Kansas

For You Are With Me

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According to family legend, in the weeks before my father’s mother died, she had a conversation with my mother that changed the course of our lives.  At that time, my parents did not attend church.  I was still a baby so you know how long ago this was.  “Find a church,” my Grandma said, “Any church, I don’t care what denomination, but find a church and become a part of it.”

And in the months after her passing, my parents did just that.  They found a church.  As long as I can remember, church was always a central part of our spiritual and social lives.

When I was in my twenties, I left the church and in my forties, I returned.  A very long in the tooth prodigal son.

Last night I wrote about the events of the last week.  As I published the post and ran out the door to my friend’s party, I felt a lightness.  Eloquent or fumbling, I put into words what I had been feeling.  I tried to approach it with kindness, not always the easiest task when talking about polarizing subjects.

This morning,  I looked forward to church.  I got there early and sat in my pew.  There is a thirty minute organ concert that precedes every Sunday’s worship service.  You can judge me, you probably should judge me, but I tend to spend that time on my phone, checking Instagram, texting and emailing.  As the prelude began it’s final chords and the organ began to swell, I put my phone away.  In the time that I had been looking down on my phone, the sanctuary filled up.  This morning, it wasn’t average Sunday in November full, it was practically Easter full.

We stood to sing the opening hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God.  The oft-mentioned beauty of my church comforted me and yes, even surprised me a little.  Every Sunday, I can’t believe how at home I feel on my little pew in this grand, old sanctuary.  I was grateful to have a place where I could bring the sadnesses of the last week.

I touched on it in my last blog, this complicated navigation many of us are attempting with family members who did not vote the same way we did.  Like I said, my parents voted for Trump.  I voted for Hillary.  And for the last week, I’ve tried to figure out what these opposing positions mean about our relationship.  How can we see life so differently?

Big surprise, I cried in church.  Believe it or not, it was my first cry this week that was about the election.  Yes, I am disappointed that Hillary lost, but my tears were not really sad ones.  Well, maybe melancholy.

See, I cried this morning when I realized here I was in church again, after a twenty year break, because my parents showed me the value of it.  That church is a place to bring your heartache.  That church is a place to look at your heart and see what you need to change.  That church is where you have a moment to acknowledge what you are grateful for.

I thought about my ailing Grandma Avis who asked my Mom to find a church, any church, 46 years ago.   And maybe the ANY part is what I was thinking about in February, when I attended a worship service solely on the basis that I thought the church looked pretty when I drove by.  And when I walked into the church courtyard, I saw a poster that read, “Inclusive.”

The Scripture reading today was David’s Psalm 23.  When the man read, “I will fear no evil for you are with me,” I thought about how, like God, my parents are always with me, even when I feel there is a distance.

On Friday, when I spoke to my parents, my Dad stated that if someone ever asked him to deny Jesus, he would let them kill him.  He would die defending Christ. I assured him that that would never happen.  “You never know,” he insisted.  “If I die tonight, I have no regrets.”

Today was the first day that I prayed for Donald Trump and his impending presidency.  I prayed that God would give him wisdom and compassion and guidance.  With my head bowed and my eyes closed, it struck me that I have more in common with Trump than I’d like to admit.  I sometimes say cruel things. I sometimes make bad decisions. I can be self-serving. I grow my hair longer than what is ideal for my age/weight.

I loved that my church was packed today.  I looked around and saw faces I’d never seen before.  I imagined that maybe, like me, they had grown up in conservative churches in the Midwest or the South.  Maybe they had left the church in a huff or snuck out a side door.  But maybe, this week, this crazy week, affected them in a way that they said to themselves, I’d like to go somewhere to find comfort, healing.  Maybe they thought the church looked pretty.  Maybe they had a Grandma who begged, “Find a church, any church.”

That parable of the prodigal son, maybe it resonates because some of us feel like we’ve squandered riches and long to return home to a father that welcomes us with open arms.  Today, I thought about the time when my own Dad was a prodigal and the events that drove him back to church. Surely there are differences, big differences, but for now, maybe it’s best to hold to what we have in common, to cherish what we share.

Make a Wish

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Yesterday morning, I went to the mall with my Mother.  I am in California and she is in Kansas, and yet, unbeknownst to her even, we found ourselves walking the corridors of Metcalf South Shopping Center, in Overland Park, Kansas, circa 1973.  I don’t even know what spurred the memory, as I swam my morning laps, but that recollection stayed with me for the rest of the day.

It was an autumn morning, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the date was September 28.  My mom brought me to the mall, we walked around, she bought me a popcorn jack-o-lantern at Topsy’s Popcorn.  I think there might have been some toy that came with it.  We got in the car and we drove home, me elated by my new acquisition.

I think of this day from time to time.  I don’t know why, other than it’s just a pure, happy memory.  My Mom was the center of my world when I was 5.  She was the prettiest, the smartest, the best singer, the best dresser, the funniest.  I loved my Dad, I loved my brothers, I loved my grandparents and my aunts and uncles and my cousins and my dog Pee-Wee, I loved God and Jesus and church, too, but my Mother, she was my favorite.  My Mommy.

