The meanest season
Michael was beautiful. Blond, tall, lean like the surfer he was. That’s where we met, surfing. He lived in Seagate, a neighborhood I walked through on my way to the beach to surf. I guess my board caught his eye. While I had seen him often on the break we had never talked – I was too afraid – he was too beautiful. But he yelled out to me one day as I was heading towards the beach. This dark tan kid in flip-flops and a white puka-shell necklace; how glad I was that he did, asking me my name and automatically friending me. We were 15 then. He went to Naples high and me, just two blocks away went to Barron. But walking to the beach together with our boards in hand seemed like my biggest dream come true, because in my closeted existence he was the object of my crush. The water was flat that day, like many in Naples. We really only got good waves when a hurricane blew past or maybe in the winter when a front would pass through the area but that never stopped us from walking to the beach every day in hopes of something ridable.
That summer we ended up fishing more than surfing, an unusually quiet hurricane season. But a season for cementing friendships; a mean season perhaps. That friendship wasn’t an everyday friendship, the different schools we went to insured that. And we weren’t connected like we are now; cell phones, IM, email, Myspace, the Internet in general. But for the few times the winter waves were up and for those next two summers we were inseparable.
Looking back across those years the attraction, the love we had for each other was overwhelming. But it was a different time, and I was so frightened of this person I was, the real person inside.
Eventually that attraction won over; it was a shared fear, a shared secret we had both had for those few years. I think I may have broken Michaels’ heart, like I seem to do with those I love, when I turned away and hid in my ready-made family.
I can’t help but feel that I caused Mike to (my God I haven’t called him that since we were last together, or actually since the night I cried when I heard he had died)… to turn down the path he did. He oft told me about it, wanted me to give it a try.
Michael’s death in 1985 was one of those “fork stuck in the road” moments. The path I had taken was for sure different than his back in 83, and his death a few years later allowed me to look at myself and make other choices, turn down the road I’m on. It sounds odd but I thank Michael for that. And Michael (Mike), I am so sorry. Things could have been so different.
I wish I had told him just one last time that I loved him. I wish he knew right now.
You never know when the last time you’ll see someone, talk to some, say you love them is.
The summer of 1980 was the meanest season –
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Journey
Listening to Sean Kagalis at 37 Main tonight. He's covering some throaty ballad - hauntingly – and through the music I'm eerily drawn to the places I've yet to go. Dark lonely places shuffling along among people on their last ride, loud night clubs listening to a Bauhaus clone - moving to the music with the other Lost Souls, the Gothic youth with their died black hair, their eye liner outlining sunken, sullen eyes. To be on the beach at Monterey watching the sea take shape with the dawn rising behind me, or by a solitary fire looking deep inside myself in the quiet solitude of my soul.
It all comes down to the trip we are all on; the journey to death's friendly embrace oh so many, many years from now, or perhaps on our way home from our jobs/classes today.
Sharing those roads with someone is ultimately the goal for most of us. Whether it's the professor-to-be among us, the poet, the actor, the meteorologist, or the musician. As humans we seek to belong, to know that we are loved and that we have someone to love.
I've belonged and I've been loved, and still do to some extent with my ex-wife although daily I see that evolving into a more distant existence. But to love, or truly be loved - not the love of friends or family but the love of poets, of sunny spring days in the south of France, of gentle walks and waterfalls in the mountains, and of tears at the bedside of a lost partner when you're 80 – that deep place in ones soul that can't ever be replaced once lost - Its that love that we seek. That I am hopeful of -
I care little for what others think – I'm a gay man - raised in a family of tough men straight out of the Maine woods, the roadhouses of the depression - men whose masculinity was defined by the other men they've bested - and now I'm just like them - constantly out to prove my manhood to myself - yet I'm the paradox.
So my journey - now and in the days ahead will be of my own making - without preconception or concern for the expectations of others. I love who I love - regardless of what others may think. I am who I am, walk the paths I walk, and dare any man to take from me my freedom to be, to love, to live as I will. Be it in the dark places where those on their last journey congregate, in a sandy beach watching the ship float by - or with someone special in all of those places or wherever else that may be.
It all comes down to the trip we are all on; the journey to death's friendly embrace oh so many, many years from now, or perhaps on our way home from our jobs/classes today.
Sharing those roads with someone is ultimately the goal for most of us. Whether it's the professor-to-be among us, the poet, the actor, the meteorologist, or the musician. As humans we seek to belong, to know that we are loved and that we have someone to love.
