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Reclamation

Crabs skittered beneath rocks flecked with serpentine seaweed strands—nature’s gelatinous boas sopping ashore from parties in the deep. A bloated seagull bobbed their head beneath a small tide pool’s rippling surface; the repetitious machinations, a dance.

Out of the corner of my eye, a Labradoodle’s sand-dusted, curly coat blurred by as he raced full-tilt across the sandbars, his green leash soaked and trailing—his owner walking quickly behind, nodding my direction. JoJo’s ears pricked at the lowly, plaintive gull calls as the wind buffeted her tiny face, her jellybean eyes watering, dampening her cheeks.

There, at the edge of the beach, I felt an internal tug—willing me further, into the great blue horizon pocked with cream sails unfurling in the breeze. The salty air curled in my lungs as I gulped it in—willing it to fill and cleanse my mind, making all the possibilities brim and spill over into my consciousness, borne to fruition.

Certain moments crystallize in our singular perceptions of time. And this was one such instance. There I stood, hours away from Seattle, cradling JoJo: a tired, hairy, heaped mass dripping over my arms. An unlikely duo, we’d forged a necessary bond during a tumultuous time, uncertain if we’d make it. But as my feet sunk into the saturated sand, I could feel us turning a corner. Like the shells around us, we’d been battered and bleached and weathered through various trials—through rough and smooth currents blunting jagged, exposed edges: creating something new, albeit unevenly polished. We’d emerged from the deep; we could breathe.

***

I’ve been divorced for nearly a year and a half. And almost every day, I fret that I’ll become that person who can talk only about their divorce, who can’t just reference it and move on. But, slowly, I’ve recognized that, like so many other forms of loss, divorce isn’t something you can just ignore; every now and again, I have to acknowledge how it’s shaped who I am today.

When I was a kid, I often played Duck Hunt until the Nintendo overheated—the screen still, leaving the duck profiles mid-blast: fluttering feathers and pained expressions frozen in time. Only when the immersive experience was interrupted by real-life variables would I snap out of my trance-like state, pull the piping-hot cartridge out of the machine, blow on it, and shove it back in—all the while knowing the blue screen of death would win, the illusion shattered by the ultimate Game Over. But often it forced me to redirect my energies into something else—another hobby, or self-reflection.

Marital cracks are like those Duck Hunt moments: they bring reality into sharp relief, make you realize the game that you’ve been playing has been convincing, but is still a mirage whose artifice is crumbling. It forces you to decide what to do, who you want to be—and, most pointedly, if you’re satisfied with the person you are when you’re with the other.

I wasn’t. And I’m so much better for having faced that crushing fact.

***

Ricotta-beetroot filling bubbled out of the thin ravioli shell, and oozed down into the spinach encircling it—a wilted, fallen crown. My cider began to hit, lulling my mind into that ethereal haze reserved for tipsy musings that I hoped I wouldn’t let escape my subconscious and rupture through my purple, beet-stained lips.

An hour earlier, I lay sprawled across my bed, nodding in and out of shallow naps as my skin tanned from an afternoon spent outside. For the past week, I’d been forcing myself to do more things after work—pushing myself out of my daily routine and taking advantage of living in a city bursting with life.

Having grown up in a small town, I’d always relished moments in movies where characters would take trains, taxis, or buses to enjoy a night in the city—glamming themselves up in finery and disappearing into the heaping, thrumming mass of people milling through the cityscape. So, I did exactly that: threw on an outfit that made me feel confident and sexy, grabbed my wallet and phone, and jumped on a bus hurtling downtown before descending into the light rail station and watching the passengers cycle between the cars: the crowd growing comfortingly queerer the closer we got to the Capitol Hill stop.

Right as I crested the staircase, the breeze billowed under my shirt, carrying with it music from a nearby shop. I wove through the blocks and streets where I used to live, marveling at how quickly the neighborhood had changed in a little over a year: buildings gone, sidewalks painted, alleys reeking of urine and rotting garbage tidied, sanitized—the grit and personality ground down in a microcosmic illustration of the latest phase of gentrification.

