OOPS!…I DID IT AGAIN (CHRISTMAS EDITION)

Second year in a row. Does that make it a tradition? 

 

THE SETUP

There’s something about a guerrilla public tree decorating that gives me a festive lift this time of year. Last year, it was a solo effort. I worried my cheery idea might come with consequences. It wasn’t like I was going to chop down a pine tree in a public park and drag it home. No, I’d leave it be, roots intact, its perilous fate subject to other conditions, natural and otherwise. Still, I wondered if a police officer might approach, stand at the bottom of the ladder I’d “borrowed” from my condo building and await my descent (or just knock me off for his own holly jollies), then handcuff and haul me to the station, charged with public mischief, vandalism, theft and bad decorating. 

 

Was it worth the risk? I’m generally a rule-biding citizen, apart from an entrenched habit of jaywalking and crossing dead intersections against the light as other Vancouverites stand at the curb and stare in horror at such blatant disobedience. Vancouver puts my asterisked rule-biding inclinations to shame. I if I lived in New York City, I’d have a drawerful of civic commendations.

 

After some fretting, I took the risk and evaded arrest. This is Canada so maybe I’m on the Most Wanted list. Me and that otter who raided koi from the nearby Chinese gardens.

 

This year, I had accomplices, aiders and abetters. I’d lured both of them into bad decorating, a burgeoning gang, The Red Garlands. 

 

THE SETTING

First, however, some background about the setting. After some research, I feel it’s important to share.

 

I walk by a neglected pocket park every day, only a block from home. It’s a stopping point for the unhoused to sit and to maybe smoke something legal (cigarettes, pot) or otherwise (in a bubble pipe). I don’t judge. How does anyone cope with life on the streets? Sometimes there are a couple of tents set up. I imagine that, even though it’s right by the railroad tracks and trains run throughout the night (I know this firsthand!), it’s a less chaotic spot to try to sleep than so many other purported options. 

 

Officially, the park is known as Wendy Poole Park, described in a single sentence on Vancouver’s Board of Parks and Recreation website: 

Wendy Poole Park is a tiny park at the foot of Main Street, with a curving pathway, trees, and outlook to Burrard Inlet.

I could contact the board, give them an update. Trees is an overstatement. The dead skeleton of a tree with only two remaining branches—a stick tree—was removed at some point over the past year. It’s now down to one, a sad-looking pine, twelve feet tall, dwarfed by the tall building immediately to the west and the concrete overpass to the east. With its lower limbs removed, it’s a lollipop of a tree, mostly stick, not much pop, and definitely nothing that would conjure some fanciful image for lolli. 

 

Honestly, I don’t think the Parks Board cares. Its attention to this tiny space may have ended in late 2000 with the naming of park after First Nations and Downtown Eastside (DTES) groups and individuals lobbied to have it dedicated to Wendy Poole, a member of the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation. In January 1989, she was a twenty-year-old woman, pregnant with her second child. She’d moved from Northern British Columbia to Vancouver six months prior, looking for something more, finding her way, starting out by working in fast food. On January 26^th of that year, she was stabbed to death in her second-floor co-op, a murder that remains unsolved. She is one of many murdered and missing women remembered in Vancouver every Valentine’s Day during the Women’s Memorial March.

 

Had I not committed to giving the tree in the park a little seasonal spark, I would never have known the story behind its naming. There’s a plaque and a lovely rock with words etched in it. Like most of us in the community, I passed these markers by, unread. I’d seen the name. It’s really big on the rock. I’d foolishly assumed the place was named for a moneyed, prominent Vancouverite. Elsewhere in the downtown area is Jack Poole Plaza, named for a highly successful real estate developer who’d led the official campaign to bring the Winter Olympics to Vancouver and Whistler in 2010. I mistakenly assumed Wendy must have been his wife. Jack and Wendy’s lives were so starkly different.

