In this world of perpetual social upheaval, being who I am-openlygay–isn’t always easy. But I persist.
I decided more than twenty-five years ago that coming out was the only healthy way to live.
With the assistance of two amazing therapists (thank you, Barry and Valerie!) and the love of a small circle of friends and family, I discovered that authenticity was my way out of denial, depression, and anxiety.
Over the years, I’ve written frequently on this topic in my books and here in my blog. Today, on National Coming Out Day in the United States, I’m here to remind you once again that I am a proud gay man.
This one aspect of my identity–the fact that I am attracted to the same sex and married happily to another man–certainly defines the way I see the world. It gives me compassion and empathy for others who are different … no matter their skin color, religious beliefs, economic status, or capabilities.
All my life, I have been protective of those who are disenfranchised and less fortunate. I came from a modest background and have survived personal and family hardships.
As a teenager and young man, I didn’t understand or love myself, but now that I do I feel it is my obligation to remain visible. To pave the way for queer teens and adults who may not yet feel comfortable enough to come out.
In 2023, I think most Americans are supportive of their gay friends, family members, and neighbors. Of course, there is a vocal minority that would prefer we don’t exist. I have no control over their beliefs.
No doubt, a handful of haters will be demonstrating at the end of the Phoenix Pride Parade route on October 22, when I sing and march with my friends in the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.
But they will be overshadowed by the thousands of LGBTQ supporters–gay and straight–who will line the parade route with their parents and children, cheer, and wave their rainbow flags.
We are a country that was founded on the notion of “liberty and justice for all.” At times, we have failed miserably at fulfilling our mission as a democratic society.
But I’m not ready to give up. I still have hope–as a sixty-six-year-old gay man, husband, father, brother, writer, singer, friend, neighbor, voter, and citizen of the United States–that we will find our way out of the political divisiveness that exists.
I’m not sure how we’ll get there, but today–and everyday–all of us who are different must continue to come out, be ourselves, love each other, and remind the world that LGBTQ citizens are valuable, kind, contributing, and responsible Americans. We will not be denied.
On a regular basis, all of us encounter unexpected small and large obstacles.
One day, they may be as fixable as a “low tire pressure” warning light that illuminates on the dashboard.
The next, something far more unimaginable, unexplainable and unrepairable. Like learning of the apparent suicide of a forty-three-year-old friend, who seemed to embody the definition of vitality.
It was simple to stop at Discount Tire to ask an attendant to increase the air pressure in our tires. (The cooler desert temperatures must have deflated them.)
It will take much longer–time, space, and reflection–for Tom and me to process Chad’s demise.
I’ve often thought that resiliency is one of the most important human characteristics to cultivate.
It is our ability to cope, process, manage, and emote our way through or around life’s setbacks that defines our longevity. This latest loss confirms my belief.
These observations surfaced this morning during a walk in the park in my community. At Chaparral Park in Scottsdale, Arizona to be precise.
My husband and I had just finished our yoga class. Afterwards, he wanted to lift a few weights in the gym.
I opted for stretching my legs on my own under a few puffy clouds that dotted Arizona’s wide-open October sky.
Near the midpoint of my walk a fit couple jogged up as I waited for the light to turn green at Chaparral and Hayden roads. One of them admired my shirt.
“You must be in the medical profession,” he gestured toward the beating heart I wore proudly.
“No, I’m a heart attack survivor,” I explained. “I helped raise money for the American Heart Association.”
They smiled and wished me well. Then, they dashed off when the WALK sign turned white.
It was a simple exchange, a reminder of a trauma I experienced and wrote about which now feels way off in the rearview mirror.
But those few sentences with two sympathetic strangers infused me with a renewed appreciation for my personal resiliency.
No doubt, it’s a quality I observed in my mother, a saver and survivor. She always described herself as a child of the Depression.
It’s also a trait I began to mine in my thirties after my divorce. A strength I’ve fine-tuned on countless treadmills since suffering a mild heart attack six-plus years ago on my sixtieth birthday.
I have no regrets regarding my friendship with Chad, but I wish he would have called Tom or me before he made his worst and most irreversible decision.
I would have told him that while life is no walk in the park, it is always worth the fight. To find a skilled therapist. To dig deep on the darkest days. To survive the pain. To accept our losses.
To embrace each and every day we are granted. To reach out for love and hope. To live to see tomorrow.
In October 2019, I puttered in my garden as I often do.
I had already begun to assemble tongue-in-cheek and serious stories about life in the Grand Canyon State. But I needed a creative hook to link the essays and my desert fantasies to the wide-open experience of living in Arizona.
Strangely, sagging citrus tree branches provided the stimulus for my book title. While they impeded our sidewalk, identifying the obstacle cleared a path in my brain. Tom stood by as seven words flew from my mouth and tumbled into the arid Arizona air: “I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree.”
