There was a time when my fingers regularly danced across the keyboard, when I would drive and draft in my brain and when the words would find their way to my Blog. There was much thought about the content, but very little over the act. Over time that changed, the joy of the writing replaced by fears, fear of who was reading it (I remain married to the mother of my children, I have a boyfriend, I am not one for secrets); a fear of the name of the blog – Am I bi or gay, is “MWM” still true.
Of course there was also this issue of who I was writing for – me, others - both? Time is always a factor – the days fly by and I am no longer alone in the basement at night. I still stick with the choice of doing over writing and doing does keep me busy.
But I confess – I miss the writing. I miss being forced to form my thoughts coherently. I will miss not having a diary to go back and read – that picture of where I was a year or two earlier. And as shallow as it may sound, I miss the comments, both those that kept my honest and those that fed my ego.
Carrie pointed out recently that I should write if for no other reason to share with those who have followed this journey, particularly for those a step or two in my wake. And a journey it still is: one with costs and one with rewards.
The next question for fixation: which Blog – “Tales” or “Second”. The answer comes more easily than I would have thought. Nate’s Second was always a misnomer: it creates a before and after dividing line in a life which has had many befores. So while Tales of a BiMWM may in many aspects be inaccurate, it is where I came into this blog world and where I will stay. Anyway, there are still all the links and maybe someone is still reading.
So I will try my hand at this again – never with the frequency at my peak, I have neither the time nor the angst. And maybe it will quickly fade. Only time will tell. But one thing I have learned: as often or infrequently as I post, it will be the perfect interval.
If you are reading this on Nate’s Second, see you back at home base.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
The Mother of All Denials
Over the course of the last few months – my non-blogging period, I have started many posts in my head. They come and go, all seemingly important at the time but none quite so earth shattering in hindsight. But there are themes that keep recurring and last week I found myself again in a state of wonder. I once wrote a post called Flip Books, a story of how all the little pre-gay moments once strung together made some sense, to my friend listening and to me speaking.
Last week I was transported back to a moment when I was maybe twenty-five. The scene was simple enough – sharing a bed with someone a few years my junior, an out-of state guest. He likes to tickle and I passively enjoy his fingers dancing all around my body. It is summer, it is night and at best I have on a pair of boxers. After what felt like forever – my arms, my legs, my chest, almost all of me touched, I am hard. Lying there on my back there is no hiding it, nor any desire to, and he touches me, fingers dancing up and down. It doesn’t take long – I cum, cum very hard. Even now as I type the memory makes me hard. Once over, it is sleep. Nothing said: a brief encounter.
I share the story with my friend, a twinge of embarrassment in the telling. But that feeling dissipates quickly when my friend has the “punch line” while I am still setting the stage. (Yes, I talk like I write – a bit wordy). We laugh at my hesitancy but there is more.
It is one thing to look back and remember once having been unwittingly and comfortably in a gay bar or to recall thoughts of a circle jerk at age ten. But here is a moment: I was twenty-five or so, an adult out on my own. Clearly this was not a nuanced moment. Another man’s fingers dancing up and down one’s penis, the feeling of excitement, of cumming: this was very gay indeed.
Here I am a single man living in as gay friendly a spot as exists. The Stonewall is already history (not that I would have known). I have my own apartment, can come and go as I please. I do have a girlfriend but still I was not married, no children, nothing to stop me. It was not as if I made a policy decision: “Can’t be gay, too difficult.” Just total denial.
While sub-conscious, it had to be the fear, the fear of disappointing family and friends, fear of the unknown. It was, in fairness to me, a very different time for being gay, danger in all forms. But if I looked back and could remember a policy decision, an “I am gay but choose not to follow it” moment, it would make some sense.
My friend will read this and wonder as to the point and maybe there is none. It is just that I cannot escape the damage in my wake, the failed marriages, the broken homes and not wonder how much could have been avoided with a small dose of self awareness. I suppose this is all a good turn, having gone from wondering if I am gay to wondering how I missed it for so long. I suppose it comes down to my current feeling of comfort, but that is for another post.