 

There’s the history. Wendy would have turned forty-five this year. Let sharing be part of honoring and remembering her. (Sadly, I can find no photo.)

 

THE ADMISSION

Last week, with only days until my boyfriend Evan’s next trip up from Seattle, I floated the idea of him being my partner in Christmas mischief. He didn’t hesitate. That’s my guy. Man of many talents. New skill for that LinkedIn account: elfin antics.

 

Upon his arrival, we scanned the long aisle of decorations at a downtown dollar store and I returned the next day to buy all the tree trimmings. (Nothing was a dollar, of course. It’s self-apparent that The Few Dollars Store doesn’t have quite the right ring to it. Still, the glittery haul was a bargain.)

 

Rain got in the way of decorating. Heavy rain. Bah, humbug, Mother Nature! Heavy snow would have been perfect. Tomorrow then. Or the tomorrow after that. Or not. (I didn’t want the decorations to get swooshed off the tree in the first hour. I also didn’t want to break my leg, slipping on an upper rung on the ladder!)

 

On the morning Evan was to return to Seattle, the weather cleared. Not sunny but anything not involving rain is a gift this time of year. I grabbed the bag of decorations and we headed to my building’s parking garage to grab one of the ladders. (It’s a building of lofts. These ladders are for common use…or at least that’s been my assumption. Why ask? 

 

Hi, officer. Just taking the ladder for a walk. No dog so you gotta make do, right?

 

Last year’s graffiti had been painted over, now replaced by new tagging. Bigger! Bolder! Only one tent was pitched as we arrived to decorate the sad little pine tree. A gentleman sat at the lone picnic table, smoking a cigarette, not paying any attention to two guys with a ladder.

 

I decided to put the star on first. It would be the trickiest part. It also required standing on the highest rung. Let me get that over with before any dormant fear of heights awakened within and before I got too casual from all the ups and downs, less alert, more accident-prone. The star wouldn’t stay. Evan offered directions from ground control, but I got flustered. Your move, Evan. 

 

He’d only signed on to be a helper elf. Ladder climbing wasn’t in the job description. But my merriness was in a precarious state. Evan’s all too aware of how quickly I can shut down when I decide I can’t do something. He climbed, he fiddled and fidgeted, he willed that star to stay. The ornament was heavier than the pine tufts it topped so there was a sag to its stance. Quirky. Let’s call it whimsical. I don’t care what Martha Stewart would say.

 

We switched roles again, with me navigating the ladder and Evan unpacking ornaments. As we decorated, I caught the man at the picnic table glancing over a couple of times. At first, I wondered if we were an unwelcome presence. Maybe he’d come here for some solitude only to be disturbed by a couple of wannabe elves. His face was hard to read. Then he called: “Need some help? I could hold the ladder.” 

 

And so he did. 

 

Last year’s project was a solo effort but, with three of us, it went faster and felt merrier. I noticed a few people smiling as they passed and one person shouted, “Dr. Seuss!” probably in a nod to the sagging star atop the tree. She followed up with a robust “Merry Christmas!” Was she always this excited or did we lift her spirits?

 

And yet he cropped just so to
keep the bags under my eyes!

My new ladder assistant held it in place each time we rotated it. He nodded off ever so briefly, hand still on it, committed, doing his best. He added an ornament to one of the lower branches.

 

We exchanged names. I took his picture, but he didn’t have a phone to forward it. He took ours, too. I could tell he was too close to get us and the tree. I knew the shot would be one of those flawed pics from the days of going to Fotomat. All the better. 

 

He said he was from the BC Interior and had come to Vancouver’s sketchy Downtown East Side to get his son but, in so doing, he’d relapsed. Addiction is relentlessly opportunistic.

 

Yes, Martha. That's the tree.

All done, Evan and I walked the ladder home and I turned my head back to see my ladder assistant walking slowly down the street in a different direction, his face blank again. It was a novel start to the day for each of us and a rare chance for strangers living different realities to connect, however briefly. 

