Time Smacker: March 2006

Monday, March 27, 2006

My Father a Bigot

What I'm about to blog is difficult. Both in scope and in the task of telling. I watched an episode of Law & Order tonight which featured a story line about the bigoted free speech of racists, skin heads, and nazi deniers/believers. It occurred to me that the powerless feelings I had toward the characters as the story played out are the same I associate with my father - a resolute man who believes his beliefs are the only true beliefs.

To understand, you must know that my father is a fundamentalist Christian preacher who at age 18 was baptized in the Church of Christ and quickly started sipping heavily from that straw. (I sipped from the same straw until I turned 27, incidentally.) He and my mother have no real relationship with me or my three siblings, unless passive politeness is considered a relationship. Only one of their six grandchildren really catches their fancy, the oldest, from what I can tell. We children always have to write or call them, which from me happens twice or three times a year. My mother is fond of saying she couldn't wait for all of us to leave home, and when she sees a child acting up she'll say, "Boy that's enough to make you never want to have kids again." My father taught us that the bible teaches us to shun believers gone bad in order to prick their hearts so they will be returned to the lord.

To summarize our rearing would be cliche.

I e-mailed my father about a month ago with a plea for resolution -- some type of compromise where we could perhaps begin to develop a relationship. It has been nine years since the ax fell, after all.

Within three days he wrote back letting me know that he had received my e-mail and that he wanted to take a week to get back to me. He wanted to give his response time for an adequate response.

Since then, I have spoken with one of my sisters several times, as is our habit. According to her, I gave our father an ultimatum. She was not inclined to believe it -- ultimatums not being my style. Which is good because I didn't issue an ultimatum. While not choosing sides, she adroitly noted that *he* gave me an ultimatum of sorts five years ago, which will soon be spelled out in my copying of the e-mail I sent. She shared with me tonight that he pulled her aside recently and asked for her opinion on the matter, stating that he had written to me and was afraid that the result would tear apart our family. I didn't receive an e-mail, so either he is lying or he meant "written but not sent," ostensibly greasing the wheels for conversation with my sister. Beyond that, I am to gather that he is concerned about tearing apart the family, but not about obliterating his oldest son's heart.

I am fond of word definitions, and the word bigot is defined this way in the dictionary: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices. I've heard and used the word many times, but as I prepare to receive some dreadful news from my father, his continued scorn, its full meaning sinks in and I am tempted to beat him to the punch. I am drawn toward revenge. Maybe better: to avenge. I'm surprised by my clever ideas. I want the upper hand.

Where is this coming from? It's stems from this. His beliefs are so closed that he would, regardless of how much it hurt him personally, turn his back on me (officially, although it has been all but done for many years) because he believes it is his godly duty. He would sever our relationship no matter how much it pained him because he will not bend to what he views as the will of his god. Believing that in doing so he will prick my heart and I will return to the lord. I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that this kind of behavior would in most humans only achieve the opposite.

Here is the letter I wrote to my father last month. Was this an ultimatum?

2-18-06

Hi Dad,

I hope you are well. I'm writing today with a bit of an agenda so I'll skip the pleasantries. I'm writing to do a five year check up. In late 1999 or early 2000, I told you about Tom, who I was dating at the time. You said that you didn't want to hear any more or there would develop between us a fork in the road, and the further we discussed it, the further we would move apart from each other.

Frankly, that started a fork in the road anyway, don't you think? I'm well over the emotion, having been out now for nearly eight years and having been gay all my life. It's difficult to be emotional when you've been away from your parents for almost 20 years. Further, you are so absent now that I rarely think about it: coping eventually turned into forgetfulness (perhaps early signs of old age!) into blankness. But that's a shame. And not how I want to keep living.

Which is why I'm writing as I approach on March 20th my five year anniversary with my partner, Van Johnson, about whom I have never spoken. I am writing to do a check up and see where you are on the issue today. And if you're nowhere further, perhaps to nudge you toward resolution, understanding, or compromise.

A bit about Van. Interestingly, he grew up in the non-instrumental side of the San Francisco Church of Christ. His parents are long time supporters of ACU. Van and I have a good relationship, if not rocky at times like all relationships. He is why I moved west again, although I didn't consider myself done with New York when I left. We have considered having children.

Van and I have a close circle of friends: straight couples, gay couples, singles, people with children. It's all very domestic. And all integrated. But the piece in my life that is missing by comparison to our friends -- is my parents. My friends are left out of that part of my life. Van is left out of that part of my life. I am left out of that part. Van's parents, likely believing that he is going to hell, have nonetheless accepted me and welcomed me into their home. They know I know their belief system well and would adhere to it if I believed the same. I don't. But they also believe it is their place to love and accept their son -- and me -- while here on earth. It's not their place to do otherwise. Boy that sure is nice.

