Are You Guys Brothers?

     The Hostess cupcake just didn’t taste as good as I remembered it. Neither did the Twinkie. It was great fun to have them served as dessert at a recent picnic at a shack in the dunes, but they were both a big disappointment. The cupcake, though fresh, was dry and not very “chocolaty.” Ray’s chocolate cupcakes are infinitely better. And I ended up burying the tasteless Twinkie in the bottom of a bowl of fruit salad. Nevertheless, the cupcake and Twinkie provided me a great reminder about the inherent danger of nostalgia. Remembering can be fun as long we realize the memories are romanticized, and if the nostalgia doesn’t diminish the joy of the moment.

     At least twice a year, I receive an e-mail message from someone my age about the joys of growing up in the 50s and 60s — drive-in movies, hula hoops, the twist, wax lips, fireflies, and games of kick-the-can. I remember it all with a warm smile of familiarity and contentment that my childhood was full of opportunities to be happy. But I wasn’t always happy as a child, and I don’t ever wish for those days back. I also realize that 40 years from now, today’s youngsters will be reminded of the out-of-date things of their past, like printed books and newspapers, hand-held cell phones, network television, gasoline, and the Jonas Brothers. But they won’t wish for the return of these days either.

      As is true with someone who has died, it’s easier to romantically reflect on the past as flawless than it is to experience the present as perfect.

     Harvey Milk, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Caesar Chavez have near-saint status in death but remarkable as they or their accomplishments were, as human beings they were flawed just like the rest of us, and there are  people in our lives today who are equally great and just as worthy of respect and gratitude.  

      The good old days are today, not yesterday, and living people, not the dead, can be our heroes and mentors. Ray, for instance, has finally decided that my potato salad is better than his mom’s. That doesn’t mean that his mother’s wasn’t good. It just means that he let go of it as his standard of excellence and his touchstone of innocence.

      Relationships that end often do so because one or both parties long for the feelings of excitement they remember having had with each other in the early days of their time together. That’s their Hostess cupcake — a recollection of something that they feel tasted really good at the time — but if they went back and tried it again, I suspect they would discover that they had since tasted better. Their standards have changed. Their hearts and minds are wiser and more mature. Nostalgia blocks them from seeing that clearly. If they didn’t long for the past and revere what was dead, they would have more fun in the present.

     I never forward the e-mails I get from friends about the joys of living in the past. Doing so would seem as much a disservice to the recipients as urging them to attend a class reunion because “it will be just like it used to be.” One class reunion was enough for me. I do, however, forward to friends e-mails that contain beautiful photographs of the world as it is today. I love sharing my joy and wonder in the present.

     Now, it may be that Hostess cupcakes and Twinkies are part of someone else’s joy and wonder today, and I celebrate the happiness they feel in eating them. But if they’re hoping that doing so will transport them to their adolescence in the 1950s or 60s, I suggest they try something new with the heart and mind of a child today.  

     The other night, 12 wonderful gay men gathered around our table for my spaghetti, Ray’s lemon cupcakes, and a riotous game of Mexican Train (dominoes). We laughed until we cried, all but three without a drop of alcohol. Those who drank had one glass of wine. The humor came from our playful hearts.

     Once during the evening, I raised my tumbler of water to toast “this table of incredibly beautiful gay men.” More than once, I stopped participating in the silly banter, sat back, and tried to take a mental picture of the image I hoped would nurture me later when moments might seem less joyful.

     I do that a lot – stare at something for awhile with the hope that I can capture the magical beauty of the scene – the moon shimmering over the water that I spot in the middle of the night on my way to the bathroom, the smell of lilac I pull to my nose as I’m on my morning walk, and the giggles of delight of the eight-year-old boy behind the boat who has just gotten up on skis for the first time. I stare but, in truth, I can’t always remember it later. Sometimes, I sadly agree with the sassy admonition of the person unhappy with being eyed, “Take a picture. It lasts longer.” The caveat is that you have to stay focused. A picture without a clear memory is only a picture.

     I was riding in the car this morning with John Corvino, the very bright 40-year-old professor of ethics at Wayne State University who has captured the hearts and minds of thousands of college students with his boyish good looks and sharp mind as he has spoken on the morality of homosexuality or the naturalness of gay marriage. I was giving him a quick tour of the National Seashore that borders Provincetown, MA, which he was visiting for the first time with his life partner Mark. I had regrettably distracted him with the question of where he would like to be in 10 years, but I was wanting him to take in the majestic beauty of the rolling sand dunes, scrub pines, and white- capped blue sea surrounding us.