 

This “tradition” is evolving.

 

O CHRISTMAS TREE

Throughout adulthood, I’ve had mixed feelings about Christmas. I’ve spent the holidays alone many times over the years, part choice, part default. It can be hard walking by every storefront and many a home, getting blasted with Christmas displays and messaging. Sometimes I just want a Wednesday in December to be like a Wednesday in August, only colder and, fingers crossed, maybe with a blanket of snow. 

 

I’m not a total humbug. I smile the first two or three times I hear “I Want a Hippopotamus” each year and I’ll never click the remote away from “Rudolph, the Red-nosed Reindeer.” Not even on a Wednesday in August. (Thanks, YouTube!) It also amuses me that some Proud Boy in South Carolina sang the line, “Don we now our gay apparel” today. I’m picturing a rainbow tie-dye tee and a Queer Eye baseball cap while the MAGA hat finally gets a run through the wash cycle. If the colors bleed, causing all the Fruit of the Loom undies and t-shirts to turn pink, so be it. Sugar plum faeries can be downright impish.

 

I haven’t decorated my home because I turfed all my decorations in early 2020. It wasn’t specifically a Christmas purge; rather, I pared down my possessions as I planned to move 4,400 kilometers from Vancouver to Toronto. Five days before the movers arrived, COVID shut down the world. The big move was off. I’d unnecessarily Marie Kondo’d my home. Whatever. 

 

The next two Christmases past without any thought of restocking stockings, twinkly lights or tinsel. I complied with COVID protocol, spending the day alone, trying not to react as people I knew posted Christmas dinner photos, a dozen smiley faces gathered ’round the table. They seemed to be saying, “Ha ha” instead of “Ho ho.” I rejoiced, knowing my credit card had been spared a spike on account of gift cards and travel expenses. Different things make different people jolly.

 

I surprised myself a couple of months ago as a Christmas decorating impulse popped in my head. I was walking by a park a block from home. It’s nothing more than a sliver of land, an empty lot next to a bridge, the grass trodden over, leaving mostly mud. I looked past the one dead tree, nothing more than a slim trunk and two barren branches, and stared at a blue spruce destined for a similar demise. It was twelve feet tall, but all its limbs had been cut off the lower half. It reminded me of a taller though somehow sadder version of Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. Yes, maybe I would decorate it come December if there weren’t a humbug infestation first. 

 

Graffiti on a wall at the tiny park

I walked by the pathetic park patch daily, the tree rarely registering since tents occupied by the homeless pulled focus due to their colorful tarps and people. Sometimes folks sat at a lone marked-up picnic table, rarely eating, more often looking drugged out or simply fatigued. I’ve read and heard plenty of judgment about people choosing to be homeless, as if living off food banks and a once-monthly measly welfare check is the high life. No work! What a gig! 

 

What a crock. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for nearly six years. It’s clear that life without proper shelter takes its toll.    

 

I’ve seen people in tents shuffled around, booted from one street or park to another without any longer-term solutions in the works. Many people fear or shun the homeless, but I see important social connections and “regular” ways of life...as regular as they can be while on the street amid mental health and addiction issues. 

 

I’m 100% safe walking through my neighborhood. As I observe interactions—laughter, chatter about the weather and gut-driven political rhetoric—I see people who have made connections in these clustered homeless communities. They’re making do with what they have…and don’t have.

 

When the first cold spell of winter hit Vancouver a few weeks ago, I was in Key West, appreciating the town’s efforts to get in the festive spirit with a Christmas parade and lawn signs like the only-in-your-dreams “Let It Snow” and the playful “Seas and Greetings.” My mind flashed to nameless people in tents only blocks away from my home. I don’t have the means to create permanent change to improve their lives; the problems are so complex. Still, maybe that blue spruce would brighten someone’s day or night. Maybe I could buy some simple decorations and spread a little holiday spirit.

