Worn

           

            This year we will not be celebrating Halloween. There will be no candy given out and there will be no decorations, at least not outside. The one pumpkin we have is an autumn accent and not for carving. The days of trick or treat are far behind us. With no children to act as camouflage, we have been housebound, by gender and by age. The idea of still going out on Halloween, of walking among the children, may appear as charming but the act itself would be creepy, to say the least. Two grown men standing around watching kids play may have been appropriate in 1982, but this is 2019 and I do not wish to feed the fears or concerns any innocent bystander might have. Instead, we stay home. Up until this point, every year held the same customs, the same substance to our Halloween evening. We seemed to like it this way. Yes, we could be out with friends, having a gay old time. Yes, we could attend the parties we have been invited to. We have earned a reprieve. The quiet is a better place to be. All the noise, all the revelry no longer fits our lifestyle. There is something balanced and stable about tradition. If heterosexual couples are entitled to heirlooms, and keepsakes, and moments, then gay couples are too. The sense of home is not exclusive to the breeders of the world. Family no longer automatically means heterosexual. Marriage no longer means only between a man and a woman. You work hard, you build a life and you make a claim on it. Holidays like Valentine’s Day and Christmas should cement what was already grounded. This is why, every Halloween, we would fill our black cauldron with chocolate bars and carve pumpkins for our front porch display. In the past, it may have appeared we were simply mimicking our neighbours but in reality, we only tried to establish memories of our own. Everyone wants the same things, we just have different ways of getting it. This year, the porch light will not welcome even one soul. No candles will melt, no candy will be distributed. We refuse to participate. In fact, we want nothing to do with any external traditions that might indicate we wish to be part of our neighbourhood’s traditions. Most certainly, we are not about to spend $15- $20 per box of candy. Some things remain. Inside our place, it is decorated like every year, with the exemption of any real pumpkins that might may have once been offered. We want nothing to do with the process, at least not for this year, for this Halloween. Still, I have bought a couple bags of chocolate treats for us to covet, regardless.

            I usually start buying boxes of snack-sized chocolate bars (for Halloween) when they first go on sale at Walmart, usually after mid-August. Once a week, for several months, I would stockpile the goods. Sometimes we would eat a purchase, before we could even add it to the other treasures. When we do entertain the festivities, we tend to favour the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup package of 50. Oh Henry is a nougat-based delight much like the American Baby Ruth bar. It is a Canadian delight and my personal favourite of all time. You can even use it as a fake turd. Just toss it in the swimming pool like in the 1980 film Caddyshack. When I was a boy, Halloween was all about the candy. As adults, my partner and I would wait until the dinner hour on October 31^st, then dump all that stash into that plastic black cauldron, dark and deep. There is nothing more satisfying than consuming what is left of the hoard. For the most part, I was always liberal with the stash. At first, I gave each child a handful of goodies. Eventually, I fell back to three pieces, then two pieces and before the end of the night, I drop a measly one sweet in. Sometimes a kid will look at me like, “That’s it?” This year I will miss all that candy but I will not miss the kids. I always made sure there was an overabundance afterwards, come our private time on All Hallow’s Eve. Once the trick or treaters had all gone home to bed, we would consume a ton of it. We accumulated every kind of chocolate bar you can imagine. It was primarily out of selfish greed. We shared them at first. One might even venture to say how generous we were to the kids in our neighbourhood. The truth be told, we buy the candy primarily for us. The kids are incidental. Every box purchased added to an impressive lot. The standard Snickers and Aero treats mixed in with Kit Kat and Wunderbar and the Mars bar. Almond Joy has got nuts but Mounds don’t. Every year, it was a chocolate smorgasbord. This year, I have not even brought that cauldron up from the storage room. I don’t even know where it is. Come this Halloween, I won’t even have to discern between American candy and Canadian candy. Occasionally, this can be confusing. Is the Kit Kat bar from north or south of the border? Do you prefer Smarties or M&Ms? I urge my American friends to find themselves a Crispy Crunch bar. What part of toffee and chocolate don’t you people understand? Pure Canadiana. I even miss the days when Payday, and peanuts galore, was an option. Pure Americana. Baby Ruth is not available here either. Regardless, Halloween night has turned into exactly what it has always been. It’s not about pumpkins or even the costumes. They too are incidental. It’s all about the candy. It’s all about reward. You can dress up yourself and your house, decorate to your heart’s desire but it all means nothing if you miss out on a diabetic coma. It’s so worth it.

            Back in the day, when I first stopped trick or treating, I would spend Halloween evening with my friends. Kathy Sharp and I spent many spooky nights bumping and grinding off of each other. Most people would not know that dancing has always been something I excelled at. It comes naturally. From what I can recall, we were pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. I still have contact with Kathy but she goes by her married name these days and is somehow old enough to be a grandmother. It is apparent that time flies. Sometimes I spent the evening with my family, riding along with my nephew Matthew or my niece Jessica. If I wasn’t dancing in some seedy night club somewhere, you could find me in my parents’ neighbourhood with a boy or a girl or even a puppy just for fun.  In the mid-1980s, I tried my hand at the gay village in Toronto. Every night was like Halloween but Halloween was out of this world. I could never tell just who was transgendered and who was in costume. There is something confusing about being hit on by a leather Daddy and his boyfriend Judy Garland. It is not that gay men need a reason to engage in debauchery and hedonism but Halloween always seems to bring out the true nature of the village. Halloween to a gay man is like Christmas to a Christian. One does not need the pride parade to witness such extravaganza. My first partner and I spent many a Halloween sitting at a bar, on a patio or puking in the restroom (if you made it). The foam from each beer was our costume. Tequila and Jack our candy. It was strange not participating in the frightful revelry. Doug did not favour this holiday. He hated it. Not once did I see him standing at the door handing out treats to the tricksters.  It wasn’t until after his death that I again paid attention to the idea of a Happy Halloween. My second partner is a tad boring when it comes to a lavish lifestyle. We don’t have one. Granted, the first few years of our relationship was an endless party. We got over it. The silence calmed us. So much time has passed that we often feel rather worn. This can be a good thing. Excitement on a Halloween should only occur when a candle goes out on one of the pumpkins or a kid drops a candy as they walk away. It is clear that regardless of whom we love, our traditions are all pretty much the same. We crave the sense of togetherness, like cavemen shivering in the bitter cold. The sense of community can bring much needed comfort. We crave the familiar in order to establish a sense of home and belonging. It is simple. We engage in tradition when it serves the purpose. We disengage when we no longer get anything from it. It usually works for us, the idea, the sense of good neighbourhood and all the “will you be my neighbour?” crap. With over a year battling a bad neighbour, we have taken a hiatus. We want nothing to do with anything they are a part of. We do not wish to give the impression they are welcome on our property. We do not wish to spend money on candy just to have it encourage access to one of our seasonal displays or some piece of property that might go missing. I will say that this Halloween, we may have a new appreciation of the term “haunted.”

            This will be our first Halloween, since 2005, without a black cat by our side. Shadowe died earlier this year and we are left searching in the dark for him. He was never one for pomp and circumstance but this time of year always suited him. He looked the part. It was apropos to have a cat to match the rest of our decorations. Now our grey cat Mr. Fritz is left holding the proverbial bag. Sometimes, the grief still haunts me. Sometimes, I feel the pain all over again, regardless of how long my pet has been gone. I miss all the cats I have known but there was something special about Shadowe. Unlike Mr. Fritz, who watched everything from a distance, Shadowe actually participated in our relationship. On Halloween, he could be found sitting just inside the door, watching every child come and go. He fit right in, even if it was only seasonal. One year, I got the idea to purchase costumes for the pair. A witch was bestowed on Shadowe and the devil possessed Mr. Fritz. They both hated the experience. It was easy to tell. They both floundered in the cheap plastic material. It was hard to tie the witch hat and devil’s horns to either one of their fuzzy heads. Last year, on his last Halloween, Shadowe could be found licking all the pumpkins like they were veal. On several different occasions, Shadowe photo bombed my partner as he tried to take pictures of his carved creations. Until he made his move, you couldn’t tell he was even there. Inside or outside didn’t seem to matter. It was fun to watch. I just assume that the festivities this year will not be the same without him. He is part of the reason we have decided to shut down our place on Halloween. We need it to be a silent night, a holy night. I can already feel the void and it isn’t even the big day yet. At the end of it, when all the kids are gone from the streets and we are all alone, we will recognize that it cannot be the same without him. It shouldn’t be the same. Halloween will come and it will go but any memory will last for as long as we care to remember. A part of our household is gone forever and even though he was just a cat, I know that he lingers. Mr. Fritz is different after 4 months without Shadowe around. He is now much warmer and more affectionate. We spoil him still. On Halloween, I half expect Shadowe to haunt us, but in the most friendly of ways. I wonder if Mr. Fritz has ever seen a ghost? Regardless, we will spend Halloween this year with a small cremation urn rather than the literal black cat.