I tried to unearth more details from this 43-year-old outing.  Did we make other purchases? Were we preparing for some special occasion?  Was it definitely 1973?  Am I sure that it was even a popcorn ball and not some other candy or toy that brought me delight on that day?  Did I beg for this treat or was it her idea?  Was it something we could easily afford or a small extravagance? And while I arrived at no answers, I luxuriated in the speculations, the recreation of the scene.

Because I am a bit of a history buff, I decided to google Metcalf South Mall.  When my Dad had his surgery in 2012 and we were based in Kansas City for three weeks, I once drove by the mall and could see it was not the mall of my memories.  The intervening years had not been kind.  According to Wikipedia,  Metcalf South closed its doors for good in 2014.  Sad, I know.

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Metcalf South Shopping Center opened in 1967.  If some of its nostalgic Pinterest fans can be believed it was “the place to be in Overland Park” in the 1970s.  All that I can remember from those years affirms that observation.

Because we lived in nearby Merriam, we went to this mall often, at least once a month, probably more.  I’d forgotten the centerpiece of the structure, a three-story fountain.   In scrolling through internet images last night, the memories flooded back, of all the times my Mom or Dad would give me a penny so I could add my hopes into the collection and make a wish.

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Last week, I wrote a piece about my parents where I alluded to some health challenges.  What I didn’t say was that my Mom was diagnosed with macular degeneration three weeks ago.  While she had told a handful of people, I did not want to say anything on a larger scale before she wanted to share the information herself.  On Monday, before she met with a specialist in Wichita, she posted on her Facebook page about her diagnosis and asked for prayers.

The doctor gave my Mom a shot in each eye that we hope will improve her sight and/or slow down the degenerative process.  As she faces some uncertainty about what the future holds, her spirits are good and she remains hopeful.  On Monday night, after they had returned home from Wichita, my Mother told me how, as they sat in the waiting room, my Dad comforted her by reading to her all the loving comments friends and family had written in response to her Facebook post.  And even though I was in California, and they were in Kansas, I could see it.

I don’t know what I wished for when I stood in front of that grand fountain back in the 70s. What we dream about when we are young isn’t always what we dream about when we get older.  And yet, here I am, on my way to old myself, and my wish is as pure and simple as if I was still a five-year old.

Yesterday was a bit of a gift. For a couple hours anyway, I was 5 and I was at the place to be in Overland Park with my favorite person.  And because memory can be kneaded and stretched in any way we want, I created a new one, or maybe just added onto the old one. I saw a little boy walking hand in hand with his young mother.  When they came to the sparkling fountain with millions of coins lining the pool’s floor, he asked his Mom if he could make a wish. She dug in her purse and found a penny, maybe it was even a wheat penny.  She placed the coin in his small hands and he closed his eyes and somehow he, miraculously, made a wish for something decades into his future, something his little mind could not possibly imagine in that moment.  He didn’t say it aloud, not even to her, but as he sent the currency into the air waiting for it to fall to its splash, he hoped.  The little boy hoped his wish would come true.

 

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More Than We Deserve

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Last summer, at a family reunion, my Father was asked to say grace before the evening meal.  Even though it’s my Mom’s side of the family, he is always the one who is called upon to pray.  He is a godly man and a good man. As our heads were bowed in prayer, one of the things he said to God was, “You’ve blessed us.  Some more than others. Some more than we deserve.”

I was glad we all had our eyes closed, so no one could see me crying.

Because I live several states away from them, I only see them a couple of times a year.  When I am in California and they are in Independence, in the house where they raised me, I can imagine them still being the couple in the pictures I have displayed in my home.  I can see them as high school seniors, or a young 1970’s Kansas City family, or the way they  looked when they visited me while I lived in New York and we went to Atlantic City for the day.

And then I go to them or they come to me, or sometimes we meet in the middle.  Within minutes, my Mom will tell me whether my hair is too short or the appropriate length.  And I will be shocked with the reminder of something I manage to forget when we are only talking or texting to each other from 1500 miles away: they are old now.

This weekend, I met my parents in Denver.  After they picked me up at the airport, we went to lunch at a Panera Bread.  And as we sat in a corner and ate our food, they told me about all the doctors’ visits they had made in the last few weeks.  They both retired this summer and now, like so many others, their days are filled with negotiating doctor and dentist and optometrist appointments.  As casually as they could, they shared the news of these visits and I sat there, with concern and sadness, as I gobbled up what might possibly have been the worst turkey club sandwich I’ve ever encountered.

For the rest of the weekend, as we drove around Denver and went to the Museum of Nature and Science and to dinner at my cousin Valerie’s house and services at historic Trinity United Methodist Church downtown, I tried to take as many pictures as possible, to document and memorialize our time together.  I’m not the biggest fan of the way I look in pictures these days, but I tried not to judge my wattled neck or squinty eyes too much.  Each moment together is something to be treasured.