I'm writing because I wonder where you stand now on the issue today. You've never been one to change your ideas after setting your mind to it. There's power in that. But there's also weakness. I know because I inherited that trait and I sure wish you would consider making an exception this time around. I would love to have a relationship with you and mom, even if it were strained at the beginning but open and trying, knowing that both sides wanted to work toward a complete relationship. Also, approaching age 36, I know that I shouldn't expect it to improve unless I take a step from my end. Email works both ways, I know. So here I am.

You should know that I am firmly not going to resume my former world view. But you did a great job raising me, and everyone I know recognizes that. I have a full, respected, meaningful life, doing good for others and living a good life myself. I often think, "Boy it's a shame mom and dad are missing this."

I'm not being economical with my words. So to close, Grandma Jean told me a few years back when I came out to her on a visit to Redding that she'd always known -- since I was a little boy -- and was just waiting for me to feel comfortable enough to talk. After so many years being out, I was surprised by how much harder it was to tell her than it had been to tell you, but also by how quickly and without hesitation freely accepted me and assimilated what she had always known. It was family. It was real unconditional love, felt by me for the first time.

If you say, "I'm still in the same place, Jared," then I guess I'll check back again when I'm approaching 41. But wouldn't it be great to get to know each other in the meantime?

Take some time and think on it.

I love you,

Jared

P.S. I've taken the liberty of attaching a photo of Van and me -- taken at a Memorial Day picnic we spent last year with friends at Golden Gate Park. Boy, I'm getting old!

I don't get it. I need closure. That may mean cutting him out of my life before he has a chance to cut me out of his. I don't know what to do. I don't want to be the bigger man this time. I've been that all my life and all you get is walked on.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Locked. Out.

This post is fresh. My clothes are still tumbling dry in the basement. You see, moments ago I went downstairs to throw three loads of laundry into the washer. When I came back up, I was locked out of the apartment. No keys. No cell phone. The building manager not answering his door.

Having no option except that afforded me by a pocketful of quarters, I went in search of a phone booth. Phone booth? When was the last time anyone ever used a phone booth? Luckily, it was only a few blocks before I found one. Gasp! Who knew local calls cost .50? The phone company generously states that I can call for as long as I want with that .50. Well all I needed was for Van to answer his cell phone. Which he doesn't do, of course, because he is at work.

Happily, Van only works four blocks away from our apartment. Unhappily, he works on the designer collection men's floor of Macy's, and here I am in a blousey shirt, sweat pants, and flip flops. I walk embarrassed into Walgreens before I set about facing the real challenge. Happily, at Walgreens, nobody pays attention to me in my house clothes. Clothes that only moments would have caused me embarrasment if even the neighbors had seen me in them. But then I realize I can't buy anything because I don't have my wallet.

So Walgreens. Nobody gawked like I expected. As I get closer to Union Square, people start to glance at me. "I can do this," I tell myself. I get to Macy's and walk through the front door practically to gasps from people shopping near the entrance. I get on the escalator and I am looked up and down like I have just been loosed from prison.

I walk humiliated onto the men's designer collection floor, cursing. Remembering suddenly that I'm not wearing underwear. Van doesn't blink. He takes me downstairs like a good husband, gives me the keys, and makes sure I'll be here when he gets home so I can let him in. He loves me. He really loves me.

As I leave the building even the security guard says a straight-faced, flat, I-sense-a-bit-startled "hello." He usually smiles and says "thank you" like I'm the shopper of the month.

Monday, March 13, 2006

Unknown White Male

I saw "Single White Male" at a local independent theater last night -- a fascinating movie that's worth the $10. It's a story about a New York stock broker from the UK who wakes up on a train at Coney Island.

He realizes he doesn't know how he got there, and worse, that he doesn't know who he is. With only incidental items in the backpack on his back, he turns himself into the police and winds up in the hospital with no hope of getting out until someone identifies him and picks him up.

He is diagnosed with a rare type of retrograde amnesia.

It's a thoughtful glimpse at who we might be if we didn't have the benefit of a past to link us to ourselves, our patterns, our behaviors and friends, likes and dislikes.

At one point he flies to meet a group of men who had been lifelong buddies in the UK. After the meeting he says, "I've been surrounded by women in New York. Getting here, I was surprised by how unemotional they were. It was like they were working to suppress their emotion."

