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.
I have a passion for learning, teaching, and uncovering the truth. So much so, that in another lifetime, I might have pursued a career as a full-time educator.
While that never happened, over the past thirty years, I’ve discovered episodic ways to teach … sharing my communication expertise as an adjunct PR instructor, opening minds as a diversity trainer and consultant, and–now–encouraging others to write and share their stories.
***
On Monday, October 21, fourteen people walked through the door of The Loft on the second floor of the Scottsdale Public Library. Each found a place at the table around a U-shaped configuration.
Lisanne, the library’s program supervisor, welcomed them, introduced me, and described each of my books (which she propped on easels at the far end of the room).
I sat–inside the U–smiling and ready to share my tips and guide them on their memoir-writing journey.
First, I asked each writer to introduce themselves. Some told me they have been writing in various forms for years.
Others have fought the impulse to do so or simply have never found the time or place but have always wanted to write.
“This is a safe space for you to begin,” I told them.
To mine vivid memories. To spin them into previously unwritten sentences. To shape them into stories that one day they may want to share with the world or simply pass along to immediate family and friends.
By the end of our first session together, we got to know each other better. I walked them through a “prompting” exercise.
Each person selected a random image–fanned out in my hands like a deck of playing cards–and then proceeded to write a paragraph or two relating to it.
One selected a photo of a tiger lily. She wrote (and shared) an especially sad, but poignant and revealing story about her flower-loving mother.
Another recalled a funny encounter with a monarch butterfly. All of the stories written and shared had merit.
During the last part of the class, they completed a three-page “Telling Your Story” Worksheet I prepared. It will be the baseline for each participant to begin to write their memoirs.
I asked each person to write one to two manuscript pages for next Monday’s session. I will offer constructive feedback at that time, and they will share insights with each other.
We will meet one final time to discuss another round of writing on Monday, November 4.
Already, this workshop is proving to be a meaningful experience for me.
I hope it is a catalyst for each of my fourteen fellow writers.
If I can make even a small difference as a library volunteer to help them on their storytelling journeys, my time–inside and outside the U–will be time well spent.
Writing is a solitary practice. But when our best ideas flow from our brains through our fingertips, it can feel like we are creating a galaxy of possibilities and fascinating characters to keep us company.
Still, we all need the support and encouragement of others to help us tell our personal-yet-universal stories, so that they touch the hearts and stimulate the minds of our readers.
To meet that need for external creative input, for the next three Mondays –October 21, October 28, and November 4 (from 4 to 6 p.m.) — I will lead a fun, interactive, and free memoir writing workshop at the Scottsdale Public Library, Civic Center location.
If you live in the Phoenix area, I hope you will join me. No reservations are required, but space will be limited. Arrive 30 minutes before the first class to get a ticket at the door. It will entitle you to participate in all three sessions.
Honestly, I’m excited to share a little of my time and memoir writing tips. And–perhaps–give a literary boost to a few individuals who are where I was ten years ago: ready to cross the creative threshold, but in need of direction and inspiration to turn memories into memoirs.
I am a writer, gardener, and gay man. Yesterday, today, tomorrow, ever after.
Those three dimensions of my life–hardwired into my DNA–aren’t the only attributes that describe me.
But they are the ones I choose to write about today.
***
Eight or ten years ago, when Tom and I were snowbirds splitting time between Illinois and Arizona, we bought a Mexican fire barrel cactus at a Desert Botanical Garden plant sale not far from our condo.
We planted it in a yellow ceramic container. Tom’s grandfather, Sam, left it behind when he passed in the fall of 2001.
(Beginning in the early 1970s, Sam and Lucy–Tom’s grandmother–lived in the condo Tom and I now call home.)
From the start, I loved the way the fire barrel’s red spikes vibrated year-round in the desert sun. Every April, it produced spectacular orange blooms. Plus, it didn’t require much water.
When we became full-time residents in the Grand Canyon State in 2017, I paid closer attention to this cactus.
It was a grounding natural force, stationed outside our backdoor on blazing July afternoons and crisp December mornings.
In 2020, during the height of Covid-19, we passed it every morning on our way to walk the canal.
