My cat Bearcub...

Just wanted to add this for no reason except that it is a really cool picture - it's the perfect cat photograph. This is Bearcub, dreaming kittty cat dreams. I always smile when I look at this, so I wanted to share it.

A Gift in Return...part 4 of the posts about my dad...

Some of you will have read this, as it was a response to Alissia's comment to part three on the blog about my Dad - "On Words and Silence", (tags: family, GLBT). When I wrote this response, I suddenly realized that I had found a way to reframe this struggle I carry with me of not being Out to my Dad in such a way that it made sense, and gave me a perspective that I could live with, and move forward with in love. That was so important, that I thought I would lift the comment I wrote and make a post of it - and I thank Alissia for her words that gave me the beginnings of this thought!

"I think I can live with him not ever knowing [ that I am gay and trans ] , rather than run the risk of spending last years we have in this life together with our relationship divided, separated, grieving and angry. I would rather see the lines here and there of color that mark that aspect of our lives, my dad and me, rather than see the memories drowned in darkness and sorrow.

Remember - with his views and his stubbornness, and his beliefs, unless we could pull off a reconciliation - which I am not willing to gamble on - he would go to his grave, heartbroken, shattered, thinking I am ''going to hell'', blaming himself for whatever reason why I might be *that way*...my silence is not selfish self protection - it is the choice for me to bear the burden of silence rather than him bearing the burden of knowledge.

True...he might come around. He might surprise me. Stranger, more miraculous things have happened. Lets put it this way - if I am ever Outed, one way or another - then that miracle will become all my hope and prayer and everything I will work for. But until then - he bore so many painful burdensome things for me - he carried me in a body cast up those stairs all those years ago and never counted the cost - maybe it would have been easier to leave me in my room those 8 weeks. Maybe it would have been easier to move me downstairs for the duration.

Instead, he normalized what might have been my darkest most uncomfortable moments, by carrying me down the stairs every morning so that I was truly a part of the family and up the stairs every night so that I could be in my own room.

My turn to bear the burden, when he is immobilized and frozen in time and space by his own blindspots and sociatal schemas. My turn to normalize our day to day interactions and never show the strain of the weight I bear in doing so. My turn...and my gift, back to him."

Found the Drag!

I found one of the pictures of me in drag - Medieval Romance drag. I will confess to a tiny bit of photo-shopping with light values, etc - the original is very dark due to location, a mediocre camera, and I was struggling with some spirit gum issues anyway...*sigh* There are some pictures of just me in the outfit - when they surface, I will post them. That doublet I am wearing needs to be seen!!! It was originally a costume from the New York Metropolitan Opera productions. ( got it from a friend - Christian Mystic - who got it from etc.)

With me is Luna - originally friend, then partner, then ex-partner and slowly becoming a friend again - we had a stormy relationship, and a difficult break up. It has taken time to heal, but she has come so far - and so have I. I am very, very proud of her! We do a nice bit of stage drag here - this is one of the fun times and memories I treasure!

I look forward to Halloween - Think I am definitely doing the Scot in a kilt thing. There will be pictures and they will be here! Dreamweaver and I will have fun!!!

My Father...part Three: On Words and Silence

When I think of the contrast of words and silence, I remember this certain day over a year ago. It was a warm day, when winter began to loosen its grip on the college campus where I am studying for a new career. It had been cold that morning, now I actually took off my jacket. In the courtyard between the music and art buildings, small leaf buds appeared early on neatly manicured bushes and sunlight fell warmly across the sundial in the center of the square. I sat on a bench and turned my face up to the light drinking in the warmth. It was my long day, with a class in the morning and one later in the afternoon; I always stayed and did my homework. I was done with the morning’s assignment, and there were still hours till my next class. I picked up my cell phone and called my dad.
I could hear birds singing, and heard nearby the buzzing of first tentative black and yellow fuzzed bees as they bumbled around the early green shoots in the flower beds. The phone began to ring in my ear as the connection kicked in. I did not know yet in that moment, how this lovely day would change in an instant, or why it would remain marked in my mind forever after. Moments later there was the click as he picked up on his end and I smiled as his light tenor voice spoke in my ear.
“Hello?”
“Hello Dad!”
“Hey there! How are you doing today? All going well, I trust?”
“Absolutely, Dad! Done with homework, waiting on my next class. How’s mom doing today?” I leaned back on the bench, relaxing into the routine of easy conversation. Mom was fine, her back was better. No, my homework was fun; I enjoy my studies so much. Their lawnmower needed a new wheel, and they don’t make ‘em that size any more. Yes, I have a paper to write this weekend, but it’s no problem, I know what I’m going to say in it already.