I've belonged and I've been loved, and still do to some extent with my ex-wife although daily I see that evolving into a more distant existence. But to love, or truly be loved - not the love of friends or family but the love of poets, of sunny spring days in the south of France, of gentle walks and waterfalls in the mountains, and of tears at the bedside of a lost partner when you're 80 – that deep place in ones soul that can't ever be replaced once lost - Its that love that we seek. That I am hopeful of -
I care little for what others think – I'm a gay man - raised in a family of tough men straight out of the Maine woods, the roadhouses of the depression - men whose masculinity was defined by the other men they've bested - and now I'm just like them - constantly out to prove my manhood to myself - yet I'm the paradox.
So my journey - now and in the days ahead will be of my own making - without preconception or concern for the expectations of others. I love who I love - regardless of what others may think. I am who I am, walk the paths I walk, and dare any man to take from me my freedom to be, to love, to live as I will. Be it in the dark places where those on their last journey congregate, in a sandy beach watching the ship float by - or with someone special in all of those places or wherever else that may be.
Friday, February 17, 2006
My 17th year...
My 17th year was perhaps the most defining of all of my years up to then or since until this past year. Sure there were moments of victory, glory, pain, sorrow, birth, death. That's life. But no other year until this past had witnessed more apparent pivotal moments than when I was 17.
The year was 1983, the year of the J Giles Band and Centerfold, Foreigner-4 and Juke Box Hero, going undefeated in varsity soccer only to loose out in the state playoffs to Jacksonville-Boles (I think). I was a senior in high school and in all honesty, it wasn't much different then any of the preceding years. I had always been popular with my older brother preceding me. Everyone knew me through him and it grew from there - to his consternation I'm sure. Christina was off at Brown and I really didn't have much contact with her which is sad - she would have been a great influence but was indeed too "grown up" to mess with a little HS boy like me.
That fall Laurie actually asked me out to the Sadie Hawken's dance. Even though I was casually dating Melissa (aka Super Tongue) I accepted and soon there after began dating Laurie exclusively. Laurie was by no means popular and hung out mainly with the drama geeks. We got along fine I suppose, yet at the same time, perhaps because I knew inside who the real me was, I had my first same-sex experience with another boy my age, Michael. In that I found a pure confirmation of who I was on that side of things but was to find out who I was on a much deeper level soon enough.
Four months into dating Laurie she told me and her parents that she was five months pregnant (math time kids). So without a doubt the child was not mine but it struck me very clearly what this likely meant for Laurie. You see, growing up in ultra-affluent Naples Florida you just didn't see teenage mothers. That was something that happened in Miami, in the inner city. Not in whiteville. And without a doubt, Laurie's life was at a crossroads, as was mine. She faced ostracism, ridicule, alienation - hell for her last two years of high school and who knows what should he self esteem survive that. So very clearly I stepped forward and claimed Kimberly as my own child - even though she was in no was possibly mine (math remember). And it's certainly not because we were not sexually active, I lost my virginity at age 13.
I guess I did this consciously for two reasons and I'm not sure my altruism should be extolled so much. The fact is I was still hiding my sexuality. Both it from people and me from it. And what better way. But also, perhaps as a supreme rationalization, I knew that if Kimberly, Laurie's unborn daughter was seen to be mine, then Laurie and Kimberly would be accepted into our shallow High School world. I was popular - criminally so - not a jock or whatever, but someone everyone wanted to know and party with.
Neither of our sets of parents could understand why I would claim Kimberly. Just didn't understand the High School social dynamic I guess. But We/I finally forced them to understand the severity of my wish that they keep this to themselves. And without question we received hell from a few teachers. In fact, an English teacher I looked up to quite a bit prevented me from receiving an academic student honor one month - and I'm certain it's because he didn't approve of me. He died a very early death but I can still remember his smiling, approving face at my wedding reception when he shook my hand, a college graduate and fulfilling what I'm sure he saw as my duty as the father of this child.
The months came and went. We won the district soccer championship, I ran track, other things of little importance - yet the play was cast and the next 23 years were set into motion. When Kimberly was born I was unfortunately not there as I was participating in the State Jazz Band contest finals at the University of Miami. So many responsibilities have gotten in the way of life's real moments - yet I have no regrets here. Graduation came and I prepared to go off to Georgia Southern. I knew that I would marry Laurie, in spite of my true self. I knew I had made a commitment and that like everything else in my life, I would not quit once that commitment had been made. A small brown-eyed little girl depended on it.
