The Rural Municipality of Prison and other Townships

So Val Marie has put me in a position that I would wish upon nobody.

I love this town - I love my job. I love that every evening I get to see an incredible sunset, or I can go for a bike ride through a well-protected and advancing National Park. I can go for a hike through the park and discover new wildflowers, new terrain, and new wildlife. When you work for a park with over 15 endangered animal species and another 30 endangered plants, you always, always get the sense that you may just find something that has been seen for a very long time.

I've found cairns, arrowheads, dinosaur bones - things that have not been known of for many thousands or millions of years. This is just part of my job. A fantastical day at the office.

And yet...

I've not been able to sleep for the past couple of nights though. And there is no good reason to be offered except for an intense fear that has been a whispering memory for the past year but that choked the vitality out of my life in the twenty odd years that existed before that.

I am afraid of being myself in Val Marie. This stairway to heaven is creaking a bit too much - I'm uneasy here. I'm hiding in masks that I didn't know I had anymore.

The casual bigotry, homophobia, hatred that suffocates me is expressed in that most-vile of all weapons - humour. I am not the only victim; I should be thankful that I am not Metis or Indian. But it is very casual - just as I remember it being in high school.

De facto.

As though nothing else has ever existed, and nothing else has any reason to exist.

The place in which I find myself is a prison of open prairie. Its as though I was released from my fear, my hatred of the world, my refusal to be myself for a short period and then reminded of the reality of my environment. I've pushed myself back into my cell. Closed the door. Locked it - hidden the key in Regina.

I knew this was going to happen. I just had no idea it was going to hurt this much. I don't even remember what its like to talk about men. The vocabulary is lost.



Last night I texted a friend of mine in Halifax, asking her to remind me that it was ok to be gay. It surprised me that I was silently crying in my bed - courteous and selfish enough to not want to wake my ever-present roommates.

I am so alone.

Where the Iron Curtain Persists.

A European Union Human Rights Court that has been deliberating a case presented by a gay Austrian couple about the right to marriage being a fundamental right has presented its findings. And it isn't exactly looking all that good for European people who have a strange, though completely natural, attraction to people of the same sex.

Or, for simplicity's sake, people like myself.

The court decided that the right to marry is not a fundamental human right, and as a result, the refusal (I prefer the term failure, personally) to grant the right of marriage to same-sex couples is not recognized by the court as representative of a breach of equality rights legislation.

I'm sure that makes sense to somebody, somewhere. Apparently that somewhere being in Europe.

My immediate response to this is to consider how this is going to affect my own personal life. I do not hide my interest in living in Europe, including in those nations that refuse to grant same-sex unions any sort of official recognition. There is fascinating history there that should be read.

But instead I am going to look into how this may affect gay couples in Europe. In many parts of Europe (I believe six countries) same-sex couples can get married. In many other parts they can be granted a civil union recognized (seven other countries). Eleven member countries in the European Union refuse to offer any sort of recognition to them. For some reason, the same love is denied the same rights.

Europe is a fascinating continent though. There are parts of Europe that have been leaders in granting same-sex couples state recognition and state benefits. Other parts are still stuck in the past - caught in an era of pre-Stonewall Riot intensity in fighting the "maniacal spread of homosexuality" amongst the population.

This is most true in those nations that were once satellite states of the Soviet regime. Under the regime of most of the Soviet states (and the socialist in me is pained by this unfortunate reality), homosexuality was illegal. It never received the recognition of state officials, it was never given the chance for tolerance in society because people refused to come out of the closet - they refused to out themselves, to be shipped off, and to never be seen or heard from again.

It is no longer illegal to be homosexual in any of the European states. But, judging by the social reality, it might as well be.

I can recall the moment when I was granted the right to marry. As I've mentioned before, I walked around school with a silent and hidden grin inside - I was happy. Joyful even. For the first moment in my life, I saw the hint that I could have a future - there was hope. There was the acknowledgment that I could be myself, regardless of the hatred that I sensed in my environment - and that I could be myself for the rest of my life. Disregard the fact that I stayed in the closet for another 6 years. I was joyful for one day.

I must also note that society has responded to the granting of same-sex couples the right to marry very, very positively. There has been a shift - a tremor in the ground that has altered the foundation of society. Suddenly, after getting used to it a bit, after attending a ceremony or two celebrating the love shared between two men or two women, society accepts gay marriage - accepts homosexuality. Not totally. Maybe accept is even the wrong term - it is a helluva lot closer to tolerance. But it has been felt by myself and everybody else.