            My mother used to go all out each Halloween. From tombstones to zombies, she handled each year like a pro would. She was dedicated to the task. It was pure fun for her. From the time we were children, she made Halloween. Yes, the candy came first but my Mom did more than allow us to indulge in the treats. With five children, each year she made our costumes. I was a bat one year, my sister was a kitty the next and the neighbourhood became our labyrinth. Pillowcase in hand, I had the freedom to be a kid. It was easy and rather rewarding. City living for a child pays off each Halloween. The houses are endless and the candy was usually upscale, at least at the time it was. It was a great area to grow up in and to this day, I feel welcome when I think of it. The same cannot be said of my new neighbourhood. What a strange place to live. From the young lad who knocked on our door at 6:30 AM to the worst example of a person running around unchecked, it’s hard to want to be involved with such people. We try not to associate everyone in the same manner. Our mechanic lives in shouting distance and the majority of people I run into are polite and courteous and even friendly. We have no issue with the ointment but it’s some of the flies we have a problem with. Time carries on and the days of then become lost to now. My Mom has been gone almost a decade and I have a life of my own, a life she might not recognize. It’s the holidays when I miss her the most. I still have the pillowcase I used to harvest when I was a boy. I kept it handy in case I needed somewhere to ditch more stash. Of course, my stash (beyond Halloween) was comics and more candy and my set of Wacky Packages, a collection of fake advertisements in card form. The Topps Chewing Gun company used parodies of consumer products starting in 1967. They were all the craze back in 1975. Each card was also a sticker. They peeled from the front. You can still see the outline of several of those stickers on the inside of my tickle trunk. I wish that I had held onto them like I did my pillowcase. I’ll have to admit, it has seen a better day. It is placed with care among the other cherished items of my youth. I do not believe it would be useful on a Halloween night. It is well used and tattered and very much worn.

            This will be the 22^nd Halloween my partner and I have shared together. Our pets may have changed over the years but we remain intact, for the most part. We have no children and we never will. We don’t really follow the heterosexual guide to a happy existence, well knowing it rarely works for any of them. Regardless, our relationship feels like home. We have worked diligently to establish then maintain that sense of belonging, that sense of family. Sometimes it can be hard to see. Holidays like Halloween are meant to not only create experiences but remind us of them as well. Special events can be like a touchstone, a safe place we turn to in times of need. This is the reason behind any otherland. Christmas, Easter, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) are all reflections of every other holiday, anniversary or commemoration. Each one has a duty we can rely on year after year. Each memorial holds its own definition but it all contains the same lesson. Being a family can mean having traditions while being nontraditional. Sometimes we need a break from all the fucking heterosexual bullshit. Being a family can mean gathering memories together into a picture of who we are. Come Halloween and we will make more but they will be with people we care about, not those we don’t care for or have to kowtow to. We will follow the event like we have before, we just refuse to participate outside of these walls. It’s not personal but fuck off. It will not be like clockwork, it will not be like each and every other year. Sometimes it makes me feel like some grumpy old man and I feel somewhat lesser for wear. The good news is that we are more worn than in shambles. We need a break, not abandonment. Come December and Christmas will matter most. The pumpkins, the hanging ghost and the ghoul head in the front yard will have to wait for next year. Sometimes we celebrate, special occasions like Halloween give us something to look back on and something to look forward to.  Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and walk through it. Experience is the teacher but it is the lessons we learn that make us who we are. Granted, it’s easier to pretend to be somewhere else on Halloween but the choice says more about who we are than any facade we think we are using. Take my word for it. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do, there are witches in every neighbourhood regardless if we want them to disappear with All Saint’s Day.

 Photos

https://www.walmart.com/ip/2PCS-Halloween-Wall-Sticker-Justdolife-Scary-Boo-Cat-Decor-Window-Sticker-Wall-Decal-for-Home-Bedroom-Party-Decoration/516907834

Halloween 2018

Paris Ontario Canada

              

https://www.blogto.com/city/2016/10/a_history_of_halloween_on_church_street_in_toronto/

Halloween 2016

Kitchener Ontario Canada

Halloween 2017

Paris Ontario Canada

My Mom the Witch

Halloween 2006

Strathroy Ontario Canada

https://www.facebook.com/youfckoff/photos/the-holiday-may-be-over-but-holding-my-stance-halloween-pumpkins-fuckoff-holiday/1119667921540691/

Sources

Caddyshack 1980

Fake Turd/Pool Scene

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

Witch Craft

            For most people, high school was a living hell. The pressure to fit in, combined with the torment from other students, often turns what should have been a positive growing experience into some joyride for the damned. Not only do we have to wage war against external forces, which we plunge into every weekday, we also have to battle the churning mass of hormones which possesses our still developing bodies. We are almost grown, almost but not quite. High school, for me, consisted of the 5-year option in advanced courses and university prep. I also studied music and theatre arts, they were my only reprieve. Strathroy District Collegiate Institute once stood were the Sprucedale Care Center now does. Located near downtown Strathroy, Ontario, the school sat high on the hill overlooking the town. The hill is still there but the old buildings are now long gone. The Thames River still flows at the basin but the flow of students has completely dried up. The building was an amalgam of the aging and the not so new. The mingling of pre-modern and post-war structures stuck together like rice cakes. My Dad ran the place. My brother Phillip worked there for years. For a year in the mid-1980s, I cleaned the third floor every weekday evening. The money was damn good and managed to pay for the first few years of my post-secondary pursuits. The time I spent within the walls of SDCI was made up of both good and bad memories. The jumbled mess that is my history can be difficult to see through clearly. At times, any lesson the past might contain is lost in the mosaic. I am lucky enough to have a few events and people that stand out for me. As I wander back in my mind, I realize that high school offered me little but that something little had a huge effect on me. It was not until years later that I finally nailed it down. It’s funny how something can shape you and you don’t even know it.

            The first day of high school is like dropping 1500 teenagers into the Sahara desert and telling them to find water. Good luck with that. For almost 5 years, we try to quench our thirst. We all try to blend, try to fit in, and for some it really works. For the rest, damnation. Throughout my tenure at SDCI, I had friends, struggles and everything you can imagine might happen to a pre-bipolar teenager running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Literally, the entire time I was in high school is sewn into dark layers of a mind preparing for madness. I began the long process of acting based on impulse rather than control based on instinct. I was a bully to some. I was a royal pain in the ass to most. The homosexual panic I experienced did little to stop my well-driven pursuit of pleasure. I was animal, all action and little thought. On any given day, I felt like standing in the cafeteria and screaming until my throat bled. I even dated, although I could not actually grow a beard of my own, at that time.

“Raven hair and ruby lips

Sparks fly from her fingertips

Echoed voices in the night

She’s a restless spirit on an endless flight

Woo hoo, witchy woman

See how high she flies

Woo hoo, witchy woman

She got the moon in her eye”

            Occasionally, as you travel along on the beaten path called an education, someone stands out. A counsellor, a teacher or a staff member makes a difference, they connect with you. It might have been the lunch lady from the kitchen who made you feel welcome or the janitor who joked with you every day, but somewhere, somehow you found a ray of hope. For me, it worked the other way around. When I walked into Vivian Gettas’ Grade 9 English class, I didn’t believe in witches. When she made me sit at the front of the class rather than at the back with my friends, I knew I had a problem, a wicked problem. I checked the roof for flying monkeys. When I told her to stuff it, I began my frequent journey from room 212 to the front office. The two of us just never got along. She appeared a cold, heartless bitch who liked nothing more than to provoke me. So I let her. That entire first year with her was like pulling pins from a cactus. We just didn’t click with each other and I often told her off just for fun. When I graduated her class and moved on to the summer, I thought that the wicked witch was dead. I suppose karma is a bitch too. When I walked into room 212 on the first day of Grade 10, she greeted me with, “Mr. Daw, welcome. Please take your seat at the front of the class like last year.” I could have smacked her. Five years in a row, I walked into that same room to that same face, sneering at me like a rat about to mate. God, I hated her. Five years, five English classes, five travels to the dark side. It got to the point where I liked hating her. I thrived on causing havoc whenever we rubbed shoulders. I actually looked forward to my descent each day. She seemed to find me amusing, frequently playing the game along with me. I was not the chiselled intellectual I now claim to be, so back then she beat me every time. She was one smart cookie. I kept trying and she kept playing. Until the last day of Grade 13, we snarled at each other whenever we got the chance. In Grade 12, I got a part in the school production of Anything Goes. The Cole Porter classic was embraced by the entire school and we all performed with grand spectacle. It was very much so, a success. When I auditioned, I walked into the music room and found myself face to face with my mortal enemy. She sat smiling at me, like she got some rush from the power of making me squirm. When our eyes met, we both almost laughed together.

