By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

“Are you OK?” the surgeon asked her, out in the hallway.

What a question. I surveyed the faces in the institutionally furnished waiting room. No one else reacted. Not one focus strayed from the droning television. No sympathetic shrugs. Not a twitchy eyebrow on those feigning sleep. It was odd. Lack of compassion, maybe? Or perhaps they were too busy with their own fears and hopeful distractions. But I heard him. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t — because she was not the patient, because a busy surgeon bothered to ask, because the question was so miserably revealing.

At least he had taken her to the hallway. Not like the other nincompoops.

Earlier, emerging from the mighty O.R. to deign to a visit with the peons, one doctor strutted in, eyeballed the woman seated at the far wall (the one who had studiously avoided contact with the rest of us, securing her privacy in the depths of a large paperback book wedged hard against her abdomen), and he proceeded to hold court from the middle of the room.

He proclaimed, “Mrs. Bassini, you will be pleased to hear your husband is the lucky recipient of a successful hernia repair. He’ll be up and about in a few days, but, of course, you two should not engage in sexual activity for a couple weeks, maybe three.”

The wife’s tightly tidy appearance suggested she had not been inclined to engage in sexual activity with her husband since well before his little eruption; that, or behind closed doors she became a deliciously dangerous pressure cooker of raging corned beef and cabbage drenched in the salty juices of love. Either way, she now kept her eyes straight ahead, painfully avoiding the rest of us — a reluctant audience to the intimate details of her marriage.

“You can see him in recovery in about an hour,” the surgeon concluded on his way out.

“Thank—,” the wife began but didn’t finish as the last bit of green scrubs disappeared past the door jam. Her color rose as she bowed into her book, eyes unmoving.

I squirmed on her behalf. It was the least I could do.

The takes-the-cake doc, though, was the second one of the morning. He plopped right down in the seat between the young cowboy and me.

I had seen Cowboy on my way into the hospital. He and his gal were flirting in the parking lot by the genital-red pickup that was bigger than my living room. I assumed the truck was a tip that Cowboy was dangling something significantly smaller.

He sauntered into the waiting room after me, his lower lip swollen with chaw, a half-gallon milk jug for a spittoon, and his ten-gallon hat pulled low, demonstrating, as my mother would have said, that he had been hit by the uncouth stick. “A gentleman removes his hat indoors and in the presence of a lady,” she had taught us.

Cowboy did not honor that rule. Although in his defense, waiting room etiquette was ill-defined beyond pretending not to hear others’ conversations — a tall order around here. But I guessed Cowboy might fall short of any standard of etiquette, because the next thing he did was make a spitty brown deposit in his cuspidor, and then he plunked the ptooey container smack in the middle between his polished cowboy boots, spread his knees wide to reveal a noticeably worn patch of denim, and settled in for the wait.

I imagined an Old West directional sign dropping from the ceiling, hand pointing to Cowboy’s crotch. His confident posture caused me to rethink my original assumption about his endowment.

His little lady joined us shortly after the sign dropped, and she was packing a saddlebag of hostility. Levis you couldn’t have removed with a potato peeler, a homemade bleach job abusing her hair, and tattoos from head to swishing tail. The barbed wire encircling her firm biceps was a particularly nice touch. And, like Cowboy, Barbie’s bottom lip was packed as tight with chaw as her jeans with flesh. She, however, fancied a more feminine spittoon, squirting her brown spittle into a sports drink bottle.

Once again, however, my initial impression was squashed when she promptly settled in with the growing group of ambulatory care visitors to enjoy The Price Is Right with Drew Carey, applauding correct answers and commiserating over the failures.

“Sucks without old whatshisname,” Barbie said as another young woman walked in.

The newcomer smiled at everyone and cheered, “Hey, Price Is Right — cool! I love this show! And yeah, Bob Barker was great, wasn’t he? He seemed like a pretty nice guy.”

