spiritual awakening for you.

The note begins, 'to anyone who needs hope', a simple message scratched into the wall. I ran my fingers over the immortalized text. "Always love. There is so much hurt and anger in this world you don't want to leave without love in your heart."

I liked the concept of you leaving the world, but knew that the author was in some small part - supporting the bursts of optimistic green grass that has determinedly find themselves growing in the floor of the sanctuary.

I take that back my translation is wrong. шӀэн -- щӀэн - - KNOW love. Almost a lost language it seems, even in the silence of the ruins.

шӀэн -- щӀэн "KNOW love. there is so much....."

It's amazing to think that someone would write a tome to love in a place where bombs fell indiscriminately for so long the face of the city was no longer visible. Rooms lay open to the dry air like unfinished sentences. Tables set for a meal, wedding beds now sitting in wall-less vistas. The river has torn a new course through the ruins when you look down over the valley. Without influence, the river now free to return to where it's needed.

Studying sites like these always reinforced the rule of impermanence. Our condition of being bound to aging, sickness, and death, of possessing a body that is subject to being worn and rubbed away, to dissolution and integration back into the very soil we were born from.

I wonder what this person's unfinished dreams were? Did their family make it out when they did not?

I imagine this person's son or daughter, going on to lead a quiet life in a new country somewhere. Perhaps they now hold a child's hand on their way to the first day of school. The fall colours falling leaf by leaf around them like a snow globe.

Looking down into the child's eyes, do they see a reflection? They see a person very different than they'd ever imagined themselves becoming. Despite the hardships of their life, they remember an almost forgotten voice. One that was teaching them from very early to know love.

It's an interesting thing to have not known a time without her. Her armor-penetrating laugh has been the same since my family moved in across the street in the fall of 1973.

She sat across from me at our breakfast table with that impossible smile. Her first question for me was "what is your favorite color?" - I told her with great confidence green was amazing, but she preferred purple because it was the mix of two colors she didn't like that formed the perfect color,

"Blue and red on their own are boring, buh' combeened day make PURPLE. look at it - PURPLE!"

She said it with that couple-of-teeth missing perfection. Its still the way I'll say the word sometimes.

I can remember watching her blossom into a young woman and shying away as pubescent awkwardness overwhelmed me like a tsunami. Without cheerleader squads for chess club or the physics honor roll, she never noticed me. She married the quarterback, I'd watched from across the dance floor romancing her.

My braces eventually came off. I embraced my nerdy talents, letting go of all the confusion of being a boy and grew into my own man, I let the winds of college and then grad school carry me far away. I never really forgot her, but had accepted that our lives had taken different paths.

I came home one summer, the small town of my youth still pulling out all the stops for 4th of July. As I drove up to my childhood home, I noticed the "for sale" sign across the street.

"Falkner's place up for sale?"

"Oh honey, that's just a sad, sad story....", Mom began.

Her blonde prince charming had started spending more time down at the local pub than at home. He had driven home one evening swerving and striking another car, killing the family inside. There had been a very public trial, and he eventually found himself locked away for a great long sentence.

The overwhelming costs of the trial and the ensuing legal bills forced them to sell the house. Their divorce proceedings played out in the small town like a Hollywood romance gone bad. His anger over their inability to have children had driven him to drink and find lots other female company - - it became fodder for the kinds of vicious rumors and painful assumptions small towns specialize in. She was working in the local bookstore to make a living, It seemed that all the luster and promise of her life had been wiped away.

When I first saw here again after so many years, she was seated in the city park. She was feeding bread crumbs to ducks at her feet. She wore her hair in ponytails with simple purple bows.

We both remember seeing other suddenly. We both recall working hard not to cry at seeing each other after so much time and so many circumstances and decisions making their impact on us.

She did indeed sell the house, moving into a lovely downtown apartment above the five and dime we'd both rushed to with our allowances so many years earlier. We started trading long letters to each other. I invited her into the city on the train a few months late. We went out on what we both called 'that first date'.

Tomorrow morning, she and I will get married. Both our mothers are, of course, claiming that they knew it would happen eventually. The table centers at the reception include technicolor piles of crayolas and white paper tablecloths.

Beautiful girls are seldom happy, intelligent boys are seldom beautiful, but I'm sure it's what we've always wanted for each other.

I am sure that every word, every touch that she and I share - they color me in.

I woke from a rest to see him sitting patiently in the chair next to my bed. He let me wake up, pulling myself up in the pajamas and tangle of sheets. He reached out and took my hand, gently tracing the IV taped to the top of my hand.

They'd found me passed out in the shower. The doctor told me I was lucky I hadn't drowned. I had a nasty dark bruise on my face from the fall. The next door neighbor called 911, and I'd ended up here on the 7th floor. The fucking 7th floor.

I’d caused an ugly scene. Anywhere but here. These. These are the rooms where others had come and never escaped.

"Don’t put me in a room to die! Please!," I'd screamed.

Two doors down was the piano player from the sweater bar. Next door, the kind man who loved wearing Liberace-style fur coats and loved sunflowers. Wasn’t there room somewhere else in the hospital, goddammit? I was sure I wasn’t the first angry, scared person to occupy room #703.

He'd heard from Marcia that I'd only taken one bite of birthday cake the night before. If I wasn't eating cake, the situation obviously required further intervention.

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm still here, Morticia.", I said with a raspy dry voice.

"There he is," he began, his face exploding into a warm smile.

It seemed like the longest silence that had ever existed. Dadaji staring at me in the quiet of his study.

"This American choice," he finally asserted,"It is not Indian choice. not a choice for a Sikh. You are a Sikh, so you must follow our traditions."

I had accepted the offer for school in America, when it was clear he wished me to do otherwise. I'd let classmates convince me to cut my long hair. Washing my long hair was time-consuming, as was the morning ritual of winding seven meters, or more than 20 feet, of cloth around my head. It was hot and uncomfortable. It got in the way during gym classes. But as soon as the barber cut my hair, I knew I had made a mistake.

I wrote to DadaJi and told him what I had done. He said we would discuss it when I came home on the winter holiday.

