Category: Essays

Reflections on Fatherhood

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In the metaphoric scrapbook of life, fatherhood is a life-long accumulation, an amalgamation of significant and insignificant moments, encounters and touchstones.

The day-to-day physical and financial responsibilities of fatherhood are long gone for me. That equates to a mix of heavy lifting, unconditional love, sincere relief, treasured memories, heartfelt celebrations, and a few episodes of painful regrets.

But that is all in the rearview mirror now. At this age (just a few weeks from my sixty-ninth birthday), my moments of fatherhood with my sons–Nick is forty-two, Kirk is thirty-seven–have morphed into fewer-but-sweeter encounters. A few shared dinners here with Nick. An exchange of “check-in” text messages with Kirk there, punctuated by bi-monthly, thirty-minute phone conversations.

It makes me happy to see how Nick and Kirk have built independent lives with meaningful relationships and sustaining jobs. My constant availability is no longer essential to their lives, but my love for them only continues to grow … and their love and appreciation for me and my life experiences does, too.

***

In June 2019, as Father’s Day approached, I wrote a piece about a conversation I had with Jacob. He was a new father and EKG technician who cared for me in Barnes-Jewish Hospital in 2017 in St. Louis, as I reclined on a gurney and dealt with the pain and uncertainty of a mild heart attack.

I remember how I provided encouragement for Jacob’s new status as a young dad as he attended to me. It took my mind off the trauma of those moments. So, in a sense, we helped each other navigate unchartered waters.

Our paths haven’t crossed since that inauspicious July day. But by now Jacob’s son is nine years old. I wonder how he and his dad are faring.

If I could speak with Jacob again, my advice–listed below in italics and pulled directly from my June 2019 essay–would include the same ten unsolicited bits of advice from seven years ago, but with a few additions.

***

1. Love your son … and tell him you do.

2. Listen to and validate his dreams.

3. Provide him with an honest and safe home.

4. Buy him nutritious food and encourage him to exercise.

5. Cheer him on when he succeeds. Encourage him when he fails.

6. Don’t spend a lot of money buying him new things. Spend it on shared experiences instead.

7. Teach him the importance of learning and saving for a rainy day.

8. Show him what it means to respect animals, nature, and diverse people.

9. Explain to him that it’s a sign of strength for a man to ask questions and show vulnerability.

10. Love your son no matter who he loves. Remind him that you will always be his dad.

***

Of course, the world has changed dramatically in the past seven years. It’s a more fearful place.

I still cling to hope that our country will find its way out of the abyss. For that to happen, the onus will be on dads (and moms) to give more of themselves. So, I have added these five caveats to my list:

11. Teach your son to honor equality and respect the past and present contributions of women and minorities.

12. Always seek the truth and beware of false idols.

13. Own your mistakes and learn from them.

14. Be a good neighbor and kind citizen.

15. Do the right thing. Stand up for your convictions. Your son is watching.

Too Darn Hot

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“But when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzlin’ hot, mister man with a plan is not. ‘Cause it’s too, too, too darn hot.”

***

As the heat rolls into the Valley of the Sun this week–100-plus high temperatures through Saturday–this snappy tune, which Cole Porter wrote in 1948 for his Broadway show Kiss Me Kate, repeats through my brain.

It’s certainly “Too Darn Hot” to hike outside in June here, unless you do it early in the day. That’s what I–and a young woman walking her Boston terrier–did Monday around 9 a.m. Nobody else was on the Papago Park trail near my home.

This morning I opted for swimming thirty lengths in the relative cool of Chapparal Pool. How I’ve missed submerging myself underwater (thanks to a couple of dermatological procedures that kept me at bay).

In the afternoons, you’re better off holding up in the Scottsdale Public Library to escape the heat. That’s where Tom and I have sequestered ourselves today, along with a few dozen others, strategically stationed at square wooden tables, hovering over their books and laptops.

Other than the heat references, why would I be channeling an old Broadway tune? Because my next choral concert with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus–“Broadway Lights”– is fast approaching: June 27 (2 p.m. and 7 p.m.) and June 28 (2 p.m.) at Tempe Center for the Arts.

As described in our promotional materials, “It will be a spectacular celebration of some of Broadway’s most beloved musicals. From the soaring melodies of Wicked and The Sound of Music, to the show-stopping energy of Hamilton, Moulin Rouge!, Hairspray, Into the Woods, The Book of Mormon, The Wiz, and The Greatest Showman, this season finale is packed with music that has captivated audiences around the world.”

Coincidentally, “Too Darn Hot”–timed beautifully with the inevitable onset of our desert heat–is the closing number for Act One.