She sat down across from me laughing, apparently enthused to find kindred fans. Her olive skin and ebony hair shone in the room that had been doused in tones so bland they could not be identified. In the friendly village of Fallbrook, she was probably pegged as Mexican, but she appeared to hail from more Caribbean climes.

I smiled, mumbled something encouraging about the good old days, and figured Puerto Rico, maybe, as she chattered on with Barbie, laughing about past shows and special guests, about the time she took her mama to see the show’s taping — and they’d had so much fun in L.A.

And that’s when the second surgeon came in, plopping his well-fed derriere in the seat buffering me from Cowboy.

“Your wife’s doing fine,” he said, curling his lip at the jug. “I cleaned her out, got it all — uterus, tubes and ovaries.” He relaxed into the seat, looking pleased, and threw his arm across its back and into my space. I leaned forward, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Everything’s gone, and that should help with the pain. She is going to have some bleeding. If she saturates more than two sanitary pads in six or eight hours, call my office. Otherwise, she should be just fine.” Cowboy spit into his jug and the idiot doctor leaned into my lap without dropping a beat. “No worries — I did a good job, so I’m not expecting any problems. She’ll be in recovery a few more hours, but you can probably take her home by dinnertime. We like to get them up and running pretty quickly. I’ll need to see her in one week — and no sexual activity for four weeks, maybe more.”

I couldn’t help myself. I looked over to Ms. Puerto Rico, and — glory be! — she looked back, pursed her lips and rolled her eyes, nodding in Idiot Doc’s direction.

“The nurse will let you know when you can come in and see her,” Idiot Doc finished and rose, bumping my shoulder as he swept his arm back into his own space. He didn’t seem to notice that, either.

While we attempted to stifle our reactions to Cowboy’s barren news, a sweetly fragile voice trilled from an elderly woman in the corner, opening her eyes for the first time. “It’ll be OK, young man,” she said, pushing a tendril of white hair back into her loose bun and patting the wrinkles in her frayed housedress.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Cowboy nodded in her direction.

“I had a hysterectomy fifty years ago, before they knew what they were doing down there,” she chuckled, “and it wasn’t too long before I felt just fine.” She leaned over to pull up a tube sock, rumpled round her bruised and withered ankle. Her slant revealed an unfettered bosom as flat as the plates of a mammography machine. “You thank God you still have her, and you adopt. That’s what I always say.” She chuckled herself back into a doze.

I wondered if adoption was a good idea, given Cowboy’s Barbie. Then I figured the biological drive to procreate was a lot stronger than any social convention. And then I decided it was time to take a break. I headed out for caffeine.

The way to the tiny cafeteria was lined with a rogue’s gallery of former community hospital board members, some of them, familiar faces — the brilliant, Jewish lesbian neurologist who finally left town because none of the local practitioners would refer to her; the community gadfly whose penchant for Bermudas without underwear left his elderly gonads notoriously flapping in the breeze on the boardroom dais; the unwed deputy sheriff whose tanned, lean body inspired a generation of hopeful beauties into civic involvement; the recovered cancer patient who abstained from attending meetings, but gobbled up the free healthcare benefits he couldn’t buy if he wanted to. Typical small town fare, each mug shot was a fading scandal.

At least they led to coffee.

“Where are the coffee cups?” I asked at the cafeteria’s counter.

“Next to the coffee machine,” a slight figure facing the grill said without turning.

“Oops, sorry! Didn’t see them. My eyes took a hike with my youth.” No comment from the grill, as I poured some coffee into a Styrofoam cup just large enough for Holy Communion. Then I searched for half-and-half, couldn’t find it, searched again without success, and reluctantly asked, “And the cream?”

A skinny arm, doubled in length by a spatula, pointed to the far end of the counter. “In the ice,” she said from the shadows of the grill’s hood.

I followed the cafeteria tray rails to the ice, where yogurt, milk cartoons and a stainless steel tub of coffee whitener laid half buried. Whitener, not cream, a distinction it seemed unsafe to make under the circumstances, so I whitened my coffee and asked, “How much is it?”