I’ve tried to dissect why my Father’s prayer last summer has stuck with me in these last 14 months.  Part of it, I know, is that he reminded me of all of the challenges we have been through as a family, and the challenges he’s been through and the challenges my Mom has been through, and somehow, we are still here.  They are still here.

Maybe it’s the Kansas in us or the church in us, but I fear that we go through life worrying that we don’t deserve the blessings we have.  Or that suddenly all those good things might go away. I know that I am lucky that I know my Mother and Father love me.  I know that I am lucky that there are still things to laugh about, still things to see.

When I got home on Monday, and I presented Eric with the butter pecan cookies my Mom made for him, it struck me what a gift those cookies were from her.  Even something like making a batch of cookies is not as easy as it used to be.  And it doesn’t means she won’t make them anymore, it just greater reflects the deepness of her love. Also, probably a day will come when she won’t be able to make me cookies and a part of her will wonder, how does he know I still love him?  But I’ll know. In the 48 years I’ve been on this planet, everything she’s ever done for me has revealed that love. I’ll always know my Mother loves me.

I’ll be honest, I have been sad in the days that I’ve been home.  I miss my folks and like a spoiled child, I miss the version of my folks I see when I close my eyes.  And with each step and each breath and each blink, their lives will only become more challenging.  And back to that prayer, but I wrestle with this feeling that my parents deserve more.  I know, deserve is probably the stupidest, most egotistical word in the English language. Nobody deserves anything.  Except my parents, they do.  They deserve every blessing imaginable.

The truth is, God has blessed them.  While aching, weeping, and praying for more for them, I am grateful for every good thing, every good day, every good meal.  And certainly, I must hold to another truth, as I grapple with what our futures hold. If you are lucky enough to know them, you already know this, but I’ll say it anyway.  In giving me these two as parents, God has blessed me beyond measure.  More than I deserve.

 

Look Up

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  For the second time in two weeks, I have found myself in a church service on a Sunday morning.  It’s hard to say how this all came about and certainly, I don’t have any idea where this new journey of sorts will lead me, but, this seeking, I guess you could call it, has been on my mind lately.

I have found an old church, a congregation that dates back to the 19th century and its current edifice has been around for nearly 100 years.  As you might expect, it is a congregation that welcomes, affirms, and condones the LGBT community.  For the month of February, the pastor’s sermons have been based on the Alice Walker novel, The Color Purple.  So, long story short, it’s very different from the churches that raised me.

  If my mind had a tendency to wander at church when I was 10 and 15 and 22, one shouldn’t be surprised to learn that my mind still wanders (and wonders) when I am at church.  I love looking up at the high, majestically high, ceilings of the sanctuary.  I think about the men who built this church.  It’s the kind of thing I think about when I visit historied, grand, ornate, towering churches.  I thought about it when I visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Church of St. Mary the Virgin on my recent trip to New York.  I look at the ceilings and think how men risked, and probably sometimes lost, their lives, creating these works of art, how some probably took great pride in their efforts. This will be my legacy, they might have thought.  For others, the work might have been only a job, maybe not even a well compensated one.  I don’t know.

This morning, as I sat in my pew, occasionally looking up, I marvelled at the beauty of this church.  I thought about how its current state was the sum contribution of many people with many stories.  Some believers, some doubters, probably even some heretics.  And then I looked down, looked around me, at the other people filling the pews.  Maybe these parishioners are not all that different from the men who built this church all that time ago. Believers, doubters, heretics.  Maybe, I went so far to imagine, we all have belief, doubt and heresy in varying amounts, in all of us.

When I started this blog, a couple of years ago, I really had no idea how much I was going to talk about religion and God and Christians.  Several times, in emails and Facebook messages, people from my midwestern past have asked me what I believe about God and Jesus and Heaven and Hell.  And I usually just avoid the question because the truth is, I don’t know what I believe.

  For a long time, I thought that my questions or disbelief were a reason to keep me out of church.  Why go if you don’t believe?  But, somehow, in the last couple of months, I started wondering if maybe, those questions might have more value than I realize. And maybe a church is the best place to take one’s questions about God. Makes sense actually. 

  I don’t really know where any of this is leading.  While a part of me feels that I should know what my intentions or goals are, the louder voice tells me to just be still and listen.  So here I am, listening.  And for what feels like the first time in a little while, looking up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Darkness of Our Souls

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One of the mostly darkly comic moments of my high school career was the day of officer elections for Fellowship of Christian Athletes. It was my junior year and I had been very involved in Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) since my freshman year. I went to every meeting, every weekend retreat, every Tuesday night bible study. I wasn’t really an athlete, but I sure was a Christian and I had every Amy Grant cassette tape to prove it.

If you are a person that remembers high school, you might remember how some clubs were a little nerdier than others. FCA was not a nerd club. I’ll never forget my freshman year, going to meetings, spellbound by the devotions given by junior and senior club leaders, popular boys and girls, who talked about how their relationship with Jesus really helped them get through the day. And also, to win games.

By my junior year, FCA was the one club I was most involved in. Many of the people I considered my best friends were also in that club.