I told him how people associated the turban with terrorists. I told him it was old world ways in a new expanding world. Afraid of being branded a Taliban or an al-Queda, I told him that there was no convincing people otherwise.

He laid before me on the table a perfectly white patka - and a considerable length of the family's deepest red silk.

"There is no convincing of people, only showing people by our peaceful example. Their misunderstanding is rooted in fear, fear that you will dissipate. A turban asserts a public commitment to maintaining the values and ethics of the tradition, including service, compassion, and honesty. We wear the turban as a symbol of the equality and sovereignty of all people."

"OMG. 9 - 1 - 1   YOU MUST COME TO THE BAKERY AISLE RIGHT NOW - the text had read.

Bill pushed the cart into bakery to see his husband standing with a handful of the splendidly besprinkled sugar cookies. 

"This was the emergency you 9-1-1'd me all the way across the store for?"

"LOOK AT THEM - these are the solve for so many of the world's problems! right here."

"sprinkled sugar cookies, how so?"

"imagine how it would change EVERYTHING, particularly religion!"

"Religion?"

"Just imagine how long the lines would be for communion at St. Matthews if the communion wafer was replaced with these," he said, taking one cooking and holding it in his left hand, performing the sign of the cross, "Take. eat, and have a sugary, buttery flavorgasm in remembrance of me! - I mean - it rewrites three parts of the new testament in one blow. Take that Mark, Luke AND Corinthians! It's all suddenly a whole lot sexier. Communion wafers are so 12th century, they need to modernize. We could replace communion wine with chocolate milk -- and save thousands of souls in the process."

"I think changing out food items is missing the point."

"nope, not lost on me. I get it body of christ, blood of christ. but as long as it still transubstantiatiates. You've seen the articles showing how people going to church, as a percentage of the population, is on the decline. Why not use better tasting, more satisfying carbohydrates? 800% more satisfying body of christ? Thats a 799% improvement. " 

"it strikes me we'd just have chubbier Christians, and the same problems."

"You're not seeing the big picture, yet. We could solve world hunger by making cookies with sprinkles made of superfood like quinoa or little kale sprinkles."

"Kale... sprinkles."

"You make the sprinkles inside full of kale - - the antoxidants, vitamins C, A and K. Give the people what the want - and hide the nutrition in the sprinkles," he paused seeing the skeptical look from his husband.... "You are not letting me show you the big picture. Kale sprinkles and cupcakes could change the world."

"so we should get a dozen to test this theory?"

"You've shopped with me before, right?" he said, happily realizing they were coming home with a dozen research cookies.

I was an eleven year old boy the first time someone left me alone with Father Thatcher. St Louis in 1850 was a rough place. If diseases didn't claim you, there were plenty of unscrupulous people waiting for you to show a sign of weakness. So the way of the time, was to never to do so. While Pop had died while I was young, at least he'd taught me never to look down at my shoes, never show a sign of weaker character. The moment you do, someone like Thatcher, or worse, would prey on you like a wolf in the wild. My pop called them 'the little disturbances of men' - that as we moved out in the frontier, that men's basic instincts would be to show their worst far earlier, knowing that fear is a powerful weapon over most folk.

As if to prove his lessons to me, Pop died that year. He'd gotten pneumonia and worked sick through the planting season - and he was dead by harvest. Ma did the best she could, wrestling what little money they had. Without him, she simply had to get to work. We had moved to St. Louis from Montreal with barely a houseful of belongings a year prior. We spoke French, instead of Prairie English - so my words came to me slowly. What was my Mother to do but find somewhere I could take refuge, somewhere I could find some peace from other farm boys, for whom I was quick pickings. They’d learned from his schoolhouse how brutal his cane could be, so I would go to Thatcher's rectory after school and wait for my mother to come get me.

Father Thatcher was not your stereotypical Catholic priest. He was the type of man you’d imagine fighting on the streets of New York or working the docks of Baltimore or Boston. He was a barrel of a man. It was if he'd cut trees like a lumberjack and one day, decided God was a stronger calling. It's forty years ago now - but I can still remember the first time he gave me that unusually strong hug one dark fall evening. It didn’t end quickly and socially like all the others before it. I realized he was aroused under his trousers. Fearing what was coming next, I began trying to wriggle away.

I screamed out at him, "I'll tell someone."

"Go ahead and tell, boy. Nobody will believe you.”, he said, calmly breathing hot against my neck. He knew the impact that truth had on me.

I thought in that moment, the fire and fury this man would have met if my father was still alive. How it would have cut through my Father's faith in everything, God at the very least. I think that it would have destroyed my father - but in turn, he would have rose up and destroyed the bully towering over me in the rectory. But that is another boy's story - this one is mine.

Instead Mother had slapped me off my feet when I told her, “You don’t you dare lie about a priest like that.", she said, visibly disgusted.

I was no dummy. You beat me once for something, I’m not going to come back again and get beat again. So I didn’t tell anyone else.

She sent me back to him the next morning for counseling. Right back to the man who had license to rape me.

While I was under his influence he would bribe me with extra food to take home to the family or have a box of cookies or chocolates for my Mother. I think that was the worst part of it, was that not only did he have me, but I watched him manipulate my Mother into making me spend more and more time around him with equal precision and mastery. If I relented to his needs, my Mother would hear what a good Catholic boy I was turning out to be, otherwise, he'd tell her he was worried there was sin growing in me, and that only prayer and service to the Church would solve my continuing troubles. I'd see him during services give that look he'd given me once - to another boy in the choir or that almost imperceptible pause in front of another altar boy during services. As gross as it sounds, at the time, I did nothing to warn others.

His power in that rectory was absolute - whether he was rapping your knuckles in class or insistently rubbing his sweaty crotch against your face. There was simply nobody there that would understand. It was such a dark secret I didn't even dare talk about it with the other boys my age, who might share a similar fate left in his care or advice. The way things turned out, I never had an adult conversation with her about it. I never had a chance to ask her how she could let it happen to the child she was sworn to protect. I still wonder if she did know, but felt powerless. Because once someone knows, it falls on them, too. They become responsible, and for some people that's too much to handle. I don't blame her. Here she was on the edges of the frontier, alone. She was left with so few real choices.

