Restless Night

I was unable to sleep last night, and I can't for the life of me figure out why. I went to the ACLU of Michigan, Flint branch annual dinner last night, and was entirely captivated.(I'll write about Judge Paul V. Gadola, the "civil libertatrian of the year" award recipient, tomorrow.)

It may be that I had an accident yesterday. While pulling out of my driveway, I believe I struck and killed an opossum. Its body was was there, lying in the road, when I got back a couple of hours later. I don't remember hitting it, but I do remember seeing something, ever so briefly, in the rear view mirror as I turned onto Miller Road.

I called City Hall to figure out what to do, and was helped by June Urdy, who called the person responsible for picking up animal carcasses, usually pets, from the city's roadways. They promised to pick it up within a couple of days if I could move it to the side of the road.

And so it sits in a box at the end of my driveway. And I couldn't stop thinking of it last night (and even now). I'm not particularly upset about wanting to keep the opossums out of my yard, but I certainly don't feel the need to kill them. And especially to do so with my Buick.

I don't remember hitting it. I don't remember being in a particular hurry, or being particularly distracted, But there it was, and it reminded me of something of a shadow in my mind . . .

I need a nap! But not until after the Finance Committee meeting.

Good morning! (and isn't the back yard particularly green after a day and a half of drizzle, overcast skies, and out and out rain? Beautiful!) On to breakfast!

A Very Good Place to Start

Julie Andrews sang "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with "A, B, C," when you sing you begin with "do, re, mi." (Such a pretty nun!) When I began this blog, it was a way for me to be reconciled with living in the western end of the Eastern time zone. All my life, I had lived in the eastern end of the Eastern zone, and so all my life my time was shifted just a few minutes so that "true noon" happened a few minutes before noon. In Flint, "true noon" happens a half hour or so after noon on the clock. This meant the "natural" morning happened later on the clock, and while it meant that afternoons and evenings were full of sun, the start of the day has always been quite dark. And so I got up a little early to write and think and pray, and this attempt at bringing some awareness to the struggle to get up on the clock of my old home but with the sun of my new home.

What will the morning be like in Baltimore? I'm bringing that "very beginning" question to this transition.

Let's start with the length of days. On the winter solstice, Flint has 9 hours of light, from 8:02 to 5:02. In Baltimore, the day is a little longer with 9 hours and 24 minutes of light, from 7:22 to 4:38. If "true noon" happens halfway through the day, in Flint it happens at 12:32 p.m.; in Baltimore, it happens very close to noon on the clock, at 12:04 p.m.

A look at summer solstice yields the following: Flint's day is 15 hours and 22 minutes in duration, from 5:54 a.m. to 9:16 p.m. "True noon" is especially shifted due to Daylight Savings so that it occurs at 1:35 p.m. Baltimore's day is 25 minutes shorter at 14 hours and 57 minutes. "True noon" happens at about 1:07, again, largely the result of the Daylight Savings shift.

It will be interesting to see what it is like to have a little more sunlight in the morning, and a little more light in the day during the colder months. Summer will be fun shifting between my weeks in Maine and Rhode Island, and my visits back to Michigan. I'll get the light of my upbringing, and that western "deviant," and then the close-to-natural timing of my new home.

I'm looking forward to the experiment.

Melon today, and strawberries, and a tall cafe au lait.

Good morning!

Heartbreak II

There are a couple of things in my life that I wish were very different. Heartbreak number one is a very tender place for me that I'm not sure I could ever write about in a public way. (Maybe. We'll see.)

But Heartbreak number two is so darn predictable! It is about finding a person here in Flint that I could love. (I know some of you will stop reading here. Why is this guy so stuck on finding someone?)

The men I've been attracted to here in Flint have included a few "types." This first is the heterosexual and married colleague. Oh, there are a couple of these in the Heartland District. I'm able to have a laugh at my own expense about this absurdity, even as I ponder the statistical virtual impossiblility of the very low nmbers of gay men in the UU ministry in this part of the country.

