Tag: reflections

O Christmas Tree

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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.

Happy Holidays!

***

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,

How lovely are your branches!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,

How lovely are your branches!

Not only green in summer’s heat,

But also winter’s snow and sleet.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,

How lovely are your branches!

Desert Moon

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As we count our losses,

we brace for shadows

and ripples lurking

in the darkness.

The comfort of an

undeterred desert moon

shines stillness.

It conjures hope

and the ebb and flow

of constancy living

on their own cycles.

It rises with flickers

of unfulfilled promises

and etched memories

of loved ones gone

but never far away.

They Fought So Hard

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Albert, Louise, and their three adult children–Thelma, Violet, and Walter–led ordinary lives.

In the fall of 1944, they were a big-hearted, hard-working, working-class family–living in a flat on Labadie Avenue on the north side of St. Louis.

To be precise, Thelma and Walter lived with their parents. Violet and her husband Harry lived nearby.

At any rate, they were a close family with strong opinions, loud voices, and a propensity to gather around the radio for FDR’s inspiring Fireside Chats.

Like all patriotic American families of that era, they planted a Victory Garden to grow their own vegetables, rationed household supplies, and bought war bonds to support American troops fighting overseas in Europe and the Pacific.

They did it all for the sake of protecting and maintaining freedom in a war-torn world.

Walter, Albert, Thelma, Louise, and Violet in late 1944.

When Walter was drafted and deployed to Europe (Harry, too) you might say the family had extra skin in the game of war.

He left New York Harbor–aboard the Queen Mary ship with hundreds of other soldiers–on New Year’s Eve 1944.

Five days later, he landed at the Firth of Clyde in Scotland … and, in short order, he found himself on the front lines scurrying from foxhole to foxhole in the Battle of the Bulge in the forested Ardenne region of France.

As the war in Europe wound down in 1945, he marched with the first group of US army personnel who met with the Russian army on the Elbe River on the eastern front of the war.

Walter survived the ordeal–in part because of the regular flow of love letters and encouragement he received from his sisters and parents.

Walter returned to the US on the U.S.S. Monticello in July 1945 … for a thirty-day leave prior to going to fight in the Pacific.

He was supposed to depart in mid-August, but on August 6, the US dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan and the war ended shortly thereafter.

Walter’s fighting days were over. He was discharged from the service on October 11, 1945.

A few years later–sometime after he met his future wife Helen in January 1948 at Westminster Ballroom in St. Louis–he confided that the Russian soldiers were some of the roughest, battle-hardened men.

At any rate, despite the “shellshock”, nightmares, and frozen feet Walter brought home with him, he (and Harry) came home in one piece.

***

I’ve thought a lot about Walter and Helen (my dad and mom), Thelma and Violet (my aunts), Albert and Louise (my grandparents) … the Johnson family … since the election last week.

All of them have been gone a long time, but in a sense–today–I feel I am grieving my own loss of freedom, as well as their legacy. The one they fought so hard to uphold.

I’m not giving up, but that is how I feel on Veterans Day 2024.

Early this afternoon, I pulled out Dad’s World War II army trunk.

It contains pieces of his uniform–including the wool hat and golden medallion he wore eighty years ago as he was preparing to preserve freedom on behalf of his country.

Finding it there with his few remaining possessions gave me strength.

In the coming days, weeks, months, and years, I’m going to do my best to draw from the resiliency in my family’s DNA to find specific ways to uphold democracy in my Arizona community.

You can be sure I also will continue to exercise my voice–through prose and poetry–and influence others in a positive fashion as we head into an uncertain and potentially ominous period in our country’s history.

Down, But Still Out

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When I saw you

from across the room

high-five your conspirators,

the simmer of my sadness

escalated into a boiling frenzy.

What audacity … to celebrate

at the funeral of my beloved,

to dance on graves and marble stones

that ripple and repeat on rolling hills.

While I grieve for her and them,

I grieve more for all of us

and what will come next.

Yes, I am down … gutted really.

But I am still out and

I am determined to rise up.

I still have my past and present,

even if I don’t know my future.

I still have my passion.

I still have my chosen family.

I still have my truth.

I still have my identity.

I still have my voice.

Blue Light Special

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There is no deep discount

for you to collect,

no razzmatazz reward

or ragged punch card

for you to accrue,

no extra credit

for you to capture

from the check-out lane,

no savings to realize

on the way out the door.

It is just these twinkling

blue lights of hope

that exist to frame

our fleeting worldview,

that implore us all

to imagine better possibilities,

that remind us

if we act now

to salvage our future freedom,

if we move forward

to heal from the past,

we may still be able

to rescue our civilization

from the jaws of decay.

Shadows and Memories

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Our funhouse shadows

lead us on new adventures

that unfold and stretch

in September’s sharp light.

We depart on weightless legs,

newborn colts

weaving and wandering,

ready to gallop

in the golden glow,

transformed with

magical memories

to carry home and savor.