Last week I was transported back to a moment when I was maybe twenty-five. The scene was simple enough – sharing a bed with someone a few years my junior, an out-of state guest. He likes to tickle and I passively enjoy his fingers dancing all around my body. It is summer, it is night and at best I have on a pair of boxers. After what felt like forever – my arms, my legs, my chest, almost all of me touched, I am hard. Lying there on my back there is no hiding it, nor any desire to, and he touches me, fingers dancing up and down. It doesn’t take long – I cum, cum very hard. Even now as I type the memory makes me hard. Once over, it is sleep. Nothing said: a brief encounter.
I share the story with my friend, a twinge of embarrassment in the telling. But that feeling dissipates quickly when my friend has the “punch line” while I am still setting the stage. (Yes, I talk like I write – a bit wordy). We laugh at my hesitancy but there is more.
It is one thing to look back and remember once having been unwittingly and comfortably in a gay bar or to recall thoughts of a circle jerk at age ten. But here is a moment: I was twenty-five or so, an adult out on my own. Clearly this was not a nuanced moment. Another man’s fingers dancing up and down one’s penis, the feeling of excitement, of cumming: this was very gay indeed.
Here I am a single man living in as gay friendly a spot as exists. The Stonewall is already history (not that I would have known). I have my own apartment, can come and go as I please. I do have a girlfriend but still I was not married, no children, nothing to stop me. It was not as if I made a policy decision: “Can’t be gay, too difficult.” Just total denial.
While sub-conscious, it had to be the fear, the fear of disappointing family and friends, fear of the unknown. It was, in fairness to me, a very different time for being gay, danger in all forms. But if I looked back and could remember a policy decision, an “I am gay but choose not to follow it” moment, it would make some sense.
My friend will read this and wonder as to the point and maybe there is none. It is just that I cannot escape the damage in my wake, the failed marriages, the broken homes and not wonder how much could have been avoided with a small dose of self awareness. I suppose this is all a good turn, having gone from wondering if I am gay to wondering how I missed it for so long. I suppose it comes down to my current feeling of comfort, but that is for another post.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Heritage, So To Speak
I always thought that this weekend was the New York City Gay Pride parade, the one I saw on TV, or at least the most G-rated video they could find every year. I have never been to one. I mean as a straight guy who does not particularly like parades, there was never much draw. Of course I now wear the gay mantle so in spite of my lack of affinity for parades and mostly in solidarity with my friends, I made the pilgrimage.
The first thing to strike me, well before I even arrived: the traffic reports spoke of the “Heritage of Pride Parade.” Where did the “Gay” go? By no means major, but it seemed a harbinger of things to come. It is a long parade and I parked near where it went through midtown and took a train to the West Village where the parade would end (and one might say where it once began). It was a day of thunderstorms and I was invited to meet my friends at an apartment party seventeen floors above the fray. I gladly accepted.
So the first question is whether I even went to the parade. I suppose I did, I was on the streets shoulder to shoulder, I was there. But no, I did not stand there and watch and cheer. But I did watch from above and saw the Macy’s float and the Google banners – just a part of corporate America which seems happy to stand with me and my checkbook. I guess they don’t know I am more parent than DINK (double income, no kids).
Of course my perch was really the place to be – an open house by someone who is my age but has been out for his lifetime. It was a pretty gay crowd – a few outfits of sorts, a dress here or there. These were the people who remembered the old parade, “their parade”. There were a few moments that did strike me. Standing with a nice man in a headdress and nice underwear (yes that was the extent) watching the thunderstorm approach, discussing the joys of watching weather in all its glory. I had this image of someone in the distance watching us talk and imagining something so much sexier.
And then a little later, another moment: these two twenty something lesbians, tres Goth, walk by and my friend whispers that the lead one was a boy. I steal another glance and no doubt about it: a he. And it strikes me that at this strange party the strangest looking couple of the day is the only straight pair in sight. Oh where are you James Dobson when I need you?
After a time we left the party, the rains and parade were over but the street festival was in full force. We shuffled with the crowds, feeling more refugee than proud gay. We had a mission: one of my friends has been coming for near thirty years now and he always ends up on the small side street by the Dugout, a real bear bar. He and many there are closer to my age than the throngs we shuffled with and it was there that a different understanding came to me.