When officer elections came up that year, I knew that I really wanted to hold some kind of office during my senior year. I aspired to be that upperclassman giving devotions, inspiring freshman about how Jesus really makes your day better. So I signed up to run for every office: president, vice president, secretary, treasurer. I think there was even something called stu-co rep that I threw my name into the hat for. I was sure that with all that putting myself out there, something would pay off. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

The day of elections, my first clue of the tragicomedy to come was that every FCA member in the school showed up to vote. While FCA boasted a large membership, meeting attendance was never mandatory and often not heavily attended. That day was the exception, every lumbering football player, towering basketball player and Aqua-Netted varsity cheerleader showed up to vote for officers that day.

The first office that we voted for was president. I don’t remember how many candidates there were, I don’t remember who won. I just remember it wasn’t me.

I won’t drag this out for you the way that afternoon dragged on for me, but each election bore the same result. Each time my fellow FCA members had an opportunity to vote, they voted for the other candidate. By the time we got down to stu-co rep, there were snickers that travelled through the auditorium when my name was announced as one of the candidates. Like Carrie at the prom, in the moments after that pigs’ blood fell on her head, I realized that whatever it was that I wanted from these people, boys and girls I considered my peers, I was not going to get it. By a show of hands, the vote took place. Someone other than me won.

That afternoon, after the calamitous election, I went home and took to my waterbed. I don’t remember crying specifically, but I probably did. What I most remember is laying there, heartbroken and embarrassed. In all my years of living in Independence, I don’t think I ever felt so alone.

My only consolation was that someday I would leave Independence and leave Kansas and show them all. I would have a wildly successful adult life and when I came back to Independence to visit, everyone would clamor around me, wanting to get close enough that my stardust might rub off on them.

And while I have left Independence and left Kansas, my life is just kind of a life. Not too glamorous, barely any stardust at all.

Did I have any idea, on that lonely spring afternoon, as I pouted in my bedroom, how many times I would think of that day in the 30 years to come? I don’t think I did.

On that afternoon, I decided I was not going to be a member of FCA my senior year. I would not be sharing my athleticism or my Christianity with people who did not appreciate it. And I held to that resolution. Instead, my senior year was filled with rehearsals and performances for four different plays.

It’s no wonder I loved being on stage, acting in these plays. The thought of becoming someone else is what I’d spent 17 years dreaming about.

One of the plays I did in that busy senior year was written by William Inge.  The play, A Loss of Roses, was Inge’s first big Broadway failure, the first of more than a few.

Inge wrote quite a bit about his hometown, my hometown. In his adulthood, he did not spend a lot of time in Independence. From what I’ve read, I don’t think he liked visiting. An overly sensitive man, a success who never stopped feeling like a failure, I think his visits home dredged up too much pain.

It’s always a little embarrassing to write about one’s pains, one’s sensitivities. Inge did it beautifully, but now, now that we know how much sadness he bore his entire life, it’s heartbreaking. Lola, always ready to play the victim, but stronger than she realizes. Rosemary, on her knees begging a man she may not even love to marry her because the loneliness is killing her. Millie, overshadowed by her beautiful sister, defiant that one day she would leave Independence and live a successful, decorated life.

Sometimes I worry that I am in a downward spiral, that the trip to the Menninger Clinic that William Inge and Deanie Loomis took might be in my future too. There are days that I am overwhelmed by my sensitivities. There are moments when I wonder, am I the only person bothered that no one stops at stop signs in Los Angeles?

I woke up at 5:00 a.m. this morning with the fear that everyone in my entire home town hates me now. Over something I wrote about in a blog yesterday. And then I fretted over that fear because who really thinks that way except for the delirious and the paranoid?  And then to try to make sense of it, I sat on my couch and typed all this out into my little phone. And then, later, I’ll go back to reread what I’ve written and judge it and decide whether I’m willing to share it, the ramblings of my overtired, oversensitive, quite possibly delusional brain.

Of course, you know I published it. You know I took that risk. It’s what we writers do, we risk revealing the darkness of our souls. Even us failures, especially us failures.  And vultures that we are, we all take solace in being reminded of others’ failures, because they are not our own.

A Sad Confession

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It was me.  Let the chips fall where they may.

I know I don’t think of myself as a trouble maker and yet the fact that trouble always has a way of finding me indicates that perhaps I seek trouble more than I am willing to admit.  It all started a few days ago.  On Facebook, naturally.

Someone I grew up with, I’ll call her Melissa, posted a picture on Facebook that I found disturbing.  She posted a picture of a bloody dead deer.  She included with the picture a witticism about the deer being Bambi’s mom.  Now, I am from the midwest, so I have seen quite a few pictures of dead deer on social media over the last few years.  To me, it’s jarring to scroll down your news feed and come upon a picture of a bloody animal.  And let me state for the record, there is a possibility that I am the only person who feels that way.

This person who posted the picture is not someone I would classify as a close friend.  I have not seen her once in the last 20 years.  I decided in that moment to unfollow Melissa.  It’s not like we really even have much Facebook contact, we don’t send messages, she doesn’t really click like on pictures I post.