***
Nearly four years have passed. In early 2021, I completed and published my book. Folks near and far have told me how much they’ve enjoyed reading it.
Of course, I hope more will discover it and find meaning in the essays, including those I wrote about living in a global community we never imagined–a place I call Coronaville.
This afternoon I found myself in the same space outside my front door, examining the same tree, realizing it needed another haircut. I grabbed the loppers, pulled on my gardening gloves, and pruned only the most problematic branches that hung low.
Sadly, there were a few lemon casualties that fell to the earth looking more like green limes than the fully matured lemons they might have become in December.
Still, I think I did a good thing for Tom and me … and our neighbors and delivery people, who pass daily on the sidewalk of our mid-twentieth-century condo community and go about their lives under the radar.
And the lemon tree? It’s now shapelier than before and has inspired me to write yet another story about the possibilities at play in nature.
In a world of distractions, scoundrels and deceit, nature casts a sliver of shade away from the heat.
On August 16, 2023, Poly–our community cat–reappeared and inspired this brief verse and montage. To read more of my poetry, purchase A Path I Might Have Missed on Amazon.
I know. It’s odd for me to write about Christmas in August. Particularly because the temperatures outside in Arizona are oven like.
However, today–like a kid on Christmas morning ready to rip open presents–I jumped out of bed at 6:30 when I heard the thunderclap. I raced to the window, threw up the sash, and pressed my nose against the glass.
I didn’t see Santa or a team of reindeer but witnessed the next best thing. Actual rain drops pounded the sidewalk. They pinged on the top of our metal carport and disappeared into the thirsty mouths of malnourished cacti.
Get this. In addition to forty days of 110-plus temperatures so far in 2023, we hadn’t seen rain in Scottsdale since March 22. (Okay, evidently there was a brief storm here on July 26, but Tom and I missed it. We were in Flagstaff.)
The lack of moisture falling from the sky has led some of us in the Valley of the Sun to refer to the summer of 2023 as the year of the non-soon versus the monsoons that generally produce a few gully washers. Typically, they account for much of our annual rainfall.
Back in the winter wonderland of my creative mind, over the past month I’ve been channeling the holiday season. Why is Christmas creeping into my psyche? Because I’ve been writing about it.
I’ve just completed a draft of another libretto for the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus (PHXGMC) 2023 holiday show. This one is titled Thanks for the Memories: A Gay Christmas Carol.
In addition to writing for PHXGMC, I will be standing on stage, performing in the concerts December 16 and 17 at the Herberger Theatre in Phoenix.
It will be a musical mash-up–nostalgic, glitzy, whimsical, and spiritual–embedded in a story of a Scrooge-like character, who is transformed by the power of beautiful music, personal truth and a trusted community.
It will also be the final holiday concert for Marc, our artistic director for more than twenty years, who has decided to move on to pursue other creative endeavors when his contract ends next July.
Tonight, is our first rehearsal for the new concert season. There will be old and new members to greet and new music to hand out.
Of course, it’s just the beginning. But whether I’m concocting a story or singing the first notes of an unfamiliar tune, it is the creative process that has always captured my joy and attention.
Most of all, I am thankful for every magical moment that lies ahead with my friends on stage and off as we create another batch of musical memories.
Life gets messy at times. For instance, Tuesday morning Tom and I were grocery shopping at Fry’s near our home in south Scottsdale. We picked up a pint of blueberries and placed them in our cart.
As we turned the corner and left the produce section, the container popped open. Half of the contents spilled out and tumbled to the floor. Some smashed and splattered. Others rolled fifty feet away.
Of course, accidents happen. We apologized. We helped a few kind Fry’s employees clean up the mess.
On the other end of life’s spectrum, there are spectacular moments that produce a cascade of love and joy. Crescendo moments we imagine and envision on paper, which work out better than we had planned. Seminal moments that transcend our dreams.
Last weekend was filled with those moments–standing on stage at Tempe Center for the Arts with about seventy of my Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus mates, manufacturing an amazing blend of transformative music and stirring stories for three appreciative, enthusiastic, and occasionally tearful audiences. (They were simply responding to the heartfelt, emotional, honest Born to Be Brave moments that revealed themselves on stage.)
From stage right on the top riser, I sang as a chorus member and watched as a writer. With style, panache, and musicality, five of my chorus friends embodied and embellished a quintet of LGBTQ characters I created months before.
Over the course of the past few months, I’ve observed as they’ve evolved: Bry, a trans character from Idaho who found their voice with the support of friends; Toni, a bisexual artist with an unruly heart of gold; Gregory, a wise-and-resilient survivor of the AIDS-plagued 1980s; Les, an ultra-available, funny and sexy accountant; and Q, a young, flamboyant, energetic, queer leader who owns the stage and won’t be denied.
The premise? In an ode to A Chorus Line, they all audition for the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus in Act One. Ultimately, in Act Two, they each grow and join the group. They take the stage. They sing and dance. They find their voices and a new community of friends. In the show’s finale, they perform with the chorus and realize they were born to be brave.