 

The day I returned from Florida, I hit the local dollar store, bought some simple ornaments and garland, dragged out a ten-foot ladder from my building’s garage and made a tree so dreary a little bit cheery. 

 

It looked like the creation of some fourth-grader who wasn’t afraid of heights. I’d underestimated what I needed so only the front half of the tree was adorned. “A little bit cheery” can turn out sadder than what was there in the first place.

 

I made another trip to the store, stocking up on more garland and adding a treetop star to my shopping bag. After lugging the ladder another time, the Charlie Brown tree looked merry enough for me to hear the Peanuts gang perform “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” in my head. Maybe the tree would stir a happy Christmas moment in someone else’s mind, too.

 

Passing by a week later, the decorations remain in place, except for the lowest garland. I'd like to think someone reached up and tugged it down to adorn the winter jacket they picked up at Goodwill or retrieved as a treasured find from an alley dumpster. Maybe it hangs inside someone’s tent or is draped at the foot of a cot in an emergency shelter that opened when the temps dropped once again. 

 

That decorated tree makes me smile more than any display I could have created in my own home. When I see it, my Christmas wishes extend far beyond my own circumstances. I’m hoping there will be moments of joy for those who truly struggle, not just during the holidays, but throughout the year.

 

  

 

 

TRAVELS WITH LIZBETH (Book Review)

By Lars Eighner 

 

(St. Martin’s Griffin, 1993)

 

I stumbled on this book title after spotting an obituary last month in The New York Times. The headline caught my eye: “Lars Eighner, 73, Who Wrote About Being Homeless.” (Eighner died on December 23, 2021 in Austin but his publisher, St. Martin’s Press, found out about it more recently.) I have long been consumed by issues of homelessness and frustrated with my inertia in doing something about it. I donate to a local charity that provides meals to people living on the street, I occasionally purchase grocery gift cards and hand them out during times of the year far from the annual “season of giving” and I have often included homeless characters in my manuscripts, including my published middle grade novel, Fouling Out. 

 

I knew I absolutely had to read this book.

 

It just so happens that Eighner was a gay man who earned some money as a writer prior to being homeless and while being homeless. His genre: erotic gay fiction. Eighner intones that every story he wrote was accepted for publication. Damn! I don’t have anything like that track record. (I’m not about to enter the erotic gay fiction market. So often, writers are told “write what you know.” Thus, I must disqualify myself and, for that, avid readers of erotic gay fiction can be grateful.)

 

Eighner was homeless for much of the period from 1988 to 1991. In the 1980s, Eighner was living in Austin, Texas, working in a state mental hospital. He clashed with a supervisor, though the circumstances aren’t detailed. It seems that, in part, Eighner, objected to mistreatment of some of the patients/residents; as well, he felt he could do better working with higher functioning residents. He was given the choice to resign or be fired. By resigning, he didn’t qualify for unemployment benefits. When finding a job proved more challenging than expected, he couldn’t pay the rent for the shack he lived in and, with eviction looming, he took what possessions he could and decided to hitchhike his way to Southern California, thinking job prospects would be better in an area of the country where writers seemed to be in demand.

 

Lizbeth was his dog, a black and white mutt to whom Lars doesn’t assign Best Dog Ever qualities. She’s just a dog, not especially bright, not especially anything. But she’s his. While housing prospects would have been better without a dog in tow, giving her up was never an option. On colder nights when he’d sleeping among bushes, he and Lizbeth provided one another a trace of warmth. On hotter days in desert areas, much of time was consumed trying to find enough water for the two of them.

 

Eighner’s homelessness had nothing to do with alcoholism or drug addiction. For some, that would make him a “worthier” character study; for others, that would render the memoir less compelling, being as there was one less struggle to overcome. I hesitate to add that he comes across as highly intelligent—another factor on the “worthy” scale. The New York Times obituary mentions that Eighner studied at Rice University and the University of Texas, ultimately dropping out due to bouts with migraines and “a falling-out with his family over his sexual orientation,” a circumstance common to queer youth, sending them into adulthood at a disadvantage.