I can’t remember how it all played out, but I think when I told FB I wanted to unfollow Melissa it asked me if I wanted to report that picture.  So I said yes.  In retrospect, I have to wonder why I felt the need to report the picture.  It was and is my understanding that if one person reports a picture, nothing happens.  If several people report a picture, FB may delete it or ask you to delete it.  If anyone has more expertise on FB’s reporting policies, please feel free to weigh in.

Facebook asked me why I wanted to report the picture and after a series of multiple choices, I chose that the picture was gory.  Obviously, gore is somewhat objective, I realize not everyone in the world looks at a picture of a dead deer, bleeding out from its wound, and sees that as unsightly.

I posted a tweet/status update about hoping there might be less dead deer photos in my news feed this fall and winter.  I wondered what might be the kindest, smartest, most empathetic way to ask people to post less of these type pictures.  I don’t think what I came up with achieved those missions. I wrote, “Racking my brain, trying to figure out the least passive aggressive way to ask people not to post pictures of dead deer this deer season.”  A few people clicked like, a few agreed with me.

Later, I went back to Melissa’s FB page and I saw that she left a comment under her picture that anyone who was offended by her picture should just delete her, so I did.  She said that she was from Kansas and people from Kansas hunt.  (I’m paraphrasing.)

I will say that I am not a vegetarian, nor am I against hunting.  That Melissa and her family will consume this animal does not disturb me.  I just did not think it was the kind of thing I wanted to see on social media.

This morning, a friend of mine who saw my tweet/status update from Monday asked if I was the person who reported Melissa’s picture.  I admitted to my friend that it was me.  This friend shared with me the status update and thread where she said someone had reported her picture and she wanted to know who it was so she could delete them.  There were many comments of support, people who felt there was nothing disturbing at all about her dead deer picture.

And that’s when I felt bad.  I asked myself again, seriously, why did I feel the need to report the picture? Why did I get so fired up? It’s just a picture.  Couldn’t I have just unfollowed and not look back?  I thought about sending Melissa a message, apologizing for reporting the picture, offering best wishes, trying to explain myself.  I realized, though, that there was nothing I could say that would make her see it my way.  We both may be from Kansas, we both might have even moved far away from Kansas, but we see life differently.

If I could undo reporting the picture, I would.  If I could undo unfriending Melissa, I would do that too.

What’s done is done after all.  And this is a sad confession, but it was only after reading her latest status update this morning that I really tried to look at the whole thing from her perspective.  It’s my understanding that the deer was shot by her husband, and people commented that it was a good shot, a clean kill.  She was proud of her man and she wanted to share it.  And then I come along…

I don’t know if the picture is still up, I do know that she knows it was me.  She commented in another thread that she thought I was the kind of person who would have told her without reporting it.  And I would say she makes a good point.

So, I guess that’s it.  Everybody knows.  I know there are much bigger problems in the world than this, but I am not proud of my actions.

Melissa, if you ever happen to see this, know that I am truly sorry.  I do wish you the very best.

Tip the Schools

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CC_Summer-Heights-High_Ja-mieThere is a story floating around Facebook today and it struck a chord with me because it took place in my home state (Kansas) and it also took place in a restaurant, the environment where I’ve earned my living for most of my 30 years in the work force. I love servers, I root for servers and Chloe Hough is no exception.

A teacher friend of mine shared Chloe Hough’s Facebook status update. If I understand the timeline correctly, her last table of the night at an establishment called Boss Hawg’s Barbecue and Catering Co.  was Kansas Governor Sam Brownback. She had previously given notice, last night was her last shift, so she asked friends on Facebook, what she should do or say with this opportunity. She received several suggestions, some of which, not surprisingly, were quite crude, but Chloe chose to drop the check, after running Brownback’s credit card, with the tip line crossed out and the succinct message, “Tip the Schools” written on the receipt.
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I don’t really know too much about the aftermath and I don’t know Chloe personally. (I do love that her Facebook background picture is the character Ja’mie from Chris Lilley’s brilliant Summer Heights High. If you don’t know it, please Google it.) I did find an article on a website called kansasexposed.org where several people left comments ranging between many “you go, girl”‘s to a “what a disrespectful woman.” Kansans, like everyone else, are full of opinions.

As a server who has waited on people who made my blood boil (Arnold Schwarzenegger, M.C. Hammer, Ann Coulter, to name a few) I know what it’s like to wish I could convey a message of disapproval to people whose public actions offend or negatively affect me. And goodness knows, I’ve spoken when I should have kept my mouth shut and zipped it when I should have stepped up, so sometimes it’s really only in retrospect that we know if we did the right thing.

A former teacher of mine, a Kansas teacher, commented on Facebook that he thought her actions were rude. And you know, I can kind of see his point. Will this really do anything good for the state of education in Kansas? I don’t know. But let me state the obvious, I hope it does.