I walked into the restaurant I’d been wanting to eat at for years, and immediately slammed into a line of couples putting their names on a wait-list, their facial expressions morphing from hope to utter dejection.

“How long of a wait is it for one?” I asked.

“Oh, just you? I can seat you at the bar.”

I smiled. Never let anyone tell you there aren’t perks to being single.

She seated me next to another patron, and placed a towering glass of water with an orange wedge on the bar in front of me. A few minutes later, the waiter leaned over, his voice slightly louder than the surrounding conversations.

“You’re not together, I know that,” he said, looking from my neighbor to me.

It wasn’t so much a question as it was a pronouncement, and both the older man and I acknowledged the momentary awkwardness, laughing it away as we both retreated to the nonjudgemental, comforting glow of our respective phones until my ravioli slid onto the bar.

When I left, the air was cooling slightly, and I doglegged a few blocks over to an ice cream shop I’d been to once before. A line snaked out the storefront for half a block, and I inched into it behind a couple of trustafarians bedecked in expensive, trendily-tattered clothes: her crop top exposing a lower back tattoo of a unicorn, his side-sitting hat’s tag poking out from beneath the intentionally weathered rim reading, “Hipster Hats.”

As they groped one another, I rolled my eyes closed, imagining they probably worked for Amazon and couldn’t care less that the neighborhood where they were all but dry humping was where many LGBTQIA people still couldn’t overcome socially-conditioned fears of reprisals for showing a modicum of public affection—even in the gayborhood. A few feet away, a woman in a jumpsuit let her Shiba Inu puppy piss on tufts of ornamental grass before walking into a new, glimmering apartment building across the street. Ahead of me, the couple stepped up into the shop, a passing comment from one of them ending with, “…the Amazon mac and cheese bar.”

With my ice cream in hand, I began demolishing the top scoop as I retraced old walking routes, and waited to lick the dribbling cone until I was in front of a new gay bar, the outside patio blasting with music and conversations. I looked up above it all, and smiled at my old apartment’s window.

A few minutes later, I passed by a softball game in the park, and angled toward a familiar empty bench overlooking a reflecting pool.  Late in 2017, when I first waded back into the dating waters, I sat on the same bench with a Tinder date as we finished our ice cream cones. Our conversation and laughter had been unceasing since we’d met up for coffee six hours earlier, and I remember thinking, Finally. It’s happened again. Days passed with back-and-forths, plans set to meet up. Then, nothing; silence ensued—but still I reached, hopeful: casting a line back into that still pond. A week later I learned why, and was reminded that we all have demons that sometimes drag us below the surface.

I stared up at the darkening blue sky cross-stitched with chemtrails, and tipped the last crumbling cone bits into my mouth.

***

The heat from the day hung heavy in the apartment, and I teetered a bit as I opened the windows, the cider still saturating my thoughts. JoJo circled my legs, and pawed at my feet. After a quick jaunt outside, I put her to bed and, in the process, tripped over a photograph I’d framed earlier—letting it lean against the foot of my bed, opposite of where I’d hang it.

I rifled through my toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, and positioned the frame at eye level, so that I’d see it first thing every morning, and remember the confident person I was when I took it: reliving the rush of adrenaline as I tiptoed through the mouldering, abandoned Alabama farmhouse, snapping the photo right as I bolted for the front door—my foot crashing through sections of the rotting floor—as the landowner’s heavy footsteps grew louder as he ventured into the ruin where I was trespassing.

After splashing water on my face, I stretched across my empty bed and lay watching the evening streetlights dance across the ceiling.

Wondering about the characters I’ll encounter in this next chapter—who they’ll be to me.

Dreaming of an endless series of future adventures yet to be entertained through this life reclaimed.