That coupled with the frank admission by his friends about their fear that they might be rejected after "his meeting them for the first time," and you've got quite a lot to ponder.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

My Former Brief Corporate Life

For a minute I was up there. Working with a 50 billion dollar biopharmaceauticals corporation. Strategizing with a global healthcare company. The tenth largest law firm in the world. Batting ideas with a technology giant and wearing out the telephone lines on behalf of a financial services monopoly. I was somebody.

I ground through research to find just the right person who could lead them, protect them, make their investors happy. I was in the heart of it. Early mornings in that 12th floor office, clear grey skies opening into blue crisp afternoons. On into night I worked, twinkling lights from other buildings deceiving me. Helping fuel my own bank account.

Then it all stopped. As quickly as it had begun, it stopped. I don't miss it. I'd rather be the person driving by on the freeway looking at all the pretty lights at night not knowing who or what is going on inside those buildings. I'd rather lay at eye level with a tulip in a patch of tulips than go on living nothingness for a buck.

I am lucky to have come full circle so quickly. To have gotten in, surveyed, taken, and gotten out. It isn't what we were designed to do. I miss the stimulation but not the lies. I miss the challenge but not the exhaustion. Nor the nothingness I contributed to mankind.

I'd rather be a mathematician struggling away at some problem. Or a dancer teaching people eight to 80 how to connect with their souls and enjoy the thump of feet on a wood floor. I'd rather be anything but a slave to a financial district, which regards the rest of the world as uninformed, unnecessary, and uncounted.

I was broken in the process but I came out with greater skills, refined clarity, and love for a real life and others.

Fudging It

Yesterday on the bus a woman on her cell phone told her colleague that she was just getting off the bus at Union Square. We were at Van Ness, which is actually six stops away.

I call Van and say, "Honey, I'm just heading down the escalator at Powell Station, I should be on the next train." When I can actually see the station but I'm still three blocks away.

It occurred to me that we Americans are so accustomed to fudging it -- lying -- that we scarcely recognize when we're doing it.

It's easy to overshoot, under-admit, compensate, and spin details we think might make us look better. But why? And why is it so effortless?

Thursday, March 09, 2006

Strategic Up-Do

Having lived in cities now for a good piece of time, I understand the need to build up, as opposed to building out. We occupy limited space and so are forced to creatively make do with wall space, under-counter space, and various nooks and wedges.

Today on my way home on the famous F-line trolly, which carries generally gay people from Castro to the Ferry Building, how apropos, I saw an African American woman of about 55 creatively making do with her up-do.

Her hair was carefully parceled out into eight segments. Partitions. Patches even? Held in place by colorful but very old (probably being from the ' 80s after all) banana clips. Strategically lodged in her orbit of hair were a variety of toiletries and other essentials, including a strand of keys, a toothbrush, two suction cups, (oh I am trying remember it all), and most interestingly, a loofah sponge.

I have never longed so hard for a camera, but had instead to settle for a mental snapshot and a quick dash to the blogging unit.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

The Things I Love

Twenty one years ago at age 14, I won a California State writing competition with a piece called "The Things I Love." Okay, it was second place. It was a two page, single-spaced, three sentence work of honesty. I'm repeating it here for the hell of it. Here's to the next 21 years.

I love snuggling up in my mocha leather chair with this overheated laptop on my lap, living a modest, comfortable life in the heart of San Francisco. I love the freedom to embrace my partner publicly and be not only accepted but welcomed and appreciated for more than what I do in the bedroom. I love Thursday night dinners with our group of friends, traveling to Oakland by BART and walking through a seedy neighborhood to get to the posh Jack London Square where we kick it with homemade pizza and yummy chicken burritos. I love reading good books. Well written books where the language takes you effortlessly through a story and is as much a featured player as the plot. I love the movies, complete with a pre-event stop to Walgreens to pick up chocolate covered Pretzel Bites, stuffed in my gym bag containing clothes I haven't used in two years, carrying the extra nine pounds to prove it. I love my American Express card too much. So much that I once cut it up to get control. Too soon, or too late, given that it was near expiration and I soon got my newly minted shiny this-one-should-last-ya-another-good-two-years-of-overspending satan-inspired goldness. I love that it's still gold, though, and not black or clear, god forbid. I don't know what those colors mean except that you can spend more and pay more annually.

I love words like caveat, matriculate, conundrum, and masticate. They remind me of the day I first heard them. Not in sixth grade english class where I aced vocabulary tests then promptly forgot my new ten words of the day. But when I really heard them for the first time and they stuck. I secretly love motivational quotes like the one on my computer desktop: "When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you," - Lao Tzu. I should know who Lao Tzu is after my trip through Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and more last summer. But I don't. Is an Internet search far off? And I love that it took 35 years to conclude through a simple quote what my father tried to tell me all along.

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