Tag: Valley of the Sun

Late Bloomer

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It’s March. The Christmas cactus adorning our den is definitely a late bloomer–and so am I. I turned 65 in July, but that number hasn’t deterred me from continuing to write, sing, and create.

When I close my eyes, I can still channel 18-year-old unaware me. Tall and thin with long straight blond hair in 1975. Seated in an uncomfortable wooden fold-down chair. Legs crossed in Middlebush Hall on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.

I was an aspiring journalism major. One of a few hundred freshmen and freshwomen taking a required business course. Bleary-eyed from guzzling too much beer and demolishing late-night Shakespeare’s Pizza, we listened to our Marketing 101 professor.

He waxed on about demographics and American consumption. We doodled in our spiral notebooks.

What I remember most is that he told us the range of consumption occurred between the ages of 18 and 65. That’s when Americans had the most disposable income to spend.

The implication was that life, purpose, and relevance stopped after that. After retirement. After 65.

Of course, these days, life expectancy–for those who live to be 65–is more promising. But nothing is guaranteed.

At any age, “seize the day” is a smart strategy. Especially in your later years when (at times) it feels like you are riding in a runaway wagon racing downhill. Even if on most days you are enjoying the freedom and wisdom that comes with age as the wind rushes through your greying hair.

All of this is preamble to tell you that I am on the cusp of publishing my 5th book. It will be a collection of my best poems. Many of them explore love, loss, identity, discovery, disorientation, transformation, realization, and acceptance–spun through the ever-present influences of time and nature.

I began writing poetry in 1993. I was newly divorced, raising my boys as a single dad, working long hours as a communication consultant for Towers Perrin in Chicago, dashing for commuter trains, grieving the loss of my father, and beginning to understand myself and my emerging gay identity.

I have written dozens of poems over the past 30 years. Stashed them in an ever-expanding Word file. (If you follow me, you know I have shared some of them here over the past four years. The act of doing that has fed the poetry beast inside me. He’s now ready to emerge.)

Yes, at age 65 it thrills me to defy the logic of my marketing professor. To assemble my poetry and share it publicly–all in one place–for anyone who chooses to consume it.

Stay tuned!

March Mellow?

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Hardly. The latest western winter storm battered Arizona last night.

It dropped temperatures, ushered in the wind, and dumped a few feet of fresh snow on Flagstaff. Sixteen inches on Prescott, less than two hours north of us.

While, down in the Valley of the Sun, heavy rains soaked our saguaros.

This afternoon, nature’s afterglow appeared. A brisk fifty-five-degree walk along the Crosscut Canal proved we are protected on the north and east by ranges adorned with snowy peaks.

Squint, beyond a woman texting while walking her dog. See the tops of the Superstition Mountains thirty miles east? They won’t stay white for long.

“Are You Guys Brothers?”

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Tom and I get this question a few times a month–sometimes more often. In Arizona, Illinois, or anywhere in between.

We could be at the check-out counter of a grocery store, a restaurant as we wait to be seated, or on the treadmill at the gym we frequent in Scottsdale as we were on Monday.

That’s when a friendly man, wearing a San Francisco Giants ball cap, popped the question. (No, he didn’t ask me to marry him.)

In 2023, I generally smile and respond as I did Monday with “No, we aren’t, though we get that question a lot.” And the conversation ends there.

Depending on my mood–and how much I choose to share my personal story (after all, I am a memoir writer)–I have often gone on to say, “Tom and I are married.” Or “Tom and I are partners.” Or “Tom and I have been together for more than twenty-five years.”

Along the way, we have never received any open backlash concerning our relationship (nor should we). Quite the opposite. We have made more friends of all kinds because of our openness and comfort in our skins. (By the way, it took me decades to get here and I’m not going back.)

With time and reflection, I’ve realized that the question is more of an observation in the world of people we contact who aren’t able to classify the intimacy or closeness they identify between two men standing before them.

Or maybe it’s an acknowledgment on a less significant level that we have picked up some mannerisms from one another that two brothers might have in common. However, we really don’t look alike.

