Notes on "A Series of Sundays"

A few notes on the latest series:

1. The title is derived from the musical Sunday in the Park with George.  From the plays setting description page: "Act I takes place on a series of Sunday from 1884-1886 and alternates between a park and an island in the Seine just outside of Paris and George [Seurat]'s studio."
2. The epigraphs are derived from the same musical.  The choice seemed fitting as much of the show focuses on the concept of vision.  Although that theme is somewhat undeveloped and non-cohesive in the series, it plays an important role.
3. A significant aspect of this series is admittedly controversial in Mormon circles.  My main goal was to find a balance for readers familiar with the significance of garments as well as those completely unfamiliar.  I hope I remained respectful and provided enough context to understand the significance in the story. 

A Series of Sundays, Part 5

May 10, 2009

I Chose and my world was shaken,
So what?
The choice may have been mistaken...
The Choosing was not...

 

As I closed the bathroom door behind me, I realized I was in the midst of a time of endings and beginnings.  Some I was prepared for and others I had not.  Graduation and the end of my job on campus had been in sight for months, as was my impending departure for South America.  My brother Darin was in a similar point in his life. 

Just an hour ago, he'd made a decision that would affect the rest of his life.  I sat outside the Stake President's office with my father and mother as well as my older brother's family.  After several persistent months of doctor's visits, interviews, and paperwork, Darin was now prepared to submit his application to serve as an LDS missionary. 

He would be the third of three boys and the third generation to go out clad in black nametag, shirt, and tie.  It was a fate ascribed to us from the moment we were born.  Five years ago, I'd been in his place as my brother had fifteen years ago and my father nearly forty years. 

My mind turned to that moment-- to the utter unpreparedness of my nineteen year-old self preparing to commit two years of my life to a cause which I had my doubts, though it was still something in which I held faith, albeit incomplete. 

"Do you feel prepared, GMB, to serve the Lord with all your heart, might, mind, and strength?" President Matheson asked me earnestly.

"I don't know how I could be feel more prepared," I answered.  His smile consoled my doubt as much as it could.  "Everything's been ideal for me.  My parents are great.  I've had great leaders and teachers.  I'm not without doubt, though.  I've fought with that for a long time."

"GMB, no one's faith is perfect.  And sometimes that's all we have to act on, but know that you will be prepared.  By committing yourself to the covenants you've made, you'll find all of the answers you need.  They come in time, and I'll still admit I'm finding them all the time."

"That's something I really needed to hear," I blurted out from across the mahogany desk, my every gesture communicating the relief I felt. 

"I know you're under a lot of pressure, but everything that makes me the man I am today stemmed from that decision to serve a mission and commit myself to the covenants we make in the temple."

My arms folded across my chest, I nodded-- confident in the decision I was making.  Four years later, I sat with the same expression and the same confidence rushing through me. 

The door opened and Darin emerged letting out a sigh as he stepped across the threshold into a new segment of his life.  Soon he would be our missionary, the topic of conversation at every family gathering for two years in his absence, but in that moment we hugged, realizing that this was one of our final moments together for a long time. 

Of course, I would be leaving for Chile and Darin soon thereafter to some unknown corner of the globe.  However, what was less apparent in that moment was the other change on the horizon. 

We drove home a happy family: my mother changing the Sunday station back to her weekday oldies, my father making a pun, Darin and I shaking our heads but still laughing in our "intellectual disgust."  We then said our goodnights and went our separate ways.

Looking in the mirror as I contemplated the day and prepared for my shower, my future and my past collided.  I looked at myself, at the person I'd become and I was satisfied.  I had accomplished more than I would have ever anticipated: success in school and work as well as the most complete understanding of myself I'd ever achieved. 

I'd gone as far as I could on that path, however.  Despite all of the growth I owed to the teachings of the church, and the success I'd garnered as a result of serving a mission, I felt limited by the options I had.  I'd lived the celibate life I'd been prescribed for a year and come to the conclusion (after deciding not to decide for so long) that it was not what was meant for me for an entire lifetime. 