A second type is the man who starts coming to church in hopes of snatching a husband. This has happened a couple of times in
Flint, and I have to say that I'm able to keep my "pastor" hat on pretty tightly, and so I am easily able not to let myself go down a path that will lead to shared disappointment.

And then in the community outside the church, where I might go looking, there is that third group of untouchables, the already taken. A couple of the capital-F-finest men in Flint are already married (in one case I can think of, to each other!) and I can just sigh. Along with everyone else.

I have made a couple of forays into the world of dating, and hope I've learned something about myself. I really adore my friend Jack. He's smart and well read. He's funny and thoughtful. He's a little gossipy--but I guess I fall in there, too. Of course he is older and rounder than any sweetheart I've ever had, but I'm older and rounder, too. But when it comes to relationships, Jack's come to the place where he thinks he's just going to live his life alone. And so he's just not open to having a sweetheart.

I resolved myself to our being friends, and that's working out just fine.

There is another person that I've pursued as a potential mate. It has been quite frustrating. Lots of mixed messages about what I might expect, assurances that I'm really important and then lots of indicators that I'm not. And on Sunday night, as we sat on the back porch (wait a minute, I'm supposed to call it a deck now that I'm all middle class), I realized that I was not in this place for the first time.

Years ago, after the end of the first relationship that otherwise would have been called a marriage (seven years!), I was told by my partner that he thought our life together would have been something else, more "Cole Porter, more elegant parties and witticisms." What? It seemed that we had not been living a gay life together, he had been attempting to live the Idea of a gay life with me. And as he was committed to that Idea, I was persistent with him (and supportive and loyal) in trying to be his partner, in giving him space to grow into himself, in allowing him plenty of space (in which to disappoint me) to grow into affection and warmth and gentle happiness. And I'd listen to him sing (he's a baritone) but we'd seldom make music together.

Here I was, on Sunday night, sitting with a man that I find generally attractive and with whom I enjoy a movie or a dinner chat, and who I've been happy to hear sing (but with whom I've never . . . made music). And i realized that I was having the Idea of a date, the Idea of a relationship, but not just a fond a friendly relationship with a (real) gay men.

This guy has never responded warmly to my touch. Never happily snuggled on a couch (well, maybe once on a cold night in front of a warm fire--but that didn't lead to anything closer, and maybe it's all in my head anyway). Never gently put his arm around me at a movie, barely allowed out lips to touch when seeing each other in a safe place.

It was easy for me to ask, "What's wrong with him?", but more important to ask, "What's wrong with me?", that I put myself in a position to be so sorely disappointed. Am I just living, once again, in a relationship that has no where to go, and am I expecting that it will sustain me in my life.

I was happy that I got a chance to share some of this heartbreak the other night. He changed the subject when it got too close. I understand that. But I think in facing Heartbreak number two, I need to face more clearly the terrific anxiety I have about being alone and even to examine the spiritual strength that I've exhibited in being painfully alone these past four years. And get real about when the dating is leading nowhere, and more honestly either move on or find satisfaction in being alone (for now).

And be happy to make more friends.

The little rain we got last night leaves the back yard verdant this morning. And I'm awake! I'm awake!

Good morning.

"Up North" for Memorial Day

On my calendar, it still says "Memorial Day at Little Rhode Vasa Park." Each year, members of the RI District of the the Vasa Order of America, a Swedish-American fraternal organization to which my family belongs gather on Memorial Day for a religious service in which we recall the ames of all our members who died in the previous year. It also reminds us of the unnamed many who still reside in our hearts after two or three or three dozen years. It is a simple event, sometimes a little boring, sometimes a little depressing, but real, real.

This year I find myself in a transition--preparing to leave Michigan to become a resident of Maryland at the end of the summer. I needed time this weekend to move furniture to prepare for the arrival of the Morales family in a few weeks. (They will be living in my house, tenants with an option to buy, beginning very soon.)

But my friend Jack stopped by yesterday morning for a cup of coffee while I had breakfast. After a few minutes, he asked if I might want to go with him to a family cabin "Up North."

And so our trek began.