Those were walks to simply stay sane. To keep our bodies and minds moving. To get lost in the beauty of the buttes near our home.
At one point, I began to notice that our Mexican fire barrel cactus was leaning south toward neighbors who would pass by. It was almost as if our spiky friend was listening to their conversations.
That observation inspired me to write Eavesdropping, an essay that appears in I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree, my book (published in 2021) about Arizona life.
Unfortunately, as it is with all forms of life, there is an ending. A closing of one loop and the beginning of another.
Today was the end of the line for our trusty, prickly friend. The relentless summer and early fall heat of 2024 in the Valley of the Sun decimated it.
This morning, I grabbed my thick gardening gloves and trowel. I pried the decaying cactus out of our yellow pot and deposited it in the dumpster.
The good news? I salvaged (and cleaned up) our vintage container with roots to my husband’s past.
It waits outside our backdoor for a new occupant.
***
Far beyond the gardens of our backdoors, backyards, patios, and public parks, each of us–gay, straight, bi, or trans–has the right to pursue and realize a happy life … ever after.
Today, the day after National Coming Out Day, I have some additional thoughts on this topic beyond what I’ve written before in this space and in my lemon tree book.
As I’ve said in the past, coming out is not a singular process. Of course, the first time you disclose your sexual orientation to family and friends is monumental, because there is always the risk someone important in your life may not accept you for who you are … or who you love.
However–even after you pull off that bandage, feel a sense of relief, and deal with the potential consequences of having risked personal loss simply for being yourself openly–there is the realization that we live in a predominantly straight world where some may not view you in a favorable light.
Every day, we who are gay find ourselves in situations where we need to decide if we will share our authentic selves in the moment.
What I’ve discovered is that when I stifle that authenticity impulse in certain social situations, I feel like I’ve lost my voice. That’s problematic for a writer … and a singer!
Here’s an example. On Day 1 of our recent-and-fabulous tour through the United Kingdom with twenty-two other vacationers and our guide Phil, we met the entire group for a “welcome drink” in the dining room of our London hotel.
As a part of getting acquainted, Phil asked us each to quickly share a little about ourselves and who we are.
Right away, I heard a few other couples–straight, older couples about our age from places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, etc.–say the trip was a wedding anniversary celebration for them.
About halfway around the room, it was my turn. I had two choices: to share that Tom and I were celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary; or to stifle that impulse, come up with some sort of alternative response, and withhold the joy I felt about exploring England and Scotland (two places we’d never been) with my husband.
At this stage of my life, it was an easy decision. Because, at age sixty-seven, I’m comfortable with my gay identity–and prepared for all sorts of responses–I chose the first option.
Doing so, freed me up to enjoy the trip on my terms. And you’ll be happy to know, that our fellow travelers–visibly, at least–accepted and embraced us for who we are … a married, gay couple.
Of course, I still remember the arduous times in my thirties and forties. Living in the straight Chicago suburbs. Trying to raise two boys as a single dad after a messy divorce. Coming out to my ex-wife, my mother, my sister, my sons, my coworkers, my neighbors.
The list was long. The process was painful. But I endured. Slowly, I began to love my true self … and so did most of the people around me. A few relationships fell by the wayside, but I have no regrets.
Yesterday, I took a spin through social media. One of my newer friends, who joined the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus recently, posted a video of him telling his story about coming out over the past year.
It was a story of pain, transformation, and personal fulfillment. Really, how he (with the help of a gifted counselor and close friends) loved his true self and was ready to share it with the world.
As I watched the video–and heard him say he and his wife divorced and that they and their five children have begun to move forward to find more solid footing–it nearly brought me to tears.
I am so proud of my new acquaintance, my new friend. I told him he is an inspiration for those who have yet to come out … and for those of us who already have.
Because, in this spiky world, I don’t think we can change hearts and minds, live happily ever after, or even simply be content, unless we are visible. Unless we share our whole selves.
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’m everybody’s neighbor or nobody’s, but I never labor.
My lives are too short to stray too far or work too hard.
It’s way more interesting to watch, wait, and wonder.
