And What Be of That Guarantee?

I waited patiently to let the on-coming hearse pass before I pulled out into the traffic lane. It was coming, then going by at a fair clip. I noticed that it was painted not that death-by-acceptance traditional black color, or that denial-of-death untraditional white color, but rather a dignified death-stupefying non-traditional wine color. But it was the graffiti on the side that flashed by my eye.

Very difficult to make out, but I thought I saw some manifestation of the word “tatooz.”

And with a little hustle on my part, I caught up with the thing, and even pulled up beside it.

Sure enough. “Tatooz by Bonz.” “Tatooz guaranteed until death.” “Tatooz to die for.”

A roving tattoo-parlor no less.

Now to be perfectly honest, I can’t/won’t understand why anybody in his or her right mind would “go” to tattoo-parlor in the first place. But to have one come to them!?!

That would have to be a death-defying experience.

Perhaps using this “mobile” service would allow the tattooee to honestly say to their parent, their spouse, their partner, their friend, “I’ve never beeeeen to one of thoooose places.”

But just let us suppose that I totally lost my mind. I called that 800 number on the side. I slunk out the door and crawled into the back of that carriage of tattoable death, and . . . . asked about that guarantee.

“And what be of that tattoo after the death?”

The Refectory Manager

Emotion of Circle

I don’t have all that big of a circle of gay friends. And the non-gay ones that I have I can never share those things so deep within my heart because they are simply incapable of understanding.

At the moment, I am overwhelmed with emotion. I am trying not to cry.

To understand that certain primal call of mysticism from deep within one's very being in the way one given the gift of homosexuality can, is to experience an awesome gift.

It is the music.

It is the music that I listen to at the moment.

The memories. The emotions.

It overwhelms me.

Don’t laugh.

In this time of transition of the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere, it is the music of Christmas to which I listen.

That longing for, yet fear of, that cold and dark and forbidding which is in opposition to this, the brilliant point in the circle of seasons.

And yet the comfort and memories and mysticism and miracles of the darkest of days on that circle fill me with emotions I can hardly express.

At the moment, the iPod has randomly selected a series of pieces from a collection by the American Boy Choir. Classical Christmas music of the highest traditional order with organ and percussion.

I have listened to this so many times in the past. And to hear it again, to revert to those past experiences, it is near overwhelming.

What is it about music, the ambience of music, that simply overwhelms the soul?

The purity of voices? The polyphonies of melody against melody? The familiarity of the ageless theme? The burst of cymbals? The little chiffiness of the flues making up the diapason rank of pipes? The antiphonal dance of opposing choirs? The near eternity of reverberation in the great cathedral? The calculus one’s head instinctively goes through in transforming the physics of syncopated airwaves into changes in heart rate, blood pressure, tears, temperature, neural stimulation, hormonal modulation?

And the resulting, overwhelming, emotion to cry.

With joy.

With sadness.

To cry.

And to accept that the end of the circle is also its beginning.

The Refectory Manager

That Voice

The pianist was playing “Summer’s Dream” [C. Rollin] as the prelude to the worship service. I was twisted enough in my chair, to notice the arrival of someone directly behind me, with a leg extending out of a garish pair of orange shorts and a sockless foot embedded in an equally garish orange tennis shoe. Gender of the owner not certain. I didn’t want to appear gawkish. But there were certain things that triggered that inherent question that happens everytime with me. Please, Dear God, did you give this person the gift of being gay too?

My field of vision was such that I could see that the leg moved a little at times. Just had to be male . . . with an extremity extended in a way like that.

The service progressed; I got engrossed in other things.

And then the opening hymn.

I started to sing. A set of words unfamiliar to me, but set to the music of “Brother James Air.” Classic Welsh. Classic Celtic. And I had to stop singing.

That voice. That articulate second-tenor voice. The enunciation. The phrasing. The accenting of sustained vowels on the beat of the music. The richness. The timbre. The perfect pitch. That song could have lasted for hours.

More of the service. Some funny things about love. For the sermon title was “How Do I Love Thee?” And it wasn’t the kind of sermon most in Christendom would expect. For in this sermon, the “Thee” was your partner, your friend, your spouse, your parent, your child. A humanist kind of sermon where the principles of true Christianity are relevant in the here and now.

And then the closing hymn. And that voice again.

Finally, The Congregational Closing: “Let us go in peace, believe in peace, and create peace in our lives and in the world. Amen.”

Now, with the service over, it was respectable to be gawkish. I could turn around. I did.

Must have been at least 6’2”. Rich olive brown complexion. Sunken brown puppy-dog eyes. Shadow of a beard. Closely cropped mat of soft black hair.

Our eyes caught. Some blurting out of common greeting, the perfunctory thing to do.