I stared at myself from across the counter loosening my tie, unbuttoning my shirt, and pulling away the layers one by one until I stood in my white undergarments.  Five years ago, I put them on in an act of faith and obedience.   Standing as a constant reminder of the standards I was to hold and the godly power supporting me in this journey, I stood in awe of the holy garments for a moment.

Then, I removed them for the last time and stood before myself completely vulnerable: a small gut veiled by chest hair, breasts slightly plump for a man, tiger-stripe stretch marks lining the sides of my body. My strengths became just as apparent as I scrutinized my frame:  muscular legs shaped by years climbing up hills, arms colored olive by the rays of the sun, angular face framed by scruff.

For years, I'd been taught that this was God's greatest gift, that the human body stands as a vessel of godliness containing the power of creation.  Somehow, the elevation of the body as a glorious construction of a godless universe also seemed compatible in that moment.  So, I realized as I hunched over and stared into my own brilliantly hazel eyes a simple truth-- whether God existed or not, whether He created me or not, I had the potential within me to make a life of which I could be proud-- a life with which I could be satisfied and happy.

End of Series.

End, Book I.

A Series of Sundays, Part 4

April 5, 2009

Bit by bit, Putting it together
Piece by piece, working on the vision night and day
All it takes is time and perseverance
With a little luck along the way

 

“Stu’s twenty-seven, totally loveable, and not married? What’s wrong with this guy?” jibed one of his counselors. 

“He must be gay,” called a young twenty-something from the back of the classroom. 

Another teased in melodic tone, “Better go see the Bishop!”

I let out a frustrated sigh drown out only by the Elders’ Quorum’s laughter around me.  Do they realize how alienating that is?  I looked around curious at who was laughing at me and many of my friends simply for being different.  While it was entirely alienating to face the “them” and “us,” “good” vs. “evil” implications staring me in the face, I found some consolation in the fact that not everyone was amused in homophobia. 

No one displayed the outrage I felt inside (including myself), though there were pockets of sensitivity and liberal thought.  A headshake here, a hand over ones eyes there, and a couple of other men gauging reactions in their vicinities. Was the alternative better?

After a year of knowing and accepting my homosexuality, I was forced to come to terms with the complexity of the matter, and while I’d nearly finished a degree in dissecting complex systems of thought and language, I felt unprepared to do so in a real-life situation.  That said, I felt more and more that those around me didn’t have the answers I sought either. 

That night, I sat at my desk multi-tasking.  I’d escaped my Usual Sunday funk.  I was smiling and as energized as I’d felt in months.  Between the class readings, general writing, and comic strip doodling on some graph paper, I noted a chime from across the room.  I walked across the room and stooped over my laptop in the windowsill—the one place in the house I could log into an anonymous unsecured network in the neighborhood. 

“You have a new message from Cliff:

“Hey GMB,

“So, I don't really know how to go about this without possibly being awkward, so let me just get straight to the point.

“I'm gay, and I know that you are too. You may have already figured that out about me, but if not....there you go! Ha ha!I knew that we had a few friends in common that are gay, and so I wondered. Then i saw your profile on connexion and obviously I knew for sure. Anyway, I don't know how you are feeling about things and dealing with it all, but I have a really great group of friends up here and around Utah that have been great for me in helping me come to terms with this and live as much of a normal life as I can. I just want to let you know that I'm here if you ever need me for anything. Call or text whenever!…”

Cliff was one of the guys I noted took exception with the joke this morning.  He sat with Abel and Marty, two guys I’d suspected were gay.  All four of us had grown up together, and now I knew I wasn’t alone in the ward.  Certainly, there was a great deal of consolation in Cliff’s outreach. 

However, something felt off.

I thanked him sincerely for the offer and had no doubt that his offer was one filled with love and concern for a fellow gay Mormon boy.  The support he offered was definitely what many people needed.  A tightknit group like Cliff, Abel, and Marty needed each other to work through the complicated situation we all faced at that time. 

That was not what I needed in that moment, however.  I was starting to make sense of the spiritual side of my life, and the answers I sought would only come from within. 

A Series of Sundays, Part 3

February 8, 2009

We lose things and then we choose things.