“She held me spellbound in the night

Dancing shadows and firelight

Crazy laughter in another room

And she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon

Woo hoo, witchy woman

See how high she flies

Woo hoo, witchy woman

She got the moon in her eye”

            Recently on Facebook, a friend from my high school days requested I add them to my friends list. It took me some time to decide what to do. I’ll admit I try not to dwell on those moments from my life. I am ashamed of how I treated the people who cared about me the most. There were no excuses. I decided to give in to temptation and I allowed him access. The floodgates opened. As I searched my mind, there was little for me to evade and avoid. Each person who flashed in my mind had already been dealt with and stored, never to be heard from again. Of all the people I knew back then, most have left, some have gone. The invasion stirred the pot a little. I started to ask myself, who mattered the most from that time? Who left the most enduring impression? Much to my surprise, the thing that I hated the most back when mattered more to me now. Somehow among all those years of humiliation and misery, I had a refuge after all.

            I don’t recall ever skipping Miss Gettas’ class. I liked the course of study and especially the way she taught. I never had the chance to tell her that and maybe I wish that I had. Her classroom style made things interesting. It wasn’t some old skool method. She allowed each student to partake, to become involved in the depth of each lesson. She made Shakespeare come to life by acting each part, not just reading it. Blake, Atwood and Salinger became an exploration rather than a lecture. I wanted to go to her class, even though I hated her guts. I think in a strange way, the only way I learned anything was under duress. She demanded more. She made me write, then she made me write some more. As a writer, a composer of sorts, it was Vivian Gettas who taught me more, influenced me more than any other teacher, no matter how great. She gave me the freedom to sculpt my words rather than just writing them. When I got the part in Anything Goes, Vivian rode me hard the entire time. As director, she always demanded more from me than she did with the other members of the cast. I was a jack of all trades, a compliment she made on the last day of rehearsal. I have to admit that I did not see her then as I do now. I could not see past my personal biases to actually want to learn from the woman. Apparently, I did exactly that regardless of myself. It has been several decades since the fall of SDCI. All the years of students and staff filling the halls have faded along with the buildings and the chalkboards and the study desks. Room 212 has ended but not in my memory. There is not a lot of  love lost between me and my days in high school. I was miserable most of the time. Luckily I had a daily refuge, even if I didn’t know it. Despite everything, I still think of Witchiepoo in a special way. Her craft is so transparent to my wandering eye. I can see her broom clearly, resting against the wall behind her desk. It waits for her to ride. Off she goes to the western sky.

“Woo hoo, witchy woman

See how high she flies

Woo hoo, witchy woman

She got the moon in her eye”

(Witchy Woman, The Eagles 1972)

            The high school is gone, and in its place stands that retirement home, all polished and new. All the people and events from a lifetime of learning are lost to the winds which blow memory away. We only have our own thoughts to call on, to look to. Sometimes those memories need a trigger and a little attention. I saw a picture of Vivian Gettas when I checked out the profile of my newest Facebook friend. Her short hair. Her Greek features. Those glasses. She sat with a group of SDCI students on a trip to Europe. They went to Paris that year. It took me back. Funny how the smallest thing can open the floodgates. I wanted to discover something profound, marking my favour, but all I could think of was that I’m glad I wasn’t there if she was. Forget Paris.

Photo

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/450360031457239503/

Sources

https://simplekel.blogspot.com/2011/03/rice-cakes.html

http://thinkexist.com/quotations/learning/

http://www.quotegarden.com/homosexuality.html

http://www.librarything.com/author/whitetheodoreh

Hetero-land

            Being homosexual has always been a touchy subject for me. It’s not that I am ashamed or contrite regarding my proclivity. It’s not even that I wish I had been heterosexual, even though I once felt that way. The main issues I have with my sexuality do not reign with shame or even religious condemnation. I have always tried to maintain some semblance of privacy and steer clear of any association that might come from the lack thereof. I have always felt that what I do with my penis is my business and no one else’s. The essence of my position may appear as self-hate or some guilty pleasure, but I only have ever reacted as my ego would allow. I’m sorry, it may be going backwards to many but I would rather you not know. When people discover the secret, they automatically have access to your  propensities. I would like to be considered for how I am rather than what I am. I am more than just my sex life. It is not my identity. I am more than just your disgrace. My entire adult life has found me chasing normalcy. I simply wished to be viewed based on the content of my character, not the contents of my sexual appetite. I do not wish to go back in my time and change anything. I do wish that I had maintained slightly more control over who had access to my personal information. Granted, it is a much different world than when I first discovered my truth. People are more accepting and far less radical in their hate for all things homosexual. Some people still detest those different than themselves but this position stands as a destructive and unnecessary posture. Any finger that once pointed out my debauchery now directs itself at those who would condemn rather than try to understand. It’s okay to be gay, no matter what all the haters may claim. Oh how the tables have turned.

            When people get to know me, they are usually surprised that I was engaged to marry, twice. It’s strange but wonderful that these days, one has to point out that I was engaged to two women, not two men. My time in hetero-land was not sexual in nature. It was more like a foil rather than a blank statement. I met Sharon in grade 11, mutual friends brought us together. After a fallout with my then-girlfriend, we became rather inseparable. I suppose she was my hag in a literal sense, although she didn’t have a clue. We got engaged the next year, just before she headed to Toronto to work in placement with a legal firm. Sharon was mousy and plain and very, very Christian. She made it easier to hide behind Jesus. At least, I didn’t feel any pressure to consummate our relationship. Sometimes scripture can be our friend. During her tenure, she met someone else. She summoned me to the city to tell me. I was thrilled by this development. Sharon was the first person that I revealed my sexuality to (outside anyone who I had already copulated with). She took the news rather poorly. Sitting in an underground concourse, she let me have it hard (so to speak). She screamed out loud for all to hear. For a good Christian girl, she sure knew how curse and judge me. Her judgments against me were valid. I had lied to her and I had led her astray. She pointed out my sin so I pointed out hers. If I was immoral, then what was the state of her salvation, considering she had admitted to fucking this new guy’s brains out? Isn’t all sin equal in God’s eyes? It was the last little dance we had together. Obviously, the engagement to marry was called off.

            During the mid-1980s, I worked at the Victoria Hospital campus in London, Ontario. Just across the street, at Commissioner’s Road and Wellington Street, sat a 7-11 and a Coffee Time donut shop. Joanne worked just around the corner. For months, we sat for a time each morning and we talked. I told her right away that I was gay. I didn’t want to, not really, but I learned through Sharon not to lead others into a false sense of intimacy. She was a valued friend and eventually we began to see each other in a more social way. It was actually Joanne who did most of the lying. She came up with a plan to fight the constraints of a very Italian and very Catholic family. We got engaged for deception. She simply wanted to be free. The fact that I was homosexual did not appear to slant her position, at first. We did the “couple” crap. I met her family and she met mine. We attended a few work parties, hiding behind each other for all to see. It worked, at the beginning. For over a year we played the game. I did what I wanted and she did the same. Unfortunately, one day it ended badly. She could no longer deny her feelings and she wanted more than I could offer. I might have continued to be her friend if she hadn’t pointed out to me that I might get help for my “condition”. I think she wanted to hurt me as much as she believed I had hurt her. She, apparently, just didn’t get it. She knew going in. Despite the years together, calling off the facade was not an issue for me. It wasn’t the end of our engagement that gave me great pause, her judgment did. Thinking back, I’m so glad I was gay.