***

I’ll be traveling for the rest of September. While I’m away, purchase my latest book, A Path I Might Have Missed, and enjoy more of my poetry.

I Dream

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I dream and gaze into a Sonoran sky,

where flames no longer lap at my tired tail,

and concrete runs smooth and cool,

and trusting birds fly slow and low,

and spirits rise high above tall trees,

and the constant chase has ended,

and the kitchen door is always open,

and I finally realize I’ve found home.

In Thirteen Feet

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I try to be careful, but I’m not a superstitious swimmer.

Life flows cooler and bluer when I navigate the deep end.

Back and forth in thirteen feet, more washes over and around me.

I have more room to glide, more room to imagine, more room to dream.

Student and Teacher

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It’s time to come clean. I haven’t been devoting enough time to an important piece of my life and identity. I haven’t been scheduling–and honoring–a critical creative need: uninterrupted time to write.

Like an untuned car with dirty spark plugs, this sputtering connection–between me and my creative self–has been misfiring for about a year.

Though I have produced creative things (like a few librettos for my chorus and a blogpost once each week), I haven’t been protecting my creative time. I haven’t been developing enough ideas that are purely mine.

It’s time to take action. To go back to school. To open the metaphorical hood of this mid-century car. To do something about it.

I know this is a challenge for all writers … and I’m luckier than most. I’m not juggling a full-time job at this stage of my life.

Still, external forces and demands often flood through the door–disrupting my good writing intentions. (Even as I began to write this, a sprinkler head outside our front door just went haywire. I texted one of our condo board members to tell him a fountain of water is spraying everywhere!)

I’m back to the keyboard of my writing universe. Beyond the whack-a-mole geysers that pop up in every life, it’s time I became more selective and vigilant with how I choose to spend my time.

It’s time for me to find a better balance again. To be more attentive to my own creative needs (like I did when I wrote and published four memoirs and one book of poetry from 2016 to 2023) … while still taking some time to help others.

Today I began by scheduling two hours–between 10 a.m. and noon–to write this blog post about the writing process.

Tomorrow, I have another two hours on my calendar. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday will be the same.

Perhaps it is fitting that I’m treating myself like a misaligned student, who needs guidance from the teacher in me. Because this fall I will be leading a three-part “Meaningful Memoirs Matter” writing workshop for up to eight students at the Scottsdale Public Library.

I’m excited about the opportunity to teach again. (In the early 2000s, I taught the fundamentals of public relations as an adjunct instructor for Roosevelt University in Chicago.)

I think this 2024 experience will be more fulfilling on a personal level than the communication courses I led more than twenty years ago.

I genuinely want to help aspiring writers in my community tell their own stories. I want to tell them they don’t have to be celebrities to do it.

Extraordinary things happen to all of us. Important stuff flies under the radar in our everyday lives.

Just as important, I want to share my passion for the memoir art form and set this small group of individuals on a path to discover and unearth their own voices.

Back to scheduling. One of the things I will tell my students is that writing is a discipline. It requires solitude, time, dedication, energy, and–of course–passion.

But if you start small and string enough hours, days, weeks, and months of devoted and affirming writing sessions together–with time–the misfiring or underutilized writing jalopy can become a well-oiled machine.

Simply writing this is helping me get my creative energy back.

It’s time for me to practice what I will preach. To nurture the most important pieces of who I am … the writer, the storyteller, the essayist, the poet, the creative protagonist.

Because I am happiest when I am producing something that is entirely mine. Something that speaks to our human condition. Something that celebrates our connections to animals and nature.

Something that amplifies the importance of raising your voice and sharing your truth … even if the rest of the world has blown a gasket.

In Summer’s Flurry

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In summer’s flurry of joyful singing, record-breaking heat, Covid resurgence, political revelations, and Olympics coverage, June is gone. July is close behind.

Until now, my Covid recovery, birthday revelry, and travels to and from Minneapolis for the 2024 GALA Festival prevented me from posting highlights from Encore, our Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus concert in late June.

Suffice it to say Encore was a musical review of favorite chorus moments and tunes (A Million Dreams, Some Nights, What Was I Made For?, Bridge Over Troubled Water, Proud, I’m Still Standing, For Me and ten more.)

Beyond that, it was also a reflective celebration of Marc Gaston’s twenty-two years as our artistic director–laced with storytelling vignettes (I wrote), LGBTQ anthems, and dazzling dance routines.

As a singer and one of several storytellers, I couldn’t be prouder of the program we created and performed for three exuberant audiences at Tempe Center for the Arts.

I will leave you with a snippet of dialogue … along with four images from the concert … that represents the joy, energy, rainbow colors, and love, which reverberated in the room away from the summer heat.

“When I sing with this chorus–these amazing people–and I absorb all the music and camaraderie, it feels like the sky is the limit. It feels like I could rule the world.” Mark Johnson, Storyteller #1, in Encore.