 

Sunday was supposed to be a day of rest, though somehow that day of relaxation and rejuvenation did little to prepare me for the rest of the week.  My life now stood inverted.  My weekdays were spent resting up and preparing for the draining effects of Sunday.  The worst weeks were spent sleeping through meetings so as to avoid the negative feelings that would come were I to think critically or feel openly and honestly.  I couldn’t be thoughtful.  I couldn’t be emotional.  Essentially, I couldn’t be me. 

For me, it only seemed right to stick it out.  It was what my brother Darin and my family needed.  Even though we both lived at home that last year of my college experience and his first, we didn’t spend much time together.  It was the one thing we could do together some weeks due to our busy schedules (in addition to a billiards class we both signed up for), and I wouldn’t trade those moments for anything.

On the way to and from church, we’d often catch up on what each other’s friends were up to, the movies we’d seen, the new CDs we were listening to, and how classes were going.  I was really happy to see him in a good place.  He was preparing to serve a mission.  He and his girlfriend were about to celebrate a year of being together.  He was finding satisfaction and success in school with all of his projects. 

“Two weeks ago, the Constitutional Court of Colombia ruled that same-sex couples should have equal rights and benefits under the law.  Christina Navarro has our report on the reaction to this controversial—”

“Let’s listen to something else,” Darin said, putting in a Jack Johnson CD.  I wasn’t surprised by his reaction, though I’d hoped for something different.  It was an opportunity to bring up some things I’d worried about without being so obvious.

“How’s your friend Kellen? I haven’t seen him since you guys were in that show together?” I asked well aware that Kellen was the closest thing he’d had to a gay friend in high school.  

“We don’t really talk much anymore.  We went different directions and he chose a life different from the one I did.”  He said it all so straight-faced and self-assured, I wasn’t sure how to react or proceed. 

"Well, I doubt he's changed that much," I concluded.  It made sense and concerned me that the source of their falling out was precisely what might day be our falling out and I ruled out the possibility of sharing with him the one part of my life I kept tucked away-- behind my vest, underneath my dress shirt pocket in a locked chamber of my heart.

The rest of the day was somewhat muddled.  Following my usual Sunday regiment of reading the paper, family dinner, and homework, I slept. 

I awoke to the sound of a buzzing phone hours later.  “Hey, GMB. What are you up to?”

It was Ezra.  Following a week-long romance, we’d remained friends and hung out regularly as I got more comfortable in the community, and felt free to be more “out” away from my closest friends and those living in The Wood House.

With his encouragement, I found myself among a new group of people.  I picked him up and he showed me where to go.  I wasn’t tired enough to go back to bed and I needed to connect that night. 

“Ishamael’s house is pretty chill.  It’s not huge, so there are a lot of small groups,” he explained as we approached the porch of the brick house lit by what seemed to be a red Christmas light. 

Following a long round of introductions, I found myself in the kitchen politely declining drink after drink.  A moment later, a guy with piercing white teeth and blue eyes, mouthed the word “garments” from across the room, pointing to the sleeve of his shirt.  I tucked the holy fabric back under my sleeve as he turned back to his conversation and his drink.  My initial thoughts of desecration of the undershirt's sanctity turned to comfort and respect.

Though we’d only seen each other in passing and we’ve never sat down and had a conversation afterward, it was the type of connection I needed in that moment.  To know that another gay Mormon boy would watch out for me, or rather the beliefs I struggled with, provided me with the consolation I needed that Sunday as I reconsidered the religion I’d shared and lived and wore. 

 

End, Part 3.

A Series of Sundays, Part 2

December 21, 2008

Look at what you've done,
Then at what you want,
Not at where you are,
What you'll be

 

There is a distinct posture in church one will notice upon close observation.  Most common among teenage boys and the more tiring of meetings, it tends to accompany a sentiment of boredom or frustration.  Sitting in a pew, the subject enters the position first by slouching forward then placing the elbows upon the knees.  The forward-facing head  is then perched upon the hands as the subject's center of gravity moves forward.  Slowly the face drifts into disconnection, facing the feet. 

I looked up for a moment from this very posture, opening my eyes and looking around at those around me attentively listening to the young man giving the day's Sunday School lesson. 

