On Lies and the Simple Truth (Blog #1040)

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It’s midnight. For all that’s happened today and for all that I’ve been thinking about, I can’t for the life of me think of what to say. (There. That’s two sentences. Good job, Marcus.) Some days it’s easier to write than others. Okay, here we go. This morning I woke up feeling kind of junky, but now I think I feel better. Do other other people do this, go back and forth about whether or not they feel well? My body loves me, it loves me not. More and more I’m convinced that when it comes to our bodies, something is always working, something is always not working. We feel how we feel right here, right now.

For weeks I’ve been dreading this coming Wednesday. Because for weeks I’ve been fighting sinus stuff, and this Wednesday I have to work from sun up until after midnight. What if I feel miserable? I’ve been thinking over and over (and over) again. Then last week I started feeling better. (Whoopie!) Then two days ago I relapsed. (Boo.) Now I don’t know what’s going to happen. (Do we ever?) Yesterday I dreaded working all day today cleaning at a client’s, and yet it went fine. I was a little wiped out, but no where near exhausted or disgustingly sick. Indeed, I worked at my own pace and even enjoyed a book on tape as I scrubbed, dusted, swept, and mopped.

All that worry for nothing.

The book I listened to today was a juvenile fiction novel, but yesterday while raking leaves for my parents I finished listening to William Dameron’s The Lie: A Memoir of Two Marriages, Catfishing, and Coming Out. Talk about powerful. It’s about how the author, a gay man, maintained the illusion of being a straight man (by dating women, being married to a woman, having children, etc.) for decades. And whereas he obviously had to tell a lot of lies in order to keep his act up, he says it all started as a child when he first BELIEVED a lie, the notion that gay people aren’t worthy of love and a happy life.

You can be yourself.

I think about stuff like this a lot, about how lies complicate your life but the truth keeps it simple. I can’t speak for Dameron and have never been married (to a woman or a man), but I know what it’s like to be in the closet, and it’s full of lies and complications. You say, Oh, no, I like women. I just haven’t met the right one. You blow smoke up everyone else’s ass AND your own. All the while you’re trying to cover up your mannerisms and natural speech patterns. You lower your voice. You avert your eyes. Complicated. But when you’re honest, what’s to hide? You can be yourself. If anyone asks or you feel like sharing, you’ve got a one liner that goes, “I’m gay.” Even if someone says it’s not natural, you know it’s natural for you. Even if they say, “You’re going to hell,” it doesn’t change the facts. So you say, “Okay, I’m gay and I’m going to hell. Good. God knows SOMEONE needs to give that place a makeover.”

Simple.

I’m using being gay as an example, but this “lies are complicated, the truth is simple” formula can be applied to anything. Today at my client’s house there was a lot of clutter, and I caught myself thinking, They should be more organized (just like a fundamentalist might think, They should be more straight), the complicated part being that I then went down the rabbit hole of everything this person was doing “wrong” according the Gospel of Marcus. In short, I judged my neighbor (and forgot that their clutter was the reason I had a job today). But then I reminded myself that 1) it was their life, their house, and their clutter and 2) no one can be any more organized (or straight or kind or responsible) than they are in this moment. In the future, maybe. But not right here, right now. Right here, right now, we are as we are–organized, disorganized gay, straight, responsible, irresponsible, sick, not sick.

And that’s the simple truth, Ruth.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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We’re all made of the same stuff.

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On Gays and Egg Salad (Blog #1038)

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It’s almost midnight, and for the last thirty minutes I’ve been staring at my laptop trying to figure out what to write. (I got nothing.) Honestly, I’m dog tired. My bed is six feet away, and I’d much rather be over than over here. Indeed, my body is crying out for sleep. This evening I went out for Mexican food with my friend Aaron, and my head almost fell into the cheese dip. That being said, I still had a wonderful time and managed to stay more than alert for the drive home. But seriously, as soon as this blog is over, I’m out like a light.

I guess part of the reason I’m exhausted is because I didn’t get much sleep last night and have been going all day. Plus, I’ve eaten a lot. My insulin is working overtime. This morning I ate at a brunch buffet with friends and had three helpings. You know, to get ready for the Super Bowl, the official favorite holiday of gay men. (That was a joke, Mom. The official favorite holiday of gay men is Halloween. Because we get to pretend like we’re someone we’re not. Ironic, I know. You’d think all those years in the closet would have been enough pretending.) Anyway, after brunch, me and one of my friends ran around to a couple antique shops and one bookstore, where I bought an old book about nautical astronomy (how to navigate ships by the stars) for a dollar.

Something I’ve been thinking about tonight is how every book is a world unto itself. For example, the book I bought today includes charts and tables that if correctly read, understood, and used, would allow one to sail a ship around the globe using only the stars (and sun and moon and horizon, I’m assuming) for guidance. Talk about amazing. I can barely get to an out-of-town shopping mall without a GPS and three Hail Marys. But I digress. My point is that any book, fiction or non-fiction, has the power to open to you new and (hopefully) exciting ways of seeing the world. New ways of understanding. New ways of believing.

Along these lines, lately I’ve been thinking of individuals as books, each with his own way of perceiving, each with her own story to tell. And whereas our lives obviously overlap with the lives of others and we’re written into the chapters of our friends and families, no two books–er, no two lives–are exactly the same. Byron Katie says that each of us lives on a different planet, in a completely different solar system than everybody else. Meaning that in your book, in your world, gay people may be hated by God (or you rather, since we’re talking about the God in YOUR head) and condemned to hell. In mine, not so much. At one point this afternoon my friend’s sibling offered them egg salad, which the sibling obviously loved. “Ick,” my friend said. “I could never.”

See? Two different novels, two different stories. The story of “egg salad is delightful,” the story of “egg salad is shit.”

More and more, it’s becoming important for me to let people have their story and let people have their world. What I mean is that I have less and less interest in trying to change people, in trying to convince anyone that gays and egg salad are fabulous. This afternoon I stood amid thousands of books, and only one of them seemed so interesting that I reached for my wallet. But what? Am I going to insist that the other books be banned? Certainly not. Every book has a right to exist. Likewise, so does every person have a right to exist. Exactly as they are. With all of their experiences, opinions, and judgments. However contrary to mine or yours. This is love. It doesn’t demand that the people around us change one iota. Rather, it appreciates the fact that every book reads differently.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Along the way you’ll find yourself, and that’s the main thing, the only thing there really is to find.

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