A ravaged heart...

Last night I went for a bike ride, making it about 10 km out of town. Just as I turned to head back I was reminded of the wonder of Saskatchewan.


This is why I will always want to come home, and this is how I shall measure it. There is no experience quite as majestic as watching the rays of the sun dip behind a cloud that will bring ravenous rains overnight. Watching spasms of light dance in the sky is an experience only rivaled by the thundering of the sun to its daily death; a beauty that cannot be conveyed with a clicked photograph or stroke of a brush deserves nothing but to simply exist.

I felt that my camera cheapened it.

But my momentary lapse in breathing did not. Did my heart skip a beat and my life lose another minute because of this series of momentary beauty that could not and would not cease?

Val Marie, Saskatchewan - you have found another way to steal my heart. And this time his name is Apollo rather than Ryan - a god driving a chariot into the depths of the rotating earth rather than a man driving a tractor to the farthest reaches of the Val Marie Flat.

Is this what they call prayer?

Last week I took an extended, 4-day long weekend, and went home to Regina.

I also went to the Bible Camp that I used to work for, and still view as one of the most significant places of my life. One of those spaces that made me feel connected to something larger than myself.

Upon visiting it, for the first time as an out-gay man, looking to visit some friends working for the camp administration, I came to realize that I've turned my back on something that is of great importance to me. Relationships.

Months ago, perhaps almost a year ago, after a friend of mine found this blog (well, was actually directed to this blog by a poorly placed comment on his own) and confirmed his suspicions that I was gay, I admitted to him that I was stepping away from a lot of relationships so that I wouldn't ever have to tell them that I was gay.

Including in these relationships were the dozens of young men who saw in me a passion for Christ's justice and a refusal to accept anything other than the ideal pursuit of economic equality and legal/social parity for all peoples.

I am certain that they feel somewhat betrayed by my actions.

And rightfully so. For I never gave them the chance to love me as I am by allowing them to discover that I am gay and choosing to get over it anyways (as I would hope many of them would). I lost my faith in my friends, and chose fear instead of love. In doing so, I have confused many of them and almost certainly caused many of them to direct their faith towards people and influences that I find less desirable. In doing so, I have broken promises to my friends.

Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. I have lead your children astray in the interest of taking the easier road. I have been selfish and committed the greatest of all destructive deeds - breaking hearts, souls, and relationships. Have I learned nothing of love?

God, if you exist and if I am prepared to allow you to exist, please allow me to fix some of these relationships so that I can help these young men and women become the great adults that I know they can be.

Thank god I am not a tramp...

I often wonder what is in between your legs.

And then I catch myself staring, at one of those awkward moments when everybody else is laughing, and I quickly adjust.

And yet I know that you've figured out that I can't stop looking at you; whenever I get a glimpse I want to keep staring. And then I make some offhand comment and try to interact with other people. And then I realize that I'm looking in your direction again.

I wonder where your tan lines are.

I wonder if the skin feels different on the bright side of your body - if it exists. Is the dark side seasoned?

Saturday, after spending 45 minutes convincing my friend that I was, indeed, gay, I was bombarded with that single question that drives me absolutely insane.

"Have you ever had sex with a man?"

No. I have not ever had sex with a man. I'm too much of a romantic to allow myself to become a slut - to allow myself to sleep with every man that would be interested in sleeping with me.

This is the more-than-third time that this question has been asked of me, which seems outright pathetic. Just because I'm gay does not mean that I have any experience in it. And, your knowledge of my gayness does not give you any more of a right to ask questions about my sex life than my knowledge of your non-gayness grants me the right to ask you questions about yours.

Most of the people that I make a point of telling tend to be relatively intelligent people. And still, I find myself disappointed by this question. It tells me that people still have a frighteningly poor understanding of sexuality - that it is limited to sex.

I hope that at some point I can convince them that sexuality is about so much more than sex...

Observations

I happen to be in town for the August long-weekend, having purchased tickets to the traveling Cirque de Soleil show, Allegria.

It was last night - and may have changed my life. I want to be so incredibly fit that I can make that kind of magic happen with my body.

It was so impressive that it wasn't arousing. And this show involved many-a-shirtless man...