            We met the girls during our time at Lambton College in Sarnia, Ontario. My first partner and I were heavily involved in the student association and eventually, we both found a place to be. We could not be ourselves. Initially, it was simpler not to come out and tell anyone we were a couple. The media program, at the time, was heavy with the standard ”guy next door” approach. Radio was not a friendly place for a Sodomite. We knew it going in so we did not venture into the mistake. To be honest, it was exactly the way I would have wished for it to be. Every Thursday after work, staff and student rallied together for drinks at the Campbell Street Station. We blended in because we learned how to. It was on the dance floor that I met Charlene. Soon after, Doug was introduced to her friend Judy. It was cute to watch them throw themselves at each of us. Doug and I never touched them. We never said we were dating. We didn’t engage them in their heterosexual rants, not once. Our lies were from omission. We never told a soul. When our time in Sarnia was over, we relocated to Toronto. A year later and the funeral was heavy with regret. The girls came to pay their respects, hoping their questions would finally find some answers. When Judy asked why Doug never liked her, I told her. Judy’s response demonstrates one of the reasons we put up the hiding wall. “He was a faggot?” was all she said, then she turned her back on me and crossed the room. I never heard from or saw her again. Charlene was a different matter. After the funeral, we started talking almost daily on the phone. I believe she was trying to save me from my sin. She tried and tried, over and over, to get me to give myself to the mercy of Jesus. When I told her she was too late, that I had been there and done that, she made it clear that my sexual immorality made it impossible for her to further associate with me. I pointed out to her that it was a good thing offering me a blowjob the year before was the high ground when it came to morality. I haven’t heard a word from her since.

            Anthony Glavine was a good friend throughout our stay in Sarnia. The entire time we treated him with kid gloves. We liked him and we helped him and we made him feel like we had his back. We also, conveniently, lied by omission. He was short and a hairy beast. I almost petted him once. He was the kind of guy who liked to drink a lot of beer and talk a lot of smack. He would go on and on about how he nailed this chick and screwed another. Over and over we always listened to him and then we laughed in private. He didn’t have a clue. When we moved to Toronto, Anthony stayed with us for weeks at a time. It was your standard “buddy buddy” relationship. There was little depth to it and his constant need to borrow money began to weigh on our friendship. He hunted for me through a winter storm on the night Doug died. He was a pallbearer at the funeral. He even allowed my cats to stay with him as I adjusted to a world without Doug in it. When I finally told him I was gay, it was an instant ending. I was literally told to get out and never come back. I suppose, in the most ironic way, that his debt died with Doug. I never saw a penny from him and I never saw him again. I had never been sure if not telling him was the right thing to do. His shunning made it clear, it was definitely the right thing to do. I have this saying, “When in doubt, don’t.” I am still glad that we didn’t. In hindsight, nothing bugs a heterosexual man more than remembering how he walked naked in front of a couple of queers. The entire time we knew him, he really never had much to offer but we befriended him anyway. Granted, he was more Chia pet than anything else. In the end, he did not offer the same to me. It became clear that any friendship I believed we had was nothing but a means to an end for him. It’s very interesting, and not lost on me, that my homosexuality was an excuse, even though we had accepted him despite his heterosexuality.

            I really believed that if I stopped being homosexual, if somehow I purged the sin from my being, that I could please God and earn some favour. My grief was ripe and limited my ability to think and act rationally. I threw myself on Jesus, in the most sincere way I could muster. My guilt was all encompassing and I believed that God could turn me, make me a new man and free me from my poor morality. I was instantly haunted by my sexuality. I tried and tried to put it out of my mind but I was cursed. I was cursed to be gay, cursed to be unrighteous and cursed to a life without God and all that which flows through Him. I would never get into the Kingdom of Heaven. When the hoping and the praying did not rid me of my folly, I went to the doctor and asked to be castrated. I wanted to prove to God that I was contrite. My physician informed me that “we aren’t allowed to do that anymore.” He did have an alternative. The next day, I started taking some treatment for breast cancer. It pumped me full of oestrogen. In a few weeks, my nipples started to ache. Nothing else had feeling. I could not have been more pleased. I thought I was free, I finally felt free.

            Approximately 6 weeks after the beginning of the treatment, I sat down to watch television. Some girl in a red swimsuit bopped along a beach, her boobs so full that she almost knocked herself out as she scampered on the sand. Her figure was not the only object of attention. Several well-rounded busts danced with the light in some slow motion capture that was meant to titillate me (so to speak). It did not. Suddenly, I realized that my eyes had shifted and my intent had as well. He bounced, if you know what I mean, in the same slow motion that all those breasts had. His red shorts flashing a glimpse here and there. He glimmered in the sun and I experienced a revival. I had searched and searched with expectation but it was all disappointment. All of it was for nothing. I did everything to be liberated and all I got was little man boobs. I wanted to be heterosexual. I wanted to leave the sin behind me. I left Jesus standing at the door shaking his head at me. I was not welcome and I knew it, there was no doubt. There was nothing I could do. So be it. I stopped the treatment and began a manic-driven delve into hedonism. My man titties disappeared, never to return. Ironically, I felt released. The joke had been all on me. I would never be heterosexual. I would never be acceptable. This God would never want me. I was most certainly doomed and I surrendered to hopelessness. I felt alone, truly alone, for the first time in my life.

            There is a reason I am not a Christian. Regardless of any convictions I might carry toward Jesus, the god of the Bible is not my friend. Scripture has made it impossible for me to worship a deity so human in nature. To love something that hates you is a challenge, to say the least. While I continue to use my own Christianity as a focal point, it is in reference only. I no longer believe. It’s strange thinking about the days before I came out of the closet (I hate that phrase). They had to drag me out of it, kicking and screaming and fighting. All I can say is that if the world then had been more like it is today, I would not have encountered all that self-flagellation and self-induced misery. The world is changing and so are the roles of religion and spirituality. I am not the only believer who no longer believes. I keep trying, looking for the answers anywhere I can find them. I see the lessons, very clearly. Believing I could be heterosexual did nothing but make me more gay. Perhaps that is the one truth I can take from all this. I am just glad I did not venture too far into hetero-land to learn it.

Photo

https://www.colesclassroom.com/couple-poses/

http://www.ifairer.com/articles/5-best-couple-poses-for-perfect-picture-hand-holding-4-81711.html

https://www.pinterest.jp/pin/669980882045380671/

https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001282632/gay-couple-shot-for-holding-hands-in-the-streets

With

            There is no textbook resolution to grief. There is no right way to grieve and there is no wrong way. There is nothing normal or exact about the process. One person will go through the process quickly, while another may grieve for years. Grief is like going bald, you just get used to it. Eventually, it will come and then go and then come again. The constant flux can be quite maddening. Just when you think you are safe from the pain, that the grieving is over, then along comes more pain, more suffering. Often, grief is a constant companion. You try to move on. You try to let it find its place. In the end, it is necessary to allow it to carry on as it needs to. You can’t rush through grief, and you can’t force it to stop. We grieve differently, even though the base feelings are pretty much the same for us all. Eventually, given time, grief may find its place but there is no guarantee. Sometimes it lingers, day after day, month after month, year after year. There is a constant cacophony of unresolved mourning. For many, grief is all that they have left. They embrace the sorrow because it is better than nothing.

“Love is a hurricane in a blue sky

I didn't see it coming, never knew why

All the laughter and the dreams

All the memories in between

Washed away in a steady stream”

            The last thing he did before he said his goodbye was kiss her on the mouth and

wish for her a grand day. She never saw him again, at least not in a living condition. Not half an hour later and he was shot while buying cigarettes down the street from their home. They told her that he died instantly. The news came with the police officer at the door. She identified the body like they asked her to. When the day ended, when she finally was alone, it came in a wave of pure agony. He was gone in the blink of an eye. There was no warning, no alert or notification. Her world ended only to begin again, not that she really had a choice either way. She would have to survive without him. The event plunged her into deep depression. Her grief was monumental and seemed unending to her. She thought about dying as much as she did about trying. Slowly, he began to wash away. She got used to this new life without him. It does not mean she no longer bargained, or even fell into some form of denial. She had no choice but to accept his death and yet she tried to keep him with her. Time simply made it easier. It was easier to shut him out but it was also quite easy to hold on for dear life. The past soon faded behind her. She remarried about a year ago. The baby is due come September. The life she had with him left forever but he lingers day by day. It is silent now, this pain she endured. No one talks about what happened. No one else seems to remember anything at all. She has moved on regardless of any want or resolution. Sometimes when someone you love dies, that part of you has to die with them.