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Somewhere Only We Know

Shoulders hunched, leafing through battered Goodwill frames like tattered dockets in a card catalog, I felt my phone pulse inside my jacket pocket.

Hours before, I’d checked my bank account and realized my full security deposit from Gay Gardens had been refunded; a very minor financial cushion was beginning to build: my plan had actually gone accordingly.

Ever since, I’d been sinking into a welcomed sense of relief.

And then I looked at my phone, the push notification from news sources reading simply: “US, UK, and France launch missiles at Syrian chemical weapons depots.” My stomach dropped; the color drained from my face.

This is exactly what he wants.

That’s all I could think; and the most tragic part was that there are so many “he’s” to whom I referred.

The Cold War has resumed, but this time there’s so much more at stake—so many terrifying buttons that could be pushed, orders to be issued, infuriatingly childlike tweets inciting chaos.

The same feeling I felt in November 2016 hung over me: overwhelming dread underlain by a suffocating tightness, a sense of imminent disaster.

A desire to flee.

It’s always in these moments when my animal self takes over—the sheer will to survive overpowering every other emotion, the need for further questions blunted. Answers cascade like water through a ruptured dam, swirling fitfully in my mind: a maelstrom of emotion. But eventually, through bouts of clarity, I emerge and move—push onward. Because I must.

Outside, rain poured down, drenching my coat as I folded myself into the car. Moments later, I pulled into a drug store, got batteries and a flashlight, and withdrew cash.

I stared at the assortment of items strewn across the passenger seat—the crumpled bills peeking out from beneath the rumpled receipt. Anger boiled out of me.

We are always fighting. Because life is a fight no one ever wins; some get to dance around the ring more untouched than others—whose bodies bear the brunt of landed blows. 

I started the car and eased into the driving rain.

***

Weeks later, sun beamed down, and animated conversations filled the street—the air brisk, tinged with the salty smell of sweat. A friend and I made our way to a meeting, taking a scenic route to soak in more of the welcomed light.

Ahead of us, just beneath an overhang, an older man stood hunched over a walker, his pants hanging down to his knees. A medical discharge bracelet dangled from his shaking arm. He was alone, disoriented—a flood of people skirting around him, choosing not to see.  

As we approached, a suit-clad man sidled up to him, shielding his backside, and said lowly, “Sir, your pants have slipped down.” Apologies poured out of the man’s chapped, cracked lips as he groped his weathered jeans up and over his cheeks. I stood uselessly, holding his walker—his only anchor. A few moments later, he moved on, slowly ambling uphill, his pants visibly loosening with every labored step. 

As we descended the stairs to the light rail, I attempted to refer back to the conversation we’d been having before, but faltered. Anger clouded everything.

***

Later, from my hilltop perch, I could barely make out the brick spire of a nearby church, the bells clanging for an unknown celebration. A piercingly blue sky loomed above, the wind blasting my face—carrying laughter up from some unseen conversation below, the gaiety of it beckoning me downslope.

JoJo’s collar clinked in the wind, and I looked down as she shoved her nose in the freshly mowed grass. I exhaled, and she looked up—sensing an opportunity to play. She skittered frenetically, zigging around as I twirled her leash, before coming to a gradual stop in another pile of grass clippings. I smiled down at her, and took another breath.

Whenever the faintest light shines through, we must bask in it, cherish it, and will it to fuel us through the coming days. Because it’s our fortitude, our sheer tenacity, that lives on through the inspiration we spark in others.

***

The apartment was quiet, the sun nearly set. Around me, lamplight blanketed bloated, neon tendrils—the air heavy with the scent of peppery geraniums.

Real life—woven together through pain, sorrow, joy, and promise—surrounds us: its tumultuous clatter reverberating in our bones, chilling us cold. But rather than face it, we so often race for shelter: retreating to the far corners of our minds in a dissociative rush—somewhere only we know.

