Wednesday night–in this July–actual raindrops fell from the Arizona sky. They pinged–hypnotic, soothing, and steady–on the roof of our metal carport.
Our mini monsoon was enough to wash away the dust and scrub the air, but not Thursday’s dastardly news of puffy politicians selling unfortunate souls down the river.
Away from the madness, Poly found a dry patch of concrete beyond the storm and platitudes. She rolled side to side, then flicked her tail, as if to say:
“I may be a stray, but I’m not stupid. I know how to get by. I know when to stop by your door. When to come in out the heat. Stick with me. You and I are survivors in this and every July.”
I began this blogging odyssey seven years ago today. That’s longer than I stayed in all but one of my jobs during my communication career, and the most obvious measure I can think of to show and tell you how important this is to me.
The crux of it is this. I continue to write here and trade comments with you, because it is the best way I know to express my individual voice at a malignant time in our country. I don’t want our voices to be denied.
But, from a purely literary standpoint, I write and publish my thoughts at least once a week to keep me sharp and centered–despite the rust that has gathered around my edges.
Tom and I gave this angel to my mother many Mays ago when she lived in Winfield, Illinois. It anchored the container garden on her balcony patio.
I remember how much she loved it.
When we moved to Arizona in 2017–four years after she passed–I knew I had to bring it west with us. I knew it needed to adorn our patio in Scottsdale.
So, the angel and her companion bird rest there on this Sunday morning … blowing wishes into the universe and hoping for a better day tomorrow.
Thank you for being my companion on this long-and-winding road.
Our beloved Brokeback Mountain poster–which Tom and I purchased in Evanston, Illinois, more than fifteen years ago–leans against one of our Scottsdale walls. It waits to see which wall it will grace in our newly remodeled condo.
In the course of any life–whether you are a woodpecker, hummingbird or a species without wings–sometimes the best you can do is to find nourishment where you can … and just hang on.
I was about to embark on a journey. But not remotely ready. Nonetheless, I was expected to begin Day One of a new job, in uniform as a United Airlines flight attendant.
A crowd of other newbies gathered around me. We lined up to have our security photos taken by a young, rather handsome cameraman with a large head. He teetered on a tiny chair with his knees protruding beyond his elbows.
When it came to be my turn, the blond figure told me to stand on an X marked on the floor. Then, he stood to reveal his true height.
His elongated body stretched for nearly eight feet before he snapped my photograph and disappeared behind a funhouse mirror.
A primitive machine spit out my image, but I don’t remember receiving my security credentials.
About this time, my husband appeared on the other side of a window that contained a metal tray below. He told me he wanted to slide cash to me under the glass. He thought I might need it on my journey. He said he would meet me on the other side. I felt disoriented and dismayed.
Moments later, I found myself standing in front of a harried female administrative assistant. She sat behind an old desk with stacks of papers and files surrounding her. She worked for United. She told me I needed to board my first flight in about thirty minutes, but that my hair was unkempt.
As she handed me a boarding pass, she spieled off a list of complicated directions that would lead me to a trusted stylist in the terminal. She insisted there was time to accomplish this necessary task, though I would need to run to catch my flight.
I felt anxious. Unprepared for my journey. Unsure of the safety protocols. Disturbed that the length of my hair was causing me trouble. Lost in a once-familiar Chicago terminal that was now foreign to me.
When you’re living through a full-blown constitutional crisis–and feeling vulnerable–you need to find ways of coping and caring for the ones you love.
So, I bought two of these beaded rainbow wristbands from the Human Rights Campaign for Tom and me to wear.
We are wrist-banding together.
This is a symbolic gesture. I want the world to know that this gay couple isn’t going anywhere, though it is a period in the United States where some would prefer that those of us who are different would go away.
But I–we–remain visible.
As I write this blogpost, I realize it is number 500 … a true milestone for any writer.
When I began blogging in May 2018, I had no illusions of where it might lead.
I simply wanted to give my books and literary voice more room to grow, more visibility.
For that reason, I suppose it is fitting that today I choose to write about my gay identity and continue to exercise personal aspects of my voice … visibly.
In many respects, the life my husband and I lead is not all that different from any couple.
We shop for groceries together. Go to the gym together. Enjoy quiet moments and meals together. Love and nurture each other.
We do our best to support each other and our family members during highs and lows.
We spend time with our friends. They are young and old, straight and gay, black and white.
We love and respect them, and they love and respect us.
I think it’s accurate to say this about our friends: we enrich each other’s lives, no matter our skin color, religious beliefs, cultural perspectives, gender identities, or sexual orientations.
It is a personal jolt to realize–and read on trusted news sources each day–that our differences are under attack and being eroded in my home country … the country I still love.
I don’t think I’m depressed. But I am definitely sad and angry. Definitely grieving. Me and a boatload of others of all backgrounds and persuasions.
There are times when I want to scream from the top of a mountain. “This is my country, too. How dare you try to take that away from me!” But then I wonder, “Is anybody listening?”
So, I bring this here, instead and I type these words in blogpost number 500.
At any rate, thank you for joining me–possibly even enduring me at times–on this blogging journey since May 2018.