“Love is a hunger, a famine in your soul

I thought I planted beauty but it would never grow

Now I’m on my hands and knees

Trying to gather up my dreams

Trying to hold on to anything”

            It took almost 14 months for John to speak to Emily. She was beauty in his eyes, the kind of woman he would love to love. His first physical contact was not planned. Mail services had left some of her mail with him. How serendipitous. His nervous disposition was obvious to anyone who might notice but he faced the feat regardless of how much he wanted to run to the bathroom and puke all over some toilet. It took three hours for him to work up the nerve. He crossed the office floor in slow motion. It was this moment in time that he had wished for. She smiled as he offered the little pile of destiny to her. Her thanks then found them chatting. It was a dainty banter. The dance seemed to go on forever but very little time had passed at all. He floated back to his cubicle. When the clock struck 5, everyone packed up for the day and then left from the way they had entered. He stood quietly, just outside the entrance. His heart fluttered when he saw her coming. He readied himself to continue his quest. She walked by him as if he was invisible. He just stood there, completely defeated and slightly humiliated. His dignity left with her. His disposition was all in his head and by his own hand. It took almost a week before he could gather up the courage to approach her again. As he rounded the corner, just past the elevators, she sat in all her magnificence. So too did Gregory Rankin, plopped onto the edge of her desk, shining in all his glory. They touched like lovers would. Heartache, sweet heartache, can make a person realize they are alive. It can also make a person wish they were dead. He might as well have laid down on a railway and waited for doom. The grief was beyond anything he could have imagined. He had no choice. He could not see her every day without the broken heartedness. He transferred to a different building. Olivia sat across from him, in a cubicle next to a window. She was beauty in his eyes, the kind of woman he would love to love.

“You do your best to build a higher wall

To keep love safe from every wrecking ball

When the dust is cleared we will

See the house that love rebuilt

Guarding beauty that lives here still”

            He stood there, raised up on the pulpit for everyone to see. It was clockwork for him. He felt nothing as he unfolded his notes and began to read all the words he had written. There was no other way. Page after page and there were no tears, no pain, no heartache. He held nothing so that he might survive this moment in time.  Anyone who got close to him that day felt the chill. He was frozen and so were his feelings. The walls he built were monumental and stayed with him even after the eulogy was done. He walked behind the coffin as they rolled it to the hearse then headed for the cemetery. The box was black metal just like his heart. It went down, down, down  and so did he. He considered jumping in but too many people stood as witness. He had to frown and bear it. The dirt and the rocks clashing against the coffin sent sharp shivers but they did not penetrate. When all had left, when the deed was done, he stood numb but quite devastated.  He would never be able to get beyond this empty. A week passed and little changed for him. The night began and so did his demise. He could not take one more second. It all came crashing through. The levee overflowed and it flooded him. It, literally, tried to take his breath way. The 7 days of surviving turned into 7 seconds of defeat. He had no idea how he managed to escape such a guaranteed end. With little to go on, he took the hint and surrendered to staying. His grief became his lifestyle. It was well over a year before he could actually function without falling apart. He was riddled with guilt, riddled with doubt and all those feelings came whenever they decided to. He was at the mercy of grief. Time passes and so too does the process. A few more years and he did what he did not believe he could. He went on and built a new life, found a new love and rested in a better day. He had to learn how to be happy all over again. There are times, when he closes his eyes, that he travels back to the way things once had been. He can view it like some otherland you can see but just can’t get to.  

“Who can say I’m left with nothing?

When I have all of you, all of you

In the way you’ve always loved me

I remember He does too”

            Jesus brought her much comfort. There is something about religion serving us when we need it the most. The commentary may be adjustable but the truth, at least for her, held something more than mere words or dogma. She relied on her faith to get her through. Sometimes that faith was tested. Her parents left her all alone in the world. The drunk driver who killed them both survived to kill another day. She tossed herself on God’s mercy and prayed for justice. At times, the event made her feel like she might be  wrong regarding Jesus. Oh the questions, wherefore art thou answers? Her doubt shook the foundation of her thinking. She almost walked away from the battle but as her grief moved forward, she fell back upon the sword. The truth be told, it worked for her. Her belief was so strong that it managed to see her through. God was there for her, even if it was all in her mind. Religion is as destructive a force as any hurricane or natural disaster. For all its biases, for all its mistakes, the belief in God can carry someone. Everyone goes through the same process when in grief. We deny, then we get angry. We try to bargain it away to no avail. Our depression holds strong until we accept. At this point, we are supposed to move on but it doesn’t always work that way. Her tears were like rivers but God helped wash them away. It wasn’t an actual manifestation that guided her through the pain. It was her own impression, her own strength that seemed tangible. God was with her in the most real sense. She had not been left with nothing. When the memory of her folks reached her on occasion, she would thank God for the assistance that He gave. Blessed assurance and all that good stuff. Do not get me wrong, the woman suffered. Her pain and misery stood as valid as anything else would be under the same conditions. The entire time she felt Him near her. Silent compassion was better than none at all. .

“We could shake our fists

In times like this

When we don’t understand

Or we could just hold hands”

            For almost two years, the world has rested heavy on his shoulders. The grief, the pain, the misery all seem like constant companions. It appeared meaningful, the way it all laid out behind him. From one point to the new, it was non-stop and he grew tired of the game. Life was unfair to him just as it is to everyone else. He took it personally. First, his sister died. He broke rather hard. As she lingered, then came pneumonia. Given time, he got a little better around the Christmas season, then they found him. His onetime best friend was now cat chow. He had conveniently overdosed like a gift with no reason. He had rotted on his couch for almost a week. When his sister came knocking, the cats just kept on chewing him down. The horror played with his weary mind. If there is such a thing, he then experienced  a few “easier” deaths. His two aunts and longtime friend all died in a row. They were dominoes, one right after the other. These only added to his misery. He started to question, he asked himself and the universe if he was doing something wrong. He began to feel like he was being punished. After 12 years, they laid him off. Downsizing is a bitch to the hired help. He lost himself in it. You could not convince him that he could move on. He wallowed in it only to wallow some more. He tried to move forward, he started to see but just as a glimmer of hope shone through, his cat died. This was no mere pet. It shook him to the core. It broke him. He started grieving his own grief. It was more unending than anything else. To top it off, to make the point better, his cousins decided to stir the pot. It’s hard to explain what happened here. Let’s just say they added to his issues well knowing what he was going through. They kicked him while he was down. His entire family dynamic changed in the blink of an eye. They abandoned him for the rest of his life. The idea was enough to push him over the top. It was a cumulative chaos. Some people are strong of body. Some people are strong of mind. The strongest kind of person is the one who doesn’t realize they have made it through on their own. Like a roller coaster ride from hell, he never once puked on anything. He just kept riding the rails. He carried on even though, at times, he did not want to. His grief was overwhelming but he went through it regardless. To this end, there is no victory without cost. Proof of battle are the wounds one bears, the scars will build you strong for the journey you make. 

“You and me, me and you

Where you go, I’ll go too

I’m with you

‘Til your heart finds a home

I won’t let you feel alone

I’m with you”

(I’m With You, Nichole Norderman and Amy Grant 2011)

            We all constantly grieve to one degree or another. Sorrow does not rely only on great tragedy to take shape and become a life of its own. Grief may seem grounded in death and loss but it also manifests in simpler forms. Each of us experiences the process from our own vantage point. Every minute of every day finds us buried in it. We fail to recognize it for what it is. It is only with time that we get used to it. Again, it is always there, we just learn how to shut it off. One might imagine that at some point, for all the heartache and all the pain, we could escape. The truth is we never can. Even after the grieving process, sometimes for the rest of our lives, the pain can return in a heartbeat. The floodgates occasionally open and the life we knew comes raging in. Human beings have an incredible ability to adapt to change. All you need is some time and the option to detach. Grief can be random yet selective in its approach. It can even trick you into thinking it is your friend. The circumstances are different for everybody. In the end, you do the best you can and that is the best you can do.

Photo

https://www.alpinelutheran.com/summit-issue-14-monday-july-30-2018/

http://www.legacy.com/news/advice-and-support/article/grief-after-a-long-goodbye

Sources

https://riveroakstreatment.com/drug-addiction/grief-and-loss/

Pick and Choose

            We are comprised of everything that we have known. We are the sum of all the borrowed knowledge to which our lifetime has exposed us. We are conditioned, shaped, educated. From the time we are born until the time we die, all we are is adopted from something else. Whether it is a person, a piece of literature or even a snowy day in January, we absorb experience, our outer reality, in the hope that we might somehow understand. We use observation to try to interpret all that input. There is nothing within us, or a part of us, that has not been filtered through something else. From our basic hygiene rituals we learn as children to the complexities of communication, social interaction and religiosity, we steal from others and take for ourselves. This is primarily a benign process. We don’t always make the decision to learn from something. It’s not that we even care. The transfer occurs just like with a sponge. We suck it all in and don’t even have to take the time to think about it.

