It's just a feeling

After two months (and one week), our place finally sold. We're almost done with the details of the sale, just waiting for the buyers' financing to go through, which our realtor says won't be a problem.

Now, I'm about to take one of the biggest steps of my life- buying a house with the person I love.

I wonder if it's just me feeling all the excitement and the jitters.

I do try to mark the milestones in my life, whenever they come along, in a serious and mindful way.

It wasn't until Brad that I decided that I could commit myself, in the form of a public ceremony, to anyone, even after several long term relationships prior to him.

I also celebrated getting my degrees- undergrad, Master's and Ph.D. After all, people from my little town just didn't do those things and god knows I wasn't sure I was smart enough back then. So when I did it, each time, I was grateful and surprised.

Mindfulness was one of those concepts that once I learned about it through my studies of buddhist philosophy and meditation training, that had immediate meaning for me.

It's like standing in the center of a moment, just being there, feeling it, and not overthinking it.

It's not easy to put aside worry about what's going to happen. Not when you're from a long line of worriers, that is.

But I do have an appreciation for the big moments at least and I try to relish them.

So, I'm trying to relish this moment right now. I'm about to commit myself and my resources to this relationship with Brad so that we can own a home together.

It must seem silly to someone who got married young, took that first stepright away and began the who childbearing thing before they were old enough to know how serious it all is.

Straight people are so lucky in some ways to have a lot of the milestones kind of figured out for them. There's school and dating, and then getting engagement, having a career and then children. Maybe not in that exact order, but close enough. Yes, I know that there's pressure there, especially if you don't reach a milestone in a timely way ("What? you're 30 and still not pregnant?").

For me, I had to spend so much time detangling my brain from all the stuff I was taught that didn't really apply, that achieving milestones at all was something I celebrated.

And having a healthy relationship wasn't easy either since I didn't have one as a model growing up. When that's the case, you spend time both undoing the wrong stuff you learned about how people should treat each other and then trying to figure out what "healthy" relationships really are.

After that, it's about finding someone else who has done the work on themselves enough to want to work through it together.

So, buying a house to me isn't really about buying a house: it's about accepting the responsibility to be in love, to make a committment and to finally say to yourself "my life now is worth staying here."

Having said all that, we are looking at places.

We've had no real strategy for how we look.

Brad wants to stay in the general area, somewhere here on the Peninsula, like Redwood City, San Carlos, Belmont and maybe southern San Mateo.

We'd each like a place to park our car, and I'd LOVE an office (that's not a guest room too).

Beyond that, a view would be nice. An end unit with only one shared wall if any. An easy place to walk Ella. And maybe a large patio or small yard for flowers and veggies.

More of a feeler than a thinker, my strategy has been to walk into a place, stand there, look around and check the "gut".

For the third time, we've been hovering around a townhouse, just up the street from us.

The UP sides of this place: Spectacular hilltop view of the Bay, a room that could be a great office for me, and a dog trail close by. We both like it and would be happy there.

The DOWN sides: original kitchen, bathrooms and carpet.

The BIG down side: the owner wants about 50K more than we can afford.

Keep us in your thoughts as we hold our breath and see if we can figure out a way to make it work.

Raymond and Russell

Brad and I have some good friends in Fresno, California, Ed and Jay, that we see fairly regularly either on one of their frequents trips to San Francisco for a weekend in the city, or when we drive down there for a quick weekend away.

Brad met Jay and Ed while he was an undergraduate at Fresno State University at one of the local gay bars and he had lost touch with them for many years until a few years back when Jay called out of the blue to reconnect.  I've enjoyed getting to know them both since they're successful and chic, but very down- to- earth and fun.