It wasn't something I'd chosen intentionally - the current of the exploration simply swept me up on it's way westward. Once word got back to St. Charles that the wagon train that had left the following spring had reached the Oregon Territory pretty much intact, it passed from the realm of fantasy into something that felt accomplishable. The west presented something new for everyone. It presented a way out. It was an escape from the lure of the city, a strike out at the unknown.

Just as the prairies beyond Missouri were storied to be vast - so were the imaginations of what we all thought we'd find there and who we might become. For me it was a chance to get some space - both literally and figuratively - between me and this life so far. I naively thought that if I could draw out a thousand miles behind me, that life would finally let me free. They never warn when you are out there on the frontier - any fear you packed along with you becomes amplified, the silence gets filled by whatever you bring with you. It's true that a lot of did come through the other side of it, but not even the strongest amongst us came through it completely intact.

I had a good business there on the waning ends of the Missouri, teaching would-be-wagoners about death. Here in the young city of Saint Charles, we were an odd mix of union soldiers, families and grey-coats who were looking to erase their lives and start over. We all had reasons for wanting to head west. Mormons were convinced that a promised land lay out there past the horizon. Some figuring that if gold sat in streams in California - it figured to do so in streams all up that coast. Some folks saw a path to an entirely new way of life, trying to leave as much of the young country to the east behind them as possible. At least until it inevitably caught back up with them.

It had been weeks now since sharing the bed had gone from necessity against the night's cold towards an air of embrace. We had both surrendered to the truth that we really wanted to be there together. Neither of us had a word for what was happening between us. I would wake up some mornings and he had been watching me sleep. I could feel against my hip that doing so pleased him a great deal. We would both remember these first few nights in our snowed in escape. "I love you," I said rather suddenly and softly. The morning sunrise struck through the window onto his face, his sweaty chest hair in rivulets down his stomach. His beard wet and soft. "You need to be careful where and when you say that, " he said stopping me, touching my bottom lip, "You and I are the only ones in the woods who will understand this." he said adding weight to his erectness and body next to me. " 'n, nobody else should be expected to. and blurting out a word like that could get all this destroyed. 'er worse things. its warmin' up out and with it brings all kinds a'trouble with it." An immediate and palpable silence fell between us. He could see his words frightened me. There will lay under skin rug blankets we'd hunted and made together. Layed bare in a pool of each other's sweat, tasting ourselves on each other. Tears had begun to pool in my eyes as he thrust himself down on me pouring kisses in my mouth, licking my tears away. We were both quite lost to what was happening between us. Later that day as we were about to head out to work and feed the sheep and horses, I stopped him.I understood how important it was that another soul never suspect was happening in our shared hollow, how any risk could be the last one we took. We'd build a secnd cabin - and make sure that by all appearances, we were sheep herders helping settlers find the next valley. If these weeks were turning into a life together up in these woods, we'd have to protect it from all predators - most importantly our inquisitive settlers. Appearances would have to made - efforts to get the hounds off our scent, if you would. The thaw would bring more wagons and travelers to the region. The full creeks and rivers would bring with a flow of folks, still fresh with the scent of the puritan country some 1200 miles to the east on their clothes and wagons. Fresh bibles kept at the ready to share with an unsuspecting traveler. Faith branched across the continent into Mormonism, Calvinism and old world's Protestants and Catholics. The First Nations - the Algonquin, the Iroqui and the Abenaki were whispers on the voice of history. Puritan religion had seen to that quite matter-of-factily. The Umatilla of these parts were friends of Lewis and Clark; but also understood how important it was to hide up high in the mountains away from the white man's judgmental stare. Imagine living on a land for generations only to have another race of people sweep in and take it. The First Nations had seen this before from warring nations, but never on the scale of the white man. Europeans fought with cruelty and a sense of righteousness, the fruit of the Puritan seeds planted into the ground so many years before by their Fathers. Strange how a country can form itself upon fleeing religious persecution learns so very little from it's humble beginnings, resorting to the worst side of themselves when things really counted. A few of us had hoped that jumping up on a horse and riding it for as far as we could go, that the world would not catch up. We were quickly proven wrong. We would start saying that spring, but never quite saying, you are welcome here but please don't stay. Stories of brighter sunrises, deeper valleys and wider expanses ahead, kept most folks moving on. If we could appeal to their sense of manifest destiny - they would leave him and me. They would leave him and me well alone.

Where were you at the moment when your sexuality became part of your adult good self and not something to find a private place to practice it in hiding? Priests and Protestant preachers teach us to be ashamed of it all from the moment you are capable of free thought. It’s a miracle we’ve got a population if you ask me. Comes right down to it, its a messy business — and nothing you want to do with any gentleness when you are out in the wilderness in a wagon or your thighs have been wrapped around a saddle all day long. I’d learned in my slow sojourn westbound to just conceal it. To know how to identify a spot you won’t be found that is all your own. Even then it never is. I was showering that morning, the sun peaking through the trees — and the jury rigged outdoor shower felt like my own private waterfall. I don’t know where my mind wandered to — during and after spraying my lust out in the modern air , before I realized he’d been standing there. Possibly the entire time. I wasn’t sure how to respond. He was there in his shorts, clearly as aroused by the morning light as I still was. The look in his eyes was a softness I’ve never seen matched. I remember trying to brush it off, while trading places and getting myself dried off. “Its nothing to be ashamed of, “ he said quietly. I looked back at him expecting him to be covered in lather to find he had his now completely erect cock in his hand, at a slow measured use. “Really. it’s not. I see the way you watch people… or don’t. I’ve seen how the ladies and their way don’t bring your eyes. I know what does…. I’ve been out here a long while, and I know things…. and well, if’n you’d ever like to do it with someone in the morning sun. you’d just need ask.” I gathered my things and didn’t say a word in response. I headed out in the pasture to the day started, our conversation sticking and repeating in my head all day long. We saw each other again as suppertime rolled around. The small cabin with the fire going, felt unusually quiet. We were scraping through some stew when, without really thinking much more about it, I spoke quietly. “That suggestion you had this mornin’…… “ I said with a small awkward pause, “Well, I think I’d like that. I think I’d like that very much.”