As long as I continue to feel I have something important and relevant to say (to shed light on the topics of the day … to celebrate a literary success or the latest Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus performance … to pay tribute to those I love … to tell a funny story about our stray cat Poly … to observe and honor the beauty of nature … to share a vivid, meaningful memory about my childhood … or to pen a poem that is in need of artistic space and oxygen) you will find me here.
I hope you have been informed or entertained and will continue to tag along with me on this organic literary odyssey, wherever it may lead.
As I walked the treadmill at the gym this morning–on Abraham Lincoln’s two-hundred-sixteenth birthday–a weird, dark, and discomforting question swirled through my brain.
What if we–all the diverse people in this country, all the people of color, all the LGBTQ folks–were gone?
It’s a beautiful Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather is sunny and mild–warm enough for me to swim laps outside a few hours ago–and my brain is firing creatively.
I’m preparing to lead my next memoir writing workshop later this month at the Scottsdale Public Library (Mustang location).
I expect a dozen aspiring writers will file into a large conference room on January 17 for session #1.
I will welcome them with a smile and a commitment to prompt and guide them as they move ahead on their memoir writing journeys.
It will be a free-and-safe space to begin to dislodge vivid memories, write a few pages, share respectful feedback across a table with other writers, develop a writing practice, and (hopefully) leave on the last day (January 31) with a little momentum to tell their stories.
I know how much work, time, and commitment is required to make it happen. But when you are a writer, it’s worth it. It’s what you are meant to do.
You tell stories of all kinds. Simple. Complicated. Painful. Joyful. Unbelievable true-and-false stories.
The best memoirs are filled with emotional and sensory details: visuals, smells, tastes, sounds, personal touches.
I think that is one of my strong suits … not only telling but showing readers the story, so that they must keep reading to find out what happens at the end of the story.
It’s rather like sitting with a friend in front of a cozy fireplace. That is what I will tell my workshop attendees to imagine as they begin to write their memoirs.
I don’t think you need to be famous to write a great memoir. It’s really the story that must be compelling, not the namedropping that some celebrities like to smear over every page.
You simply must be authentic and artful in the way you approach your story–whether it’s a story of love and loss, transformation, redemption, survival, success, or a recollection of a vivid place, time or person that makes your heart swell.
In addition to writing memoirs (somehow, I’ve written and published four since 2016) and encouraging others to bring their stories to the page, I enjoy reading memoirs.
January is a good time of year to assemble a recommended reading list.
Here are ten memoirs (written by famous and ordinary people) I have read over the past ten years that have moved me, entertained me, spoken to me, and broadened my appreciation for creative, true storytelling in the world of nonfiction.
By the way, I will share this same list with my memoir writing workshop attendees later this month. So, in a sense, you are getting an insider’s preview.
(Note: I have included one of my books–From Fertile Ground–on this list … because I feel it is an unusual creative concept/structure for a memoir about a family of writers sharing their diverse voices across three generations.)
Happy memoir reading (and writing), everyone!
***
My Recommended Memoir Reading List
The Year of Magical Thinking (by Joan Didion; 2005) … possibly the best book I’ve read about grief.
Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight Pets (by Nick Trout; 2011) … perfect if you are an animal lover.
From Fertile Ground: The Story of My Journey, My Grief, My Life (by Mark Johnson; 2016) … a writer’s mosaic about love and loss.
Between Them: Remembering My Parents (by Richard Ford; 2017) … revealing portrait of parents.
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me (by Bill Hayes; 2017) … gripping, personal, New York study.
The Best of Us (by Joyce Maynard; 2017) … finding true love late in life, then losing it to pancreatic cancer.
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (by Michael Chabon; 2018) … poetic snippets about a son’s love for his father.
All the Young Men (by Ruth Coker Burks; 2020) … a woman comes to the rescue for dying AIDS patients in the 1980s.
My Name is Barbra (by Barbra Streisand; 2023) … if you love Barbra, a must read.
My Mama, Cass: A Memoir (by Owen Elliot-Kugell; 2024) … revealing odyssey of a daughter constructing her life after the death of her famous mother.
No, those aren’t the names of three of Santa’s reindeer that will pull his sleigh tomorrow night.
But if you were one of more than 100 singers, dancers, and musicians on stage–or any of the 900-plus jubilant audience members who attended three sold-out shows–you felt sparkle, magic, joy and a lot more positivity, lush music, spectacular solos, and elfin storytelling pulse through your bloodstream at the Herberger Theatre (Stage West) in Phoenix over the weekend.
What you see here is the culmination of Recycle the Fruitcake, just breaths away from the end of act one of Lights, Camera, Elves!
I think it’s fair to say this number brought the house down in laughter, music, and mayhem.
Squint and look to the far right. That’s me wearing a giant gingerbread man costume. (My chorus pal Ezra played the other gingerbread man on the left side of the frame.)
Billy and Michael (two other dancers and chorus members) helped me perform a quick-change backstage.
They inflated my costume in about thirty seconds, so that I could return to bounce on the apron of the stage.
I waved my arms like a seven-year-old … not the sixty-seven-year-old guy I am … for twenty seconds. It was exhilarating and as close to skydiving as I will ever get.