I leveled my tired eyes at the distant snow-capped mountains, a lavender haze curling around them, as I felt time—weightless, motionless, formless—pass quietly in the night.

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Expulsion from the Gardens

JoJo batted my leg; I didn’t have to glance at the clock to know it was pushing 8pm, her bedtime, and we still needed to go on one last walk.

But I felt the convulsing swell of tears bubbling up, taking me down, contouring me into a ball on my ottoman as I sobbed into clenched fists. This was it: the final expulsion of guilt, of anger—of the life I thought I was going to have.

Startled by the sudden, breathless tears, JoJo smacked my leg again, and nosed her way into my face. I rubbed her ears and looked around the small apartment illuminated by lamplight—pouring over green blobs, their delicate, arabesque tendrils frozen in a perpetual quest for the sun.

I thought I’d moved on; that’s what surprised me the most. But as I reflected on the past two years, I recognized I’d been spending so much time surviving, making do. Regardless of whatever form the tether took, I constantly found myself laden with the life I began in this state—suffocated by post-divorce debt and scraping by in a place that was supposed to be ours rather than mine, my social life atrophying with every declined invitation.

But this night, I felt free.

***

Hours before, I’d spent my last moments in Gay Gardens—thanking the little cottage for reminding me that I had the strength, confidence, and audacity to take those first terrifying steps toward building my new life.

I walked through every room, thinking back to the conversations, arguments—the dreams borne out of necessity and a deep wanting, all of which still require constant cultivation. And then I paused in the entryway—the door opened wide—and smiled back at how much the view had changed. Intermixed with exhaustion-fueled sadness was a growing sense of pride. We’d both emerged a little better than when we’d started.

In the weeks prior, I’d been informed that Gay Gardens wouldn’t be destroyed after all—at least not imminently. My efforts over the previous two years had not only resuscitated the cottage, but an interest by the landlord in managing the property responsibly. Once I handed over the keys, a month-long series of intense structural repairs would begin.

I hope you become something great. 

Outside, I made one final circuit around the yard—lingering in the flower beds replete with irises and hyacinths; collecting branches that’d blown down, bundling them up, and tossing them into the woods; and ripping out a few resurgent briers, knowing I’d likely carry a few barbs back with me. I dusted off my hands and gazed back at the house, watching as petals from the flowering plum skittered across the worn brick patio.

Goodbye, you weird, beautiful place. 

Walking up the wobbly staircase, I stretched out my arms and ran my hands along the large tree trunks growing through the railing, remembering how ivy-choked they’d been when I first descended into this overgrown jungle.

Breathe easy.

As my hand reached the end of the railing, I dug my nails in and then exhaled, propelling myself forward. I adjusted my rearview mirror, put the car into reverse, and promptly plowed into the anchored mailbox.

Befuddled by my absentmindedness, I eased forward, listening to the scrapes and pops—watching the mailbox shift back into place.

Fitting.

With the car idling, I dusted off the deep dent in the trunk—flecks of bright turquoise ground in: a subtle reminder of how every little thing shapes another, leaving glorious imprints.

***

Perched parrot-like on my reading chair, JoJo snorted, annoyed.

“Alright,” I huffed back.

Her ears pricked up, tail wagging wildly.

“Let’s see what’s out there.”

Walking through the apartment building’s deserted lobby, we emerged into the chilly night as two actors in this ever-unfolding sideshow.

Wandering down dark avenues, venturing toward shapeless lights. Marveling at the vacant spaces in between, glutted with potential.

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The Husk

My sweaty footprints trailed along the laminate wood floor—a runway to the living room. With the narrow awning windows slightly ajar, the cool evening air filtered in, pricking the hairs on the back of my neck as my feet sunk into the slightly damp, freshly shampooed carpet. I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows—past a handmade sign scrawled onto the back of an Under Construction placard leaning against the alley wall that read, “Please don’t shit here.”