           

            We objectify the material world from early on and use it as a tool to relate to both our environment and each other. The only way we can comprehend the overwhelming matrix of information delivered to us, at an alarming rate, is to selectively approach what we need. We have to hack ourselves in order to access anything stored in the process. Most times, we get to pick and choose. This recognition, however, is both conscious and subconscious. Our brain selects then applies the information to be stored and how it will be used. We can selectively acknowledge, or deny, some “data”.  We keep what we want and discard those things we feel have no authenticity. We are, however, constantly influenced by the world around us and the all the things contained within it. It matters little, if we believe they serve no purpose. This unending procedure, the borrowing of knowledge, plays out over and over again until the moment we cease to exist. When we do die, we do not yet know where all that information goes. Does it follow us into the next phase? Is there even a next phase to carry it to? According to most religious texts, we continue to exist and therefore, so too must our experience.   

            As each bite of information, each morsel is absorbed, we are conformed, trained and, some would argue, brainwashed. We are indoctrinated at birth into patterns of behaviour based on information relevant only to our group. We may start out unique, but we are sculpted and take form until we turn into everyone else. Everything we come to know becomes our makeup. How we feel, how we think, and even how we love, are all influenced, or even created, by the exposure we have had to the outside world, especially to other people. Our socialization, our education, and even our inner dialogue, act like building blocks we have no idea how to play with. We are, in fact, more of a puzzle than anything else. Every day, new pieces are added to the mix. There is constant flux. The project itself can be overwhelming. Quite often, the best we can do is to build the edges. The jumbled mess that we are takes time to put together and you never really get the chance to finish it. The process is rather developmental. The good news is that this state of being allows us an unlimited access to our truth. You can sit down and play with all the different shapes and sizes that have become your life. Our perpetually moving identity, and the way it was formed, influence us. We are what we eat. The good news is that the search for truth should enlighten us, not restrict us. The past is quite accessible but we have to use it if we are going to find anything useful within it. Instead, we dream of what the mess we are will look like when it is complete. It never is.

“My mother believed in curses, karma, good luck, bad luck, feng shui. Her amorphous set of beliefs showed me you can pick and choose the qualities of your philosophy, based on what works for you.” (Amy Tan, American writer)

            Our ideas regarding God form through a filtration process. From childhood tampering to any spiritual revelation as an adult, we are taught what we are supposed to believe and how we should believe it. Whether through the written word, personal association or formulated evangelization, all we ever come to recognize as the truth, relating to the divine, has been validated through a lifelong process of persuasion. Who we think God is stands as nothing more than a cumulative exposure to ideas and theologies handed down and evolved through implementation and indoctrination. It doesn’t matter if you are Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, your belief structure is never truly your own. It never has been. Faith structures are the summation of organized theories, ideas handed down generationally and intellectually. Religious belief is an artificial compilation of borrowed knowledge. It bestows upon us cognition but from a very limited and specific point of view. In a sense, we become what we are exposed to and what we are exposed to will help determine what we think, and understand, and what we feel. God is a subjective truth.

            Since what we know about God is an artificial representation, so too reality can be viewed in the same manner. We can only trust in what we have been told and what we have been told is all perspective. If reality is the transfer of subjective awareness, then its composition must be contrived as well. Time, matter, even existence are all illusions. Our ideas and theories are nothing but a stretched out guessing game. We will never know more than nothing at all. Any information we do receive, while in our mortal coil, is filtered through our humanity. We can only understand within our own definition. I cannot define reality any more than I can change it. It is what it is. I may be able to trick myself into thinking that things are different because I am different, but this approach is as limited as the pick and choose option. What we call truth will confine us. It doesn’t help that most knowledge is corrupted. It is corrupted by observation, corrupted by infiltration and, most certainly, corrupted by opinion. What we believe to be true is nothing more than believing something to be true. We appear to automatically convince ourselves. Scientific evidence to the contrary, all metaphysical proof is merely anecdotal and very much limited based on the constraints of being human.

            We cannot hope to understand something outside ourselves without a basis for relating. Mankind takes interpretations and turns them into truth. We know we are grasping at straws, but it’s apparent that an artificial something is better than nothing at all. We cannot function within the unknown, so we shape reality in order that we can. When we recognize we cannot know, that our truth is limited, we begin to find the Divine. All the fabrications and notions we have about God disappear when we see them for what they are. Everything is nothing and nothing is everything. When we journey into the unknown, we quickly realize there is freedom in not knowing. It is here that we have the freedom to think, the freedom to create and the freedom to believe in the things we want to. It’s like an otherland, of sorts. Every word, every lyric, every thought we use to define God is merely an attempt to commune with something beyond us. Most often, the answers are right in front of us. We should be paying more attention to the things around us if we want to find any semblance of the truth. God speaks to us through the things we know but we pick and choose what to listen to.

            Realizing that truth is an illusion is different than realizing the truth is nothing. When we surrender to the idea that what we know is not real, we recognize what is. All we have is here and now. The rest is just guesswork. It doesn’t matter what we experience or who we become, if I am to discover God in the otherland I exist within, I must first learn to recognize it. To see, we must assume God is here and there and everywhere. Since we are not aware beyond ourselves, we anthropomorphize the Holy in order to relate and comprehend.  God becomes a person, and a lifestyle and the bringer of punishment. We let our feelings about God complicate things. God is a simple thing. In the smallest flower, in the song of a child, in the very breath we take to stay alive, this is the way that leads to light. If God is everywhere, if we are to somehow understand, then all we need to do is pay attention. This is something I can hang my hope upon. There is beauty in all I see. It is surrounding me, here in the things that I know. It is worth repeating. When you realize you know nothing, then you know everything.

            All the things we know, from birth to death, make up our belief in a God. You can almost sense a spirit flowing through everything and this suggests purpose and reason. The tiny voice inside yourself tells of meaning and movement, but you must listen to learn. Everything you ever claimed, every sunset that passed you by contains the sound but we don’t hear it. The only way to find God is to recognize you cannot. I do not mean to suggest that God is in all things only. I suggest that God is all things. Since we can only guess, it is easiest to define it as either everything or nothing at all. This approach is far more encompassing than relying on an anthropomorphic deity that the world’s religions claim is real. We can focus and become aware of the ebb and flow. We can understand everything because we understand nothing. There is much to learn when we think of life as a lesson rather than mere living. If God speaks to us through the things we know, then there must be a message. If there is a God, we must put away what we think we know and begin to work within what we do not know.

            Everything we need to know is invisible. If you’ve ever sat on a summer day and felt the heat of the sun blaze against your skin, then you may well understand what I am trying to relay. You can feel what you do not see. If God is everywhere, and everything,  then God is easily accessible, anywhere we search. If you take the time to notice, you will find what you are looking for. We all are part of reality; I am, just like you. Search within. When you discover this secret, our preconceived notions about the divine fall away and become part of the nothing that we recognize as something. They are futile attempts to commune far beyond what it means to be human. This is the reason we speculate, anthropomorphize and ritualize. We need a common ground that people can relate to, not some esoteric journey beyond the scope of that which our history has created. Once you find your place, no amount of borrowed knowledge can bring greater insight. The idea that we can define God is futile, like trying to explain the soul. We just don’t know. We are not even sure we have one.  

            Anyone who has experienced déjà vu or some unexplained coincidence; anyone one who has survived a Near Death Experience; anyone who has felt the presence knows they did not catch it from afar. It was right there, already waiting, they just had to claim it. We get to pick and choose what we want to believe. Everything we know in our lives, every joy and sorrow, all our true knowledge, comes from an otherland we can only imagine. In a sense, we determine God’s love for us, not the other way around. We make it so. This unrestricted access is available if we care to notice. When we become aware that God is all around us and when we tell ourselves he is cheering us on, we discover the true purpose in goodness and right and joy. Life is to be lived fully, not controlled and conditioned based on things we do not understand. All borrowed knowledge, to the ends of the earth, cannot make us aware if we do not wish to be. The truth is that the answers lie waiting within. Such truth we have searched the world to find but know nothing of.

All the words of this world may help you survive god, they may even help you along your path, but they won’t help you find God.

“All things are divine. And yet, we pick and choose among them what’s appropriate.”