But the state took a step, with less than 50% of popular support, on my behalf - it took an enormous risk, and it changed Canada as a result. Thank God.

Perhaps Europe, and the European Union Human Rights Court would like to take a note about this. The fact is that consensus is not going to take place in my life - but by forcing society to change for the better of the minority, Canadians have learned to accept the gay community just that much more. I refuse to accept that Europe, even though the fight is harder, would be different.

Life's a Dance.

I wonder if they can feel it. That moment of hesitation just before you say yes. Can they sense the insincerity of the touch, the eyes - the words? Can they smell it in the air.

Is there something even more primitive than this that triggers the question?

Last night I went out for a night on the town. Not much of one, because Val Marie is a town of 100 people and because I worked this morning at 8 am and had to be ready to interact with really enthusiastic flower-lovers as we hiked through the park and I showed them the dozens of plants that are currently in bloom. But it was still a night on the town.

I drank two Coca- Colas. Which is a lot for me - and which is far better than two Pilsner - which is repeatedly the worst beer available in Saskatchewan. It really is an unfortunate drink - horse urine. Even worse when you watch people pay to consume it.

Anyways, there was a concert in Val Marie last night. An Irish Soul Singer named Stephen McGuire. It was relatively enjoyable - and there were certainly moments that hinted at a talent far greater than what he exhibited last night. He convinced me that owning a loop pedal is a good thing, and that minimalism can be infectious.

Last night involved dancing. Particularly the two step.

So I danced. The two step. With the only partner I have ever known - a woman. It was quite funny how it is that we danced; long story short, she was forced to ask me by means of humour and embarassment.

I had fun. We sang a long to My Girl by The Temptations together.

I enjoyed the irony.

And looked forward to the day when I would be two-stepping with a man instead.

Just add water.

Last night I went out fishing at the Val Marie Municipal Reservoir. Despite not catching anything than the occasional boulder with my hook, I had a blast. For four hours. Good fun with good people.

Tonight I went swimming at the same place – the Val Marie Municipal Reservoir. It was quite hot today, so a small group of young adults wanted to head down and cool off.

Now – anybody familiar with swimming at beaches (or in general) is familiar with the general routine. People meet, promenade to the beach, and then miraculously agree to take off almost all of their clothing in front of everybody else.

That happened tonight, and I happened to discover a God in Val Marie. His name is Jeff. His is a name that will likely be whispered in my dreams. The first thing in Val Marie that is in my age group and is worth looking at, and who, despite his country upbringing, is one helluva nice guy.

As one of the millions of people in the world inflicted with a challenge known to some as “four-eye-ism”, I had to take off my glasses and become essentially blind to objects more than 3 inches from my face. I still played the dangerous game of Frisbee in the lake with my friends – often taking peeks at this man and imagining just how the muscles on his body were twisted and warping as he maneuvered not-so-gracefully in the rock-laden shallow water.

After twenty three years of training, I have gotten to be quite adept not only at peeking at things that I likely shouldn’t be peeking at (in my sexual profession, you’ve got to take the chances you get), and even better at filling in the blurriness of my vision with incredible details.

Jeff was Adonis. The great Statue of David, prancing around with his shirt off only feet from me. Stunning.

My room-mate who came with me said that one of the girls who joined us (there was an even split of three and three), Danae, was an attractive woman. “Man, I just find Danae so hot!” I smiled and laughed. Honestly, I couldn’t deny it – Danae really is quite hot. I was wanting to say the same thing about Jeff.

But I’ll never get to be anything but straight in Val Marie. How boring.

He’s blonde. Has an incredible smile – has just enough attitude to be called personality.

And his hair is curly.

I promised myself I wouldn't think of you today. That I wouldn't be reminded of the way your pants wrap around your legs with the perfection of a painting; how your arms fill your sleeves. Your smile shines. I wasn't going to let myself remember your name. Or the way that the left edge of your upper lip curls into your mouth whenever you smile or say words from another language. How your nostrils flare when you laugh. You are a masterpiece.

I wasn't going to remember how you audibly grunt, lifting tool boxes into the truck's carriage - preparing to go and fix the fence.