For my friend, and his friends, this was much more than a parade. This was a thirty year tradition with roots going back to a time when one could pay a heavy price for being gay, a time when corporate America was not supplying floats, where there was real danger. And this was a group which saw their small to start fraternity ravaged by AIDs, these were the survivors in a sense.
A few of us left – 8 PM, family to see, home to return to, but my one friend stayed. This was his night and he wanted another a few hours. Eventually he caught a 2:15 train home having visited all of his haunts. It may not be what it once was for him, but it is still, and I suspect will always be his day.
I suppose the message, if there really is one, is to appreciate how fortunate I am to be coming out into the world of today, to look beyond the “trudging refugees” and to appreciate the thousands of kids, so many of color, who can be who they choose to. And as I write this I realize there is probably some jealousy on my part that when I was their age I had so little clue as to who I was and the possibilities that existed.
So next year I will probably again join my friends – this is my world now – but if I miss it, that will be okay. I think this day is for others – the ones my age who remember the beginning and maybe more importantly all those kids who hopefully will not carry such memories and will just be free.
The first thing to strike me, well before I even arrived: the traffic reports spoke of the “Heritage of Pride Parade.” Where did the “Gay” go? By no means major, but it seemed a harbinger of things to come. It is a long parade and I parked near where it went through midtown and took a train to the West Village where the parade would end (and one might say where it once began). It was a day of thunderstorms and I was invited to meet my friends at an apartment party seventeen floors above the fray. I gladly accepted.
So the first question is whether I even went to the parade. I suppose I did, I was on the streets shoulder to shoulder, I was there. But no, I did not stand there and watch and cheer. But I did watch from above and saw the Macy’s float and the Google banners – just a part of corporate America which seems happy to stand with me and my checkbook. I guess they don’t know I am more parent than DINK (double income, no kids).
Of course my perch was really the place to be – an open house by someone who is my age but has been out for his lifetime. It was a pretty gay crowd – a few outfits of sorts, a dress here or there. These were the people who remembered the old parade, “their parade”. There were a few moments that did strike me. Standing with a nice man in a headdress and nice underwear (yes that was the extent) watching the thunderstorm approach, discussing the joys of watching weather in all its glory. I had this image of someone in the distance watching us talk and imagining something so much sexier.
And then a little later, another moment: these two twenty something lesbians, tres Goth, walk by and my friend whispers that the lead one was a boy. I steal another glance and no doubt about it: a he. And it strikes me that at this strange party the strangest looking couple of the day is the only straight pair in sight. Oh where are you James Dobson when I need you?
After a time we left the party, the rains and parade were over but the street festival was in full force. We shuffled with the crowds, feeling more refugee than proud gay. We had a mission: one of my friends has been coming for near thirty years now and he always ends up on the small side street by the Dugout, a real bear bar. He and many there are closer to my age than the throngs we shuffled with and it was there that a different understanding came to me.
For my friend, and his friends, this was much more than a parade. This was a thirty year tradition with roots going back to a time when one could pay a heavy price for being gay, a time when corporate America was not supplying floats, where there was real danger. And this was a group which saw their small to start fraternity ravaged by AIDs, these were the survivors in a sense.
A few of us left – 8 PM, family to see, home to return to, but my one friend stayed. This was his night and he wanted another a few hours. Eventually he caught a 2:15 train home having visited all of his haunts. It may not be what it once was for him, but it is still, and I suspect will always be his day.
I suppose the message, if there really is one, is to appreciate how fortunate I am to be coming out into the world of today, to look beyond the “trudging refugees” and to appreciate the thousands of kids, so many of color, who can be who they choose to. And as I write this I realize there is probably some jealousy on my part that when I was their age I had so little clue as to who I was and the possibilities that existed.
So next year I will probably again join my friends – this is my world now – but if I miss it, that will be okay. I think this day is for others – the ones my age who remember the beginning and maybe more importantly all those kids who hopefully will not carry such memories and will just be free.
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