About a year ago, on one of their outings to San Francisco, they brought along some friends (in a big van!) to help enjoy the long weekend.  That particular group included two amazing fellows, Raymond and Russell, a gay couple in their 80's who have been together almost 30 years now.  We had a wonderful dinner with our big group in San Francisco and I was frankly amazed at Raymond and Russell's energy and enthusiasm as we moved from dinner to after dinner cocktails at one of the Castro's hippest spots, Lime, and at midnight, Raymond couldn't stop moving to the thundering house music!  All that evening, they told us fascinating stories about their lives as gay men, before they were together, how they met, and the almost 30 years since that day.  I sat there just in awe of their candor and the incredible history of gays in America through their personal experiences.

Here's a few nuggets that Jay and I pieced together from their stories.

Eighty four year old Raymond came out at a fairly young age and he recalls that his mother believed that homosexuality was an illness that could be cured with penicillin.  He was one of the few "out" people in Fresno as a young adult, and he worked as a hairdresser.  He's only had three "long term" relationships in his life, but there was a time when he was quite "busy" sexually, according to his own stories, especially before AIDS.

Russell, now 87, never came out to his family.  He was in the military for a while and then became an attache for the US Government in Thailand before returning to Los Angeles where he worked for the city of LA before he retired.

Raymond and Russell met in a bar they affectionately dubbed "The Wrinkle Room" in Santa Monica in the early 80's and it was love at first sight.  They've been together ever since.

A few weekends ago, we went back to Fresno for a visit, and I was determined to captured some of their sparkle on some video.  Ed and Jay hosted a dinner for us and invited Rick and David and Raymond and Russell over and we spent the evening having cosmos and encouraging R & R to tell us some stories.

Here's one of the favorites on how they met.  Raymond is one on the left (farthest away) and Russell is on the right.  Russell begins the story.  Enjoy!!

Even in the Heartland

I'm amazed and pleased today that gays can marry in Iowa.

There's something very special about the fact that it can happen in the middle of America.

By a stunning 7-0 decision, the Iowa Supreme Court made civil rights the issue again.

And what makes this even more promising is the fact that unlike in California, civil rights can't be denied by a simple majority vote of the people.

In Iowa, there is no initiative process (thank god) and to add something so devastating and negative as Prop 8 is in California, the people of Iowa would first have to have a constitutional amendment pass the state legislature TWICE before it could even be placed on the ballot.

Now that makes so much more sense doesn't it?

Ok, so maybe you don't trust your legislators.  And maybe you think that you know better.

But the truth is, sometimes you do and sometimes you don't.

Who would have thought that in my haven of California, anti-American zealots could vote to revise the California constitution by a simple majority vote?  

I get that issues like taxes and bonds are important and maybe it is a good thing to hear our voice more directly about where our money goes.

But it just blows my mind that this California Supreme court didn't understand that allowing the majority (of the people who voted mind you) to encode discrimination was a MAJOR REVISION of the constitution, not an amendment.

I mean, I'm not a lawyer, but if the constitution guarantees the civil rights of all of its citizens and then a simple majority of the voters should not be allowed to add a discriminatory clause to the constitution since it clearly contradicts the intention of the document, making it a REVISION!!

Another scarier way to look at this:  approximately 13 million votes were cast in the November 2008 election in California.  There are around 23 million registered voters here.  The total population of California is close to 34 million people

That means that around 56% of the registered voters intended to take away rights that were already in place by California Supreme Court decree.  Mind you, the court's job is to determine both what our constitution says, but also to uphold fairness in a country founded on freedom for all.

Here's the biggest rub to me- only 38% of the population of California voted to take away my rights when you consider the entire population, but their vote took away my rights.

Yes, I know that many non-voters are children.  But many aren't.  Some are undocumented. Some are infirm and cannot get to the polling places.  This is an American problem as well as a California problem.

I'm anticipating that our lame California Supreme Court will decided to wash their hands of this mess and give us a partial victory, partial defeat.  Brad and I will be allowed to stay married since we took the plunge before the vote.  But I think they'll also decide that this vote was an "amendment" and not a revision, so that 38% of Californians can decide to offend whomever they please.