But my observations are more focused on the events that followed. I decided, with my friends, that I needed to be reminded that it is "ok to be gay" while I was in town - just enough to carry me through the next month of sexual prison.

So, off to the Rainbow Bar we went.

And I found the experience hilarious - and enjoyable for its hilarity - but so thoroughly immoral and disturbing that I had lost any interest in being there well before the night was over or the alcohol had worn off.

First of all, I hate going into a bar and being eye-raped by every single gay man in the establishment - being judged for my height, the colour of my hair, the size of my eyes mouth feet arms legs, the hair that pops out of my shirt, the brand of the shirt. I hate that they would smile at me in a way that they would never smile at somebody who may appear less attractive than I - and that I would never be permitted to know people who think that I am not their "type".

I hate being labelled for my sexuality the moment I walk onto the dance floor. I am forced into a niche market, with a specific purpose for a specific group of other people who have also been forced into a small niche. This is the gay pride that has developed?

I hate 19-year-old boys who know me from the University, become clingy because they recognize me/know my name/want to explore my body. I hate them even more when they are drunk. I hate them most when they are accompanied by numerous straight women who are effectively cockblocking them from contact with any other men in the bar, except for those who have enough compassion to give him a chance to be gay in the gay bar.

I danced with one of those 19-year-old boys last night. He was pathetic, and it broke my heart.

And I didn't even enjoy the dancing. I wasn't actually into it - despite the partial arrousal (can you blame me? I've been living in Val Marie for several months now...). Here I am, the hopeless romantic, imagining that all the eroticism of dancing in a bar happens automatically, and instead of being into the moment when it happens (even with somebody that I'd rather it not be happening with), I'm trying to remember the french translations for the five species of snake that live in Grasslands National Park.

I needed something to entertain me I suppose.

The most fun I had was dancing with my friend's female ex-roomate. We two-stepped for a time period. It felt like a more agreeable form of dancing to me. There was a sensuality, a sway, playfulness - it wasn't about getting as close as possible and feeling somebody else's penis rubbing against your leg. It was about the form, the pattern, the classic-ness.

I wish courting didn't have to involve going to the gay bar...

Spiders part 2.

Hatred produces a web of fear.

My friend’s wedding is next weekend. This is the friend for whom I am acting as the Master’s of Ceremony.

Yesterday, a friend of mine happened to come over for a bit. She and I have been friends since she was in kindergarten, so for about 17 years. My guess is that this friend is bisexual - she dabbles with temptation towards women, but can't imagine life without men. I can't imagine that kind of sexual torment.

She knows Brittany from Church - much the same way that I know Brittany. The two of them are a year younger than I, and ended up going to the same school for post-secondary education for a couple years. My friend became quite emotionally attached (perhaps even dependent) to Brittany - a dangerous thing to be; though it must be said that the two were never actually good friends.

Brittany is too conservative. My friend (Jen), is too liberal. They are both vocal, and both stubborn.

While she was over, Jen told me a story about a boy she was attracted to in her first year. He happened to be bisexual. Jen, rightfully, did not care - though, perhaps one could say that she should not have become so infatuated with him. Though, when Jen told Brittany of her attraction towards a self-professed bisexual man, Brittany condemned Jen for having been attracted to a creature with such twisted sexual desires (even though they would only account for a percentage of those desires).

Jen learned very quickly to stop talking about her love interests with Brittany.

That is part two of the web this venomous friend of mine has constructed.

Spiders part 1.

Hatred produces a web of fear.

My friend’s wedding is next weekend. This is the friend for whom I am acting as the Master’s of Ceremony.

I was thinking though, that this wedding acts as a landmark of shame for me. My friend, Brittany, is a homophobic princess of a human being that, as a result of my compounding fear and sense of increasing freedom, I am finding more and more difficult to enjoy spending time with. She talks about nothing worthwhile, and she gossips. She directs her life towards the possession of more grandiose things than those around her, and makes us all think that we should care.

She just doesn't seem to understand that I don't care about the colour of her car, or the brand of her shirt, or how much (or little) she paid for it. That stuff matters not.

But I do care about her wedding. This is the wedding that I was going to have a boyfriend for.

That is part one of the web this venomous friend of mine has constructed.