If you live in the Phoenix metropolitan area, step into one of the coolest concert venues around: the Tempe Center for the Arts. Get your tickets at http://www.phxgmc.org.

You may be wondering “Since it is Pride month, is there a LGBTQ Pride element to this concert?” The answer is a resounding “YES!”

My chorus mate August and I have teamed up to write the libretto for the concert. It features nine storytellers, who will describe how Broadway music has served as a beacon for the LGBTQ+ community in happy and sad times.

Together–the music, the stories, and a slate of hot dance numbers–will combine to create a full theatrical production, which our loyal audience has come to expect.

This will mark the completion of my ninth season (singing and writing for) with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.

I still recall auditioning for the chorus in August 2017. Tom and I had just moved to Arizona from the Chicago area.

I was depressed and anxious, desperately trying to regain my health, to uncover an unobstructed view after surviving a heart attack on the way west in July 2017 on our sixtieth birthday.

Finding the chorus, nurturing new friendships, and reigniting my passion for singing has been a key element in my recovery. It helped me lighten my mood and smile again.

When I step onto the stage again on June 27, I know I will feel grateful for the music and the nine years of creative discovery. But also, for this safe haven. This supportive community of people.

They have helped me to realize I still have a lot to give. I still have a lot to say. I still have the ability to stand on a stage and raise my voice, especially now as we cling to the hope that–maybe someday–our democracy can be salvaged.

Hope Is Never Silent

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Today–May 22–is Harvey Milk Day.

On what would have been his ninety-sixth birthday, I want to remind the world that Harvey Milk’s spirit of compassion, authenticity, equality, and hope still lives within each of us in the LGBTQ community … nearly fifty years after his assassination in November 1978.

In 1977, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Despite his short political career, he quickly became an icon in San Francisco and a galvanizing force and inspiration for the LGBTQ community for his unbridled commitment to civil rights.

We will never know what Harvey Milk might have said if he had lived to see the dream of national marriage equality become a reality in the United States in 2015 and now–eleven years later on the other end of the spectrum–to witness the rapid, daily decay of American democracy, American institutions, and American civil liberties.

But I’m a hopeful person and so was Harvey.

He believed “hope is never silent.” He also believed in visibility, whether it means two men holding hands while roller-skating under the palms or standing in protest … raising our voices in solidarity … and living openly on days that aren’t nearly as sunny.

In these frightening times, the impulse for some might be to take a step or two back into the closet. But Harvey would have encouraged all of us–gay and straight–to do the opposite. To step forward with conviction.

Take a moment to read some of Harvey’s encouraging words.

Harvey’s hope and memory is a salve for all of us–gay and straight–who believe in truth and decency.

Though Harvey is long gone, his legacy of authenticity and hope still lives.

***

“I know you can’t live on hope alone; but without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you and you: you got to give them hope; you got to give them hope.” Harvey Milk

“Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.” Harvey Milk

To Sir, with Love

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Be forewarned. This is not a story about the 1967 British drama film starring Sidney Poitier.

Though as background, in a riveting performance, Poitier portrays Mark Thackeray, an unemployed Black American engineer who takes a teaching job in a working-class London school.

Thackeray clashes with a band of rowdy high school students. Along the way, he challenges their prejudices, navigates social barriers, and–ultimately–earns their respect with innovative teaching methods.

It’s a profound story about the challenges of educating through discrimination. In the end, we viewers feel the emotional triumph of Thackeray’s accomplishment and are treated to Lulu’s rousing rendition of the title song.

If you’ve never seen the iconic film, I recommend it. Few films are more reminiscent of the sights and sounds of the turbulent 1960s.

But what I really want to write about today is the labels we use to address one another, and how those monikers change as we age.

This morning, as I finished a thirty-five-minute set and dismounted a treadmill at the Scottsdale Community College gym, a fortyish man exercising behind me smiled and announced with kindness (not love), “Sir, you’ve dropped something.”

I glanced down to discover my Silver Sneakers membership card lying on the floor next to the treadmill. I thanked him profusely, picked up the card, then proceeded to wash down the machine with a disinfecting wipe.

This experience gave me pause. At this stage of life (my late sixties) I am most often addressed as “sir” in situations like this with strangers in public forums. Certainly not, “young man”. Because I am not that.

I am certainly no longer a “boy” either, even though I definitely identify as male (he/him) and an elderly neighbor refers to my husband Tom and me as “the boys”. (She has known Tom since he was a “boy” visiting his grandfather.)

