VISIONS, TRAUMAS, MONSTERS, AND SNAKES

I fell madly in love one rainy day while I was walking home from school. That's when I happened to glance across the street and first noticed the girl with the blue and white polka dot raincoat.....and her matching umbrella. She was younger by one year, but as our relationship developed, the age difference mattered less and less. I was seven and she was six. As fate would have it, our school was small, and consequently the first and second graders were both taught by Sister Cecilia in the same classroom. Not only was the object of my affection and fascination destined to be my classmate...her family also moved on to my street that same month, and I was basking in the sunlit smiles of the gods.

I've actually maintained a relationship with Susan ever since those early days of my life.

We had lunch a few years ago, and before we even took a sip of our Chardonnay, she offered a toast...."to our magical childhood." I thought that was both a lovely sentiment and a real jump start on our lunchtime conversation. From then on it was "remember when we........". One of the things she mentioned was our constant rehearsals for a play that we never actually performed....perhaps because the title was " The Miracle of Our Lady Of Fatima", which was of course my choice for a premier in our garage. When I mused about why we never actually got the show off the ground, Susan said she thought it was because I always secretly wanted to play the part of the Blessed Mother. In the interest of full disclosure....I think Susan was right.

Now these were days when social norms were different...when we played hospital I was the doctor and Susan was the nurse...if I was the boss Susan was the secretary, when I was the Bing Crosby priest, Susan was the Ingrid Bergman nun..( funny that the woman is STILL never the priest ). My Dad took me to all the monster movies...which we both loved, and when I'd get home we'd play monster. Once when Susan was the fifty foot woman...when she enhanced her height with roller skates, she fell and broke her arm. Her mother was mad that Susan had been playing the monster...but Susan said she would have done anything for me.

When my Mom went to the hospital to have my brother, my Godmother came to watch me for about a week. I had seen a nun movie about an African hospital and off went my imagination's light bulb and in the blink of an eye Susan and I had transformed our gameroom into a M.A.S.H. like infirmary. We hung sheets as dividers, rounded up all the kids in the neighborhood, and quickly created a trauma-like atmosphere. Eventually the chaos from our basement caught my Godmother's attention and she gasped when she came down the steps from the kitchen. I think the stream running down the middle of the basement floor from the hoses on full blast probably put her over the edge. She shut us down pretty quickly....and shooed us out into the backyard. I don't think she ever did tell my mother.....I really loved my Godmother.

It wasn't all peaches and cream with Susan. Once while she was snoozing in their hammock on a gorgeous summer afternoon, my friend and I threw a dead snake on her.

That was almost the worst thing we ever did....next to mailing her a package with the same snake in it the next day. Bill and I thought we were probably going to be sent to reform school that summer....and definitely going to be sent to Hell eventually. Susan didn't stay mad for too long....maybe like seven years...eight at the most. The snake stuff seemed to dampen the luncheon conversation a bit, but soon we were on to more pleasant memories...like the idol worshipping Indian tribe that started some serious neighborhood discussions about "what the kids are up to in the woods all day.."

THE IMPATIENT GARDENER

My friend Kel can knows the name for every plant I've ever seen...and he can also tell you the Latin name. Mark can do the same thing but it's the knowledge eludes me. Kel lives north of me...and Mark grew up to the south of here, so we all deal with different planting and weather issues. I'm a risk taker...my palms and ferns have been shivering on our front porch for more than a month, as are two big potted geraniums that I've saved for a couple of years. All three will take some cold obviously. Should be dip below 32 in the next month or so I'll haul them inside for a respite.

Lots of stores are selling those big beautiful palms now, but if you buy one remember that they don't like direct sun at all, and they like to dry out between watering...people think of them as wanting just the opposite. Pansies are everywhere now...have you noticed? The newer types will almost always last through the winter if you buy them in the Fall, and the ones they're selling now will easily take any dips in the temperature.

Once again beware of pot sizes. Lowe's was selling 3 pansies in a six inch pot for 2.98, and the same pansies in a six pack for 1.88. More and more places, including the best nurseries are pushing the bigger pots...so no matter what I'm buying, I'm searching for six packs or at least a four pack. They'll all look alike when they go into the garden.