The phenomenon is known to the Nez Perce as átawit láp'ulp'ul - the ashes of love. The remnant of someone burning like an ember in your subconscious. For a long while I found it comforting. I would lay down at nigh, punishing myself for past transgressions. Like a salve I would brush up against, his voice would come into my head and show me the fallacy. I would imagine us walking in the woods like we always had. A spectator would conclude that I was living in the past. But I was very much living in the present. My present. About a week ago his voice faded. I can't say that I reached out to keep it from going. It just felt that he'd naturally probably outstayed his welcome as it was.

Knocked out of the thoughts in my head, I noticed out the window that I could see campfires out in the valley below. New settlers were arriving now that the snows had thawed in the Rockies. The Umatilla grass it's unnatural fresh spring green.

I smiled imagining small children who had never known the old world, whose first steps had been in a Wyoming prairie town where their wagons had stopped for the winter. Now they were running in circles of play, never realizing they were the first of their kind.

I'll put on my old hat, mount up, go down 'n introduce myself to them in the morning.

“I don’t even remember taking this shot,” he said incredulously, "It’s beautiful and almost frighteningly perfect. My assistant thought it was photoshop until I showed him the negative.” “Crazy how jubilant they are so happy surrounded by war and such horribleness.” “Well you remember when you were a kid, you could find happiness in the smallest of situations. Piece of paper? World War 2 fighter jet. Overripe tomato? Bomb to be dropped on an unsuspecting car as it drove by.” “With all due respect, I don’t remember having a childhood where my mother walked three miles for rice rations each day. and kids a few months older than this started in Kathy Lee Gifford’s sweatshop to pay for their siblings schooling.” An uncomfortable but requisite silence fell between them, both continuing to stare at the photo. “I suppose not.”

I like toys. No not that kind, well yes that kind but that's another story. I like playful toys. Bobble-heads seem to dominate as well as artifacts. a ruby slipper, a coffee cup key-chain, a detailed model of an air stream trailer, a surprisingly cheerful fake bush planted like a topiary, my old dog's collar and tag, paintbrushes, a children's sized tiara with a blinking star. a pair of hand blown cocktail stir sticks. the Buddha over here to the left, I can't decide if his eyes are closed in contemplation or I've caught him in sculpture at mind head swing, 'oh no no no, what have you done?' It has been suggested that perhaps my method of surrounding myself with random objects of whimsy is an external projection of how my mind works, little snippets here and there, placed out on a working surface always trying to consider how I can bring them all together somehow. Perhaps the toys help me grounded in my history and hint at my hopes for what I can still accomplish or explore in myself or with the help of another. It surrounds me with things that are comfortable and real, despite their origins. Many of my favorite items remind me of a very specific moment. I have a stone figure - a Peruvian fertility goddess. it was given to me in love by someone for whom I didn't love. or at least the way he wanted me to. Having always been the googly-eyed boy who fell in love on the first kiss, that had been new territory to tell someone that I didn't love them the way they wanted me to. There was a time where I really hoped I did, but I did not. Love and history are strange that way - full of moments of triumph, of failure, of neither.

"Nothing worth doing is every easy," my father used to volley at me, in between puffs on his pipe, "You need to realize that approaching everything from laziness is going to get you nowhere fast." Forty-two years later, and that conversation plays in my head like it happened this afternoon. My mind will play a litany of failures - and these uninvited reminiscences happen right before slumber. Terrible romantic breakup conversations played like I am experiencing them for the first time. The moment I realized the military had caught on to the fact I loved men is a favorite of this particular cinema of my mind.

It was a strange kind of cool October morning. As Big Ben chimed 6am so proudly across the Thames, you could almost see the fog part as the sound waves collided across the hazy morning malaise. I had been daydreaming, but the sounds of the chime brought me back to focus. Daydreaming is an interesting thing, isn’t it? A doctor would tell you that daydreaming is stimulus independent thought, or a Buddhist might say it is thought about something other than events that originate from the present moment, away from mindfulness.

You could hear the afternoon rains echo in from the alley behind the theater. Curses in French from the house master echoed in when people would linger, letting the offensive humidity in from the outside.

The strange dust of the old playhouse frolicked in the softly lit stage. After an hour of unremarkable college students churning through grossly under-prepared auditions, I was growing impatient.

"Next please," the stage manager grunted methodically.

She shuffled into the light and began. She stood rather plainly. Young shoulders slightly slumped, wearing a humble white blouse and black trousers that tapered to ridiculously small ankles and feet. She looked up at me past the light and began with no cue.

"Where would You have me go? What would You have me do? What would You have me say, and to whom?," she asked me. She read her lines in a disarmingly quiet, but defiant and confident voice, "Who would you have me become?"

I knew immediately who.

" 'ere in ze gym south of mar kette - is the cruisehr, " he spoke with a hushed horrible fake Jacques Cousteau accent, " 'eh does two reps out on ze floor and zen reuturhns to ze showehr 'oom to zee if anyone is hot enough. Notess how 'e grunts at you if 'eh tinks you are worth of his sexyehness." He paused for a moment as a large muscular bodybuilder passed him, naked, returning from the showers.

"Whatchya doin'?" "Watching the Superbowl!" "You warned me when we met that you would always be the butch one, and you've never proved me wrong." "It is really excellent, close game so far!" "Who are you rooting for?" "I love rhetorical questions." "No seriously, I have no idea who is playing." “Philadelphia and New England" "Ah, well, then I guess you are rooting for Philly.” "That would be correct!" "So should I root for New England just to make sure the testosterone is even in the house tonight?" "So how about a wager?" "A wager?" "Sure, if you leave me alone and let me watch football and Philadelphia wins, you get a blowjob. But if New England wins, you get a blowjob. How about that?" "Don't think I don't see what you are doing here." "You married me because I'm butch, not because I'm subtle." *smooch* "Enjoy the game!"