Sure, it’s okay to honor hard work. But what about play?
Shouldn’t we devote more days, more space for that?
Shouldn’t we pause every day for at least an hour or so?
Cause when it’s all over, I know what will happen.
We’ll wish we worked less and played more.
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.
In January 2014, the fog of grief occupied my brain and body. My mother had been gone one year, but I hadn’t yet found a constructive way to heal and process my grief.
Along the way, my husband Tom and therapist Valerie encouraged me to embark on a new path that would help me recapture my creative spirit.
I decided to leave my communication consulting career. Soon after, I began to write personal stories that mattered to me. Vivid recollections inspired and spawned by grief. Observations about love and loss in my family that helped me chart a new course and publish my first book, From Fertile Ground.
With time and reflection, I wrote four more books about the tender and whimsical ups and downs of childhood, the poignancy of leaving one home and surviving to find another, the adventures of creating a new life in the Arizona desert, and the poetry that has stirred inside me for thirty years and finally escaped to land on a page.
In small and large ways, my mother is in every one of those books and numerous essays. Yet she didn’t live long enough to read any of it, except one poem I gave her on Christmas Eve 2009.
I know now that writing about her in new and different ways has kept her wisdom and generosity alive and accessible for me.
July 26, 2024, would have been Helen F. Johnson’s 101st birthday. I knew I wanted to write about that, but until my fingers hit the keyboard, I wasn’t sure what I would say … because I thought I’d said it all before.
Maybe I haven’t.
How I loved and admired–and still remember–her tenacity. Her legacy of letters. Her devotion to family, friends, and the power of nature.
She would have loved the artistic life Tom and I have created in Arizona among the buttes and cacti. Writing stories, screening movies, singing songs, feeding stray cats.
Making new friends, while remembering old ones. Doing our best to guide and encourage my sons–her beloved grandsons–as they make their way toward the middle of their lives.
Cherishing each moment of our retirement years, without ever knowing where it will lead. Never wanting to know how or when it will end.
On July 26, 2012, we celebrated my mother’s eighty-ninth birthday together. It was her last.
Twelve years have passed. I’m much older, more appreciative and impatient. But also, wiser. Healthier. Gayer. Grayer. More contented with my own life and legacy. More worried about the world’s plight.
Grief is no longer my catalyst, my nemesis, my companion. Of course, I see it in the rearview mirror. But, with the passage of time, I discovered higher ground without the ghost of grief.
I no longer think of my mother every day. But when I do, I am grateful for the moments she and I shared–the gifts of memories and photographs I treasure–and the propensity to write about it.
All of this runs through our DNA.
The smaller one opened the door for me this morning … sometimes it’s the taller one. That made me happy … they were happy, too … I needed to feel the cool tile on my parched paws.
I was hungry … I didn’t catch a bird or a rat yesterday. Today I twirled around the taller one’s legs … the smaller one’s legs, too. They gave me something fishy and yummy … a little crunchy, too.
The taller one watched me as I ate … said something about a gold-framed mirror (I think) from his mom (I think)? He was happy he and the smaller one kept it when they came here 7 years ago … I guess, like me, they came from some other place.
They were opening lots of bottles … taking lots of pills … washing them down with water … their voices were scratchy … I think the smaller one and the taller one like each other.
I heard the taller one say that he was happy with the success (I think) of his concerts (I think) … but that it sucks (I think) that both of them (the taller one and smaller one) have to fight off Covid (I think) … again.
Hmmm, what is Covid?
The smaller one said it was like having a vacation (I think) at home together … that doesn’t sound so bad.
The smaller one and the taller one are nice to me every morning … and they keep feeding me. So, I want them to always be here when I stretch out on their mat … or under their bench while I eye the birds.
I want them … the smaller one and the taller one … to never go away.
I will keep coming back as long as they … the smaller one and the taller one … are here to rub my back and feed me.
Don’t look at me. It wasn’t my fault.
I have no idea what happened.
Sure, I’m a free spirit with time to kill
and now a better view of the butte,
but you wouldn’t dare blame me.
I’m not unhinged … not in this life.
Mark Johnson Stories 