(Frederick Lenz, spiritual teacher)

Photo

https://www.industrialbrand.com/how-to-pick-and-choose-clients-7-tips-for-professional-services-firms

https://beyondthepulpitmabc.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/pick-and-choose-christianity/

Sources

Borrowed Knowledge

(Original post May 27^th 2011)

http://simplekel.blogspot.ca/2011/05/borrowed-knowledge.html

https://survivinggod.blogspot.com/2013/06/things-i-know.html

Foreshadowing

            It’s ironic that as a gay man, I have always been attracted to pussy. From my beginning, I have cherished the cat. Dogs are special and often our friend. Cats are more like our children. While I do not remember every experience with every animal I have known, my feline friends all come in flashes, like my canine encounters. I can remember each and every one of them, even if only in glimpses. I may have the same reaction to the dogs I have known but somehow I was much more fond of the cats I experienced. It started when I was in kindergarten. I arrived home to find Tiger, an orange short-haired tabby. He ran away quite quickly and forever but he was a part of my history regardless. In the summer of 1977, my family lived near a Catholic church/school just outside the downtown core of Strathroy, Ontario. The property was large and fit my entire family with room to spare. At the end of the backyard, a medium-sized wooden shed had begun its demise, abandoned to time and lazy owners. It was a fun place to play in and an even better shelter for Molly, the neighbourhood kitty. Just inside the main door of the shed sat a hunter green dresser, it remained intact and separate from all the other ravages of time. It was a cradle of sorts. Molly gave birth to a litter of three, but only two survived beyond the first few days. We buried the dead baby at the far corner of the property. It is here that it really all began. I engaged the course and I danced upon the waves. The boat set out on the water and the journey began.

            The pair of short haired tabbies grew up quickly and soon both were ready for their own lives. Momma Molly went to a farm just outside Strathroy and a plan for the two kittens found a life of its own. The  pair could not have been more unique and different. Muffin was brown with black striping and Mystic was solid grey. The one common factor in their appearances was the big M on both cats’ foreheads. I greatly favoured Muffy. I took him as my own. My family did not follow suit. When Mom forced the family to choose just one of the pair to keep, I campaigned for my cat. Everyone decided to keep the pretty cat Misty. Muffy was to be sent to the same farm his mother had been shipped off to. I would not hear of it. From the moment I met him, Muff was the world to me. He was my cat and no one was going to take him away from me. The night before they were to seal his fate, I snuck out in the darkness and took him. For two days, he hid in the wall of my bedroom. It was like magic when they said he could stay. Brothers bound together, and for much more than just a decade. It was a cold October day when my Mom called to break the news. I had left home years before but for all my greater learning, nothing compared to my visits home. He was there every time, just waiting for me to love him. He did not die easy. On the Monday, he was diagnosed with cancer and by Thursday he had clamped down on the power terminal in the furnace. They did not put him down sooner because I intended to come home to say goodbye on the Friday. I made the trip regardless. My Dad had to pry him off with a crowbar. He had to break his teeth to completely remove him. It was so strange for me then, what he did and how it all ended for him. He actually committed suicide. It was stranger still the foreshadowing. Misty lived for a few more years but by the time that he passed, I had already adopted two other cats. The originals both rest up on the hill.

             

            There is a price one pays for living. There is usually a price to be paid for loving too. Having lost a cat to suicide really drove my need to secure another one. My first try was a shorthaired black tabby, with white markings, which I adopted as a kitten and named Opus. The truth is that his real name was Old Pussy but it was shortened rather quickly after the fact. He was not safe in a house full of post-secondary partiers. My sister took him in and he lived for well over a decade. He is buried up on the hill. I was still hiding in the closet when “my girlfriend” (Katherine) asked if I would take Buster, her orange tabby. I, of course, said yes but regretted it quickly. In less than a week, I had broken up with her and she took the thing back. Just a few months later and my partner and I adopted Felix at the London (Ontario, Canada) Humane Society.

A mixed breed with black and white markings, Felix was timid and scared and completely, utterly, abandoned. We could not just leave the poor thing shaking in the corner of his cell. Bringing him to live with us brought a bit of a challenge. His true nature was pretty much the same when he got to his new home. For days, the poor thing quivered in this corner or hid under a table. It was Doug’s idea for me to get another cat. He didn’t favour pets, any pet, but he knew what I needed and pressed me to go adopt one. It did not hurt that the man and the cat were very much like each other. It wasn’t me that Felix ran to for shelter. The two formed a bond which lasted even after all the death that was to come. Sometimes, when I travel to my otherland, I imagine Doug is waiting with Felix and all my other pets. It is not a romantic notion. We chose Gizmo hoping that it would help. It was one of the best things we could have done.

Mr. Gizzie was as black as black could be. His long soft hair was like streams of shadow and ribbons of dark. He was beautiful, friendly and he couldn’t have cared less. In all my days, before and after this cat, I have yet to behold such ambivalence in an animal. Giz was as laid back as laid back could be. When I discovered him in his “adopt me” cage, he whimpered at me through the bars that confined him. I just knew. His lovely nature, his energy, I was sure that they were exactly what Felix needed.

            Both cats lived long. For more than a decade, they played in my house, meowed in my house and shit in it too. They became like Muffy and Misty in that they were not just pets but also family. My strongest memory of Felix finds him sleeping on my lap for the first time. It was foreshadowing. He didn’t do it often but when he did, it stood out in my mind. As for Gizmo, he would occasionally sneak out and disappear for hours. The experience would not have been so bad had we not lived in the downtown core of Toronto during his heyday. I can still see him sashaying back, along the top of our fence, just like nothing had happened. There was even one time when he refused to come inside and hid under the house itself. I had to use a hose to get him to go indoors. The entire time Felix slept on the couch, unaware. This was not the case on the day we moved to Toronto. When I opened the U-Haul door in order to take him inside, Felix tore off down the street and disappeared. As we frantically searched the area, one of our new neighbours yelled out that the cat was hiding on his front porch. None of it mattered at all. When my first partner died, it was the cats that gave me a reason to go on. Initially, I believed that I must give them up if they were to have any semblance of the life they once knew. All those years and the world looked bleak for the two. For awhile, they bounced around much like my grief did. It wasn’t until my current partner came along that I finally settled in one place. Felix died of vestibulitis in his ear. You could tell something was wrong when he laid down the night before but I found him in the same position the next morning. He hadn’t moved and was frozen in that place. A dribble of blood from his mouth and ear was all the proof I needed. When we moved out of that dwelling, I cut the bloodstain out of the rug and took it with us. It’s a touchstone of sorts, just like the special marker that my Mom bought for his place in the garden. Up on the hill, right next to Felix, Gizmo eventually found sleep beside him.

            Mr. Gizzie changed little after Felix died. He lived several more years all by himself. He was fine with it. The major difference in the cat was his need for attention. If he wanted you to pet him, he let you know with no uncertainty. For weeks, he would sit at the bottom of the basement stairs and he would howl and howl and howl some more. He  slept alone, and ate alone but he seemed just fine. He remained uninterested despite the new emotional condition. The day we brought Skipper the Cockapoo home found Gizmo unimpressed. After a few growls, a few more hisses, and a day or two in hiding, the cat came around. It didn’t hurt that, at this point, Skip was as blind as a bat. I wouldn’t say that the pair hated each other but I wouldn’t say they loved each other either. They appeared to tolerate and not much else. I awoke one morning to find Gizzie hanging from the side of the mattress I had been sleeping on. He did not dangle but was stiff and rather dead there. The life of him seemed to have been blown out and full rigor mortise had set in. It was terrible for me. Not only was I losing the cat I loved but I had to face the reality that with both cats deceased, there was no real physical bridge between Doug and I left. I had to say goodbye again while grieving the loss of a much favoured pet. It was like I buried that life up on the hill with Giz and Felix. Often, I look back on my days with Doug and those two cats and the relationship we had and the family we formed. It is still hard to believe, all these years later, that all three of them have been gone for so long. Once Skipper passed in 2005, we started looking for another cat. Mister B’s full name was Butterscotch but we dealt with that nonsense right away.

Mister B was beautiful, pure white from head to tail. There was an elegance about his look although his style left much to the imagination. He was a wee bit of a prick. Sometimes he was just nasty. I suppose growing up locked in a room with snarling dogs might have a cause and effect. My Dad’s cat Peta was with him in that room at the start. Less than two years later and the lovely white cat died on the floor of our dining room. It was a very unpleasant experience for not only the cat but for my partner and I as well. It was pure horror. There might have been signs that something was wrong with  him but they became sort of normal, we failed to see them for what they were. By the time I took him to the vet, it was too late. I should have put him down right there and then but I took the cat back home and I waited for my partner to arrive after work. We never got the chance to do anything else but watch him die. I swore I would never allow another soul to suffer when I could have done something. I am still haunted by his screams. Every human, every rat, every other cat, even a dog here and there would never have to die like Mister B did, not if I had anything to say about it.