"Could someone please read the paragraph beginning 'After'?"

"I will," a young woman recently returned from a mission in the Baltic states announced.

"Thanks," she said nodding as she looked up from her manual.

"After Heavenly Father gave Eve to Adam, he commanded them to have children. He revealed that one of the purposes of marriage is to provide mortal bodies for his spirit children. Parents are partners with our Heavenly Father. He wants each of his spirit children to receive a physical body and to experience earth life."  She read the final line with emphasis,  "When a man and a woman bring children into this world, they help our Heavenly Father carry out his plan." [Chapter 36, Gospel Principles]

Triggered by the topic of marriage, I retreated to my meditative state.  Lately, a lot of my most productive thought had been done while staring at my feet.  Practically all of my final papers had been outlined or to some extent composed in church as I tried to avert my mind from the dilemma at hand.

Distractions tugged away by the holiday break, I was forced to confront the emotions simmering over the past months.  My rational mind had worked through the numbness to arrive at an understanding of what I truly felt. 

It was indignation-- anger in righteousness.

Simultaneously, I conceived myself as a good person and an evil person.  I hadn't done anything wrong, but felt as if I'd be denied a life I'd been promised my entire religious existence (one of family and companionship) for living a life of integrity. 

A friction between the segments of my identity frustrated the sense of balance I'd managed to maintain for so long.  However, like two tectonic plates thrusting toward one another, it seemed as if a disaster lay beyond the horizon-- as if the earth under my feet were about to reform as one continent of my consciousness prepared to subduct under another. 

End, Part 2.

A Series of Sundays

November 9, 2008

Mapping out a sky.
What you feel like, planning a sky.
What you feel when voices that come
Through the window
Go
Until they distance and die,
Until there's nothing but sky
And how you're always turning back too late

 

“….This week, we saw the majesty of the democratic system in action…”

I perked up for a moment, setting aside my scrawled lines of prose on the back of the program.  Did he believe what he was saying. 

“….The scriptures teach us:

“Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord. [Mosiah 29:25]

“It is our role as God’s chosen people to take be actively engaged in the election process.  We do not take sides in the red and blue, Democrat and Republican debate, but we do stand for what is good and right in this world,” the speaker declared from the pulpit.

My mind returned to the events of the preceding Tuesday.  Following a year of debate and drama, the country's  political endgame was finally coming to pass.  The campus election party—a night of fun, games, and food muting the hostile overtones of the parties attending—was a mixed night for all. 

The liberals (gathered in their corner and outnumbered ten to one) celebrated the statements from McCain and Obama over the election outcome as the conservatives trickled out (with the exception of a self-proclaimed white supremecist who made it his mission to snuff out a smile left on anyone’s face that night).  A small group remained, aware and preoccupied with the state of California.  The passage of Proposition 8 shocked some and angered others.

For me, the announcement was like anodyne.  It left me numb all over.  I didn’t know how to feel, but felt prepared to endure great pain.  The idea of equality made sense but so did the Church in most ways. 

Absorbing the rest of the talk—calls for righteous living in difficult times, warnings against democracy making the wrong decision and the Lord smiting them down for their pride, cautions of hero worship pointed at the new President elect—I puzzled over the clear reservations held over the democratic process.  The speaker believed in a good form of democracy and a bad form of democracy.  Was I to feel inferior (despite having devoted a year of my life to studying the constitution)? Angry that he was twisting around beliefs I held close to my heart? 

I didn’t know.

So much beauty lay in the doctrines of salvation that I’d grown up with and that I’d taught and of which I’d testified.  The God of my religion seemed superior.  He was truly omnipotent because he could create other Gods.  He was truly all-knowing because he used the laws of science from physics to evolution to bend all of creation to his will.  He was truly loving because he knew me among billions of other souls and cared about my happiness.

I wasn’t all that certain about that anymore.  As I attempted to return to the moment and listen to the speaker’s conclusion, my body was a sheet of static—numb and uncharged. 