I avoid making eye contact with you, even in these moments when all I have of your existence is the memory of your eyes. They are blue, or maybe a little green. They shine with a vitality that is completely enrapturing. I would hate to reveal my temptation that is aroused by your mere presence - I know people read my eyes really well.

I'd like you to know how to read my eyes.

There is no experience quite as powerful as a Saskatchewan storm cloud unleashing all its voracious fury on your single head – alarming your nerves, alerting your sensations, triggering your fear and wonder. This is the sound of rain. This is the feeling of water. This is the power of God.

The darkness of my Val Marie home in the night, blanketed by the sound of water splashing against the water-logged bentonite clay outside my window. The splashes of light from outside and the pounding symphony of creation as it bangs against the door and the grassland hills in the distance. A crackle. A boom. Pitter patter. Its mourns for an Adagio and then, in an instant, accelerando.

What is the tempo marking of nature?

Is this a cry? Or a celebration?

How can I sleep with this noise? The sensation of energy in the air? Life is happening now. How do I sleep? This is the meeting of the skeleton of nature - the sky, the earth, the clouds in between. It is my delightful purgatory to be stuck here in Val Marie, happening now. How do I sleep?

Encountering God is worth it in Saskatchewan.

changes...

You know, I’m learning stuff about myself in Val Marie that I didn’t expect to learn. First of all, the moment you hear that rattle somewhere around you and you haven’t got the slightest idea where that noise is coming from in the thick green net of grass that has caught you, there is an undeniable fear in your gut. You are certain that you will die. Until you see the perpetrator. That snake. The same one that has been draining the blood from your face whenever you wake up in the middle of the night and think that something is on your bedroom floor. That is something that I have learned.

Rattlesnakes are terrifying.

Even moreso when you have a group of people trusting you to be the expert on how to handle encounters with them. Am I really supposed to know? Stand still. Let it make the first move – it will always be in the opposite direction.

Make sure that you check your floors after you wake up. Even if you live two stories off the ground. Early in the morning or in the middle of the night, you are certain that those venomous monsters have wings and are looking for ways to cause your muscular tissue to collapse by merely sinking their teeth beyond the thin layers of protective flesh and injecting their venom into my tissue.

It is their single goal in life. I am their prey.


I have been bitten a couple of times this week by snakes. The teeth have not thus far sunk in, and I have not made noise revealing my pain yet, but I can feel the venom spreading. Soon it will reach my heart, and I will stop functioning.

I don’t know how it is that I have changed. There were times when I could let these things wash over me. When I identified and yet had no ounce of pride in who I was made to be and who I look forward to becoming.

I knew that it would be hard to be in Val Marie for the summer – that my growing desire to be a part of a relationship would feel even more stifled here than it would be in Regina. That is undeniable. And frustrating. But I fully underestimated how painful it is to be cursed, insulted, and broken by words thrown as spears by people who do not know that their victim is nearby.

The residents of Val Marie, particularly some of the young men, have adopted the attraction between men as the grandest of all insults. Everything that sucks is gay. The term cocksucker is used to describe those men who are not well liked. Things that are disagreeable are gay. For example, tonight at the village bar the Stanley Cup final was being played. After the Chicago win, one of the girlfriends of a Chicago player came from the stands, jumped onto her boyfriend and wrapped her legs around him while he circled the rink on his skates. This is gay. Why? Because it is a public display of affection.

As I mentioned above, I was once able to oversee these insults – being gay was just a part of me that I could overcome, so the insults they were tossing out inflicted very little pain. Nothing I couldn’t surmount. It was just a part of my society, I accepted it. I looked forward to having a wife, with children that were birthed from her loins and the product of a night of passionate sex, and being totally in love with my life. Happy.

Tonight I want to cry.

I feel alone. So thoroughly alone.

Because I am still proud of who I am. Not just what I am, but who I am.


I just have nobody to tell that to. In Val Marie, Saskatchewan. The coolest place on earth.



Prairie Rattlesnake, Crotalus viridis viridis. My enemy.

Residents of Val Marie, Homo sapiens. My neighbour.

I have been bitten a couple of times this week by snakes. The teeth have not thus far sunk in, and I have not made noise revealing my pain yet, but I can feel the venom spreading. Soon it will reach my heart, and I will stop functioning.


It is their single goal in life. I am their prey.


On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

"What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?"

He answered: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

"You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"