Along the horizon, a brilliantly blue swath beneath a darkening cloud bank highlighted the city skyline, and as I pressed my face against the window glass, I could just make out the Space Needle. I imagined the view was comparable from the deck I’d constructed almost a year prior as I settled into Gay Gardens—my enthusiasm for what was to come in the little cottage fueling all sorts of home improvement projects, helping distract me from the reminders of how I’d ended up its lone steward.

I soaked in the view and demolished a walnut-Nutella roll and then a homemade fruit bar from the farmers market, the berries fresh and bursting with flavor. I dragged over the only chair in the apartment and unfurled into it, extending my legs out into the potted plant forest at my feet.

Dusting remnant crumbs off my jeans, I started unpacking the fourth carload of belongings I’d brought over, marveling at the bags’ random contents: a cheese grater, a music box,  an assortment of shower products. Slowly, methodically, I began piecing together where things would go—envisioning the space gradually filling with furniture and plants.

Aside from the apartment’s patent emptiness, a few other things to which I’d grown accustomed were noticeably absent:  the caustically frigid air, the musky smell of mold. Even without the heater on, the temperature hovered around 75 degrees—with the east-facing windows soaking in all the morning sun. My eyes weren’t agitated by allergies, and the semi-constant tinnitus from my cold-accosted Eustachian tubes was nearly gone; here, I wouldn’t have to wear ear muffs inside.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I stripped off my coat, tossing it into an empty corner. Light shifted behind me as clouds stampeded across the sky—my shadow dancing along the cream walls, a harbinger of this new chapter of movement and change. A storm began rolling in, its flurries fluttering down and melding with Seattle’s signature mist.

The thought of returning to Gay Gardens for another frigid, sleepless night made me shiver.

Moments later, slushy snow whipped tempest-like outside the immobile panes—the shrieking wind barely audible, the air inside heavy and warm, like a worn sweater.

I turned and faced my new nest.

This is where my life continues.

Gay Gardens was no longer my home; my time there was over.

***

With large expanses of its walls and floors liberated of art and rugs, Gay Gardens had become markedly colder than it’d been weeks before. Even the dankness that’d hit me like a ton of bricks when I’d initially toured the house had returned—like something in the fridge had just begun to rot.

From the last remaining area rug, JoJo eyed me suspiciously as she’d been doing all morning while I swooped in and out, ferrying off furniture and artwork. She splayed across the coarse, colorful fibers: laying claim to her protected island the way a child does with sofa cushions floating in a sea of imaginary lava.

Snow slowly clung to the budding trees out front as I muscled my entire memory foam top—complete with bedding—into my car like a bloated burrito, the sheet corners dragging along the dampened stairway. The sky began morphing into a dense, white mass. I raced back down, skittered into the bathroom, and began knocking everything out of the medicine cabinet and pulling baskets from under the sink. A few minutes later, nothing but the plunger remained.

I threw open the 70s-era fridge and loaded condensation-kissed dishes glutted with leftovers; foreseeing an exhausting final push for the evening, I’d have little effort to pull anything remotely nutritive together for dinner.

Before I knew it, the car was full again, and I was off. I had exactly an hour to unload everything before returning for my most precious cargo, and to convey two albatross-like pieces of furniture into their new owners’ waiting hands.

***

With 20 minutes to spare, I pulled back up to the house. Descending the stairs, I could feel exhaustion and fatigue slowly hugging my bones, cajoling me to stop.

Back inside, I listened to the heater rattle away as I flitted into the empty rooms, ensuring I’d snagged everything I needed for the next few days. The couple I’d be meeting to pick up the mid-century sofa and chair were running behind, which gave me a few moments to catch my breath.

I moved JoJo’s crate into the living room, tossing in a couple of her favorite toys. Knowing something was up, she scampered inside and disappeared beneath the layers of blankets.