     “Be sure to spend the next ten years taking in these extraordinary moments,” I said, knowing full well that had someone said the same thing to me when I was 40 I too would have only half-heard the counsel. At that age, my mind was mostly on how I was doing in my desire for personal and professional success rather than on the mutterings of an “old timer” on the need to stop and smell the roses. And yet, if I have learned anything of true value in these 61 years, it is the importance of stopping to smell, see, hear, taste and feel the moment and to reflect on its uniqueness. You can take a picture to make the scene last longer, but if you don’t really take in the moment, the picture can’t truly capture it for you.

     Despite our differences in age, not just between John and me, but also between me and many of the men who were having such fun around the dinner and game table, calling the attention of others to what is happening at the moment is nevertheless a gift to me and to them. It allows me to articulate and capture a moment in words, if not in pictures, and it allows them the opportunity to reflect, if they choose, on something someone else has noticed.

     Sometimes, when we’re watching television, Ray will look over and observe that my eyes are roaming the room.

     “What are you thinking about?” he’ll ask.

     “Do you see how the colors gold and red travel together around the room from that fabric, to the wall paint, to than bowl, to that lamp, and to that painting? It’s beautiful.”

     “I wouldn’t have noticed it if you hadn’t said something,” he will reply with a smile, and then return his attention to the program he was watching.

     My awareness is most keen when my time is limited. You’d think the opposite would be true. But when I’m aware that I have limited time left with a place or with a person, it’s more likely that I’ll focus on what’s going on beyond the activity at hand.

     “Have you ever tried lime on watermelon?” Ken asked as people helped themselves to a slice to accompany their lemon cupcake during the dominoes game. “It’s really good.”

     “I have a lime,” I said. “I’ll slice it.” The twelve of us then each took a piece of the lime and squeezed it on their watermelon.

     “Oh, wow, this is great,” we each said as we tried it.

     I smiled broadly and then laughed.

     “What’s funny?” someone asked.

     “Can you imagine a table of 12 straight men talking about how good lime on watermelon tastes?” I asked. They thought about it too and laughed at their awareness of how uniquely safe and valued we felt with each other.

     The evening ended soon after. I wish I had a picture of us all at the table with the watermelon. But I and they all have a flash of a memory that for an instant we were aware of how good life can be, and maybe that feeling of gratefulness will be recalled as one of the highlights of our very different journeys.

     “It’s bigger and more meaningful than a standing ovation, or an award, or making a lot of money,” I said to John as we drove through the sand dunes. “Appreciating the joy of  the moment is what I have found to be the most important success in my life.”

     Ray and I watched a depressing made-for-TV film last night about how a mother’s ignorance and biblically-based intolerance cost her, and us, the life of her beautiful 20-year-old gay son. In Prayers for Bobby, shown on Lifetime and based upon the tragically true account of Bobby Griffith’s desperate suicide, we watch with horror as his mother Mary, brilliantly played by Sigourney Weaver, stubbornly ostracizes him from family life. She will not have a gay son, she insists, and, in the end, her wish comes true.

     This morning, the reading in the Tao te Ching for me was number 76:

     Men are born soft and supple;

     dead, they are stiff and hard.

     Plants are born tender and pliant;

     Dead, they are brittle and dry.

     Thus, whoever is stiff and inflexible

     is a disciple of death.

     Whoever is soft and yielding

      is a disciple of life.

     The hard and stiff will be broken.

     The soft and supple will prevail.

     Mary’s son’s senseless passing prompts her to get educated and to release her death grip on the Bible. She eventually becomes a valued ally of the gay community. That is what all of us hope for with frightened, angry people – that they let go of their fears and become their better angels. But what happens to the rest of us in the meantime? What does their epiphany cost innocent bystanders?

     A recent piece in the New York Times affirms what many of us have learned from our lives: Who you hang around with impacts the quality of your life. Our friends and associates contribute significantly to our physical and mental health. Ray and I don’t hate people who drink too much, smoke, litter, are selfish, depressed, angry, resentful, or mean. We just avoid them. They vex our spirits.