You see, I'm not sure why for sure. I really don't think any of us knows why we choose the paths we do in life. Perhaps this path was a path I turned away from in a previous life (Buddhist, remember) or perhaps I just felt I knew that this thing was right.
Laurie had a happy and successful High school experience and went on to join me at Georgia Southern where together we finished out degrees, little girl in tow. There weren't a lot of college parties for me - but a lot of great ballet recitals and tender hugs. I wouldn't give any of that up - even in trade for the last 23 years of missed opportunities. Because the opportunities and realizations I had during those years defined me beginning with that one evening, so long ago, where I made that decision to be the man I am today.
So, that's the story. Condensed.
Peace.
The year was 1983, the year of the J Giles Band and Centerfold, Foreigner-4 and Juke Box Hero, going undefeated in varsity soccer only to loose out in the state playoffs to Jacksonville-Boles (I think). I was a senior in high school and in all honesty, it wasn't much different then any of the preceding years. I had always been popular with my older brother preceding me. Everyone knew me through him and it grew from there - to his consternation I'm sure. Christina was off at Brown and I really didn't have much contact with her which is sad - she would have been a great influence but was indeed too "grown up" to mess with a little HS boy like me.
That fall Laurie actually asked me out to the Sadie Hawken's dance. Even though I was casually dating Melissa (aka Super Tongue) I accepted and soon there after began dating Laurie exclusively. Laurie was by no means popular and hung out mainly with the drama geeks. We got along fine I suppose, yet at the same time, perhaps because I knew inside who the real me was, I had my first same-sex experience with another boy my age, Michael. In that I found a pure confirmation of who I was on that side of things but was to find out who I was on a much deeper level soon enough.
Four months into dating Laurie she told me and her parents that she was five months pregnant (math time kids). So without a doubt the child was not mine but it struck me very clearly what this likely meant for Laurie. You see, growing up in ultra-affluent Naples Florida you just didn't see teenage mothers. That was something that happened in Miami, in the inner city. Not in whiteville. And without a doubt, Laurie's life was at a crossroads, as was mine. She faced ostracism, ridicule, alienation - hell for her last two years of high school and who knows what should he self esteem survive that. So very clearly I stepped forward and claimed Kimberly as my own child - even though she was in no was possibly mine (math remember). And it's certainly not because we were not sexually active, I lost my virginity at age 13.
I guess I did this consciously for two reasons and I'm not sure my altruism should be extolled so much. The fact is I was still hiding my sexuality. Both it from people and me from it. And what better way. But also, perhaps as a supreme rationalization, I knew that if Kimberly, Laurie's unborn daughter was seen to be mine, then Laurie and Kimberly would be accepted into our shallow High School world. I was popular - criminally so - not a jock or whatever, but someone everyone wanted to know and party with.
Neither of our sets of parents could understand why I would claim Kimberly. Just didn't understand the High School social dynamic I guess. But We/I finally forced them to understand the severity of my wish that they keep this to themselves. And without question we received hell from a few teachers. In fact, an English teacher I looked up to quite a bit prevented me from receiving an academic student honor one month - and I'm certain it's because he didn't approve of me. He died a very early death but I can still remember his smiling, approving face at my wedding reception when he shook my hand, a college graduate and fulfilling what I'm sure he saw as my duty as the father of this child.
The months came and went. We won the district soccer championship, I ran track, other things of little importance - yet the play was cast and the next 23 years were set into motion. When Kimberly was born I was unfortunately not there as I was participating in the State Jazz Band contest finals at the University of Miami. So many responsibilities have gotten in the way of life's real moments - yet I have no regrets here. Graduation came and I prepared to go off to Georgia Southern. I knew that I would marry Laurie, in spite of my true self. I knew I had made a commitment and that like everything else in my life, I would not quit once that commitment had been made. A small brown-eyed little girl depended on it.
You see, I'm not sure why for sure. I really don't think any of us knows why we choose the paths we do in life. Perhaps this path was a path I turned away from in a previous life (Buddhist, remember) or perhaps I just felt I knew that this thing was right.
Laurie had a happy and successful High school experience and went on to join me at Georgia Southern where together we finished out degrees, little girl in tow. There weren't a lot of college parties for me - but a lot of great ballet recitals and tender hugs. I wouldn't give any of that up - even in trade for the last 23 years of missed opportunities. Because the opportunities and realizations I had during those years defined me beginning with that one evening, so long ago, where I made that decision to be the man I am today.
So, that's the story. Condensed.
Peace.
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