Forty years in finance had been done. Dutifully, exactly - like a scarlet-lettered penance - and the rest of his life suddenly lay ahead of him. He spent the first chunk of his retirement on a retrofitted volkswagen bus which he'd meticulously detailed out. A mobile home, a gourmet stove, a safe, a soft mattress, and a special shelf for a particularly tattered Rand McNally road atlas. He remembered coming home with that road atlas as a senior in college - his sails filled with dreams which parental and professional expectations quickly deflated. A few months before his retirement date, it seemed to just appear out of the stacks of useless crap, boxes of travel guides. Ever year he'd said --- "this year I'll save starting on January first and I'll go to....." The list was endless - Alaska, Belize, Machu Picchu, Haiti, Rome, Bergen, Istanbul, Mumbai. A bitter divorce, and 42 years later, here the Rand McNally sat in front of him like a patient old friend. He opened the front cover and inside was a yellowed, torn out page from a book with the tell-tale signs of 1970s lime colored highlighter. "Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes . . . Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice." - Page 343 - Walden - Henry David Thoreau The man was a vault of stories and adventures. Towering over everyone in Buddhist monasteries in Vietnam, falling in love - like everyone does - with an Australian sailor from Melbourne; and having his heart broken - like everyone does. Riding out a typhoon in Pattaya Beach. Walking the Camino de Santiago on his 70th birthday. The young kid that talked him into shaving the sides of his head away. Crying in art galleries. Finding dark corners to share, lighted stages to dance upon. So many romances and lives later - I met him at a writer's workshop in New York. I'd read his first book in college and fallen in love with the tenderness, the compassion of his words. That we'd meet over a chance encounter in a hotel bar? I had not expected his overwhelming personal softness. He kissed me and - I had not expected to wake up the next morning under pressed sheets. Hearing him softly whisper 'shhhhhhhhhhhhhh' as he moved in, incredibly strong and hard against me in the shyest light of morning. We spent days making the crazy searing kind of love he'd so sadly daydreamed of behind a desk at Piers Brontley - the kind that which now, fifty years later, was setting our world on fire.

I'm not always completely clear on how exactly I chose her. or maybe she chose me. Nicki. and her sparkler. We’d met freshman year of college and fell in such love that school seemed to hardly matter. Held her on my shoulders as Prince serenaded to her. We’d stolen booze from my parents liquor cabinet and gone drunk camping, laughing into campfire light. So many stories - so many adventures. I'd bought her that ring with money my parents sent me to pay for a quarter of college. A year later I found myself in the U.S. Navy bringing Nicki's photograph out my wallet -- telling our stories. Worst of all was that Nicki didn't exist. An exaggerated cover for a terrified homosexual at sea with an army of angry heteronormative men. I laugh, now, thirty years later. Because Nicki would cock her said sideways and remind me softly what a horrible liar I had always been.

"Fluffy Puppy, you're the one!," he sang to the little dog in the sink getting a bubble bath," The one that makes bathtime so much fun! Fluffy Puppy, joy of joys, When I squeeze you, you lick my face! Fluffy Puppy, you're my very best friend it's true, I find a little fellow who's cute and gray and fluffy, Rub a fluff fluffy, Fluffy Puppy you're so fine and I'm lucky that you're mine, Fluffy Puppy I'm awfully fond of you." "Stay right there, Daddy's got a giant treat for you!" The dog stayed, and peered over the side of the sink as his Daddy returned with a thick light blue towel. "Fresh from the dryer, my little puppy gets the best warm towel!" Daddy said as he started fluffing and drying. "Ha ha ha Ho ho ho, and a couple of tralalas. That's how we laugh the day away, in the merry old land of....... Fluffy Dogs, HA!, Buzz, buzz, buzz, Chirp, chirp, chirp and a couple of la-di-das-" "When you are done fagging out, I need my butch husband to come out, again, and watch the football game." "It's a good thing you're so darned handsome. You'll hurt Killer's feelings." "Killer?," the husband said, addressing the little dog in the sink, "When Daddy is done with the floor show, you can come out to the living room and Pops 'll give you another stuffed toy to destroy." Lifted out of the sink, the little dog let out a piercing enthusiastic bark and zipped off with Pops. "Let's go kill something together. Grrrrrrr! Thatta boy!", Pops said, his voice and laughter trailing away into the house. Daddy dried up the surrounding sink, mumbling under his breath, "in the merry old land of Oz....." He wiped his hands on the towel, then reached for the refrigerator door. He pulled out a jar of salsa, poured it into a bowl surrounded by tortilla chips. He knew this was part of the deal. He sighed and said it just like he'd practiced, "Roll, Tide!" and was off to join the boys in the living room.

On Christmas Eve, I had killed someone. I’ll just let that sink in for a moment. I can still recall the sound of the glass of scotch in his hand breaking with his wrist. I can feel the swing upward with broken glass, and the smell of flesh being torn aside. He stepped back from me reaching for his throat, his eyes wide with the realization these were his last moments. “I am not sure what happens when you die, but I’m satisfied to stand here and watch you find out,” I said to him matter-of-factly. He involuntarily knelt. He was very intimate with fear at this point. Perhaps he realized there was nothing coming for him, the final realization that salvation is a mythological concept. I am not sure I saw that he had connected what he had done with what was happening to him. Conceit probably kept that from happening. All the more pitiful. When my child had come to me, confided in me what he had done, it was one of those admissions that blinds you when you first hear it – then once understanding happens, it binds you to it. My child with tears in his eyes – what had he done to deserve what had been done to him. Using faith as a shield, the man who had done this felt protected, felt immune, perhaps even justified. The moment happened and was over before I had much time to think about it. I thought about it a lot - particularly on the smooth wood floor face down, ears echoing the the click of the handcuffs and anklets. I sat emotionless in court – there was no reason to react to any of it. It was all true. My defense was simple, really, he’d never hurt anyone else again.

She broke out the compact and started applying blush. Her trained hand moving with the weave of the commuter train. The same technique for the soft rose lipstick. Even the mascara was applied precisely despite the oscillating train car. “That is real skill,” said the man across the aisle. She looked over at the man. mid-thirties, strong cheek bones, and almost inhumanly perfect skin.