I won't share many of the details. We laughed longer and harder than I have fore the longest time. Somehow, I have developed a reputation as one who delights in killing animals crossing the road. (This comes of an unfortunate incident with a reluctant raccoon who hesitated and zigged and zagged as we drove alone Dixie Highway on the way to Pontiac a few weeks ago. Sadly, I zagged where I should have zigged, with terrible consequences for the raccoon.) Yesterday's total was only one butterdly--and we think that was a case of suicide by windshield.

But we drove through Estey to a little tributary of Wixom Lake where a tiny cabin sadly seeks attention. The stairs down to the river are sturdy, and the dock strong, covered with a composite decking that, I think, will least forever. We say in grimy lawn chairs rescued from the shed's tumble of fishing poles, paddles and a lawn mower.

I noticed in the shed a charcoal grill, and suggested that we grill a few hot dogs. We went to the butcher on Estey Road and got some Koegel's viennas and a couple of freshly handmade brats--regular and jalapeño and cheese--and stated cooking.

Jack started a modest pile of briquets (of the lighter-fluid-free variety) and complained that he needed some help--maybe some paper. Rather than using the old Detroit News in the kitchen, I found the remnant of last year's briquets in the shed, rolled up the bag around the old briquets, and threw that into the attempted fire. When it caught, it smoked and spiuttered, but then gave us enough of a bed to cook a few dozen dogs and brats, and enough smoke for a couple of full racks of ribs.

Still, we shared but four dogs and two brats, and were happy.

Then Jack suggested a trip to another family cabin, a quite nice one on South Dease Lake. So we drove some more (deer beware) and passed through West Branch and Rose City on the way toward Hale. The house there is quite nice, although entirely shuttered, and Jack did not have a key to this place. We sat at the picnic table and saw about the prettiest lakeview I've seen, of a clear and broad lake surrounded by pines, of well-appointed cottages and very little water traffic, a swampy end of the lake out of which came a loon paddling and submerging and a gorgeous blue heron in flight. No "noise pollution" save a kid on a dirtbike out on the road. And serenity as the sun lowered in the sky.

We couldn't stay. We needed to get back to the Estey cabin to bury the fire and put away the grill. We needed to get home for me to look after moving tasks. But the day was full of silliness and accident, misdirection and frivolity, much freedom. We talked about boys (!), or, even better, about the ways we are attached to one another; the good attachments that bring us to our better selves, and the troublesome attachments where we wonder, ":why do I put up with this? why don't I respect myself more?" My first Memorial Day "Up North" was a journey to me and us, to memory and hope.

A Prayer for Interfaith Action

I was pleased to be asked to give the Invocation at the Flint Area Congregations Together public meeting with Fr. John Baumann, SJm founder of the PICO National Network who visited Flint to share with us our vision for our future.

I asked those assembled at St. John Vianney Parish to assume the posture of prayer that was the one that spoke most personally to each of us. We're different, and some of us kneel, some sit, some stand. At the same time, because "we're all in this together," I asked that each person find someone's hand to hold. And then I prayed this prayer:

O Thou Whom no person at any time hath seen,
And yet Who, in all the ages and places of the human story,
hath revealed Thyself

in the Mystery of life and the Wonder of creation,

in the Faith kept by generations for their own kith and kin,

in the Love of parents for their children,

in the Hope evidenced by communities of people coming together as we do
to mark a sacred moment,
to experience a transcendent power,
to be a holy people,

be with us, O Divine presence, today, in all your power.

Speak to us as you have in all the prophetic witnesses,
the women and men of the ages
who have looked at the world as it is,
and imagined a world that might be,

Speak to us as have all our teachers,
our Moses, our Socrates,
our Jesus, our Mohammed,

Speak to us as did our brother Mohandas, our sister Dorothy,
our leaders Cesar and Sojourner and Harriet,
our martyrs Harvey and Oscar and Martin,

Enter our hearts, Spirit of Life and Truth,
as you have in all the ages and all the places
so that we may breathe into this place,
our beloved city Flint,
and into this time, this very moment,
a word of promise and hope,

that we may see the powerful community we are,
and know the powerful transformative work we are called to do.

For the sake of our children and our children’s children,
and in the name of all that is holy we pray,

Blessed be. Amen.