Kansas is a funny state. Because I grew up there but have lived fairly far from there for the last 25 years, I have an interest and perspective on how the rest of the country sees the state. In simplest terms: not great.  It’s a state divided over marriage equality and gun control and abortion and apparently, even education. And I do understand why the religiosity of the state creates division for many issues, but I do not understand why Brownback chooses to add anti education to his reputation. Seriously, who thinks it’s a good idea to cut funding for public schools and higher education?

Of course, me being me, I’ve scoured the internet today looking for Brownback’s response. I haven’t found anything, but if you have the skinny, please send it to me. I wondered if Brownback left a tip anyway. I wondered if he embarked on a conversation with Chloe or perhaps spoke to a manager in hopes of getting her fired. I don’t know, more will be revealed.

But because I am a cockeyed optimist (well, sort of) from Kansas , I choose to see this as an invitation for a conversation. You know, maybe Brownback could look at this exchange and say, “Hey, I will look at this.” Maybe what happened last night could open a dialogue and a closer look. Maybe Brownback might say, “Enough! From this day forward, I am the pro education governor. Move over “ad astra per aspera” there is a new state motto: ‘Kansas, we LOVE education.'” I could even see a Showtime TV movie with Chris Cooper as Brownback and Jennifer Lawrence as the young waitress who dared to stand up and make a difference. And I know what you’re thinking, Jennifer Lawrence is too big to do television right now and you know what, you’re probably right. It will probably have to be the girl who plays the oldest daughter on Modern Family. But still, anything is possible.

So, I say, you go, Chloe! You made my day and I hope that Brownback takes your message in the spirit of constructive criticism and I hope all of this brings good things not just to you, but also to a state I love, a state I will always call home. Through hardships to the stars.

Are You There Linus? It’s Me, Charlie.

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nopimpLast week when I was writing the piece called Happiness, you know the one where I promised to stop blogging forever, I went to YouTube to watch videos of grade school and high school kids in productions of You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown. Because it was my happiest moment, I thought I might learn something from watching videos of another generation poring their hearts and souls into Happiness the same way my 4th and 5th grade co-stars did.

I don’t know that I learned anything, per se. Kids are kids and dramatic kids are dramatic kids. Also no surprise, dramatic kids often grow into dramatic adults.

Yesterday, during my swim, I thought about where life took my friends who shared the stage with me on that hallowed Kansas elementary school production. I am only in contact with two people, one of the Lucy’s and one of the Patty’s. I’m not too sure whatever became of the other Lucy or the other Patty. Snoopy moved away in 6th grade. And I don’t even remember who played Schroeder. (No small parts, you say? Tell that to the person who plays Schroeder.) I do remember, and I’m still sure of this to this day, we were all stars in the making, Broadway ready. As if on the day of the last performance, we could have piled into Mrs. Tideman’s Buick Sportwagon, driven cross country and arrived in New York, ready to take it by storm. We were THAT good, we were Spring Awakening good.

If I overplayed every scene, my Linus, another 5th grader named Derek, deftly underplayed each of his. The tallest and smartest boy in our class, his Linus was nuanced and intelligent and thought-provoking. And the juxtaposition of 6 foot ten year old, holding a blanket and sucking his thumb, made for a pretty funny sight gag, too.

Because I was obsessed with all things Peanuts growing up, I sometimes had a hard time with the character of Linus. Is he a young Socrates or a pretentious asshole? I suppose what is brilliant about Charles Schultz is that he gave Linus his blanket (or his need for a blanket) and his thumb sucking to remind us that Linus is smart and is totally going to grow up to be governor or something but he also has his vulnerabilities. That being said, he isn’t alway the best friend to his best friend, in my opinion. For instance, when he saw that NO ONE was sending Charlie a valentine, couldn’t and shouldn’t he have sent one himself? Not one valentine for Valentine’s day? Poor Charlie Brown. Also, why didn’t he ever tell his sister to stop bullying his best friend? And you know that once CB and Linus get to high school, Linus is going to get invited to all the good parties and he’s not going to invite Charlie to them. “You wouldn’t enjoy it, Charlie Brown, just a lot of jello shots and senior quarterbacks trying to grope sophomore cheerleaders.”

As it turns out, my Linus, Derek Schmidt, is now the attorney general of the state of Kansas. In the last few months of 2014, Derek’s face and words were all over the gay press because of his role in Kansas’ battle to avoid marriage equality. In a google search I did today, I found this quote from the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, “Gov. Sam Brownback, the right-wing, homophobic Republican, and his equally anti-gay Attorney General Derek Schmidt, are trying their best to fight the order of the court.” And I know the gays tend to make sweeping generalizations, but I had to pause and ask myself, Carrie Bradshaw style, IS Derek Schmidt as equally anti-gay as Brownback?

It’s something I ponder. Yes, his role in this war is clear. He has been awarded the task of being the face and voice against marriage equality in his state. But everything I read that he says, he chooses his words so carefully, one still might wonder what Derek Schmidt truly feels about the rights of homosexual men and women. I wonder, if Derek was the attorney general for the state of Massachusetts, would he imbed himself in the fight FOR marriage equality?