Our conversation wandered down familiar paths, the words comfortable and warm. Words have always come easily for my father and me. I remembered that the family story of our earliest “conversation” was his earnest attempt to teach me to say “doorknob” as my first word. (no one has ever understood WHY he wanted this to be my first word!) He evidently carried me around pointing at doorknobs for weeks, saying "Doorknob, doorknob..." as he held me in his arms. I was contrary from the very start –that summer, late in the evening while we were at the beach on vacation, he held me up and pointed at the soft white sphere glowing low in the sky and my first word turned out to be “moon”.

The shade spread across the little garden as I listened to his voice here in the present, lulled by it as though I was that little child again and not his forty-six-year-old adult daughter, sitting on a college campus for a second try at a degree. But as his words continued over the phone, I abruptly snapped upright on the wooden slats of the old bench. “Say that part again, Dad?”

“I said, didn’t you see that news report about the bill they’re attempting to pass in Washington about that whole gay marriage thing?” His tone had grown harsh and scornful. I felt my stomach clench. This was the moment that always destroyed the words between us; the dangerous words that I so carefully avoided at all costs. Here was the silence that lies behind out words -- the thing we do not speak of between each other. I tensed, with my eyes shut tight, lost in the darkness of his words. The harshest difference between us is here - me gay, and liberal and compassionate, him conservative, and paranoid and hating.
“No, Dad, I didn’t.” I kept my voice calm, still, normal. In my mind I was searching frantically for words, for a way to avoid the inevitable, as he spoke on.
“They’re trying again to push through some bill to legalize gay marriage. This country has gone so wrong!”

“Dad—“

“Gays are ruining America right before our very eyes, every day! I tell you, gays are why God has withdrawn His blessing from out nation! It's all their fault!” I felt the air go out of me as though an iron hard fist had slammed into my body. I doubled forward, trembling as the trip hammer suddenly lodged in my chest beat heavily. The sunlight became harsh, and the shadows went jagged and cold. Dad’s voice went on, somewhere on the other end of the cell phone that I clutched so desperately in my hand. All I could hear were the words repeating endlessly in my mind: Dad, I’m gay. Dad, don’t you understand? Your daughter is gay! Dad, how can you say such things? Your only child is gay!
Of course, I never said the words. I took refuge instead in the silence. This silence over the years has become all pervasive, capable of ambush, gone out of sight until the worst possible moment – and then it is there. It comes to me at night and steals my sleep. It dams the flow of my thoughts as I try to write. And sometimes the silence rises when I answer the phone, and hear my father’s voice. This silence is the opposite of our words. It is the fear I feel when I try to imagine saying the words to him. I fear the loss of his respect and approval. I fear the destruction of our life long relationship. Above all, I fear to lose the words “I love you,” that we have spoken countless times to each other all the years of my life. Because for all his love and gentleness and grace, this is his flaw - his love is conditional, his views totally driven by the conservative world he grew up in, his stubborness to never yield and never for a moment see any other view point. And at his age and with that native stubborness he has, the odds are profoundly against him living long enough for us to reconcile and heal, should I ever come Out or be Outed to him.
I remember the silence of that day. How the odd stillness gripped the garden, as I listened to his loving voice speak words of discrimination and bigotry. I remember the silence of the words I did not say then. I still cannot say them. Dad, I’m gay. Dad, God hasn’t forsaken our country or our world because of people like me. Dad, don’t you understand that your words, though deeply and sincerely spoken, cause pain and anger and agony? Is he afraid I wonder? Does he have his suspicions of my relationship with Dreamweaver and the six years she and I have been together? Does he hide his fear in hateful, harmful words, because he, too, does not dare ask a simple question?
Somehow, I changed the conversation, shooting the rapids of dangerous words into much safer, quieter topics. Somehow, I kept my voice mild, calm, uninterested in politics and abstract condemnation. I felt like screaming the words at him – “How can you say these horrible things and cause me so much pain?” Instead our conversation ended as it always did.
“Talk to you tomorrow, Dad. I love you.”
“I love you too. Your mom and I are proud of you. Oh, and tell Dreamweaver that we love her too, and hope school is going great for her also.”
“I’ll be sure and tell her, I promise! ‘Bye, Dad.”
“’Bye.”
I remember closing my eyes and leaning back on the bench, my cell phone snapped shut in my hands. I remember the day feeling cold, the sunlight thin and weak. I remember the silence around me as though the garden had simply stopped. And that I put my head in my hands and wept.

My Father...part two: The Fine Pink Line...