Hold

Voice Lessons

It was an exhilaration for which I wasn’t entirely prepared, but when I’d convinced myself it was time, I put one foot forward, opened my mouth and let it all out:

Somebody, crowd me with love,
Somebody, force me to care,
Somebody, make me come through,
I'll always be there,
As frightened as you,
To help us survive
Being alive,
Being alive,
Being ali—

“Very good. Next?” a voice called before I could test how long I could hold that last note.

You did it, I told myself. Auditions and sharing my voice had terrified me for as long as I could remember. The seating deliberations for band hacked away at my nerves from middle school on as well as the fear of saying something so outlandish or obvious in class that I’d draw everyone’s attention and ridicule.

Recently, however, I was finding strength. My sexuality that I didn’t think existed was slowly demystifying itself. I was finding greater success than ever at work and in school as a result of vocal encouragement from professors and peers. My identity was taking shape and the idea of being someone “special” (cliché as it might sound) and talented seemed like something that was finally possible, though not necessarily a reality.

I needed to test these discoveries and try something completely new. I also needed a break from dating following the breakup with Andre. (A breakup so bad, I often half-joked with Cole, he had to move a few states away—half-joked because it was completely true. Utah just didn’t agree with him). For that reason, I went out on the proverbial limb and decided to audition for a Broadway review. Months earlier, my parents had given me the very original gift of voice lessons.

It was one of the best surprise gifts I could have received. In an instant, I took my parents up on their offer and started up lessons with a family friend, and over the course of a couple of months, this Mormon housewife inadvertently provided me with the form of therapy I needed.

“Let’s do that again,” she said one day in a lesson. “It doesn’t take much for you to sing the words and get them on pitch, but going to the next level is what sounds the simplest. Paying attention to the words is actually the hardest part. It’s the greatest act of empathy to put yourself in the shoes of another person, and the characters singing these songs really are thinking and feeling people.”

I stared, listening with an expression of awe.

“You know literature better than me, so you can get to the soul of these words better than me or a lot of my students, so the only thing we’ll have to work on is pushing those feelings you share with the characters out onto your canvas.”

“And I’m sure, Beverly, I’ll learn a lot about feeling along the way,” I added.

“I think you’re ready for some Sondheim. Wait a sec while I find my Company book” she said as I flashed a delighted grin. My thoughts trailed off to characters and the idea of feeling: Characters should be easy—I wish I understood what was going on in real-life guys’ minds. Are we all broken in different ways?

A couple of weeks later, we found ourselves in the same studio. She at the piano I standing next to her waiting for the room to cool into silence following a long, sustained high G#. Those seconds of silence and the feeling of empty, burning lungs ready for a gasp of air seemed to say, You did it.

“GMB, I’m so proud of you. You’ve been practicing,” she said as her auburn hair whipped around to reveal her trademark horn-rimmed glasses.

“I did slack a bit this week,” I admitted, not explaining that the breakup with Andre pulled me away for a few days.

“Either way, your understanding of the character really came through in every way imaginable. It was as if you were him for a few brief moments. You seem to understand the ambiguities here—a desire and a terror of being in love, the sadness of not wanting to feel and the joy of feeling even if it’s not what we want to feel.”

It was as if she understood what was going on with me without mentioning a word about my dating life or the overall process of coming out to myself. That said, she would often turn to the story of a gay friend of hers from her days at BYU and say how happy she was for him despite their lives going in two distinct directions. I tend to think that, even in those earliest lessons, she was trying to show me the type of unconditional love we’re all taught about at some point in our lives.

“I want you to keep working on this piece. I think it’ll be good for you, and you can use it for an audition piece for the show,” she coaxed.

I knew that there was an undercurrent in her words “it’ll be good for you.” She wanted me to ponder those words like she pondered scripture. I heeded her words, preparing myself for that fateful audition and some time pondering those words as I put my dating life on hold, taking a boy-fast of sorts.

End, Part 1.

Embarrassing Things That Make Me Cry #3

Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I’m not really in a condition to write much with a trip coming up, general worries, concern for a dear friend, and everyday anxieties.

I present to you instead something subtly appropriate with the theme of forbidden love.

West Side Story is moving and provocative as it shows that the barriers that society teaches us do not (or at least should not) matter in terms of true emotion.

I wish you all well.