As much as I like to jump the gun on Spring planting, and in spite of the box stores especially looking like it's May....it's still TOO EARLY ! I'll be chomping at the bit for the next few weeks, but rather than getting those disapproving looks from Kel and Mark, I'll be planting most things in the garden by the 20th of this month. So there.

SINGING IN THE CHOIR

Last night I sang with my men's choir in an old, massive, gorgeous former cathedral for the evening liturgy. There are about eighteen of us when we're in full force, and if I do say so myself we're pretty good. We're a really mixed group of guys, all ages, all sorts of occupations of course, and varied backgrounds, and from all over the area. My brother and his seventeen year old son also joined us last night...after a smidgen of coaxing from me. Ive been in choirs or accompanied them on the organ since I was ten years old...for many reasons.

Muriel Barbery wrote about how everyday life vanished when the choir begins to sing. She writes "you are suddenly overcome with a feeling of brotherhood, of deep solidarity, even love, and it all diffuses the ugliness of everyday life into a spirit of perfect communion." The stress goes away, all the heartaches, hopes and fears and challenges that we're all dealing with seem to quietly slip out beneath the ancient stained glasswindows. We all surrender to the music.

Sometimes in the middle of something like Mozart's Ave Verum I get a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes...and it's hard to sing. I forget all about Rick Santorum, the weeds in my garden, and the challenges of being a therapist.

I'm just a part of the whole magnificent sound that these guys create together.

Ms Barbery says it this way "...it's so beautiful, in the end I wonder if the true movement of the world might not be a voice raised in song." I know for myself that those moments of creating this music with these guys always transforms my world...even if it's only for one hour at a time, it's one of the most precious gifts in my life.

HOLY WEEK

Going to church during Holy Week was always very important to me. I loved the familiar rituals and how the triumph of Palm Sunday turned more and more solemn during the week.

On Passion Sunday which is two weeks before Easter, all the statues in our church were covered with purple cloths. Very few churches do that anymore, and somehow that really diminished the visual atmosphere for me. Palm Sunday was always a joyous celebration of Christ's grand entry into Jerusalem, but then it became "The second Sunday of the Passion" and only the first half of the Mass was joyous, while so much great music was squeezed out of the service in the second half.

Holy Thursday was when the organ played and all the bells were rung during the "Gloria" and then the organ and the bell towers fell silent until Easter. Few churches go for the a cappella singing after the Gloria now. We always sang the "Pange Lingua" during the procession at the end of the Mass on Thursday, and when they started to sing those gorgeous lyrics by Thomas Aquinas in English...they lost me. Now the Latin is at last creeping back into the Catholic liturgies. The churches were always open all night on Holy Thursday and I remember my Dad signing up to spend an hour there in the middle of the night..."keeping watch". Now most of the churches are locked up by midnight.

I guess going to church for me years ago was always an "uncommon experience" as Joseph Campbell called it. The language was uncommon, the buildings didn't look like nice meeting halls or spaceships, the music was ancient, and even the light and the air seemed different...( maybe it was from all the candles burning...before the electric ones were brought on the scene ). Walking into church for a Holy Week service was to enter into an unusual space, where something different from our everyday lives occurred, and while there is still beauty to be experienced in today's modernized ceremonies, I miss the tradition of the covered statues, the wooden "clacker" that replaced the bells, and the all night vigils.

Somehow hearing the organ on Good Friday just doesn't feel right...but then again it's 2012.

THOUGHTS ABOUT COMING OUT

I think it took about twenty years for people to stop asking me "when are you going to get married?" It happened a lot at weddings, when the relatives were altogether, or at holiday celebrations and reunions. I always had a polite answer or at least a clever response like "well as soon as the right one comes along." It got to the point where I'd sometimes say " I'm not.".....but that would only set me up for yet another embarrassing query. When Miss Manners was the new Emily Post as far as etiquette was concerned, someone asked her how someone ought to respond to the question and she suggested "Why do you ask?"