My father stood in the shady driveway, a broad smile growing on his face. Watching my car maneuvering into the narrow space in the carport, he tucked his hands into his pockets, waiting for me to join him for the afternoon. I got out of the car and saw the grin spread across his face. My red hair must have flamed in the sunlight, for he unconsciously ran his hand through his own slightly thinning white hair. It had been years since his hair had been red. Then we were hugging, laughing together. When had his arms grown so fragile? How odd to feel that I comforted him…
“Hiya, Dad!”
“Hey! Are you ready to do some painting today?”
“You betcha! How’s mom?” we went up single file on the sturdy handicap ramp into the brightly lit floral patterned kitchen.
“She’s fine. She’s watching a movie, so we can go on downstairs.” He smiled again, watching me cross into the family room and kiss mom on the cheek. Today was a special day for him - he was finally getting me out to trying painting a picture together. Now he watched us talking, me bent over, holding my mother’s wrinkled hands, telling her not to get up and cause herself pain. Does he feel sorrow, seeing his wife’s fragile age? Time is inevitable. I straightened up, beckoning to the stairwell door in the hallway.
“Well, shall we?”
“I’m right behind you!” He replied. We carefully began the descent down the precipitous narrow steps. “You know,” I continued, clutching the handrail as my head sank down the stairwell past the rows of family pictures, “I’m not really a portrait painter like you are.”
“Oh, you can do this! Look at your murals. You do incredible things all the time!”
“Yeah, Dad, but those aren’t portraits!” I shook my hair out of my eyes as I crossed the den to the easel, and then stopped staring at the photograph. “Hey! It’s mom!” He had carefully arranged the canvass on the easel in the jumbled downstairs den, laid out the paint on the palette, placed the brushes on the table by the easel. He had found a photograph of his wife – my step mother – from years ago, when she had been a lithe sixteen year old with raven black hair and a sparkle to her brown eyes, and that too was hung with great care next to the canvas.
“Of course it is! Can you think of a better subject for us to try to paint a portrait of together? Her seventieth birthday is coming up…”he replied. I bent over and studied the picture and then slid gingerly into the left hand chair. I wasn't exactly sure how we were going to pull this off, after seeing the photograph, but he evidently knew what he was doing...
“I don’t know Dad. If I actually pull this off, I think I want to keep it myself…” my voice trailed off shyly. “Is that selfish of me? I mean, this is special to me, a painting we work on together.”
“Not at all! You should keep it.” He slid into the right hand chair and gestured at the canvass, wagging a brush handle in my direction. I took it carefully and waved it at the glistening paint, sniffing the air appreciatively.
“Oil paint! Nothing smells like oil paint! I have been using acrylic paint for so long on the murals that I’ve almost forgot what it smelled like! Um…where do you want me to start? You already sketched mom’s face.”
Smiling at my newfound timidity, he pointed to the forehead of the young woman in the lines of paint. “I thought it would be easier if we already had a drawing to work from. Save time and get to the good part. Start there. Use some of the white and the burnt sienna to start with, and we’ll match it closer to her skin tone as we go on.”
He caught the confused look on my face and then I bent dutifully to the canvass, the soft shurring of the brushstrokes against the stiff surface following the path of the paint I laid down. The following hours passed unnoticed as he patiently coached my efforts, took the brush and added his own streaks and dabs of color. He watched apparently fascinated by my choices in color, my patience with his excited instruction, my willingness to paint a section over and over and over again. He seemed to swell with pride as he saw in me his own talent that had driven him all of his life, now shared between us in an incredible moment of grace before a single canvass. I was getting tired. He watched a frown grow on my face as I stared back and forth across the narrow space between the photograph and the painting. He pointed a paint smeared finger towards the face in the picture pinned to the side of the easel.
“See? Look right there, right along the jaw line. I know it doesn’t look like it, where the skin tone deepens to a brown shadow, but if you will get some of the alizarin crimson and mix up a little hot pink, and use that for a highlight…” He paused as my frown deepened to a scowl. He took a deep breath and tried again, obviously beginning to worry.
“No, really, I know that bright a pink doesn’t look like it would work there, but it does.” Suddenly I threw down the paint brush on the tray, my paint covered fingers tearing distractedly through my now disheveled hair.
“Da-ad!”
“Really, can’t you see the pink right along that line?” He pointed again to the photograph, seeing in it, I am sure, the beautiful young woman he fell in love with when he was eighteen, and they walked hand in hand on Main Street for the first time.
“No I don’t see the pink line, Dad!” He looked up, startled at the frustration in my usually calm voice, just in time to see me point to the exact same spot.

“Dad…it’s a black and white photograph!”


Startled, he spun and stared at the image pinned to the easel and then he stopped cold. It was a black and white photograph! It wasn’t even lightly tinted! All the vibrant color existed only in his powerful memory of the girl he had fallen in love with fifty-three years ago, the woman upstairs whom he stilled loved with all his heart; whose aging wrinkled face still held for him that subtle pink glow…
Horrified, he suddenly spun and stared at me. He had been trying to push me to paint a color portrait from a black and white picture! He froze, speechless, watching my face begin to twitch, then spasm, and suddenly I broke up laughing. It was irresistible as the evident relief swept over him, and he threw back his head and joined me. We howled and choked and snorted and giggled and every time he nearly got himself together, he would see me struggling to find my composure through the giggles and we would be off again. It was one of the great laughs, and it was a long time before we managed to calm down enough to pick up the paintbrush again.