The short order cook looked over her boney shoulder and peered up at me. She was all hairnet and sorrow, pressing a grilled cheese sandwich into submission, maybe the only power she had. “Never been here before?”

“Just to wait, not for coffee.” I smiled, a paltry cover for the fact that I knew I was annoying the hell out of her.

But then an amazing thing happened. She released the sandwich and turned straight to me, her hands resting on her semblance of hips and a smile usurping her unhappy face.

“Well then, here’s your good news for the day, Sugar,” she said, suddenly animated and beaming. “It’s free!”

“Free? Really? That’s nice!”

“Yep. Coffee, tea and ice water,” she said in a singsong voice, “all free, all the time!” as though it was the most important — the happiest! — damn message she had ever delivered.

I wondered if I should take her home with me and fatten her up in front of Fried Green Tomatoes, give her a chance to discover greater pleasures in life. But having done her duty well, she returned to subduing the grilled cheese. And she was whistling.

I wandered back to the waiting room, reading the signs along the way that repeated every ten steps or so, directing me to cough into the crook of my arm and wash my hands obsessively to prevent the spread of influenza.

With the image of a germ-riddled milk jug in mind, I stepped into the room to find all the same faces, some reading, some chatting, some dozing at the TV, some staring off into a fearful distance.

Ms. Puerto Rico said, “Hi,” as I returned to the seat that had become mine.

Cowboy welcomed me back by spitting into his  jug and placing it in the empty seat between us. He had apparently tired of bending over to reach the floor.

Ms. Puerto Rico cleared her throat and looked at me, her nostrils flaring in disgust, and I had to laugh despite the brown muck perched twenty inches to the right of my thigh.

“Hey, who’re you here with?” she asked.

“My daughter, but it’s a simple procedure, no biggy.” I shifted as far left as the chair allowed. “And you?”

“My mama. But she didn’t tell me anything, just that she had to have a little procedure and needed a ride home.”

“Wow! That must be disconcerting.”

“Oh, it’s the way she is. She says God has more important things to do than listen to us complain, so she never shares any of the bad stuff. What can I do? I just wait for her to nudge out her stories in little pieces, but she’s always pretty cheerful anyway.” She laughed and shook her head.

“Is that where you get it?” I asked, and she laughed again.

“Yeah, Mama’s Puerto Rican. She says Puerto Rican women are resilient — and they love to laugh.”

“And they love to cook,” I offered. “At least my former in-laws did. They made the best Puerto Rican food — pasteles and fried plantains are my favorites.”

“And chicharrones — we’ve got to have our fried pork skin!” and Ms. Puerto Rico was laughing yet again when another surgeon came in the door.

“The daughter of Mrs. Santiago?” he asked.

“That’s me.” Ms. Puerto Rico turned to smile at him.

He gestured toward the hallway and said, “Let’s talk out here.”

Everyone looked at Ms. Puerto Rico.

Her laughter stopped. Her smile stopped. She stood and followed him out.

The doc said something about “bronchoscopy” and maybe “sooner” and “Are you OK?”

There was a pause, and then, “Yes, thank you, I’m fine,” and after a silent moment, she was standing in the doorway. “Hey, where’d you get that coffee?”

“I’ll show you.” I jumped up and walked into the hallway with her, my arm around her shoulders. “It’s down this way.”

“At least he didn’t say she couldn’t have sex,” she laughed, and then she turned into me, and she wept. And when she could, she whispered, “She never told us, not a word. … And she’ll just say that Puerto Rican women are resilient. … And they love to laugh. … We do love to laugh. We do. …

“Hey,” she stood straight, “I could use that coffee.”

“Well, the good news is it’s free — coffee, tea and ice water — all free, all the time, Sweetie. I’m Patsy. What’s your name?”