 

The hitchhiking parts of the memoir feel monotonous, probably because that’s how it was. Eighner was at the mercy of whoever stopped and, often, the drivers were dubious characters with very little money themselves, recklessly driving cars that would break down. Another writer might have played up the drama, but Eighner delivers his accounts flatly.[1] When he made a second roundtrip hitchhiking journey from Austin to L.A., I thought, Please, no…less for his sake than mine. 

 

Still, his accounts of being homeless don’t need to be emotionally heightened. There’s a relentlessness to the life. Some people offered simple kindnesses while others—particularly, it seems, the residents of Tucson—preferred to kick a guy when he was already down. There’s a section on dumpster diving, published as a stand-alone piece prior to the book, that gives a flavor of how to be resourceful and self-sufficient. Eighner kept to himself instead of joining other homeless people at makeshift encampments. As well, he didn’t access supports such as meal programs and group shelters, in part because he had Lizbeth with him. He also resolved to never beg for money. 

 

Eighner explains there’s an art to knowing where the best dumpsters are and learning the times of year when they yield greater finds. His account speaks to how wasteful society is, even as that’s to his benefit. Eighner also offers insights into how to make the best guesses as to what food finds are less risky to eat than others although he mentions having dysentery about once a month since there are always risks. This comment, more than anything, has added to my empathy for homeless people I see in Vancouver. Many times, I come across people who have soiled themselves and, on one occasion, I searched to find a thrift shop to get the passed-out individual a towel and another pair of pants, wanting to spare the fellow the indignities that would greet him upon his awakening. Alas, there’s nothing available at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning.   

 

On homelessness, Eighner provides a flavor of daily life, much of it about scrounging for food and water, hiding his few belongings and hoping they’re neither stolen nor vandalized and trying to be unseen so as not to be forced to pack up and find a new place to shelter.

 

A homeless life has no storyline. It is a pointless circular rambling about the stage that can be brought to happy conclusion only by a deus ex machina. 

 

Rent, deposits, transportation, suitable clothing, living expenses: the kind of money required to obtain a home cannot be saved from pennies picked up on the street…[A homeless person’s] fate is no longer in his hands. He may survive, but no more than survive. 

 

Eighner’s writing is strongest when he makes observations of the systems set up ostensibly to offer help. It’s hardly surprising that Eighner does not speak highly of medical staff and social workers who purport to offer assistance, the offerings piecemeal and paternalistic. Of one account, he writes:

 

The social worker prolonged the interview after it was clear he could not offer me any material benefit. He wanted me to apply for a program that would allow the costs of…his services in advising me that he had no services to offer…This is of course all that social workers exist for: to keep the funds flowing to the institution, thus to preserve their own salaries. Otherwise they are just about as helpful as the average high school guidance counselor.

 

There’s an eye-opening section from Eighner’s time in Austin where he meets Daniel, a young man with AIDS who has been displaced and who is purportedly on a waiting list for a hospice in Houston:  

 

I asked Daniel what the local AIDS agency had done for him. He said they were mostly burned-out on him. Although I had donated what I could to the AIDS agency, I did not have much confidence in them. I could see, however, that Daniel was a hard case, a prickly pear.

 

Most agencies, and especially their volunteers who do so much of the real work, want cuddly, warm clients. In the case of AIDS, that means the volunteers are best prepared for people who will lie down and die quietly. Many people…envision themselves as ministering martyrs among the lepers. They imagine the work will involve many tender and touching moments as their patients struggle to express eternal gratitude before expiring gently. Such scenes are filmed through gauze and Vaseline.