     But what do you do when you find yourself surrounded by people who vex your spirit? How do you escape the influence of short-tempered people whose disappointment in, or fear of, life pours into everything they say and do?

     The news is filled with reports of angry people yelling out during an address by the President of the United States and stopping their children from listening to him speak; of protestors biting off the finger of someone with whom they disagree, or worse, of shooting them. Such closed minds and hardened hearts are poison not just to the life of the individual but, like secondhand smoke, to everyone nearby.

     Closer to home, many of us have family members, neighbors, friends, and colleagues with whom we walk on egg shells or around whom we hold our breath for fear that we will say something that pushes their buttons or that they will do the same to ours. How do we maintain our inner peace and continue to grow freely as disciples of life in the presence of such disciples of death?

     As hard as it can be to do, and as much guilt as it may create, you withdraw with love and move on. Doing so may upset others, especially the person who offends, as well as those who count on you to maintain the status quo for the sake of their comfort. But if you want to be physically and emotionally healthy, you have to surround yourselves with people who encourage self-love.

     During the film Prayers for Bobby, Ray and I were yelling guidance to Bobby to let go of his need of his mother’s approval. Mary Griffith reminded Ray of his own folks who initially disowned him for being gay, and he knew that Bobby would only find happiness if he lived life on his own terms. Had Bobby Griffith been able to separate himself from Mary’s discipleship of death, he’d be alive today, like Ray.

     We sang “Happy Birthday” to Lily Tomlin the other night. She just turned 70. That age used to sound really old to me. I’m sure that it still does to people in their teens and twenties. But when you’re 61, it sounds “youngish.” Now, age 90 sounds old to me, but it won’t, I suppose when I’m 80. Nevertheless, can you believe that Edith Ann is 70? And that’s the truth.

     Despite what the culture may tell us, I’ve come to believe that aging has its advantages. If you’re lucky, you get to witness in your lifetime things that you never imagined might happen. For instance, Senator Ted Kennedy, or “Teddy” as we call him in our house, finally received the heartfelt global acclaim his life of great caring and service has long deserved. He had to die of brain cancer at age 77 to get it, but the “hero’s” farewell he received from the nation and the world made me feel vindicated and also proud of planet Earth.

     And did you see that Lt. William Calley has finally apologized for his role in the disgraceful sexual abuse and mutilation of over 400 Vietnamese women and children in My Lai. He did it in whispers to a Kiwanis Club in Columbus, GA, over forty years after his sentence was commuted by Richard Nixon, but his recognition of evil-doing in the name of the United States helped heal the wounds that I and many others carried from our days of opposition to the war in that country.

      The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) finally looks as if it might pass Congress and be signed by the President. As one who was fired 35 years ago for being gay (and still wouldn’t be covered by the legislation because it exempts religious institutions), it is heartening to know that “the love that dare not speak its name” will no longer be legitimate grounds from workplace harassment or discrimination. We’ve worked long and hard for this. It’s a blessing to have lived long enough to see it happen.

     And the United States finally has a black Commander-in-Chief. Many white men and women my age in the United States risked death, jail, beatings, and social alienation just to ensure that black people would be allowed to eat at the same restaurant and to enter common restrooms. Barack Obama represents to us a victory that can never be taken away. We feel rewarded.

     I have lived long enough to see the marriage rights of gay people embraced by the majority of people in the United States, to have openly gay people host the Emmy’s and the Oscars, and to witness major Protestant denominations approve of the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy.

     To witness and fully appreciate history being made, you have to have lived long enough to understand the significance of the event. To a black baby living in the Upper East Side of New York, the election of President Obama had no more historic relevance than President Harry Truman’s executive order desegregating the Armed Forces did to me in 1948. Age allows us to understand and savor the meaning of events within the context of our own lives.

     In response to my suggestion that he watch Through My Eyes, a film on being young, gay, and Christian (www.gaychristian.net), a Salvation Army officer friend of mine wrote back that “I wish I could have seen something like this DVD 35 years ago. What a difference it would have made in my life.” In reaction to a fundraising mailing I sent out to friends on a new on-line gay high school (www.glbtqonlinehighschool.com), another friend wrote back to say it brought back memories of the horrors he faced as a gay high school student many years ago. One gift of age is experience and the unique perspective it provides. And that’s the truth.