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

At Fallbrook Art Center

Gray-haired volunteer: Queenie? We used to sing a song about a Queenie — Queenie the cutie of the burlap show. I didn’t know what a burlesque show was.

Note: The song is Strip Polka by Johnny Mercer.

At a writers workshop

My character grew a second head!

– Marcy

Fallbrook Drum Circle with Hula Hoops — Sunday!

Hula hoops?!

Yep, the Fallbrook Drum Circle will meet Sunday 25 July at 3:00 p.m. in Village Square (at the corner of Main and Alvarado) — and they are introducing hula hoops to join with the rhythm of the drums.

If you have a hula hoop, bring it — along with any other instruments you have.

The circle will also begin a new drum raffle, which helps keep the event free and offers a good chance to win a drum.

For directions or information, call Tom at Rainbow Designs, 760-723-1899.

Read more Fallbrookisms…

At the Writing Erotic workshop

The only male student: If men could see a videotape of what happened here tonight, they would be able to get all the sex they want.

Facilitator: What did you like and not like about the workshop?
Student: It was good for me!
Facilitator: Cigarette?

On taking a Fallbrook yoga class

I not sure about yoga: It always makes me feel like I need to clear my chakra or poo, and I’m not sure which.

Read more Fallbrookisms…

Anonymous: I have more drama in my family than resides in the racks of an Amazon distribution center.

Davis Sedaris, on his forthcoming book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, a collection of animal fables: Why animals? Because it’s easier to write — everyone knows what a rabbit looks like.

At Fallbrook Art Center: I hate his paintings so much they make my soul cry.

At Fallbrook’s Writers Read creative writing workshops — a two-sentence plot: He sat rocking back and forth, the accident covering his thoughts like pus. Liquor it was, the goddamned liquor.

– Lillian Lelito

Read more Fallbrookisms…

The Vampires and Demons Edition

Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Series author Charlaine Harris on writing

Effortful – writing’s really hard. Read everything you can and then put your butt in the chair and write. That’s all there is to it, but that seems to be what most people can’t do.

The Demon Sheep of California

First, Carly Fiorina, the ousted Hewlett-Packard CEO who is trying to steer her parachute toward Barbara Boxer’s Senate seat, went after her Republican primary opponent with the demon sheep of Fiscal Conservative in Name Only?

Then the California Democratic Party decided to have their own bit of sheepish fun with Demon Sheep: Mutton on the Lamb.

I’m all for mutton madness — it’s a lot more fun that traditional mudslinging.

Read more Fallbrookisms…

Thursday 13 May 6 p.m.

Café des Artistes
103 S. Main Street, Fallbrook, CA

5:30 Doors open, supper menu available
6:00 to 6:45 Dan McClenaghan reading and Q&A
6:45 to 7:30 Open mic – share your original poetry or prose or relax and listen to others

Dan McClenaghan is an award-winning fiction author, with the gift for making his readers laugh and wince — and enjoy every second of both. Dan’s short stories have been published by Pearl, Wormwood Review, The Bridge, New York Quarterly, Tidepools and Turbula.

For more information, contact Kit-Bacon at kb@kbgressitt.com or 760-522-1064.

Submitted by Tracy, Fallbrook resident since 2006

OK. So I was walking out of Rite Aid two days ago behind these two Hispanic guys when I overheard one say to the other, “If I was a white guy they wouldn’t have asked me for I.D.” Seriously? Can we please get over the race thing already?

Submitted by K-B, Fallbrook resident since 1990

OK. So my kid came home from school one day, talking about the “stupid Spanish kids” on the playground — and my kid is Latina. So yeah, seriously? Can we please get over the race thing already?

Telling Our Tales creative writing workshopper

Writing is like acting on paper

Read more Fallbrookisms…

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

A pompous author once proclaimed to his indulgent fans, “Writing isn’t for sissies.” His pronouncement drew a distinct line between those with the chutzpah to put pen to paper and those without, lending to the writing class the superiority of the courageous. And I bought it. Back then.