She runs away into the woods, wormwood and rue cascading around her feet in the autumn woods. The smell of the end of summer, the decay of leaves sticking to her like judgement. Does she notice accidentally falling in the water, simply neglecting to save herself from sinking? Her garments pull her down, as if they had a mind of their own. It is simply the way she'd lead her life: doing what her father and brother — and boyfriend— tell her to do, rather than making decisions for herself. She'd been seen with him was proof enough. Imaginations of authority created all the crime there was to see, obvious to everyone where the blame truly lay. It is only when she realizes that she's seeing the lilies from below, watching her dress float around her like a mermaid's gown, that the warmest smile spreads across her face and Ophelia takes her last breath.

Ginger Men are a proud people. We are bread in deep, surprisingly peppery, cultural origins. It is in our prime ingredients to know that our time here is measured in hours instead of days. Baking at 400F for ten minutes, we all have the chance to dream of that moment when we are set on a plate next to a hot cocoa. We lead simple, tenderly baked lives, always knowing that we immediately start going stale from the moment we are set out in the world. Don't feel pity for Ginger Men - know that we accept our place in the circle of life with a glad heart. I hope now that you know our cultural history better, you'll consider saving us whenever you see us this holiday season. Today I am set out on a plate with five of my spongey brethren. We await our fate. We are all smiles.

I was in an angry, hurried rush. Who calls a 7am meeting on a Monday morning anyway? I was madly sipping a coffee, and rushing to meet the train in the park. That was the first time I saw him - a 15th century friar sitting in the park watching the dogs play. He seemed like a very robinhoodesque character to be sitting amongst playing dogs and their owners busy instagramming only the cutest pictures before getting on with their day. The doors pulled mechanically shut on my train and I stared back at him sitting so blissfully in the park. What was a friar doing sitting in the dog park on a Monday morning at 7am? Shouldn't he be off praying somewhere? I found myself thinking way too much about it. "Just sitting in the park?" asked my friend at work. "Yeah - it was odd. no coffee. no backpack. like there is a monastery somewhere in Green Heights. It was totally like Friar Tuck on a movie set and he was taking a smoke break." I said laughing. "Turns out there is!", she said, showing me her phone. "The Franciscan Friars of The Renewal", I read outloud. "Right there near the park. How have I lived there for a decade and not known of a friary right down the block? That is crazy!" "Well lets see - you are a white, militantly agnostic fag living in San Diego. You are, despite your love of penis, high on the power pyramid, you make good money - so you never need a soup kitchen or a clothing pantry. I'd guess his kind is relatively invisible to you." I don't think she meant it in a hurtful way - but her concept of invisibility stuck with me hard. Particularly in this age of divisiveness, it was easy to surround yourself with everything that agrees with you and ignore that which does not. Now - it's not that God and me have a beef going on necessarily - I just don't see the whole thing as something to center my life around. If there is a God, I just don't think about it the way Christianity chooses to. As a gay man I had certainly seen my share of religion being used as a weapon. One needs only look at the millions the Catholic Church and the Mormons teamed up to spend on Proposition 8. Understandably, most men like me have a dim view of organized faith of any sort. I looked out for him each morning walking through the park in the mornings - and even circled back through the park on my way home. But no luck. So, I made a plan. I got up the next Monday, just the time I'd seen him in the park the week before. I put coffee in a pair of to go cups and headed to the park. Sure enough, like a ghost, there he was at his same location. I hovered opposite him in the park for a moment, embarrassed at the loss of my normal extroverted nature. "Good morning," I said tentatively, walking up to the bench. Like I'd said magic words, his face lit up into a beautiful wide, warm smile. His head was meticulously shaved - making his fluff of a brown beard all the more pronounced. What had looked like simple robes from a distance were full of layers and detail. "Do you mind if I join you, Father?" "Oh.. no - of course," he said scooting over on the bench, "I'm a Friar. Friar William." I explained how I'd noticed him the previous Monday, and found out about the Friars in the house in the neighborhood. "I am usually out seeing people but on my way home I always stop here. I usually take jam sandwiches up to the homeless that rest up in the rail yards. But the dogs are God's creatures as well, so it does my heart good to stop and watch. A dog wouldn't work out well in fraternal life, particularly if I am the only one that wishes for a dog. So this is my time to enjoy their energy." "I brought you a coffee. Do you like coffee?" "I am called to poverty, chastity, and obedience. , but I can still enjoy a cup of coffee, yes." he said with a warm smile, taking the cup from me. "Do you have a dog?" "I used to - and to be honest, since he died I haven't spent a whole lot of time watching the dogs here." "Isn't it interesting how we render things that used to be so central to our life, invisible when they no longer hold that special place?", he said, unintentionally mirroring the conversation with my coworker. It rendered me silent for a moment. Was I that blind to the world around me? "I had never noticed you before, how long have you been in the neighborhood? How many of you are there?" "We've been here a few years. We originally began in the Bronx. We are just eight of us - and we spend a lot of time out amongst the poor on the street, we open a soup kitchen once a week and have a pantry of donated clothes. What we do is very simple as we rely on mostly donations for our own livelihood as well as what we can provide the vulnerable." "I am little embarrassed to realize that I'd never noticed ya'll here in the neighborhood. A coworker suggested since I don't look to charities for food or shelter, that it had rendered ya'll invisible. Maybe I'm just not a very observant person." "I'd like to think that finding the fraternity and serving as we do, makes sure that others that might be less visible become our shining and clear focus," he said with a chuckle, "The homeless here are an interesting lot, they still live in this beautiful city. but they struggle with addictions and battles that many of us will never know or understand. I learn so much from them. I had a homeless man explain to me plainly one day that being invisible was an important skill. It makes people more comfortable about the homeless. We are only eight men, but we do what we can. So don't be too hard on yourself - it is part of how the world works. It doesn't make it "good" or "bad" whether you can see the homeless or a friar on a bench - or even simpler, see the dogs in the park on the way home. Human nature lets us all use invisibility in our own way."

"Even food shows are angry these days, with women throwing stuff and calling each other bitches... it's awful... and then they cut to an interview in the 'truth-booth' where she says 'I'm doing this for my kids'. Does she realize that her potty mouth and horribleness will soon be out on high definition blue ray for her kids and grandkids to enjoy forever? , a classic childhood moment." "yet, you continue to watch it each week........"