At any rate, I will continue to live my open life as a gay man–proudly–in my community. I will continue writing about my experiences–positive and negative–as a gay man, a husband, a father of two adult sons, a neighbor, a friend.

I will continue singing on stage with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus. As I write this, I have just completed drafting a script about five fictionalized characters living in the Phoenix LGBTQ community in 2023. Their dialogue will be the glue that ties together the music of our next concert: “Born To Be Brave”, June 3 and 4 at Tempe Center for the Arts.

I feel it is my duty to demonstrate that two men–a gay, married couple–don’t have to be blood brothers to love each other.

Especially in a country where some want to remove the books of gay authors from the shelves. Or try to erase the checkered history of our country on race relations because the truth is threatening to some. Or ban drag shows, because they view them as recruitment activities for current or future generations.

Okay, I’ll get off my soapbox now. But Tom and I aren’t brothers. We’re a gay couple living happily in 2023, and there are lots of us out in the world.

We’re making significant contributions. Loving our families. Loving our neighbors. Loving our friends. Loving the legacy, which we are leaving for future generations of children who need to know the truth about the past and the present. That there are all kinds of people in the world loving each other. And that’s just as it should be.

Super Noisy

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What’s all the yammering about?

Here in the Valley of the Sun–home to Super Bowl LVII in Glendale, Arizona, and the Waste Management Phoenix Open this weekend–the media hype is way, way up (somebody make it stop!) and so are the crowds of football and golf fans who have descended on Old Town Scottsdale.

Meanwhile, there’s lots of hammering happening too on Super Saturday.

A trio of industrious men are replacing the roof of our condo. As background, the planning for this project began a month ago, when heavy rain and pea-sized hail (yes, it hailed in the desert!) produced a leak on the edge of our north-facing roof on New Years’ Day 2023.

At this moment, Tom and I are holed up in our cozy den with our fingers and toes crossed. Outside tarps surround us. All of our containers of cacti and succulents are scattered or safely tucked under the eaves.

Hopefully, none of the old shingles (currently flying off the roof like a scene from The Wizard of Oz and landing on the ground in a series of whooshes) will destroy them.

That scraping and pounding is super noisy. But, if all goes well, we will have a new roof by noon today.

And after tomorrow–no matter whether the Chiefs or Eagles win the Super Bowl–the throngs from the Midwest and East Coast (Kansas City and Philadelphia, I’m talking to you) will begin to return home with sunny (and unusually brisk) Arizona memories.

Perhaps they will also leave with a tumbler like the one this local bought at our Fry’s grocery store to commemorate the madness.

Deep Caress

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I’ve missed our beneath-the-surface trysts.

You and your buoyant love, deep caress, soothing sparkle.

You are my quiet cove, splashing symphony, ever-gliding channel.

With every stroke, you steal me away from the din of demands.

Your flow–lapping up and racing by with no questions–surrounds me.

With each passing whoosh, you lead me by the hand and whisper.

“Float with me now in these reassuring moments.

This is where peace, promise, and repetition reside.”

On February 5, 2023–after nearly a three-month hiatus due to cooler-than-normal weather in the Valley of the Sun and a litany of other interruptions–I swam laps outdoors once again in our community pool at Polynesian Paradise in Scottsdale, Arizona.

A Better Place

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“Dogs have no idea how wonderful they are. They walk all around us and make the world a better place.”

***

On a chilly, but sunny, Thursday morning in Scottsdale, Arizona, this was Yumi’s thought of the day.

How serendipitous that our instructor should choose these two sentences as inspiration for Tom, me and six others on February 2, 2023, as we stood on our mats and began our weekly seventy-five-minute journey into yoga.

On Ground Hog Day fifteen years ago our basset hound Maggie crossed over the Rainbow Bridge.

When it’s your pet, you never forget the highs and lows long after the calendar pages have come and gone.

The frolics with Kirk, Nick, Tom, and me in the lush green of our backyard … the comfort of her velveteen elongated ears as I stroked her coat … the gnaws and crunches of rawhide bones and petite carrots as she gobbled up another evening snack, after racing to welcome us home at the kitchen door.

Then along came that sad-and-snowy suburban Chicago morning in 2008 when our dog endured another–particularly horrible– seizure.