But over the years, I’ve come to learn he was, well, full of shit. Writing is not a matter of champ versus wuss any more than it’s a matter of artiste versus plebeian. Writing is something humans do, whether in the sand, on a cave wall, under the covers by flashlight, on a laptop amid the clatter of coffee and scones and dreams of bestselling wizardry.

We write to crystallize our thoughts, to pen what we can’t say, to pay the mortgage, to share a lyrical moment, to vent murderous rage sans consummation, to pass on a lesson, a feeling, a vision, a hope, to create a story, to immortalize some part of oneself. And I’ve come to believe we all do it, at one time or another, to one end or another, some of us more often than others — a bit of verse here, a love note there, a novel manuscript, a journal entry that made the pain take one step back, a wistful family history, a wishful page filled with a married name.

And suddenly, as if evidence were required, in the last day or two I’ve been the happy recipient of several proofs that indeed writing isn’t for sissies — because it’s for everyone.

First, a long lost friend found me online and asked if he could send me a poem. Now, this is a guy who looks as though he could snap you in half with one hand, not the one, I now presume, he reserves for writing.

“Hot damn and hell yes, send me a poem!” was my writerly response, and this is what he sent:

One day I was downtown, and I noticed a homeless guy with his shopping cart. I was taken aback by the way people were reacting to him with total disdain — almost hatred. He was standing outside a store, unsure whether his possessions would be safe if he went inside and also a little unsure if he would be allowed in the store at all.

I didn’t stay to see whether he finally went in. Instead, I went home and wrote this:

No Place Called Home

Yes, at one time I called this place home
I’m a stranger now on the streets I roam

The stores I pass daily, they don’t want me near
their signs say welcome, their eyes say fear

Of the shadow I am, of what I used to be
a future so bright, now a faint memory

Who I once was, what could have been me
they’re not here now, they never will be

Three days later, we found the man by himself, under a bridge, dead, still clutching his shopping cart … now empty … like his dreams.

– By Kevin Langley

Don’t you love that he wrote that, that he was willing to share? I think of his tattooed brawn, the remnants of his tough kid street smarts, his tender view of a wretched soul. And I wonder why I was surprised — for this is a man who celebrates the successes of the youthful offenders he teaches to learn.

Then my writing workshop partner and I received a thank you note from a student — not that writing can actually be taught, mind you. Oh, you can teach how to match subject to verb (although not always — check your local paper for plenty of examples of failed instruction on this topic), how to punctuate dialogue (the comma goes inside the closing quotation mark — yes, inside!), how to diagram a story’s arc (yeah, like a rainbow, but it’s usually a bumpier ride than that), how to shift the tone with one little word from chatty to lascivious (picture Theda Bara mouthing that line). Yes, the craft can be taught, but heart and gut cannot; writing is a bit too innate for teaching, per se, and our grateful student gets that.

“I want you to know that I have been profoundly changed by participating in your writing class,” he wrote. “The use of words to create has become a wonderful new pathway for me in this life’s journey. Spending time with you and the other writers has nurtured both my mind and my heart. … The more I write, the more I want to write, to learn about the process, and to express things with words that cause people to experience the ineffable wonder and joy in the world. These first small steps that I took in your class were leaps and bounds for my soul.”

This man does not need our instruction, but he’s a delight to have in the class.

And then my husband sent me a scholarly paper from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California: “Poetry: Why it Matters to Afghans?” by Professor Thomas H. Johnson. In a country whose abysmal literacy rate reflects its continuing oral tradition, Afghanistan’s poetry is as much a form of communal art and shared wisdom as it is a form of propaganda, a theme the paper promotes, suggesting poetry as a weapon for U.S. forces to wield against Taliban verse:

Liberty

I have seen the color of your blood in the flowers.
I have seen the rock become colorful with your blood.
When the young men began to murmur the melody of freedom.
I have seen the bells ringing in the hearts of the slaves.
Those heads that were sacrificed for freedom.
I have seen beds made with them in the palaces.
Nations are alive with the spirit of liberty.
I have seen every nation in destitution without this spirit.
If there are no wounds, hardships, and funerals in it.
Have you seen a movement of only a few talks?
O! Peroz, liberty is an adornment for the nations.
I have seen this beauty in the clank of the swords.