The wedding dinner settled down as he tapped his glass with his fork.  He took a card out of his suit jacket. He'd practiced, and learned the best words for this moment. He took a big sip of water, took a glance at the newlyweds, and leaned forward to speak into the microphone. "When I was a kid I didn't have much. I just grew up in one of those families where the only things you looked forward to inheriting was sorrow - the future I saw in front of me was workin' at a shit town Pick and Save in a wrinkled red schmock dreaming of the day I'll get promoted to Assistant Manager. Sorry for the language, I'm not a very good public speaker. Randall and I met our junior year at Haber High playin' football. Ya'll know his story - the glory, the Heisman. but what I got when I met Randall was someone who believed that everyone," He paused, embarrassed at being emotional, "Believed everyone was capable of glory. He said to me once - early on - and I'm paraphrasin' a bit - bare with me, 'It’s easy to count your problems. but lets make a deal, goin' forward, every time you mention a problem, also mention a blessing in your life. Try to see if that will add light to your troubles and hopefully make them less of a hassle. Think of it as a sorta contagious optimism.” Many of ya'll don't know this - but Randall stayed up with me late nights to study - so I could score that extra percent to make me eligible to go to State. It was Randall who said to coach, the only one I want protecting me on the field is #22. I'm not a smart man - but I'm a good man because of my friendship with Randall - and now - his new bride Kara. I am so unworthy of standing back there in that church in the best man spot." he said with a second pause, "Such a special thing for him to ask me to do. Leave it to Randall to fall in love with the only member of the State student body who had never been to a football game. I'll tell you as soon as they met though - that it was something miraculous. There was such an ease between them. I mean - I watch the two of them and I know the incredible parents they are going to - the world their children will grow up in.. but heck, that's all getting ahead of ourselves a bit, huh. Let's all raise our glasses then." He finally said, turning to face the newlyweds, a big wide smile spreading across his face, "Mr. and Mrs, friends and family, teammates - - lets raise our glasses in a grateful toast to contagious optimism."

A few dvds, a pair of earphones, and some neatly folded tshirts and underwear sat there. Every night when I came home the small box of stuff taunted me, reminding me of all of it. He had changed his Facebook profile to read "engaged to" - so absolutely sure he knew all the answers. He'd posted photos for all our friends to see of the engagement ring.

I hardly recognized the young boy in photo, walking in the surf, letting the late summer waves frolic with his hands. That beach. It had felt like the very definition of liberation when I visited. I remember trembling with excitement when I stood at the rail, my first trip on a Fire Island Ferry. All that thick black hair waved, shined in the sun calling to men like a siren from Greek mythology. The twinkle in my eye lead to humid late summer days of cruising, relentless sex, strong cocktails, sin and scandal.

“I’m sorry…I guess I’m just nervous. I’ve never been taken home to meet someone’s parents before, let alone conservative parents who come with a pre-prepared list of forbidden conversation topics.” “Well, those are for your safety, not theirs. My family is very passionate about being on the wrong side of history in every situation. This is just my annual holiday appearance, and we barely got away with you not coming last year.” “I don’t get the far-right, fundy, anti-everything mindset that says to their gay son, ‘and we must meet your boyfriend.’ I mean it seems counterintuitive to the rest of their world view.” “Even if I am not going to heaven, they want me to be happy,” he said, chuckling sarcastically, ”I gave up trying to figure it out a long time ago.” They drove along for a while quietly. “Now remember, we met at a party.” “Honey, stop. I know the script. Like I’m going to tell your Mom we met on asspig.com. I mean, give me just a little credit.”

I broke through my hangover to clean up from last night's party. There in the bottom of a large bowl was a single triscuit. I sat there starting at it. Poor Triscuit. All alone in the world. The party is over Triscuit, sorry, you missed it. What does it mean to be this highly tuned and manufactured culinary expression of dullness? What is it worth - until - until you add cheese, or lox, or a thin slice of fig - then pile on goat cheese and honey and .... you see my point. You never look at a Triscuit and say "mmmm Triscuit" - you look at it as a vehicle, an enabler for some other mouth watering treat. Now, mind you - it's not like Triscuit doesn't try. It's bred itself into all sorts of new variants. You can try and make a Rye Triscuit or the overreaching Roasted Tomato and Olive Oil Triscuit. Now Triscuit is trying too hard. Hell, it even tries to get in on Christmas time with a Cranberry variety. A 1/5" square of Cranberry wheaty meh. It is no good by itself. Knowing this, but having pity on it, I popped the lone crisp into my mouth, washing the meh away with quasiwarm morning coffee.

He was the softest, most tender person I'd ever met. Every touch, every conversation, every sigh of pleasure was a salve. He rode into my life on a large adult sized shiny pink tricycle. He was wearing a matching pink "fur" vest and ridiculously oversized top hat - pulling a trailer of little pink wrapped gifts. His nose was pierced with the largest gauge pink metal ring. He was mesmerizing. He broke the silence by offering me a small pink package. It seemed so magically out of place. It was six-year-old little girl birthday party perfect - out in the middle of the dusty dirty desert. I could not help myself but smile at the absurd beauty of it all. "You'll love it - once you wash with one of these soaps; you'll be addicted - - long after all this is behind us....." he said, theatrically motioning around him, and erupting in a generous and gorgeous laugh. Packing up and returning to Chicago after a week in his almost constant embrace was the hardest thing I ever had to do. I spent afternoons watching the fall rains hit the glass in coffee shops daydreaming of being with Pink and getting lost in the distance and reality of where I was and wherever he was. I let myself fall back into routines. The playa became a distant precious dream. I walked into the office on a cold snowy December morning and the receptionist stopped me on my way to my desk. "Oh - Smit, this came for you while you were out. a messenger delivered it.", she motioned me over to look over her shoulder. There, glistening, was a perfectly wrapped six-year-old shiny pink package. He'd found me.

We met on the old wooden stairs of the old DC Eagle. It had this big dramatic landing between flights of stairs, with enough room for a couple of people could stand and watch the parade. He wore a pair of tight blue jeans, big boots, and a green tank top with the word "DADDY" across the chest. He had that not quite 5'oclock shadow thing going on with this his beard, but the thickest most amazing mustache I've ever known. I literally stopped in my tracks the first time up the stairs walking past him. Upon my third attempt at passing by - he reached out and grabbed my belt loop pulling me in against him and over the loud music playing in the bar, growled in my ear, "and just where do you think you're going. You just stay here with me for a while."