Come on people!  We're not talking about putting a lid on property taxes.  Or funding school development.  Or paving our freeways.

We're talking about fundamental rights.

The California initiative process is broken.

It's time to fix it...before your rights are taken away too.

My Reasons for Gratitude Today

 I really believe in the power of gratitude.  Even before I learned that Oprah and the Big Book extoll the virtues of it, I made it a point to try to focus on the positive things in my life that I had, rather than on what I didn't have.

Because I'm so not perfect however, it is difficult sometimes to practice what I preach to my clients.

It's so much easier it seems to get all snarled up about having rain instead of sun.  Or a 35 minute commute to work on a beautiful stretch of 280. 

Or sometimes I think about how this place will never sell and we won't own a place together.

Sometimes, I focus on the five extra pounds I see in the mirror, or the fact that there is no other hairstyle choice for me than buzzing it short (unless I try the comb- over thing...ewwww) or shaving it bald.

I wish my seven year old Miata was a sleek, sporty Beamer with automatic convertible top instead this nasty old manual one.  

I wonder sometimes if maybe I should have chosen music over psychology as a career.

And then I walk into the living room and Brad is watching basketball with Ella snug in his lap and my whole perspective shifts.

How fortunate I am to have a home, a job, my health, my rattly top down after the rain and someone to love. 

I take a deep breath and as I exhale, I think to myself "life is good."

The Dark Side

When I was young, and I was a little, gay fundamentalist Christian, I learned that Jesus turned the other cheek. You see, Jesus was a very mild-mannered man, a very spiritual and peaceful man, for the most part.

In my mind's eye, Jesus was unshakeable, unflappable, and he overcame injustice and shallow-minded people with consistency and wisdom. The example followed by MLK Jr. and exemplified by Ghandi.

Of course there was another image of Jesus in the Bible as well. The one who, for once, showed his fury to the money changers, who were making a mockery of the church, by knocking around their tables and scaring the be-Jesus out of them.

Was he a pacifist at all cost? There seems to be sufficient evidence that he was not (http://tomorrowsreflection.com/?p=313). However, he did preach patience and non-violence and at least in my little mind back then, overrode the Old Testament "eye for an eye" mentality that struck me as just "icky."

So where am I going with this?

You guessed it: Dick Cheney.

Huh?


Today I see in the news that Dick is now saying that Obama's policies are making the US vulnerable for a terrorist attack- like the one that he and Georgie didn't prevent on 9/11, remember?

This is the second time now the most important VP ever in the history of the universe has chosen to speak out to predict disaster for the US (almost in a wishful way don't cha think?).

Ok, Obama started out trying to calm down the people ready for blood after the end of the Bush nightmare. "IMPEACH" they all screamed. "WAR CRIMINALS" a few chanted.

"No, "says Obama, "we need to move forward, not backwards." A pretty damned decent attempt to let "bygones be bygones" no matter how illegal and unethical the recent past adminstration has behaved.

Yet, instead of feeling grateful, and giving bipartisanship a chance to take the country in a new direction, Republican leadership in congress obstructs at every angle, Rush Limbaugh, their de facto leader openly hopes that America fails, and now Dickie boy is practically drooling at the thought of mayhem and disaster in the form of another major terrorist attack.

He can't WAIT until it happens on somebody else's watch!! After all, how will he repair and rewrite the Bush/Cheney legacy without it?

That where I find the temple dwellers story so intriguing. Jesus was a pacifist to a point.

He tried patience and turning the cheek, but since we only have two, after the second cheek is turned it's time for action against injustice.

Mr. Obama, you have shown great restraint, and great wisdom. But it's time now to step up and hold Bush and Cheney accountable for their misdeeds.

I could get all serious now and talk about what's already been said. Like NOT investigating these jerks sends absolutely the WRONG message to future leaders who take the law into their own hands and trample on our Constitution. If crimes have been committed, and I believe there is solid evidence that they have been, then it is your responsibility to hold them accountable. But, that is for another day, another columnist.