            There have been many animals that I brought home and gave a life. There are just as many dogs as cats and just as many cats as rats. I did not have to live with each one in order to experience them. When I met my current partner Ben, he had this insane feline named Mac. It was a wild thing, bouncing off walls and furniture. I thought he was one step away from feral. As Ben and I dated, I tried to calm the storm that was brewing whenever you brought the thing inside. I preferred him outside. I have little tolerance when a pet refuses to listen. When Gizmo, Felix and I moved in with Ben, Mac had to go. The little bugger would not give  up. Once we dropped him off at his new home, he simply walked back to the place he, apparently, called home.

At that time, I had the pleasure to experience Ben’s parents’ cats Mickey and Missy.

Although I did not have many personal encounters with either one of them, their picture sits with the rest of them, little difference in the display. We lived on the 16th floor for over 6 years. For most of that time, Rocky lived across the hall.

He looked like Felix if you added 10 pounds and a few chins. Like Mister B, he is a little bit of a prick himself. We still like each other. He left many a bloody hand after every play session. He likes it rough.

Rocky is getting up there and it is just a matter of time. Still, he is doing well. When they discovered Mister B locked in that room full of dogs, my parents’ cat Peta was right there with him. Peta, a small shorthaired calico was timid and shy and, it seemed, shattered by her experience with that chamber of canine.

She was my parents’ cat but mostly she was solace for my father after my mother’s death. Such a timid thing and so, so quiet. She was scared of her own shadow. She met an early demise. It was cancer. It is always cancer. It’s just more foreshadowing. Many years have passed since Mister B and Opus and even Phydo, the family dog. The hill out back is all full up. Since then, there have been  new additions to my sibling’s family. There is the large orange tabby Hunter,

and the petite black with white markings Bloom,

they rule the roost where Muffy and Misty used to. There is even this fucking black cat that hangs around our property in Paris. He searches for more chipmunks to eat. All I have to do is appear and he disappears. Some cats sure can run fast. 

            Mister B was not a happy camper. I have not encountered another cat like him. Regardless of the relationship we had started to form, he needed something more so we adopted Shadowe. It took less than a year to convince us. Mister B’s misery propelled us to the Humane Society on River Street in Toronto, Ontario. Only rescue pets for me, always. To be honest, I went in looking for a black cat. I guess the fag in me took over but I wanted a cat that matched Mister B (salt and pepper). I knew him when I saw him. My partner knew it too. A few meows and we were sold on him. The fact that he clawed me, he drew blood, only sealed the deal. I like it rough too.

Off I went to secure the creature. When I came back, two girls had decided they wanted him as well. Fuck you. It didn’t matter anyway, I had already claimed him and they were shit out of luck. He chewed his way through his cardboard cage, all the way home. The backseat looked like Times Square an hour after the clock has dropped. From the moment we brought him in it was clear, he belonged. Shadowe had little effect on Mister B but his death left the black cat in the same position he had just walked out of. We quickly returned to the Toronto Humane Society and we adopted Fritz.

What a beautiful cat. Don’t get me wrong, Shadowe was simple black with short, sharp hair and common looks for a cat. He was lovely to be sure but even I knew the cat was really plain Jane. I find it ironic that as he aged he slowly manifested a salt and pepper look (tossed in with a slight dander issue). Fritz is a different story. If Shadowe was pretty then Fritz is stunning. A longhaired grey mix, the Himalayan part of him seems to rule the roost. He is energetic, friendly and on some days he is a kitten all over again. For 12 years, the two acted like brothers. They were friends and there is a reason we put them into the basement each night. I’ll never forget watching Fritz run around our apartment, building up momentum. He raced towards the dining room table, leapt into the air and slid with the tablecloth straight across, smashing a very expensive fruit bowl all over the spot were Mister B had died weeks before. Shadowe got older but Fritz did not seem to. At 16, Shadowe had seen better days. Just before Christmas 2018, he started to slow down and limp. He seemed weak and it raised our concern. By the holiday, all seemed well again. We just assumed whatever had happened to him for those days in December was attributed to growing older. He really recovered fully and without question. A new year found him better, back to the normal cat we had fallen in love with. The truth is, I view his last six months as foreshadowed. If you look back, you can see rather clearly what was happening in the cat. We thought it was old age. He never once seemed defeated. He never once seemed uncomfortable or in pain. One Sunday, out of nowhere, and the cat was set for doom. The change was immediate and easy to see. We waited a day to see if he got better. He did not. I made the next available appointment at the animal hospital just around the corner from our home. To cremate the cat cost over $300.00. His presence was gone in the blink of an eye. I have a few of his dishes, an abundance of toys and random things that belonged to him. It has all gone into a box with Shadowe boldly scribbled on it. Upstairs, he sits in his forever home.   

            I have had to put down many of the pets I accumulated over the years, For the most part, I have been lucky (so to speak) with cats. After more than 40 years of adopting them, I have only had to put one down. Shadowe was the first. I was well trained by all the dogs and rodents I had to euthanize. Of course, it was cancer. The vet showed me one of the tumours, which was rapidly growing in his mouth and down his throat. It spewed white pus and a stream of blood tried to trickle down his windpipe. It was finished. He was finished. After what had happened to Mister B, there was no way in hell I would allow Shadowe to experience that. When she noted he couldn’t get food or water down and that kidney failure was imminent, his fate was sealed. An hour later and my partner and I sat with him on the floor. The nurse came in and we laid him down. It was over in 8 seconds. What a fucking horrible, awful thing to watch happen. The mercy we gave him meant little as we drove away. It would be a week before his ashes arrived and we claimed them. He sits next to a picture on a shelf in the living room. You can see him when you watch TV. There are no more whimpers, no more meows. There are just memories and a few shadows scattered around the place. For almost a decade, my Mom has remained in this same condition but at my father’s home. It helped him through the pain having her near to him. Shadowe’s cremation helped my partner and I as well. There is something to be said for having the object of your affection next to you. Having spent 25 years going to the cemetery in Stratford, Ontario to “visit” my first partner, I would rather have Doug at my home, in a place that is safe. The first few years after his suicide found me sobbing over his grave, cringing at the idea of him rotting and turning into goo. This experience repeated with every animal that I put into the ground. Shadowe is with us now. He will always be. I suppose, in a sense, every pet I have known has brought me to the place I stand these days. I am taken by grief but even that has found a settled place. It can be overwhelming, all the foreshadowing. I am very pleased that Fritz seems okay with the events, at least he appears to be just fine. I was concerned when at first, he sat at the bottom of the main staircase and howled like a wolf throughout each night. For well over two weeks time, he announced his pain and called out for his friend. We don’t like him being so alone. This is one of the reasons we have decided to get a new pet. It’s soon time for us to adopt a dog.

“It’s better not to know

The way it’s gonna go

What will die and what will grow

Goodbye more than hello

It’s better not to know.”

(Better Not To Know, Amy Grant 2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vCk6i0jYQE

Photos

a) The Hill                                                       b) Muffy and Misty

Strathroy Ontario                                            Strathroy Ontario

circa summer   2002                                        circa 1980

                                                                       

c) Opus                                                            d) Felix           

London, Ontario                                             Sarnia Ontario

circa autumn 1989                                           circa summer 1992

                                                                       

e) Gizmo                                                          f) Mister B

Sarnia Ontario                                                 Kitchener Ontario

circa winter 1992                                            circa spring 2005

                                                                                   

g) Mickey and Missy                                        h) Rocky

Brantford Ontario                                           Kitchener Ontario

circa winter 1998                                            circa autumn 2014

i) Playing Rough                                             j) Peta

Kitchener Ontario                                           Strathroy Ontario

circa spring 2013                                             circa summer 2012     

k) Hunter and Phydo                                       l) Bloom

Strathroy Ontario                                            Strathroy Ontario       

circa summer 2011                                          circa spring 2017

m) Shadowe                                                    n) Fritz (and Shadowe)

Kitchener Ontario                                           Kitchener Ontario

circa autumn 2014                                           circa autumn 2008

o) Shadowe and Fritz

Paris Ontario

May 23^rd, 2019