GAZING INTO MY FUTURE: A GAYBORHOOD WITH A PRUNE JUICE BAR & ORIGAMI CLASSES

During my first years in Vancouver, I bonded with a straight woman and two gay men. She was a step instructor at the gym and we three gays attended her classes religiously. The four of us often grabbed coffee at the gay hub of the time, Delany’s on Denman Street, sometimes staying in to sip and chat, other times, heading to the seawall to sit on a log or walk along the water. The laughs were big, the talks often going from light to profound. 

 

As each of us was single, there was much talk about our futures and how those futures might play out should our single status hold. (None of us seemed to have many prospects to change that status.) We joked about growing old together, three bitter gays and our peppy fitness instructor, changing gears to lead us through wheelchair aerobics and cane jousts. We envisioned ourselves adding dazzle to our nursing home, downing our morning prune juice in the dining lounge while decked out in rainbow beads and high heels which would be much less hazardous to traipse about in given that our electric wheelchairs did all the movement.  

 

At some point, the jesting took on a more serious tone. What would eighty-something really be like if we were single and not as independent? What if we had to live out our golden years not as Golden Girls but back in the milieu of one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others, our Pride flags burned by the resident arsonist with Alzheimer’s? What if we each had to sit down to three o’clock dinners—Yorkshire pudding, again—at a table for one, all the straight seniors shunning us?

 

I’ve never looked forward to growing old, but the prospect of being the lone gay in a nursing home only seemed to make that future worse. We began to talk more seriously about an LGBTQ seniors community, little cabins along a pristine lane, a larger assisted living chalet at the end. What a difference it would make to not have to go back into the closet, to not worry about intolerance from another resident or a caregiver. 

 

I’ve held onto that idea, even as our fabulous foursome is very much in the past—a falling out with one, losing touch with another and one I only see once or twice a year when he swings back into town from Prince Edward Island. We won’t be roomies or neighbors in our utopian queer community for the aged, but I’d love to have a place like that to live should I need eldercare or want ongoing social connections as old friends die off or move to Winnipeg or Saskatoon to live with a daughter or the nephew who drew the short straw. 

 

I was both heartened and surprised to stumble upon a CBC news article last week about Toronto’s “Rainbow Wing,” billed as North America’s first-ever dedicated queer living space in a long-term care facility for seniors. It’s not an entirely gay nursing home, but one section consisting of twenty-five beds is for LGBTQ residents. The facility is operated by Rekai Centres whose executive director, Barbara Michalik, stated, “We can’t just slap a sticker on a door. We can’t just do one education during the month of June for pride. It’s continuous. It’s a feeling of culture when you come into that home [and] safety. It’s really constant reinforcement of welcoming.”

 

A quick Google Map search shows that the home, Wellesley Central Place, is only a block and a half away from Church & Wellesley, the hub of The Gay Village in Toronto. This allows residents to easily venture out by foot, walker or cab in a familiar area they may have lived in or at least spent significant time visiting. It seems ideal to remain in a place one knows instead of being transplanted to a suburban neighborhood where residents have no ties. For seniors experiencing some form of senility, a better sense of place may help them remain grounded in reality, past associations and connections being regularly triggered. 

 

I’m not sure the claim that it’s the first-ever such nursing home space in North America holds true. Within the past year or two, I read about Stonewall House in Brooklyn, not a nursing home, but billed on its website as “LGBTQ+ elder housing.” The seventeen-story building has fifty-four studio and ninety-one one-bedroom apartments. Stonewall House appears to be a place for seniors who continue to live independently so, while it doesn’t offer care, it provides connection and safety for queers as they grow old. Sadly, the site states in bold, “Our building is fully occupied. We are not accepting applications at this time.”

 

Clearly, there is a need for more LGBTQ spaces offering independent, semi-independent and nursing home environments for seniors. Not every queer person would seek out such a living community, but the demand still far exceeds what is presently available. Indeed, the CBC article mentioned a small survey of LGBTQ people aged fifty and older in which 94% of respondents favored opening a space like the Rainbow Wing. 

 

More seniors identify as queer, having grown up as LGBTQ rights gained traction and acceptance increased. Let more safe spaces—day centers and residences—become established for older gays to consider spending time in their later years. Many, like me, won’t have family networks looking out for them. I hope I can consider accessing such options if and when it seems appropriate.