After the shaking had stopped, she looked up at me with resignation from the tile of our kitchen floor without the energy or inclination to lick the maple syrup off a breakfast plate.

Soon after, Tom and I scooped her into our sedan, arrived at our vet’s office, and whispered goodbye to her as she sprawled on a blanket on the floor.

***

Today, seventeen hundred miles and a lifetime away from the northern Illinois home she patrolled and dominated, I recall the “glue” and comic relief our dog provided (through her warm fur, misshapen front legs, and bellowing howl).

She was the antidote for our non-traditional family: two men (in a loving relationship just doing our best to coexist in a less enlightened world) with my two sons zooming in and out of our life as they grew.

Our dog simply demanded our constant attention and stood by our sides witnessing it all.

It was the love and companionship of Maggie and the litany of her daily adventures–walks, feedings, treats, medicines, rabbits, squirrels, accidents in the hall, and countless cuddles–that magically connected us all.

Certainly, from 1998 to 2008, our dog made our world a better place.

Movie Mondays

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When Tom and I moved to Arizona in 2017, we were immediately impressed with the library system here in Scottsdale.

It consists of four library locations spread south to north through our community to cover the ever-expanding patronage of transplants from other places. Each is a book lover’s haven with artistic touches built into the architecture to reflect the landscape of the desert southwest.

Closest to us–the main facility–is Civic Center Library in Old Town Scottsdale. It’s a place my husband and I frequent to browse the stacks for something new or familiar to read. In the past, before Covid, it’s also where I participated in the Local Author Book Fairs.

What neither of us anticipated (until last fall) is that on a chilly-for-the-valley Monday–the twenty-third day in the twenty-third year of this millennium and five-and-a-half years since we called Arizona our permanent home–Tom would realize a lifelong dream there.

He would begin to lead a free, eight-week film series and discussion, stand in the Civic Center auditorium in front of sixty attendees (friends, acquaintances, neighbors, relative strangers, and film lovers) and share his deep knowledge and passion for iconic films from 1967-1977.

It’s an era characterized in the American film industry as the New Hollywood. A period of controversial, counterculture attitudes that would personally define and shape his love of film and its ability to combine art form with social statement.

But as I sat in the front row to watch Tom welcome library patrons and see the first installment of the series (A Decade Under the Influence, a provocative documentary chockful of film clips and interviews with directors, writers and actors from that era) it was Tom’s moment that mattered most.

He has always imagined the thrill of owning a small theatre. Of showing films from that era–and classics like the Best Years of Our Lives from our parents’ generation–to inform and entertain those who may or may not be familiar with them.

We don’t have the financial ability to do that. But we do have friends and connections in our community (thank you, Glenn). In this case, they aligned magically to put Tom in touch with library management and help make his dream bloom and grow in the desert.

During and after the program Monday evening, I could feel the buzz in the auditorium. Many came up to thank Tom for sharing his film expertise and personal anecdotes. Not to mention a handy dandy packet of fun facts and background information about the films, which Tom happily prepared and the library staff copied and distributed.

I expect that many of the sixty who attended will be back for the second film on January 30. They’ll certainly be there to see Bonnie and Clyde, the jarring, graphic, and spectacular film about the Barrow gang and Depression-era Texas.

I imagine they will also return to hear Tom’s film insights.

***

Note: If you live in the area and would like to attend, the film series runs from 3 to 6 p.m. on Monday nights until March 20, 2023, at the Civic Center Library, 3839 N. Drinkwater Blvd. Registration not required. Space is limited.

The program is a free eight-week class about original, creative films from the Hollywood renaissance. A look at how filmmaking evolved after relaxed censorship and rating systems gave filmmakers freedom to explore new subject matter and styles of cinematic expression. Discussions and screenings each week are led by Tom Samp. All films are recommended for mature audiences.