***
Now, a few days have passed. The show is over. The blueberries at Fry’s have been cleaned up. I’m enjoying the high of a successful performance and artistic experience … the creative aftermath … but also recognizing the lull that comes after.
I’m beginning to regain my energy. (I left a lot of it on stage last weekend.) I’m also realizing the power of music and theatre. Friends who attended the concert have told me how much they enjoyed the show, and what a positive emotional impact it had on them–seeing and hearing the triumphant stories of five LGBTQ characters told through music in a world and community that needs love in all its forms … in all its splendor.
It gives me solace to know that — maybe — all of my chorus members and I have helped to create and produce sweet, luscious blueberries for the brave. To help nourish all of us on the rocky road of life.
This is a momentous post for me–number 400 written and shared over the past five-plus years here.
As we begin June — Pride month — the topic of this one is more consequential than most.
Since May 2018, I’ve posted a long-and-winding stream of diverse stories about the Scottsdale-Arizona community I inhabit and about my life … as an independent writer, avid gardener, animal lover, critical thinker, loyal son, non-traditional father, and fortunate husband.
This openness is something I’ve learned and earned. More than sixty years ago, I was a shy child. I hid behind my mother and sucked my thumb for reassurance.
On a subconscious level, I must have felt I needed protection … for being different … though it would be decades before I would understand and embrace my gayness.
In the early 1990s (after my divorce from Jean and before I met my husband Tom), I felt lost and afraid. I certainly didn’t imagine I would one day sing on a stage with dozens of other gay men in Chicago … and then again in Phoenix.
Or that my husband and older son Nick (also living in Arizona) would watch and smile from the audience.
Much less, that I would write lyrics for the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus or develop dialogue for a palette of LGBTQ characters–a libretto, of sorts–for a concert in June 2023, titled Born to Be Brave.
This latest thrilling endeavor will premiere June 3 (2 pm and 7 pm shows) and then again June 4 (2 pm) at Tempe Center for the Arts.
All of this leads me to the point of this post.
In 2023–in a country where some would prefer not to say or hear the word gay or work to pass legislation to remove books from shelves written by gay authors–it is more important for all of us to live openly and loudly.
Moving back into the closet is simply not a viable or healthy option.
In that spirit, I am sharing two photos with this post. They contain images of my family members (past and present) and a sampling of the most important aspects of my authentic life.
For the concert this weekend, each of us (about seventy members of the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus) will wear a stole that drapes around our necks with such images … images that tell the stories of our lives for all the world to see.
Yes, in June or any month, all of us have much to be proud of. With the help of inspirational music, compassion from friends and neighbors, and the safe haven of our community, we’ve come a long way.
Losses and stories come in many forms. This one is best told by my husband Tom, today’s guest blogger.
***
Ode to a Fig Tree
by Tom Samp
When my grandparents moved in 1972 to the Scottsdale condo where Mark and I now live, my grandfather planted a fig tree.
This tree grew and flourished. It was unique and magnificent. It produced sweet purple figs every summer.
There was never a time when this tree wasn’t a part of the condo, and of my memories of my grandparents and parents. The tree became a part of the lore of our condo complex.
Last Friday, a victim of the carpenter bees that nested and chewed slowly through the bark and the wood inside, the tree had literally cracked in half and fell bent to the ground.
The sadness was immediate and deep.
But why feel this way for a tree? It’s only wood, bark, leaves, and, in the summer, sweet purple fruit.
My mourning certainly could not compare to that felt by our friend and neighbor Aggie, whose husband Bill, also our friend, passed away during the week.
Still, it was the sentimental images and feelings I attached to the fig tree that made its death so emotional for me.
It was a part of our home that I almost took for granted. A splash of green we saw when we opened our blinds every morning.
A place for the small birds–sparrows, finches, lovebirds–to wait their turn at the bird feeder we hung right outside our window.
The shady spot where our neighbors Pat and Gary placed their lawn chairs to read or relax; and where Gary took his last breath on Good Friday, 2021.
A topic of awed comment and conversation from friends and passers-by.
An ingredient in the fig jam that our neighbor Jeannie made for us.
The February morning every year, after the leaves all fell for the winter, when Mark and I trimmed the branches way back.
The excitement each April when we saw the tiniest green buds, signifying that the tree had survived, and would again thrive.
A final remnant from my grandparent’s lives, when they pioneered to Scottsdale from Chicago in retirement.
On Saturday, after the condo landscaping crew kindly and efficiently chopped the broken tree and carried away the pieces, Mark created a container garden in its place, filled with colorful flowerpots which held desert plants and cactus.
It will be an adjustment. Maybe we will plant another tree in the fall. In the meantime, the memories will always linger.
I captured our glorious, gnarled, and storied fig tree just before dusk during the summer of 2022.
Mark Johnson Stories 