Moments before I marched across the stage–arms extended carrying an enormous tin of toxic fruitcake, wearing a full-body orange hazmat suit, and teasing the dancers and the audience–“cause you never really know where fruitcakes might have been.”
Today–the day after our final holiday performance and an exuberant and playful cast party around Dale’s and Jim’s rainbow Christmas tree–I give thanks to the entire experience.
Even a slightly pulled right calf muscle didn’t deter me from hitting the gym with Tom at 9 a.m. and looking ahead to a quiet Scottsdale Christmas Eve with him … followed by a low-key Christmas Day with my older son Nick and his family.
Because as Derik (another second tenor, who played our Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus Santa) proclaimed near the end of our performance with a pink garland wrapped around his neck and the twinkle of Darlene’s piano keys over his shoulder …
“The magic of Christmas isn’t just in the gifts or decorations. It’s in the stories we share, and the music that brings us together.”
See you here in 2025 for more stories and more music.
What I share here always comes from my heart and the firing (sometimes misfiring) synapses of my brain.
Lately, I have been drawn to writing more poetry. It helps me to process the pain–personal and national–which I have been wearing like a cape that shrouds my best impulses and intentions.
Today, as Christmas and the end of the year approach, I am taking a different path.
Before I take the stage next weekend for my holiday concert with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus, I want to reflect on bright-and-shiny moments–present and past–which have been tempered by devastating-and-unavoidable losses in 2024.
***
Tom and I are among the dwindling few, who continue to send Christmas cards in the mail to our closest friends and loved ones.
It’s something that brings both of us joy, and in my book that means it’s something worth doing–no matter what other Americans do.
I know that practice places us in the minority (rather like the disastrous outcome of our presidential election), but I don’t care.
Since childhood, I have always identified as “different” or–more specifically–as an outsider. Maybe it was my brain’s subconscious attempt at preparing me for the obstacles I would face as a gay man.
At any rate, conformity is for the faint of heart. It takes courage to stand by your differences, and I have a feeling I will need to muster a boatload of courage as we head into 2025.
Maybe that approaching storm is why I have taken comfort recently in an old Christmas memory.
For several years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, before Dad had his first heart attack, he took Diane (my sister) and me in our old, green Plymouth to search for our family Christmas tree.
We didn’t have much money, so he usually drove us to a tree lot adjacent to a Site filling station. Strangely, I remember the price of gas was 29 cents a gallon on the sign that swayed in winter’s wind.
Dad was a tall man–six feet, two inches. One day I would reach that same stature, but going back sixty-five years, I was a little tyke with a wool stocking cap covering my crew cut.
Dad wanted to select a natural tree (usually balsam, because they were cheaper than Scotch Pine) that was at least his height, so when it was placed in a tree stand all of us (he, Mom, Diane, and I) could gaze up at the beauty of its lights, ornaments, and tinsel hanging on every branch.
In the cold and damp St. Louis air, it usually took us several rounds up and down the aisles of the tree lot to find the best shaped tree. But we always found one to our liking and–with heavy twine–somehow tied it to the roof of our sedan.
When we got home on December 4 or 5, our family practice was to cut a small notch off the bottom of the tree trunk, then deposit it into a metal bucket of water to keep it fresh.
Inevitably, the water in the bucket froze, but with a little heat from the Midwestern sun, around the middle of December we were able to pry it out of the bucket, screw it into our stand, and decorate our family Christmas tree in our living room.
***
Back to reality. We lost a few friends in 2024. Peggy’s passing in mid-November is the most recent.
I was touched and honored when Glenn–our dear friend, neighbor and one of the kindest and most dependable people I know–asked me to write his wife’s obituary.
Peggy’s memorial service last week was a beautiful reflection on her meaningful life as a teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, animal-lover, and upstanding citizen. I will miss her.
In general, I am aware of the “shrinkage” (and greater vulnerability) that comes with age–the loss of friends and family one by one, the institutions that close their doors, the connections that fray (literal or otherwise), the visits to the dentist to replace crowns and teeth that wear down and require repairs.
I experienced all of those in 2024. But there were inspiring moments, too.
Tom and I traveled to Minneapolis in July for the quadrennial GALA chorus festival. The singing, listening, bonding, and carousing with other LGBTQ friends and chorus members filled our cups and our hearts.
It was also a privilege to share England and Scotland with my husband in late September. That week-long tour–from London, to Bath, to Lake Windermere, to Shakespeare’s home, to Liverpool, and the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh–was our tenth wedding anniversary gift to each other.
And 2024 was the year I began to teach again. I had fun in October and November coaching a dozen aspiring and diverse writers in my first memoir writing workshop at the Scottsdale Public Library. I will do it again in January 2025 with a new batch of students.
***
It feels like the best way to end this meandering post is on a high note. So, why not share a photo of the pre-lit artificial Christmas tree Tom and I decorated and adore in our Arizona home?
On Christmas Eve, we will sit together in front of our tree, open our presents, and give thanks for the love we share and the diverse branches of family and friends in our lives who adorn our world.
For me, one of those branches is sharing ideas and stories with all of you.
Mark Johnson Stories 