Cameroon Day One: Departure
I make no promises about blogging my trip to Cameroon and Europe, but it seems like the right thing to do. I even bought a digital camera for the event.
As far as I know, I am the first opening gay perfomer to publically present in Cameroon, West Africa. From what I read, they are overtly homophobic and, according to one journalist I spoke with, it is nothing short of stunning that I have been invited to present my play, "Queer 101".
Waiting for my Air France flight to depart to Paris, I feel unease, anticipation and joy. This is my dream life, to travel the world presenting my original work. But travel like this is hard work. You should have seen me trying to decide what to bring. Four nations, three climates, two plays and one ME to carrry all my shit!
Sam
This weekend at the nation's largest LGBTIQ youth conference,
I met Sam.
Immediately my Western-trained, binary mind went to work.
Is Sam male or female?
Gay or Staright?
TRANS or INTERSEX?
It wasn't enough to know that Sam writes Poetry
and Sam listens to the Ramones (& 10cc, Britney Spears and Bizet)
and Sam started a GSA last fall.
Why when a friend has a baby my first question is "What is it?" and not "Who is it?" or even "How is it?"
Even those with Bible-phobia can see the beauty in Galatians 3:28,
"In Him the distinctions between
Jew and Gentile,
slave and free man,
male and female,
disappear; you are all one in Christ Jesus."
I hope I never learn "what" Sam is, unless Sam wants to tell me, rather, I hope I can experience, even in small measure, the wonder of WHO Sam is.
Russell G.
26 years of quiet energy,
uncommon intelligence with genuine humility
and that dry, dry wit.
Old soul in such a young body;
such a young unformed body of writing to his name.
Arthur Miller died at age 89.
His first success as a playwright: age 33
Russell, snuffed out
Regardless of supplements,
Chinese herbal remedies,
Anti-viral inhibitors,
In spite of his husband Kevin's love
and all our prayers.
I miss his handsome face,
his Eastern Tennessee drawl
which reminded me of large, lazy tobacco leaves
browning in the sun.
Who would dare plow under a field of knee-high sunflowers?
How you would have towered over us,
shaded and sustained us.
I mourn the words you will never write;
Russell, I mourn the loss of you.
The Fox from "The Little Prince"
Recently while visiting a friend in Bayamon, Puerto Rico, the attendant at a small museum locked us inside while he went out for lunch. He didn't realize we were upstairs.
It would have been okay if it had been a cool museum with dinosaur bones or moon rocks or tribal masks, rather it contained nothing but trophies, plaques and newspaper clippings extolling the work of Bayamon's mayors. Some honors come with the job even if one does not deserve to be honored.
It got me thinking about the dreaded "Prize Day" when I attended high school. Once a year they gave out prizes to students with the best grades, best attendance and best performance. Each year I feared I would get nothing until my name was called and I had to stand in front of the whole school to get a stupid pin that basicially signified that I showed up for band practice. Yes, some awards are given just for showing up.
What about the parts of life that go unrewarded? We do not award people for being faithful and loyal friends, or parents for being creative and supportive, or children for being thoughtful and loving. In fact, for the most important areas of life, we get no trophies, plaques or news coverage.
In the words of the Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, "Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux."
"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
Frida Kahlo's "The Little Deer"
"I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim, and now I am overwhelmed by this decent and good behavior." Frida Kahlo
Cat In Heat
In Puerto Rico, when a cat is in heat and moans that mournful awful cry, they say she is crying for her lover, Raul. Upon hearing such a cat in Bayamon, PR, I wrote the following poem.
La gata grita, "Raul! Raul!"
The sound of midless burning for sex.
Exhausted she drags her ass around el barrio.
"Raul! Raul! Raul!"
Raul feo. Raul viego. Raul infirmo.
Take me. Split me in two.
Llename con tu crema.
Coat my burning insides with your salve.
Comfort my rawness.
Raul, Donde estas?
Art & Faith
Quaker writer, Fritz Eichenberg, once wrote:
"Art can deepen our sensitivity, heighten our devotion, give meaning and expression to our longings for the Eternal,give us a senseof beauty and the deep satisfaction of being creative, co-creative with God. Art can also have a cathartic effect. It is something essentially good and a worship in itself, if we only open our hearts to it and let it do its work...
"We seem to deny now that man (or woman) was made in the image of God and that we are meant to be creative too, each in his (or her) own way. We cannot live without art and not pay the penalty of facing spiritual starvation..."
from Daily Readings from Quaker Spirituality, Templegate Press, edited by Edward Cell
Upon Reading Meridian
I shoo off your advances.
I whore around so you cannot keep me as your wife,
But when we marry, I freeze,
stitch up my pussy,
and drive you to fill other holes.
I fill my own hole
with shadows of lovers
who shape my insides, but never settle.
I keep the walls too slick
for colonization.