I have seen Derek exactly 2 times in the last 10 years. I saw him the weekend of my 20 year class reunion and actually spent time in his home with a small group and he and his wife were gracious and charismatic hosts. Two years ago, he spoke at the William Inge Festival, and we chatted briefly afterward. He offered his condolences on the death of my father and I thanked him and told him my father was still among the living. If he felt discomfort about being in a room that was comprised of, by Kansas standards, an inordinately high percentage of homosexuals, he gave no indication. Derek has always had an simple, aw shucks, intelligence and graciousness about him. He had it at 10, when he was playing Linus.

I don’t know that Derek and I will have a real conversation about what he truly believes in his heart concerning the rights of homosexuals ever in our lifetimes. I am sure he would be guarded, choose his words carefully, wonder about my intentions. He is no longer Linus, I am no longer Charlie Brown.

I have a hope that eventually the tide will turn in my home state. I get emails from friends in Kansas who are ardently in favor of marriage equality. The last ten years have shown much progress nationally and I don’t doubt the next ten years will show even more of a shift.

As Schultz reminded us when he created the characters of Charlie Brown and Linus and Snoopy and Lucy and Sally and Peppermint Patty and the rest, we all have our vulnerabilites. If you’ve read even one paragraph of my blog, you’re probably well aware of mine. But I always thought there was something weak about Linus and well, I think the same about Attorney General Schmidt too.

This is conjecture. But I don’t think Derek wants to be the face againt marriage equality in Kansas, he just wants to be the face of Kansas. He sees this as his opportunity to advance his political career. It’s not about people, it’s about his career.

But for the rest of us, it is about people and I really want the gay people that live in my home state, a state I love, to have the same rights I have in California, even the same rights Mr. and Mrs. Schmidt have as a heterosexual couple living in Kansas.

Somewhere in Kansas, as I type this, there is at least one (probably more) highly emotive grade or junior high schooler belting his heart out to Happiness in preparation for a school production of my favorite musical. He will grow up in that state and at some point come out of the closet, not that it will be a surprise to anyone. He will hopefully fall in love and maybe decide to live out his life with his husband in Lawrence or Wichita or Dodge City or Independence. And this is my hope: that his best friend Linus from that long ago production of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown will be there beside him at that marriage ceremony, that wedding, his best man standing up for his best friend. That’s my wish. And, good grief, I think it’s a sweet one.

The Facts of Life

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3039_1084349233848_8185094_nAs a person who receives some satisfaction from documenting his experiences and thoughts in words and sharing those words with others, I sometimes I ask myself, what is it about my writing, my point of view, that is my essence. Who am I at my core? Obviously, I am an Angeleno, a reader, an art lover, a Kansan, a former New Yorker, a swimmer. But what makes me me? What are the hallmarks of my writing?

I was talking to someone last night and we were discussing our separate junior high and high school experiences. And I said that for me, junior high and high school are never very far away from me. For me, and perhaps it’s because those years were not what I wanted them to be, I can be in the middle of the most random moments, like taking a table’s order, or walking down Larchmont, or drinking my morning coffee, or driving along Mulholland (Full confession, I do not drive along Mulholland nearly as often as I should.) and suddenly, often inexplicably, I am in Ms. Willis’ Algebra II class, or receiving my 2nd place medal at a Chanute Forensics competition, or getting in trouble for talking too much in the Living Christmas Tree at my Bible college, or standing in the lunch line at IJHS.

And I don’t think I am the only one who finds his memories almost oppressively accessible. I think many people remember many things from 25 and 30 and 35 years ago, but often, people don’t like to wade into that muck. Because, really, it’s muck and often muck can weigh you down. The past is the past.

But you know, just to play Devil’s advocate, you CAN learn from your past. You can ponder it and say, I don’t want to ever do or feel THAT again. Or you can say, there was a purity or joy that I want to bring back. For instance, I don’t remember a happier childhood time than the summer or weekend days when I would visit my friend Chris and we would play all afternoon with his sister’s Barbies. I marvel at how much of my childhood was spent dreaming of having my own Barbie doll. Every September, when the Sears, JCPenney and Montgomery Ward Christmas catalogs came, I would memorize, circle, cast a spell on every single item in the Barbie and fashion doll pages of each book. It’s crazy, I know. So much yearning for something that the culture I lived in told me was bad.

On New Year’s Day, as I was swimming, I thought about my friend Alan, with whom I spent most of New Year’s Eve. I’ve talked about him here before from time to time. We grew up together in the same small town, but, probably because even then we could both smell the gay on each other, it wasn’t until our adulthood that we became friends. And now, he knows this too, he is one of my best friends. That night, as a group of us sat at our friend Traci’s dining room table, discussing Serial, (Am I the only one who has little doubt that Adnan did it?) we also talked about Independence, gossiped a bit, showed our LA friends the mugshot of a childhood classmate that had (Drew Droege in Chloe voice) recently come to our attention. While we laughed over Malbec and Mu-Shu Pork, a Happy New Year text came in from our childhood friend Curt. Curt and his husband live in Ecuador, but were in Independence the same weekend I was there in December and we got to connect. I told Curt that I was with Alan and he wished Alan a Happy New Year too.

