April exits stage left,
bidding adieu, waving her
Sonoran brush of trade winds
and soft apricot. They dance
down walls to touch natural oak,
warming, welcoming, watching
every moment of our lives.
Outside, hours before midnight,
cottonwood trees sway.
They whisper of mad
May days to come,
while we will find comfort
in what we can control,
who we greet with love,
even as we ponder what
western treasures to
embrace and behold
in the desert lodge
of our Arizona abode.
Sculpted or not, spectacular public art soothes the sharp edges of our daily lives. For just a few moments in the center of any city, it frees our minds of responsibility and replenishes our spirits … especially when it pays tribute to local nature and history.
Mark Rossi’s Three Blacktail Jackrabbits, located at 700 S. Mill Avenue in downtown Tempe, Arizona, reflect the natural history of the Phoenix Salt River Valley. His Groomer Rabbit, Guard Rabbit, and Restful Rabbit (built in 1993) welcome passersby with whimsy and provide a year-round oasis.
When Tom and I landed permanently in our Scottsdale condo, it was an odd year.
Odd in a meteorological sense; when we pulled into our carport, it was 112 degrees outside on July 12.
Odd in a traumatic sense; I had suffered a minor heart attack six days before on our 60th birthday.
Odd in a serendipitous sense; the cardiac trauma happened in St. Louis (where I was born) in the middle of our move.
Odd in a numerical sense; it was 2017.
That year, we did our best to settle into our new life. We focused on the most essential items: buying a new air conditioning unit and creating a new healthcare regimen to rehab my heart and restore some sense of normalcy to our lives.
We were two mid-century guys, doing our best to settle into our mid-century condo, happy to have survived a scary personal experience, grateful for the chance to write a new chapter in a space that had been home to Tom’s grandparents (and, in a more limited sense, his parents) years before.
Sadly, by 2017, they were all gone. Even so, we had an important remnant of their lives to keep us grounded. It was our turn to–slowly–make it our own.
Under more normal circumstances (i.e., not enduring a heart attack in the middle of our move), we might have pushed more aggressively to transform our condo. But surviving together superseded remodeling and refreshing.
With time, I regained my strength. Tom and I both began to breathe more easily. When a little thing called Covid arrived in 2020, it prompted us to rethink our space, because–of course–we had more time to stare at our condo walls.
In 2021– it was odd again — we hired a paint crew to turn both bedrooms green and serene. We replaced the carpeting there. Later that year, we remodeled our bathroom.
Now it’s another odd year: 2025. Odd (as well as disturbing) in more ways than I care to enumerate in this essay. Let’s just say it’s the perfect time to wave goodbye to dingy off-white walls and adorn our living room and sunroom with a splash of two new colors.
With all of that as my preamble, I’m in the mood to tease you a little. Guess which two colors on this palette will appear inside our home beginning next week.
When the work is done (and we have replaced the tired grey/blue carpeting in our living room and sun room, too), I think it will feel like we have finally created the Arizona space Tom and I imagined eight years ago in April.
That’s when we put our suburban Chicago home on the market as the daffodils bloomed on another chilly midwestern day.
That’s when we began to pack up our most important possessions in Illinois for a chance to create a new life of unforeseen friends, books, blogs, stories, movies, and memories in the Valley of the Sun.
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.
Why do we gravitate toward
an idealized arrangement
of natural design and beauty,
heaping layer upon layer
of flat stones separated
from orderly round ones?
Do these walls stand
compressed in architectural
tribute to planned selection
over the stew of spontaneity?
Why does man’s comfort
with the squashing power
of conformity supersede
the messy-but-meaningful
marrow of our diverse story
… our diverse history?
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?
That fearful quandary led me to write this poem.
****
If We Were Gone
If we were gone,
you would miss
our minds, our hearts,
our beauty, our tenacity,
our sensitivity,
our sensibility,
our kindness, our love,
our compassion, our humor,
our leadership, our style,
our guidance, our wisdom,
our friendship, our support,
our joy, our pain, our truth,
our sun, our moon, our stars,
our books, our movies,
our artistry,
our contributions,
our serendipitous stories.
But, most of all, you
would miss us.
You would miss
the clarity and
strength of our
distinctive lives
and beautiful voices.
That would be
the greatest loss of all.
I thought I’d seen it all,
towering above,
connecting parched earth
to every blazing sky
with few monsoon
storms racing by.
But something sinister stirs,
threatening those who dare
to gaze high and pass my
lofty four-generation station
to seek aid and find shade.
I can’t bear the crash,
our tumbling down
never again
to stretch or grow
in our forever dreams.
Yet my weary branches ache,
because I suspect
without our canopy
of truth, strength, and justice
our best days together
will have come and gone.
***
According to the Arizona Forestry and Fire Management Agency, “Mr. Big” is the largest red gum eucalyptus in the U.S. Located in the picturesque desert confines of Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, he stands 117 feet tall with a circumference of 22 feet. He was planted here as a three-year-old sapling in 1926. A wooden fence and security camera surrounding the base of the tree are designed to discourage thoughtless people from carving their initials in the trunk. On February 6, 2025, I captured this photo of Mr. Big with my husband Tom during our Boyce Thompson visit. Mr. Big’s presence, threats to nature from global warming, and the upheaval in our country have inspired me to write this poem.
Music is a great elixir for what ails you.
What ailed me for three years–2013 to 2016–was grief spawned by the loss of my mother.
Listening to Annie Lennox’ soaring voice–her Nostalgia--pulled me through and beckoned me to complete my first book From Fertile Ground.
You see, Annie’s rendition of twelve stirring and mostly southern-sometimes-smoldering tunes written in the 1930s and 1940s primed the pump of my southern sensory memories.
Sometime in 2015, I unearthed a tender memory of making homemade peach ice cream with my grandmother Georgia on the rickety porch of my grandparents’ North Carolina farm.
It was Annie who reminded me that I had Georgia on My Mind. Sherrell Richardson Ferrell, too–S.R. for short. He was my farming grandfather who left behind more than fifty years of diary entries.
Annie’s music, Georgia’s love, S.R.’s spartan stories (primitive blog entries really), and Helen’s litany of letters (she was my wise mother) gave me all the creative inspiration I needed to finish and publish my first book in 2016.
Why is this all relevant today? Because I have Helen on my mind. She died twelve years ago on January 26, 2013.
For the most part, my writing and the constant love and support from my husband Tom have helped soften the grief as the years continue to roll by.
Helen would have been happy for me on both counts. She suspected Tom and I would retire in Arizona one day.
However, I doubt she would have imagined the entirety of this literary chapter for me, which lately includes teaching memoir writing at our local library. (I’ve been asked to lead a third workshop in April.)
Or the growing community of loyal followers Tom has inspired with every immersive movie series he hosts (also at the Scottsdale Public Library). His next series–Movies That Matter: The 1970s (a tribute to six film directors)–begins tomorrow and continues on most Mondays until early April.
I firmly believe it is the arts and the artists–like Annie Lennox, even the less renowned ones like Mark Johnson and Tom Samp–who through their music, writing, painting, poetry, and true cultural perspectives will help pull us through this dark and uber-turbulent period in our once-proud country.
For now, that is the hope I cling to. Along with the memories of love and gratitude–the nostalgia–framed by indelible moments with family and friends past and present, who I love dearly.
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.
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!