My Father...part One

I have written a little about my family in "Remember this Day" post (tag: family). I wish now to post about my father. My mother and my step mother were and are equally remarkable people - but this post series is about my dad. He was born in 1926, the youngest of 9 living children...there was 7 years between him and his nearest sibling. He grew up in a world that those of us born in later decades can scarce imagine...few TVs or phones. Farm life - food came from the animals they raised and the plants they nurtured, not from a grocery store. Music was played on the radio, or seen and heard live - he still has his precious priceless collection of 78 rpm records that he slowly aquired as a young man who loved music with all his heart.





He served in WWII in occupied Germany as scarcely more than a boy at age 18- his older brothers were scattered through out that war, D-day, the Philipines. Italy...all came home in the end alive. He fell in love with young woman just out of high school - they were engaged and then separated by his shipping over seas. When he returned, they broke up, as all too often happens - too much change in a short time.



Years later as an army reservist, he was torn from his home, his fiance - a young woman in his church - and his life to go to Korea. Before he left, grimly fearing he would not return, he painted a portrait of his mother He was and is an awesomely talented portrait artist and painted it in about 17 hours flat, kissed his loved ones goodbye and left again for war. Before actually setting foot in Korea, before shipping out, he knelt at his bunk and prayed - "I will do what I must to serve my country, but please Dear God, do not let me have to kill any one." Not "save my life" but please do not make me kill.The next day he and several other men were offered a behind the line position as a staff seargent. They turned it, down, preferring to fight, believing the lie that Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori. Dad lunged for the assignment and came home, his hands innocent of blood.

The painting he did of his mother - part of it largely unfinished due to the haste he was under to report in for service - still hangs in his home today. He left it as it was, unwilling to change it or "finish" it - its partially complete state a commemoration of the time and place and reason that he painted it.






He married his fiance - my mother - in the 50's. They lost an infant son, my brother, and then I was born to them. He dealt with the heavy burden of a critically ill wife who had Lupus and a physically handicapped child (hip syndrome kept me from walking for 4 years.) with more grace and love and gentleness that I can begin to tell. During a particulaly difficult time when I was in a body cast from my armpits to my toes, he carried me up the 15 step flight of stairs in our home so that I could sleep in my own bed every night, wrestling me and the body cast up that narrow stairwell. On the ceiling of my room, he put realistic glow in the dark stickers of the planets and stars and the moon for me to look at since I could not move or change postition. He and I had long had a small telescope and used to spend hours looking at the moon with it. I owe my life long love afair with astronomy and space to him.

He lost his wife, my mom, to death in the 70's and shortly thereafter was reunited with the fiance of his school days whom he had not seen in 30 years. She was also widowed - they were married 6 weeks later.

Now he lives in retirement with her...he is 83, stiffer and slower to move, struggling with his own arthritis, caring for my step-mother with grace and love as she struggles with a degernative spinal disorder. Yet he is unfailing cheerful, joking and tender. He is a remarkable man. I have inherited his artistic gift, his genetics - our hands and feet are near identical - our body language is eerily similiar and our turns of speach. I have his stubborness and his pride and slow to kindle but fiery temper. I have his even temperment and his speach patterns. (there is also a lot of my mother in me - more than most imagine - but few see it). My Father and I speak on the phone nearly everyday - especially since I see the toll that time is taking on his frame as age advances. He comes of a long lived family - I probably have years yet with him, but I learned with the loss of my mother 31 years ago that the longest time is inevitably short when the clock of life innexorably moves to the final appointed day and hour for all of us. His time and mine are short.

I make sure that he knows I love him, that we share what we can across the unimaginable boundaries of the different worlds we grew up in. And I am not Out to him as being gay.

A Family Gift

My paintings are on my blog...

And in my post "Remember this day..." (see Family tag) about my family the night that we watched the astronauts land on the moon there are two paintings of my grandmothers. My father painted those portraits. Another member of my family is a cousin, Steve Dillard, who in the 80's won the prestigious South Carolina and West Virginia Duck Stamp award.

Above is the South Carolina Duck Stamp from 1987, "Black Ducks at Dawn." I saw it when he was working on the painting and it was only half finished. I remember telling him, "Steve, you've won with this one!" He laughed and said that there were others just as good, and that the judges would probably just flip a coin. In the end, I was proved right.

The very next year, in 1988, he did it again, winning the West Virginia Duck Stamp with his "Wood Ducks" painting shown below. As I write this today, in 2009, as far as I know, Steve is not currently painting right now. I hope that he returns someday to the easel and his brushes and take up his gift again.