टायर टायर, उज्ज्वल जलते हुए, रात के जंगलों में; क्या अमर हाथ या आंख, तुम्हारी भयानक समरूपता को चौड़ा कर सकता है (Tyger Tyger, burning bright In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? ) He closed the small leather book and let out a weary sigh. Tapping his chest, he confirmed that his papers were in his coat pocket. Papers that would ensure safety. Between his legs, the frantically packed suitcase. Thousands of people just like him had arrived at the station with their ragged bags of belongings. The violence was a visible blanket of shame over the men and their families that sat silently on the train. British soldiers and journalists who had witnessed the Nazis claimed Partition’s brutalities were worse: pregnant women had their breasts cut off and babies hacked out of their bellies; infants were found literally roasted on spits. Calcutta brutally transformed to something beyond a war zone - the barest of human nature laid open for all to see. He caught himself staring across the train yard. There on an identical platform, he witnessed a Muslim father collecting and trying to console his family. He knew they were hearing the same things Hindu men had told their families. "We will go to where we can be safe - where we can escape violence for who we are." Hindus took trains like his - - west, deeper into India - the rest headed east for Muslim-dominated East Banglor. The father looked up for just a moment and the two weary men locked gazes. They both knew fear. panic. They knew the fresh stench of death. They could see it's unrepentant reflection in each other's eyes. The father bowed his head silently, as if to say, "I know the truth too." The train lurched forward, the smell of the steam locomotive rushing in the windows. The great migration had begun.

"You're a bastard, you know that? Fuck you!" were the last words I ever heard her say, as she slammed the door. I can't say that I blame her. I had brought home the clap for the third time. I was horrible to her. I left her alone on nights when I could have been there for her. I "worked late nights," I had told her when she knew I was with other women. I wasn't being such a wreck deliberately, but because I didn't know better. Suddenly, there she was in a cross walk. The light was red and I nearly hit her. She slammed her hand on the hood of my cab in indignation. I'm sure she didn't recognize me. God she was beautiful. An angel. I let out a deep sigh, then answered her the same way I had twenty-five years earlier. I mouthed silently, "I'm so sorry."

We celebrated our own unique independence in the dark alley away from the summer revelry. I ran his shirt up, exploring his firm muscles and curiously thick back hair. He slicked his tongue from my mouth onto the curve of my neck. Looking over his shoulder I spied a woman watching us from the street. She leaned against the drain pipe, letting out the softest sigh. The kind smile on her face told me how much she approved. I earnestly smiled back, but then shut my eyes getting lost in the little French sailor I'd met in the bar. He smelled so good. I needed him to be mine. The fireworks burst in the air and splashed shadows across the wall behind us. My hands ran down towards his butt making his pants started to loosen. Summer humidity was merging us together, and his tender whispers of 'please, please' gave me no choice in the matter.

So many things have a beginning. and so it was with the idea. It just seemed to be there one day. A terrible idea. It scared me so much at first. It would disappear into the minutiae. Then  gently the idea would return. To be considered. To befriend. To become comfortable. To become acceptable. I sit imagining it with my eyes closed so gently as to not damage the beauty of it. I lay down at night and it is my last thought. I awake, suddenly, in a single gulping breath. I panic to do the mental inventory. I rush about in my mind to see if the terrible idea is still there.

She walked into the studio. I looked up, finding her gaping up at one of the large canvasses. "This is so beautiful, but the inside of your mind must be a horrifying place," she said to me, as if I were a light fixture, without turning to address me. No breezy hello. No..... courtesy. I left her standing there. I studiously took a brush full of a golden yellow and gently smeared across the canvas in front of me. I let the silence build. I let her think that perhaps I wasn't the artist after all. "What was your name, again?!" I said, dismissively, looking up at her. "Margaret." she said, suddenly weary of me knowing any details about her. "Margaret." I said simply, revealing an uncomfortable smile of middle-class ragged teeth, "Well, Margaret, you pose that the inside of mind is a horrifying place? I think it's safe to say you have no idea just... how.... much." It wasn't what I said necessarily - but the tone. It was one that let her think just for a moment. She stood there in the dusky light of the studio, the air smelling of grease paints, perspiration, and thinner. It occurred to her what it would be like if she was hung, still awake, left to drip her last drops into a bucket, all that I might have the perfect tone of red for my work. "That, " I said pointing at the large canvas she had admired, "is not for you. So if you please, help us both by leaving my studio now for art that is..... safer perhaps?" I gave her another humorless smile. There was no real danger. But enough doubt that she breathed, carefully. Just once, then silently let herself out, allowing the blissful silence to return.

'You were chosen to do something special in this world'. A phrase used not-so-innocently by unprepared parents as emotional novocaine. "Struggle hard, my love, for you, are chosen! Precious. Special." So you buckle down and work hard, you finish school, you marry a beautiful bride and start up a family. There is a sense that there is a prophecy to be fulfilled, there is a Chosen One to do it! If there's an adventure to be adventured, it is just waiting for you to take up the cause. However, on a particularly wet and cold Seattle December Tuesday afternoon in 1982, it comes you in a moment of heartbreaking clarity. You are in fact not the chosen one. Magic will actively avoid crossing your path. The only yellow brick road is the yellow strip telling you not to commit suicide in front a subway train. It wasn't meant to stop at your station, anyway. You express a slight smile, remembering your wedding night. Two twenty-year-olds giggling at being in bed together, naked and finally free. You remember that first shattering orgasm. She actually cried, caressing your sweat covered face, declaring you her special one - her chosen mate. The same one who left for a younger, sexier model whom she deliberately chose instead of you. The latest letter from her lawyer sits on the desk at home unopened. You find yourself a paycheck away from sleeping in a city park and cardboard sign ambitions. You shuffle along. You long ago stopped reading newspapers full of sparkling remarkable people doing special things and being recognized for it. Spotlights don't follow you. Certainly no. Why take stock of someone so unmistakenly ordinary.