Cheney will not stop until you shut him up, Mr. President.

I want him stopped and I believe most of America wants him stopped.

Time to overturn the tables and banish the temple dwellers.

The Ramble Redhead Interview

About a year ago, I had a guest appearance on the podcast, Gay Men Talking, hosted by my friends Alex and Dean to talk about my book, Loving Ourselves. Soon after that show was broadcast, I received a nice email from another podcast host, Tom, of The Ramble Redhead Show out of Indiana, asking me if I'd be a guest on his show. It took a while, but we finally made it happen and Tom just told me that he posted the interview today at his website, http://www.rambleredhead.com/. We talked a little bit about the book, but it was actually a lot more about me and my life (which I didn't expect!).

If you're interested, take a listen.

The Piano Teacher

Last year, when I was visiting the folks in Forest City, I found out that the woman who gave me piano lessons throughout much of my childhood had passed away.

Mrs. Taylor was important to me in more ways than one.

Ever since I can remember, I have loved music. I loved the radio, especially WBBO, our local station and I listened every spare minute of every day. Whatever they played, I listened to and I learned all the words to every song. And I spent lots of my allowance on records, those flat black discs that revolved around 45 times per minute with a needle tracking the grooves until they were scratched and crackly.

My favorite aunt Martha, a self-taught musician herself, held me in her lap whenever I visited when she played the old upright piano in the room off the kitchen and she eventually showed me some easy tunes I could play myself. It was Aunt Martha who introduced the concept of music notes and how you could read them to turn them into sounds with your fingers. Sitting in Aunt Martha's lap was always a highlight because I relished the attention and her encouragement. She was possibly the first person who recognized some tiny kernal of talent I might have had in those days.

So, by about age 6, I had a passion to learn to play the piano myself . I begged and begged until mom and dad gave in and bought me my own secondhand Baldwin upright! And, they agreed to send me for some piano lessons to learn to play it.

I still remember mom driving me to Ellenboro , which was out in the country for us folks from the urban Forest City world (pop. 7000). I had no idea what to expect, but I was squirming with anticipation during the whole ten minutes it took to get there.

We arrived at what looked like a regular country house, pulled into the gravel driveway and circled around back of the house to a tiny, plain white building, I'd soon come to know like my own room.

We sat in the car for what seemed like forever before suddenly, a small white haired woman emerged from the main house back door, beckoning us towards the small white building with small windows.

I remember her as kind and funny, with a deep Southern drawal and a natural grace about her. When she opened the door for us, I could finally see the small studio Yamaha piano, back to back with the electric Hammond organ, just like the one at our church. She and my mom worked out the details of our arrangement while I tinkered with the keys: half hour lessons, once a week, $5 a lesson, plus the cost of the music books. With a gentle nudge that I would be expected to practice at least 30 minutes a day, she winked and smiled and thus it began.

My official relationship with Mrs. Taylor lasted for almost 10 years after that, the ups and downs of those lessons, week after week, month after month and she taught me to play.

I know I wasn't always an easy student. As much as I loved the piano and loved music, it was sometimes hard to stay focused on the practicing, earning me many pseudo-threats of the lessons stopping until I found the discipline to work at it. As much as I sometimes hated the thirty minutes of scales and music theory, I also continued to love the breakthroughs in my ability to play real songs.

No matter what else was going on in my life, every week I found myself in that little room sharing the love of music and the ins and outs of the rest of my life with Mrs. Taylor. She laughed at my jokes and brushed her tiny pomeranian's fur, pausing occasionally to correct my hand position or timing, with the gentle patience of a true teacher.

Under her guidance, I became fairly accomplished at the piano, enough to eventually perform at my parents' church and later at school and at the local arts council.