 

It should be obvious that this memoir by a gay man has little to do with being gay. Eighner’s account is of a homeless man who happens to be gay. It’s more a tale of a man and his dog than a man seeking another man. (Lizbeth died in 1998 at the age of thirteen, still with Eighner.) There are a few brief references to sexual encounters. (Is it terrible that I felt jealous of a homeless man having better “luck” than me? I know…shame.) What may prove surprising, even fascinating, is that Clint,[2] a character Eighner and Lizbeth knew from their days in the shack in Austin, pops up again much later, joining Eighner in being homeless. We learn in the afterword that Clint and Lars, characterized as the beauty and the beast by the writer, remained a couple, the relationship continuing for twenty-three years as of 2012. Eighner’s obituary notes that the couple married in 2015 and remained together—thirty-three years—until Eighner’s death. Love may not overcome everything but what a testament to silver linings.  

 

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[1] In the Afterword, written in 2013, Eighner alludes to Asperger’s, noting, “Many have noticed my dispassionate tone throughout the book…Lately it occurred to me that there might be an underlying cause…I acknowledge I am indebted to Jim Parsons for his portrayal of Sheldon Cooper; I now understand so much better what has always been wrong with me.” A shame that he would word it that way.

[2] All people mentioned in the book are given fictitious names. I love Eighner’s extraordinarily logical explanation: “I have changed the names of people and of institutions…I know my perspective did not often reveal the best side of people. When it did, I think I best return the favor by respecting the privacy of those who helped me. At any rate, I thought to name some and not name others would imply a criticism that, in some cases, I did not intend.”

 

“Clint” remains so in the afterword while other people are named. “He did not sign on to be a public person and so remains ‘Clint.’ The obituary discloses that his name is Cliff Hexamer and that Eighner took Hexamer’s last name when they wed. 

 

BASHED, BUT UNABASHED

I suppose I just got verbally gay bashed. It wasn’t right, but I’m okay. Better than that even. It affirmed a sense a pride in the years I spent working through a critical part of my identity.

 

Since COVID, I’ve had to be more creative in how I exercise. Three-hour gym workouts are not possible. (Only an hour when gyms facilities have been open at all.) I do lots of running, cycling and hiking (I miss swimming laps), but I have added long walks to my schedule as well. I’ve seen Vancouver neighborhoods in different ways, always ready to snap a photo of something I never noticed or took for granted. 

 

I was walking through a historic section known as Gastown when the incident occurred. It was early morning, when it’s light, but most of the city is still asleep. It’s always me and a few avid runners, some dog walkers yawning as they stare at their phones and people who spend most of their time on the street, some homeless, others staying in SROs (single room occupancy housing).

 

I spent five years living in a condominium that was a couple of blocks from Gastown and Chinatown, both areas that can be very sketchy with people addicted to drugs (used needles dot the sidewalks), people experiencing mostly untreated mental health disorders and people who for whatever reason are considered “down and out.” It was this way when I first visited Vancouver in 1992 and, if anything, it’s gotten worse. Long-term solutions require complex strategies and supports that I don’t think the city has the will or the allotted, focused resources to carry through. I could go on at length about this, but not now. (You can read related posts here and here.) I’ll just add that, while the area shocked my sheltered self in 1992, I don’t feel the least bit threatened there now.

 

As you might have guessed, it was a gentleman who appeared to be spending a lot of time out of any kind of shelter who took exception to my presence. We were walking in different directions on the same side of the street. No big deal. I was checking to see if a café was open yet because it had been a long time since I’d bought a loaf of their amazing sourdough bread. (No, I’m not one of those people who learned how to bake it on my own during the pandemic. That would be dangerous skill for me to acquire!) The place was closed so I turned back to take a photo of a vintage hotel sign. The man had, for whatever reason, turned back from wherever he was going, too. 

 

Another crossing of paths. This triggered him. He began yelling, “Stop following me, faggot! Get away from me, faggot! Fucking faggot! Don’t look at me, faggot!” Basically, it was a stream of thoughts, each punctuated by the same epithet. 