It's amazing that just two words can have such tremendous impact on a person's life. "I'm gay" can change everything, and it very often does. I know that when I first said those words I wasn't even sure that it was true. I grew up with very few role models (to say the least!) There was Christine Jorgensen who was one of the first publicly acknowledged transsexuals, and I somehow associated the word "gay" with her. I knew that I didn't mean I was like her, nor was I like the man in the trench coat leaning against a lamp post in the fog with the word "homosexual" above his head on the cover of LIFE magazine. Young gay kids today at least have some great and courageous role models.

That line about "love the sinner but hate the sin" is what Rick Santorum would call BULL____. Telling people that as long as they never fall in love, or want to share their lives with another person, or want to make love will guarantee someone else's approval is nonsense. There is a tremendous amount of negative, hurtful, and damaging rhetoric aimed at gay kids...and unfortunately a great deal of it comes from the pulpit.

Coming out of the closet is risky business. It can jeopardize the future, threaten one's employment, and change relationships forever. It can also be such a breath of fresh air and honesty... It's all about mental and spiritual health.

Aligning oneself with the truth..the whole truth...and nothing but the truth, is the only way to make our lives really worth living. Our individual truth...the quest to be who we really are ought to be our universal goal as human beings. After all this is our brief " blink of an eye" existence...it's not just a dress rehearsal, and the air is very refreshing out here...much better than it is in the closet.

CLOSE ! (but no cigar).

Bless me Father for I have sinned. Over the last few months I've actually changed my mind about Rick Santorum. Wait !!! don't hit the delete key and please don't call me that ! What I've actually done is come to realize that he's not stupid. He's a good debater, he's articulate..( except when he says the word Bull___, he's energetic, he believes what he says, he's a good family man...(except when he talks about the stillborn baby that he brought home), and he seems authentic.

But he's also much too extreme to even be considered to run this country. His views on public education are ridiculous...the idea that every community ought to be responsible to educate their children wouldn't work in most of the country. His eradication of the line separating church and state would lead to even more divisiveness for the country. His lack of trust in the scientific community would impede progress like never before...stem cell research and environmental protections would be stymied, and Planned Parenthood would no longer be able to address crucial women's health issues.

Rick Santorum would never advocate for gay people. He would reinstate Don't Ask Don't Tell, try to change the constitution to block equal marriage rights, and anti discrimination policies would surely bite the dust. While he'd do all in his power to protect the unborn..he's been trigger happy for a long time to start a war with Iran.

I do give him credit for getting as far as he did in the GOP primaries..but as far as I'm concerned, it's now time for him to gather up his toys and go home.

We can't and won't have an extremist calling the shots when so much is at stake. We can all go to church to hear about sin and evil, we don't need to listen to it blasting out from the Whitehouse.

A DAY AT THE OPERA

When the AIDS epidemic was ravaging the gay community the world lost a great deal of talent. There were writers and musicians and actors and poets and so much creative talent lost during those awfully sad years. The straight community certainly suffered as well, but the gay artists were dying by the dozens. One of those tremendously talented young people was my friend Paul.

I knew him as a kid, and followed his career all through his very abbreviated life. Paul was a composer and a performer, writing and recording beautiful music until he died...and he died by inches, over a long long time.

Paul and I discussed Opera on one occasion, and as I confessed my general ignorance about it,  he spoke about how he approached such high minded and challenging levels of music. Paul told me that he loved the idea of entering a whole different world...of sound and sight and talent. He advised me to start anywhere and just sit back and wait for even one singular moment when the music gave me goose bumps and maybe even brought a tear to my eye. Paul also said that he loved to go to the matinees...when you don't have to worry about how late it is...or how dark it is...or how you have to get up early the next day.

We saw TOSCA yesterday, at the Sunday matinee, and as I've done for many years now, I waited for that glorious moment when the hair on my arms stands up, and my eyes begin to water...and once again I was swept away. It always happens, and I'm always so deeply grateful to Paul when it does.

I told my young niece and nephew to watch "Moonstruck" with Cher...and to pay attention to the clips from "La Boheme"...it's a start, and I think it just might be a catalyst to guide them into the opera house. Trying to plunge head-first into the majestic world of grand opera is pretty intimidating, but exposing yourself to the possibility of those moments that almost take your breath away can add a glorious and memorable experience to an ordinary Sunday afternoon. Thanks Paul.