One day, at my regular lesson when I was 15, she surprised me by asking if I'd be interested in becoming the pianist at her church, Ellenboro United Methodist, for $15 per service (at the time, a fortune!). She had been the pianist for years and was ready to retire at that point she explained. She also felt that I was ready and could handle the responsibility as long as my parents agreed and could bring me to church and pick me up after.

I was a little concerned about my folks' reaction since they were devout Wesleyans and taking this job would mean that I would no longer attend church with them, but I wanted to try it more than I'd ever wanted anything. It strikes me as funny now that I seemed to have no fear about it. I was just a kid who could earn some bucks and have some fun at the same time- oh, and the opportunity to escape the harshness of the fundamentalist Wesleyans that I had come to despise as a young man. At that point in time, I had been struggling with my sexuality for a few years.

Although I respected and cared for Mrs. Taylor, I wouldn't say that we necessarily had an openly loving or family-type relationship. She was my teacher and I was her student. I knew virtually nothing about her life outside that little white building. We spent ten years together, sharing our love for music and the piano and occasionally we talked about other things and laughed. Twice we met outside of the white building and church, both times on her initiative to expose me to music at a larger scale: a piano performance at Isothermal Community College and a music teachers' convention a few miles away for the afternoon.

At close to 17, my life became much more complicated as I began my first love affair, struggled to maintain my grades and dealt with the horrible coming out process with my family. Being gay back then meant that you were evil or sick and my refusal to reject that part of myself led my mother to say things to me that a mother should never say to a child.

Piano lessons got pushed aside and although I continued to play professionally, I left the comfort of those weekly meetings . Within the next couple of years, I struggled to survive until I left town for college, rarely looking back to Forest City. Mrs. Taylor wished me well with a quick hug and one last prod for me to continue my musical life after high school.

Over the years, I'd occasionally give Mrs. Taylor a call to say hello. She always sounded the same- excited to hear from me and happy when I could say that I was still playing. But I can say that I thought about her on more than a few occasions, the woman who was probably the most consistently positive force in my young life. She was always warm, always gentle and always happy to see me, 50 weeks a year for ten years.

A few years back, when my second book, The Gay and Lesbian Guide to Self-Esteem was published, I included Mrs. Taylor in the Acknowledgements section, among the other important people in my life who made a difference. She believed in me and made no demands on me other than to practice and to make good music. I never told her about it. We didn't talk about things like that. But she was the only consistently positive and regular adult presence in my life, who didn't judge me or manipulate me. I owe her for my self-discipline, a virtue which has brought me successes that I never dreamed at 13 that I could achieve.

Two years ago, I was thinking about her again, wondering how she was and remembering our times together. It hit me suddenly that maybe I had underestimated my relationship with her.

It's hard to know what kind of kid I must have been to her. What kinds of things did I really talk about with her? How much time in the 30 minutes did I really spend playing and how much did I share with her the details of my life?

I had always thought about what a wonderful "coincidence" it was that, just as I was feeling the peak oppression of my parents' fundamentalist beliefs while trying to understand myself, she "retired" as the pianist for the somewhat more progressive United Methodist Church and convinced them to offered me the job. Was I really that good? or did she have something else in mind?

What if, I wondered, Mrs. Taylor knew about struggle I was facing, without even a conversation about it. Surely, even in the back woods of Rutherford County, she had experience with little boys with a talented ear and musical expressiveness. Was it possible that this wise woman knew me better than I knew myself? Instead of divine intervention that took me out of that homophobic church under the spotlight of the small town mind, maybe it was Mrs. Taylor's way of rescuing me. Did she know me and my folks well enough to understand that without her intervention at that point in time, who knows what would have happened?

I choose to believe now that she did. I choose to believe that she was proud of me and loved me, quietly and patiently. During the times that I didn't love myself and thought I had nothing good inside, she was there every week. Recently, I revived my keyboard life, fumbling through some easy Beethoven and beginner Mozart. I wish I had practiced more during my life.

Good night Mrs. Taylor and thank you for believing in me when no one else did. I love you.