 

An appropriate response might have been no response or some sage words to deescalate the situation, but I said, “Oh, shut up.” There’s a reflex to defend oneself, to not be a pushover. My comment didn’t worsen things. I sensed it wouldn’t. People often express hateful rants at high volume in this area, but that’s it in terms of outward agitation. Most often, a diatribe is directed at no one that is physically present (an example of which I’d observed minutes earlier, crossing paths with a woman who paused her tirade as we passed, only to start up again). 

 

I turned my back to take my picture, he moved on—a few more parting remarks—and I continued with my walk. Was I bothered? Honestly, a little. It was mostly my response that I reflected on. That was, after all, the part within my control. Was it a show of self-respect to say something as a mild form of defense? What could I have said that would have been more respectful? Why wasn’t I more offended? More shaken? I didn’t like that there was a consider the source message that popped in my head to minimize this man’s attack. When I was in an abusive relationship, I learned to tell myself, This is not my problem. This is his problem. It took time for me to get to that point instead of questioning what I’d done wrong and internalizing all the putdowns. Once I got there, however, I realized how well it worked. No more piling on my partner’s scorn to my own self-hate. I suppose I’d forgotten it or, more accurately, I’d let it go when I finally freed myself from that relationship. 

 

If I’d had the wherewithal in the moment on the street in Gastown, that’s how I would have processed it instead of disrespecting his status as a human being. This is his problem would be in terms of any homophobia he had rather than in terms of his present circumstances. In general, I have seen the humanity in people who are struggling. I admire their social connections. I see a vibrancy in this community even while wanting so much for there to be real change. When accosted, I wasn’t my best self. Life remains a work in progress. (That’s the beauty of it.)

 

I considered his choice word as I continued my walk. Not long ago, I would have mortified, worried about how I came across in public. Do people see me as gay?! I would have been embarrassed that the three or four people who could see and hear the encounter would think of me as gay out cruising this other guy. (I did not need them to come to my defense, which none of them did.) So many of us have spent so much time trying to pass as straight. We kept our social circles to other gay men, a few lesbians and other women. Safety. Comfort to be who we truly are. I could be OUT & PROUD where there was little to no threat. That was all good in helping me grow into accepting myself. Don’t we all want to immerse ourselves in supportive environments?

 

There is a world beyond, of course. Partly due to age, partly due to increased LGBTQ visibility and acceptance and, yes, partly due to my own work on self-acceptance, I care so much less about what other people think, my sexuality included. 

 

I am who I am.

 

Not even a block away from the incident, I had another reaction. I was happy. I felt free. It’s shallow, but I liked how looked as I’d headed out for my walk—fresh haircut the day before to tame what had become my ode to Einstein, a hoodie that perfectly matched my shoes and complemented my jeans. Lots of people on the street might have looked at me and formed as a first impression, “That’s so gay.” Not as a putdown, but more of a comment on how people might stereotype a put-together men’s look. My basher may have had an in-tune gaydar.

 

Okay, then. I’m a faggot. I prefer gay. I prefer whatever the term not to be expressed with contempt. Still, for me to go so quickly in proudly thinking of that cover headline from when Ellen DeGeneres came out in Time magazine—Yep, I’m Gay—kinda sorta made my day. Someone else’s hate will not bring me down.    

CAUTION: CURVE BALL COMING

I knew it was coming. Maybe that explains my quiet acceptance. As of today, Sweden has a travel ban in effect, preventing me from flying to Stockholm on April 4. My plans for an epic European adventure are kaput. There’s a virus going around. I get it. My dashed dream is nothing when the elderly and people with compromised immune systems are feeling like they’ve got targets on their backs, worrying that every cough, sneeze or sniffle is the beginning of a frightening fight for survival. I’m concerned that people like me might be asymptomatic carriers, leaving harmful contaminants in the air between the grocery aisles as we get our regular week’s worth of milk and bananas. (Foolishly or not, I shall not hoard.)