And then it stumbled right out of me. “I could listen to you sing for hours on end.”

He bent over, lowered his ear like he didn’t really catch what he thought he might have heard.

“I could listen to you sing for hours on end.”

He straightened up and blushed. It was obvious he was taken off guard. Now I was freaking.

“You have a beautiful voice. I sure hope that it is just not a hobby or something, but that you do something really serious with it.”

That simply had to sound stupid. I’m now the one getting rattled. Into what mess have I gotten myself.

But he was quick to respond.

“I used to sing in a choir,” and still smiling like the Cheshire cat, he continued, “But I do speak. I just got a job as radio announcer, at . . . “ and he rattled off a radio station’s call sign and frequency. “On the weekends, only on the weekends . . .”

I made another nonsensical remark to confirm and validate my feelings about his wonderful gift of voice and his venue for expressing it. And I stammered some more about how beautiful his singing was to listen to.

He stood tall, face radiant, blushing, smiling, stammering.

“Thank you for telling me that.” And he swallowed hard, nodded in affirmation. “That makes me feel so wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so very much.”

The Refectory Manager

Those Pesky Homophones

As one who has been known drop a double negative or two at the grammarian’s picnic, I do find myself getting the proper and correct sequence of alphabetic characters with the necessary corresponding interjected white space all lined up in some order of sensible English.

[A discourse on blog I frequent was ongoing about the difficulties that some people, and especially non-native English speakers have, with the English language.]

And it is those homonyms and homphones that get me into trouble. And yeah! Those pesky heteronyms and polysemes and capitonyms. They’ll for sure wrap/rap themselves around my axle/axil in knots/nots that will make a pair/pare of twisted shorts look like a love fest/nest of my favorite rock group: Jacque Strawp and his All Elastic Band.

As one snarky blogger wrote once, "If it is spelled correctly---it's a typo"

And spell checker just ends up making a fool out of me.

Back in my teaching days, it never failed, I would be writing/righting on the chalk board and getting “bowl” and “bowel” mixed up in the most inappropriate ways. For I taught both nutritional physiology and culinary cuisine . . . to some of the same students!

And when I do catch myself making some horrendous gaffe in spelling, usually when it is too/to/two late to do anything about it, I just think of old President Andrew Jackson. Bless him! For with him, "It's a darn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word."

My father once told me that his English teacher at Canadian Junior College back in the ‘40’s said that there were five distinct grammatical errors in the following sentence. I think she had this as a test question. I can spot a couple, but five? And that sentence, if it even qualifies as a sentence: “Them’s them.”

And “as far as”, or horrors! “All the farther” along this line of spelling graffiti, there are some nuggets/nougats of thought.

"Justice is not spelled 'Just Us'---Power concedes nothing without demands." Frederick Douglas

And "Can you spell community without unity?"

But for me, I just give up. "Can't spell worth tish…"

The Refectory Manager

Oh! And check out Wikipedia about those nasty homophones: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homonym

But you can’t tell just by hearing.

A snippet of overheard conversation is a projectile suspended. The hearer knows nothing of the antecedents. Can know nothing of the aftermath. But that snippet I did hear. I have been frightened and haunted all of this day.

I watched the two ladies, obviously hospital employees, characterized by their togs and dangling name badges, enter into the serving area of the hospital cafeteria through one door. I entered through another. We converged at the beverage station.

“But I don’t want any grandsons.”

I turned to look at the speaker of those words. A lady probably in her early forties. She looked distraught, intense. The other lady had her back to me.

“I only want granddaughters.”

“But why? What is wrong with little boys, little grandsons? How can you wish just for that?”

“No grandsons. I can’t have grandsons . . . Only granddaughters.”

“Why not grandsons when granddaughters are OK?

The lady was so pained, so intense.

“Because my son isn’t manly enough to be the father of boys.”

My steaming cup of joe just turned to ice.

I had to leave that area. I did not want to hear any more.

That suspended projectile of conversation snippet ricocheted deep into me.

I know nothing of the antecedent. I know nothing about the how or the why or the necessity of that kind of a remark.

But I did hear that comment. It did affect me.

“. . . my son isn’t manly enough to be the father of boys.”

And that ricocheting projectile has torn me apart.

I simply couldn’t help but think that there are gender and/or sexual orientation issues involved. That there are expectations that are not being met. That personal worth and validation of people are being severely tested. That people are hurting. That pain is real.

“. . . isn’t manly enough to be the father of boys.”

That projectile had the clarion of judgment.

Of indictment. Of expectations. Of disappointment. Of failure of understanding. To understanding.

That projectile had the desperate cry for the miracle of healing.

But you can’t tell just by hearing.

The Refectory Manager