Anyway, I suppose I am “sir” to the outside world as I approach my sixty-ninth birthday in July. Better than “Hey You!”, it’s a respectful, somewhat formal, fatherly (dare I say grandfatherly even if I am not one) acknowledgement of who I am and who I have become in my older-and-sorer-but-still-relatively-fit body.

But I hope you’ll always refer to me as “Mark”, that generally kind, friendly author and gay man who is doing his best to stay sane in this dystopian country by writing about our everyday happenings that fly under the radar.

Looking Over My Shoulder

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Back and forth from one end of the pool to the other on this hotter-than-average, magnificent March morning. March 24, 2026, from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m. to be precise. Thirty lengths in the deep end of Eldorado Pool in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Somehow, I wrangled my own lane today. I don’t mind sharing but always feel freer on unobstructed Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are fewer swim-class participants to contend with on those days and–now that the Cactus League baseball games have ended–some of the snowbirds have begun to flock home.

Breathing every eight or ten strokes, looking over my right shoulder, swimming south to north, I spy the blazing sun that threatens my sensitive skin and the wispy-white contrail of a commercial plane flying high above.

Serendipitously, the repetitive swimming motion reminds me what I want to write about today. It is the tenth anniversary of publishing my first book: From Fertile Ground.

On March 24, 2016, Barack Obama was president. I didn’t imagine the waves of what was to come: the growing political insanity, the dismantling of once-reliable American institutions, the general implosion of our democracy in one decade. Who could?

Back then, Tom and I were snowbirds–splitting time between our homes in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and Scottsdale, Arizona.

I wrote most of my inaugural book–a three-generation writer’s mosaic about love and loss in my family–from the suburban flatness of northern Illinois.

But working online–back and forth like a swimmer logging laps between my editor and book designer in Nashville, Tennessee, and me in Scottsdale–I made my final edits in the rugged western landscape of the Grand Canyon State.

I remember the pride of holding the first physical copy of my first book later that week. I know I cried. It was a release of joy and amazement. Most definitely, a seminal moment I shared with my husband.

Sadness crept in, too, because I had written the book to process my grief after my mother’s passing. In a physical sense, I wasn’t able to celebrate that literary moment with her.

But I also know that writing about her and her wisdom-filled letters, my father and his unrealized poetry, my grandfather and fifty-three years of diary entries, and the general sense of freedom I felt visiting my grandparents in the 1960s at their rambling North Carolina farm allowed me to create a healing path out of my grief.

It was–and still is–a story I was meant to write and publish. One I wanted to share with others navigating the devastation of grief.

In the past ten years since From Fertile Ground was born, writing has become that free, unbridled swimming lane that is purely mine. Welcome waves of water and creativity running from my mid-fifties to my late sixties.

Whenever I jump into my writing in the deep end of my emotions, I find a way back to the surface with a new story. Many of them have landed on the pages of my other five books: Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator in 2017; An Unobstructed View in 2018; I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree in 2021; A Path I Might Have Missed in 2023; and Sixty-Something Days in 2025.

Of course, I take pride in that body of work and–more recently–find it tremendously gratifying to share what I have learned with other writers, who need an experienced coach … and a few practical ideas … to tell their own stories.

Today, I also pause and wonder–with a touch of sadness as I write this–how many more stories lie ahead for me. Though I still feel strong, capable, creative, and alive in these golden years swimming back and forth under the Arizona sun, I also feel more vulnerable.

Part of it is the process of aging. The other is the narrowing swim lanes of American society that constrain freedom and the expression of ideas.

Having said that, I choose to end this story on a positive note. Today, I choose to relish the goodness of my life with Tom in this rugged landscape. To give thanks for all the stories that have come from fertile ground over the past ten years … as well as those I have salvaged from the depths of the pool looking over my shoulder to beloved people and places that now live on the page.

All About Angels

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In the soundtrack of our lives–I believe one exists–sometimes a word or phrase from a conversation with a friend or acquaintance stops us in our tracks.

That happened for me recently while wearing my Writer in Residence hat at the Scottsdale Public Library in a one-on-one meeting with another writer. She looked at me with kindness and said with a warm smile:

“I’ll bet you’ve had lots of angels in your life.”

My response? “Yes, I have!”

I am not a religious person, but most definitely spiritual. So, I took her observation to mean there are unexplained positive forces at play … weaving in and out of my life with love.

I have definitely had my share of “guardian angels” in my sixty-eight years.

Some have appeared at my side for long stretches. Tom (my husband), Helen (my mother), and Valerie (my therapist years ago) have been visible angels in my life with lasting influence.