My hotels have all been canceled. No penalties, no hassle. All my bookings had been with free cancellation policies. I still have to cancel my flight and a ferry to Estonia. Early this morning, I called Folkuniversitetet, an adult learning institution, and canceled my Swedish immersion class. Alas, my conversational Swedish will remain limited to useful expressions like, “Det finns en älg bakom restaurangen” [There’s a moose behind the restaurant] and “Gå och tvätta dig! Annars får du ingen mat” [Go wash up! Otherwise, you will not get any food]. The phone call triggered a pang of missing Sweden as the gentleman who took my call was so charming in his quintessentially Swedish demeanor: somewhat overwhelmed in processing course cancellations yet earnest, respectful and friendly in a restrained sort of way. How often do you feel both warm and fuzzy and amused after a customer service call? Damn, I just love the country!

Tallinn,  Estonia 

Yet Sweden must wait. I can reschedule but I have to let go of the fact it’s unlikely I’ll have another opportunity for such an extended trip. What made things affordable was that I’d timed the trip to immediately follow when I move out from my condo. My belongings were to sit in storage—a minor cost—while I lived without a home. No rent, no mortgage. The savings would have offset a chunk of my travel costs. I thought I had an exciting, brilliant plan. I loved the openness of it. I’d settled on three weeks in Stockholm, plus visits to Tallinn and Helsinki, but the rest was to unfold along the way. Other likely stops: Prague, Lisbon and the Algarve in Portugal and a complete tour around Iceland’s Ring Road. But the itinerary, to the extent there was one, was subject to change. “You should see Germany’s Black Forest!” “Have you thought about Budapest?” Okay, let’s do it!

That was then.

I’m picturing a family minivan driving through Ohio with a “Disney World or Bust” message scrawled through a film of dirt on the back window. Who ever thought the entire world would be stuck with the “Bust” option? Surreal becomes real. This is now.

Come April 3, instead of grumbling over the check-in fee for my suitcase and suffering through thirteen hours in a cramped airline seat, I’m faced with uncertainty along with a reality check over the true meaning of “suffering”. Please, please, please, let us get a handle on this virus. Let people get the testing and the care that they need.

When I move out of my condo, I will be officially home-less. (To say “homeless” is both inappropriate and needlessly dramatic.) I could try to make the 4,400-kilometer drive to Toronto which is where I planned to live after my travels. I’m not sure that’s a wise move though as healthcare is provincially run and there is a three-month waiting period for medical coverage after I secure a permanent residence in Ontario. Technically, my former province, British Columbia is supposed to still cover me but it’s a bit of a gray area and, given that we’re in a pandemic, I’m reluctant to take my chances. Besides, during Prime Minister Trudeau’s press conference today, a reporter asked if travel between provinces would be restricted. Answer: stay tuned; anything is possible.

Staying put, to the extent I can, seems to be prudent. I have an offer to stay in a friend’s RV though it lacks running water and won’t be hooked up. Another friend offered a room in her place. Very kind. Then there’s Daniel, my surprise boyfriend for the past two months. He offered his second bedroom. What?! Living “together” in a separate room at a new and still temporary boyfriend’s place? That just feels weird. And yet things are continuing to develop.

In a week, when the ever-changing landscape (hopefully) becomes clearer, I’ll start to plan anew. Will hotels still be taking guests? I’m sure there’s some remote Airbnb cabin in northern B.C. or on one of the Gulf Islands where I can exhaust my European travel budget. With a little imagination, I can pretend I’m actually in Sweden, somewhere off its “Wilderness Road”, Vildmarksvägen, 700 kilometers north of Stockholm. Perhaps it will be a golden opportunity to actually see a moose behind a (closed) restaurant. If not a moose, then a bear [en björn].

It’s all good. Different, but good.