– By Mawlawi Mohammad Ghafoor Peroz

It has a horrible beauty, this poem, one I get halfway around the world from the poet. That universality of the written word might be lost on us, as we make the daily shuffle from bed to bath to fridge to desk and back again. But upon the first key stroke, the first drop of ink or chalk dust on the board, it is regained, often with passion and a resonance that crosses the boundaries between the courageous and fearful, the landed and the homeless, teachers and students, fanatic and invader.

Words, at least, our stories, we have that in common. And, as another student wrote, “I love this shit!”

Love,
K-B

About Kevin Langley: I was lucky enough to have two teachers for parents, and my early years were spent in the library where my mother worked. The value of the written word always intrigued me. I’ve never been a proponent of my right to remain silent, mainly because I don’t have the ability. I awake every day knowing I am not strong enough to change the world, but also believing I am not weak enough to let it change me.

(Note: Graffiti photograph by Made Underground courtesy of a Creative Commons license.)

If you ever feel marooned on a North County atoll of information atrophy, fret no more. There is an alternative source of San Diego North County news, commentary and community information — The Progressive Post — that fills the sometimes cavernous void between our typical daily and weekly offerings. The Progressive Post touts itself as a semi-monthly e-newsletter for progressives, but it is significantly more. As even local print papers continue to reduce local coverage, The Progressive Post is pedaling fast to help fill the growing gap. And regardless of political inclinations, The Post’s content is sure to spice up the life of any reader.

The all-volunteer publication is edited by Fallbrook’s very own Joe Crews, president of the Fallbrook Democratic Club. Joe explained what brought him to town: “I was bred and schooled in the deep Southern culture of Mississippi and immersed in the Southern Baptist Church. But with the enlightenment that came with my self-awareness as a gay man, I recognized that culture’s incompatibility with liberal and progressive ideas.  Southern California is not exactly a liberal’s paradise, however, and often I encounter much of the same racism, xenophobia and misunderstandings as in the South. … But, with the death of my longtime companion and end of my 27-year career at Pan Am, I actively searched where I wanted to live the rest of my life, and found Fallbrook. I love Fallbrook, and The Progressive Post is a work of love.”

Publisher of The Post, Rick Hall, said, “I am awfully lucky Joe agreed to [serve as volunteer editor]. Without Joe, there would be no Progressive Post.” In lieu of subscription fees, Rick suggested the best contribution is original content from local writers about progressive topics, local events, arts and culture, etc. To submit an article, media release or story idea, visit The Progressive Post.

By Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Many moons ago, I was the token feminist columnist for what was essentially a libertarian newspaper, and the boys were pretty accommodating. They let me serve on their editorial board, write their editorials, even edit their editorial page — sans title, of course, because I was, after all, a damn liberal. And a damn willful girl. Their fessing up to the job I was doing — despite its being only until they could find another nice boy who’d work for bad coffee and book review copies (Smoking, Drinking & Screwing was one of my favorite acquisitions) — wouldn’t have been good for the paper’s conservative image or for all the publisher’s boy-centric golf outings and cocktail hours in local sports team owners’ boxes.

Regardless, I had a hell of a good time: Some readers loved me, some hated me, some wanted me dead. Most interesting, though, of all the reactions I received was the rumor that wended its way to the newsroom one sizzling summer day as I was bemoaning a divorce — that I had left a “perfectly good little husband” to become a lesbian.