Schedule of Films: 

A Decade Under the Influence (January 23rd)

Bonnie and Clyde (January 30th)

The Graduate (February 6th)

Easy Rider (February 13th)

Midnight Cowboy (February 27th)

M*A*S*H (March 6th)

Five Easy Pieces (March 13th)

Annie Hall (March 20th) 

On Monday, January 23, 2023, Tom Samp welcomed attendees to the first installment of a free eight-week film series–The New Hollywood:1967-1977–at the Civic Center Library in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Every Heart Tells a Story

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On March 25, 2023, I will participate in the Phoenix-area Heart Walk, sponsored by the American Heart Association.

If you follow my blog, you know I am a heart attack survivor. You may not know that both of my parents died of heart disease: Mom on January 26, 2013 (almost ten years ago); Dad on November 26, 1993 (nearly thirty years ago). Both Helen and Walter appear frequently in my published stories.

One of my favorite photos of Mom and Dad, celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday on July 26, 1949, at a restaurant in Texas.

Obviously, heart disease is personal for me and millions of American families. I hope you will consider making a donation to support ground-breaking research that keeps hearts beating and enables other unsuspecting victims of heart disease and stroke (like me) live longer and write new chapters.

As an added incentive, if you click the link below and donate $30 to the American Heart Association, I will sign and send any two of my books (your choice) to you. I’ll pay the postage and include two of my personalized bookmarks.

http://www2.heart.org/goto/Mark_Johnson_HeartWalk_2023

Thank you for your kindness and consideration. Every little bit helps.

Nearly Ten Years

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Nearly ten years have passed since she passed January 26, 2013.

As this seismic anniversary of my mother’s death approaches, I feel a degree of grief’s numbness reappearing.

The time is right for me to sprinkle this space with reflections on Helen F. Johnson’s life: how much I loved her; what I learned from her; and why I still miss her.

I watched my mother grow in wisdom and shrink in physical presence–simultaneously–in her final ten years.

In those poetic moments–especially 2004 to 2009 when we visited at her condo in Winfield, Illinois–the two observations felt incongruent as we sat side by side on a park bench reflecting on her love of family, nature, photography, and letter writing.

But they don’t anymore.

Now that I’ve surpassed the midpoint of my sixties–favoring the quietest moments of life over all the rest–I see and feel the same transformation happening within me.

I’m far more inclined to record the moments that happen around me, because–like her–I have the time and the interest. She has left me an invaluable gift: a recognizable path and impulse to emulate.

My life has changed immensely since she died. I’ve retired from corporate life, married Tom, moved across the country, survived a heart attack, lost forty pounds, written four books, endured Covid, and built a new life in the desert.

Yet, it is when Tom and I spend time with my sons Nick and Kirk–her only grandchildren–that I am most aware of how long she has been gone and how much she loved us all.

They were both in their twenties in 2013. Searching. Unsettled. Preparing to launch. On the cusp of new personal discoveries and adventures. Since that time, they’ve traveled, found new loves, new jobs, new homes.

Kirk is now nearly 34; Nick almost 39. How she–a lover of plants and trees–would have loved learning that her oldest grandson stopped by our condo last Friday to pluck grapefruits, oranges, lemons, and tangelos from our citrus trees.

Or that Nick coached a Boys and Girls Club basketball team last year.

Or that Kirk traveled to Vanuatu with the Peace Corps in 2014 and more recently has found his counseling stride in a small practice in Chicago … helping patients who’ve experienced some sort of trauma.

Over this past weekend, Tom and I watched Milo and Miley (a friend’s two Shih Tzus) again.

The dogs are sweet, lovable characters. But I needed a little time to escape on Sunday to my thoughts and devices. So, I drove to Chaparral Park and walked around the lake for about an hour.

As I rounded a bend of pine trees which Tom and I love, I spotted an older man. He sat quiet, content, and alone on a park bench.

Seeing him reminded me of the moments my mother cherished in her eighties, pondering the world from a park bench. She could simply sit, enjoy the shade of the trees, read the newspaper or gaze at passersby.

Or she could wonder about the lives of her children and grandchildren … long after she was gone.

Fresh Batch

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New Year’s Day’s rhumba of rain and hail–with a rainbow sideshow in between–has left the Valley of the Sun soggy with champagne memories.

Enter a fresh batch of magnificent, cottony clouds to blot the skies over the Crosscut Canal and reveal January’s sparkling possibilities waiting on the horizon.