While I was in Kansas, I spent a good deal of time, documenting the trip with Alan and another friend Joel. Joel and I knew each other growing up, but our friendship was cemented when we took Mrs. Spencer’s American Literature course through the junior college one summer. It’s a bit of a magic trick to make something written centuries ago feel personal and contemporary, but that’s what she did in that class. There were only a handful of us, but whenever I see someone from that class, we always nod our heads and say, “THAT was the BEST class.” And then the other says, “YES, it was!”

So, yes, that first weekend in December, Alan and Joel and I spent a great deal of time texting each other about the weekend’s sightings, happenings, uncoverings, nuances.

I ached to have a large circle of friends when I was growing up. I mean, I had some friends, but I remember a lot of Friday and Saturday nights hanging out with the Ewings, the Channings, the Stubings and Mr. Roarke when what I really wanted was to go to the movies with friends my own age. I don’t doubt that I was an oddball. I mean, I don’t think anyone else was tape recording episodes of The Facts of Life and listening to them over and over again every night as a lullaby before bed.

The thing is, what I really wanted to say, when I started this Miss Havisham of a blog post, is that I’m grateful for my fellow gays from Independence. Not long ago, one of us, probably Alan, uncovered on FB someone else from our little town, who, it appears is living a gay life in a large city, far from Kansas like the rest of us. In trying to glean as much info as possible from his profile, I got a sense, true or not, that he wanted and succeeded at putting a lot of distance between himself and his hometown. And I certainly don’t judge that decision, there is a part of me that thinks that way too. But, I also felt a little sad. Sad that he doesn’t seem to have an Alan or a Joel or a Curt or a Chris to say, “Yeah, I remember. Growing up in Independence sometimes SUCKED, but look at us now. Look at how fabulous we’ve become.”

Either Way, I’ll Be Okay

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800px-Kauffman_Stadium_at_night,_2009I’ve been writing this post in my head for the last few weeks. I didn’t want to talk about it, because I didn’t want to jinx anything, but I have been caught up in Royal Fever like many of my friends and relatives who hail from Kansas and Missouri. Even now, I think I might have jinxed the team by watching the game, but I watched Tuesday night’s landslide game, so, well, one can see the trouble one gets into by overthinking stuff like this. In the end, the San Francisco Giants won the seventh game and the series. My Facebook feed is full of people expressing their pride and love and support for the 2014 American League Champions, the Kansas City Royals.

I really wanted the Royals to win. I don’t want to misrepresent myself, it’s not like I watched every game or even followed their trajectory for the majority of the season. Mostly, my Royals reports came only from my Dad. And I have to be honest, I really wanted my Dad to see his team win the World Series.

We were always a Royals household. Summer evening drives were accentuated by the sound of Royals baseball from the AM radio. When I was 6 or 7, we went to a Royals game and as we were leaving, a uniformed gentleman, singled me out and gave me a baseball that he told me was the one John Mayberry hit a home run with that night. The next day, we drove to a car dealership where Mr. Mayberry was signing autographs and he signed my baseball. It probably goes without saying, but when I think about baseball, I think about the Royals.

Two summers ago, I had a unique perspective. For the weeks that my Dad was at Kansas University Medical Center, most of that time was in a room on the 9th floor that overlooked most of the city, including Kauffman Stadium. My Dad wasn’t in such great shape in those days, but when there was a game, the tv was on. His bed faced west and the view of his room faced east. I would sit on a chair near the window, watching the game, watching my Dad and also look east to the dusky panorama that featured the stadium. Memories of those days are complicated, it felt so bleak, and there was something both comforting and vexing about the sights and sounds of Major League Baseball, the crack of the bats, the roar of the bleachers, the green, green field. While our lives as we knew it came to a complete halt, outside our window, life went on.

If you know the story, you know that my Dad did go home, he did get better. In fact, one of the things he credits for his return to health is the weeks watching the Royals play. There was something about watching their games that put him back into his own.

So if the Royals are even just one of the reasons my Dad is still with us, to me, it’s much bigger than winning a World Series. Last night, one of my high school friends posted a quote from one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams, “The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again.” Sometimes people are surprised when I tell them this is one of my favorite movies, but it is. Besides being a love letter to baseball, it’s a love letter to a part of the country I cherish and most importantly, a love letter to dads.

On Tuesday, I called my Dad as I was driving to work. Game 6 was minutes away from starting. I asked him how he was doing and he told me, “Either way, I’ll be okay.” I laughed. We laughed. And last night, minutes after the game, I called him again. He was proud of his team, rightfully so, and was already looking forward to next season, hoping they could “keep this up.” While some might mourn the loss, my Dad was already looking to the future with optimism. That optimism has, for a lifetime now, served my Father well, so with any luck, it just might carry the Royals to a 2015 World Series victory. But either way, we’ll be okay.