Not the stuff of front page news, but this tidbit did explain a lot at the time: the men who scurried away from my provocative path; the puffy-sleeved, calico-covered Bible-toting women who shrinkingly avoided eye contact, apparently for fear of exposure to the abject horror of pure female sexuality.

Nonetheless, I considered that homosexuality might become me, and I wrote about the rumor in a column, rolling this new persona around my mind’s tongue and relishing the unique flavors it might lend my life.

No longer would my social flirtations be perceived as platonic banter with the strong women who intrigued me. Instead, they would be known as the front they were for my lust for female flesh. I could graduate from the Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays contingent to join the Dykes on Bikes at the next Gay Pride Parade.

I wrote of the supposed need to pin a warning to my chest when visiting my daughter’s elementary school — Mind Your Children — because hearsay dictated my primary purpose in life would be to convert them all to the homosexual lifestyle, my own daughter, the first protégé on my list.

Of course those readers who had previously informed me of the vigils they held, praying to their loving God to forgive me the error of my liberal ways and redirect me to a heavenly path, would instead shun me for the abomination I surely had become in the eyes of that very same God. (Amazing how a little shift in orientation can affect the Almighty. Kind of fickle for a deity though, eh?)

Despite my pending condemnation to Hell’s fires for the sexually perverse, this new role did bear with it some unexpected pleasures, not the least of which was the power to cast fear in the hearts of entrenched conservative homophobes. I anticipated the delicious moment when I would lean in just a little too close to tell my tight-sphinctered Assemblymember that I thought I might like to put my lips on women’s lips, if you know what I mean. Thank you for that image, Sweet Baby Jeeeesus!

All told, I was pleased with the possibilities this intended slur brought me, although I refused to declare affiliation with any orientation. Still, I embraced the suggestion proudly and lovingly — along with all the guys and gals it included as targets of its assault. Because, as my mother taught me, it’s better to be looked over than overlooked — no matter if it’s with loathing. But even more interesting than the rumor itself was that the topic of my sexual orientation didn’t end there, oh no.

It’s human nature, I suppose. People hear what they want to hear, read what they want to read, and when the writer offers ambiguity — for the sake of a lesson, in hope of enlightenment emerging from confusion — many a reader is adamant in his or her certainty that a thing is, in fact, so or not so.

And, so, it turns out there were those who read my column and celebrated my coming out as though that made me more of a sister to them. There were those who demanded clarification of my ambiguity, praying for affirmation of the worst so they could put stamps on their appropriately outraged letters to the editor. And there were those who jumped right in and reviled me for revealing such a despicable, profane intimacy in a “family” newspaper, from which, by the way, I should be promptly fired — for being openly gay.

It was quite an array of interpretations, yet I was adamant that one’s sexual orientation didn’t matter, at least until foreplay reared its head. But lo those many moons ago, the message that reverberated back to me was that it still did: They asked, I refused to tell, and they were pissed. They wanted to know, straights and gays alike. It was a good lesson, for me at least.

Today, the reaction would likely be different; actually, I suspect the rumor would never get started. And that’s progress, albeit inadequate progress, because still we allow sexual orientation to define and divide us, and I wonder when we will live in a world in which parents of gays and lesbians do not have to group together for support or offer that support to young people whose own parents have rejected them. I wonder when we will live in a world where mothers and fathers are regarded for their ability to nurture, no matter their sexuality. A world where homosexuals approach the altar just as straight couples, still gnashing their teeth over seating charts and with legal marriage licenses in figurative hand. A world where politicians accept and salute the gays in our military — serving with honor, distinction and dedication — and acknowledge they have the right to do so honestly.

As for me, though, I’m still not telling — and I won’t until we’ve learned to stop asking. I’m willful like that.

©2010 Kit-Bacon Gressitt

Writers

Want to submit your work to Excuse Me, I’m Writing for the sheer joy of having an audience? Email your original fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry — 2,000 words maximum — in an MS Word document or in RTF to kb@kbgressitt.com. If we publish your work, you hold all rights, including bragging.