Others, like Rachel–a nurse at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who floated in and out of my room in the middle of the night–helped keep me alive after I suffered a mild heart attack in 2017. She was mostly assuredly an angel.

Then there are the non-visible angels with wings that take flight in unusual ways. For instance, the serendipitous feelings of warmth and safety I feel when I am gardening, or singing, or swimming, or writing, or walking in nature.

Whenever this happens, I feel like angels are watching over me.

I’m a believer that whatever energy we spread in the universe in our everyday lives–good or bad–it eventually finds its way back to us in waves that envelope us.

As I get older, I find myself pondering these metaphysical or philosophical questions more closely. I’m more open to the idea of forces at play that don’t always add up mathematically or logically.

Certainly, at the end of the day–at the end of my life whenever that may be–I’d rather be held up by the wings of an angel for the love and goodness I’ve brought to the world than destroyed by the deleterious effects of a devil for the havoc I’ve caused.

Red Roses and Pink Orchids

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Red roses and pink orchids

Adorn our living room today.

It is a day to celebrate love.

Romantic love is the headliner.

I am thankful for my husband,

Our love, our mutual understanding.

We have been together nearly thirty years.

We were able to marry in 2014

On a bright September afternoon.

We continue to grow and love together.

We nurture each other’s passions.

We provide a warm haven

For each other as we age.

But love exists in many shapes and sizes.

Devoted friendship.

Brotherly and sisterly love.

Parental love. Neighborly love.

Love of nature and animals.

Love for the good of all humanity.

These forms of love are just as important.

We all need to feel loved to flourish,

To live with dignity. To survive.

Not just on Valentine’s Day. Every day.

Certainly, there is love in our country.

But the malignancy of hate abounds.

Endless, unbridled love is the antidote.

When love coalesces with truth and justice,

We will reemerge from the darkness,

Holding an abundance of red roses and pink orchids.

Early Reviews

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As a one-man-book-writing-and-selling band, I find myself switching hats from creative storyteller to active listener to self-promoter on a daily basis.

Today, in the waning moments of November, self-promotion is taking precedence. After all, if I don’t believe in the viability of my storytelling capability, who will?

Happily, I’ve begun to receive early reviews of my latest book, Sixty-Something Days … posted online, sent via text, and offered enthusiastically in person.

Feedback in any form is better than silence. But it is especially meaningful when it is specific … when it is unsolicited … when it is affirming.

As this Thanksgiving weekend winds down, I give thanks for these three readers who–in recent days–took time out of their busy lives to tell me what they think of Sixty-Something Days.

***

J wrote the following review on Amazon … “I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The author, Mark Johnson, shares with us his intimate life story of personal growth, overcoming challenges, and being true to those around him, and most importantly, to himself, even under difficult circumstances. Told in the style of a memoir, with essays, poems, and fiction, Sixty-Something Days, shows us all what it takes to be better friends and spouses, members of our communities, and citizens. This world would be a better place if we were all more like Mark Johnson. Highly recommended.”

N sent me this message via text … Good morning! I am just sitting down to read your Sixty-Something Days, and the first pages have me feeling happy! Sixty-five Thoughts (the name of one of the early essays) are right on and I will share some of them as I move thru life. Thanks for writing this book and I look forward to reading the rest!

D greeted me in person with a smile at a recent event … “I have to tell you I’m just loving your book. The stories are brief but meaningful. Strung together, they produce something much greater. I’m about to begin 2025 (the book is organized by years) and I don’t want your book to end!”

***

Perhaps I have sufficiently enticed you to read my latest book. If so, click the link below.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FZM2724S?ref_=ast_author_dp&th=1&psc=1

The Trails of Life

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The trails of life have always intrigued me. This one rises and falls along the eastern edge of the Desert Botanical Garden near my home.

In the eight-plus years I’ve lived in Arizona, I imagine I have frequented this trail of mesquite trees and Palo Verdes hundreds of times on hot, warm and coolish days with my husband and friends–and on my own.

Today, while Tom headed to the gym, I walked it alone. Slowly. It gave me much-needed time to heal from fever and congestion that knocked me for a loop for thirty-six hours.

But today my temperature is normal. I’m feeling much better. It’s a sunny seventy-three-degree morning in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Walking this trail of life, I had a few minutes to reflect on the joy of completing another book … the afterglow of releasing Sixty-Something Days into the world.

Already a few readers have sent me notes telling me how much they are enjoying the book and how much it is resonating with them.

Receiving these messages of encouragement never gets old. Along the trails of life, we all need encouragement, support, and validation.

Thank you for sticking with me on this journey.