I pulled the chair and sofa closer to the door, and wiped them down one last time. In moving the chair days before, I’d exposed a long-dead spider’s larder: drained gnat corpses littering the chipped, white-painted floor beneath; husks of their former selves, they’d provided nourishment and life to their now absent consumer.

Apart from the pair, nearly 30 beautiful furniture pieces, along with hundreds of pieces of Fiestaware and vintage tchotchkes, had waltzed out the door over the preceding month—their vacancies at first startling, then enlivening.

We really don’t need things to cultivate happiness.

Standing atop one of the only functional heating vents, I could feel the circulation in my feet picking up; after multiple trips of kicking my shoes on and off, my socks were hopelessly waterlogged. But there was something incredibly calming about standing there as the heat writhed around my toes, my back leaning into my leather love seat—knowing that in the span of an hour, JoJo and I would be somewhere else. Warm.

Minutes later, the couple arrived and carted away the furniture. And then I hurriedly gathered up JoJo, feeling as if we weren’t so much leaving as we were escaping—as if I were Sally Field, starring in Not Without My Doghter.

With JoJo crated and prepped, I did one last circuit through the house.

As I cut across the darkened living room, I left my hand outstretched, at the height where it’d have undulated along the sofa back—memories of its cold, stitched leather conjuring it back into being; my hand reaching for something that’d never return, like a ghost haunting a past life.

Wind howled outside, buffeting the clapboard. Warped by time and neglect, window sashes rocked in their tracks. In the tiny bathroom, I pressed my hand against the lone window’s painted sash—framing bubbled, frosted glass—remembering how relieved I was to apply the final coat of Pale Starlet. I could feel the air intruding through the splintered cracks, curling around it—reclaiming it. Willing me away.

I took a breath, stepped back, and let it go, watching the sash loll back and forth.

From the bathroom doorway, I could hear JoJo rustle impatiently. I floated back down the hallway, gathered her up, and turned back—the sashes’ thuds a slow, measured applause reverberating into the husk of Gay Gardens as I pulled the front door closed and whispered goodbye.

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Piece by Piece

Eloise was in the process of telling me how her husband, Bobby, hadn’t slept with her in several years when Bobby wandered through the living room into the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator open and close, and the gentle pssst of the beer can popping open. Eloise rolled her eyes.

I didn’t know Eloise, but I was sitting in her smoke-saturated recliner, my eyes watering and catching the penetrating gaze of their ancient, morbidly obese Dachshund, Floppy.

Eloise raised her Pinot Grigio-filled jelly glass in a “cheers” gesture toward the kitchen as Floppy descended a set of plush steps leading down from the overstuffed leather sofa to the floor and nuzzled my ankle.

She’d been a director for a pharmaceutical company, but had retired years ago – spending her time recovering from invasive surgeries, the pain from which she countered with “lovely things.”

Things that overflowed from every available surface.

When I arrived – arms brimming with plants, vases, and assorted blown glass – I asked where I should deposit everything. She motioned over to the cluttered kitchen table, and I nudged figurines and boxes out of the way just enough to accommodate everything. She shoved a wad of cash into my hand, and then asked that I sit.

“So, what about you? What’s your story?”

Later, as I waved goodbye, Eloise shuffled after me and told me to take some bubble wrap for the rest of my “pretty things, so they don’t get scuffed.” I followed her outstretched finger, my eyes dodging below multiple hanging pea coats adorned with brightly-colored, jewel-encrusted pins and brooches.

“Oh yeah. Those are something, aren’t they?”

Eye-level with an enormous Christmas tree pin, I stooped to pick up the two carefully tied bags of bubble wrap.

“They certainly are somethin’.”

After I closed the door, she and Bobby commenced sniping at one another – their slurred commentary chocked with “…more of this crap…” and “…oh don’t you start with me.”

I exhaled. Breathed in the chilly night air. And whispered back to the items I’d left behind.

I’m sorry.

I counted the bills, tucked them into my wallet, and turned the ignition.

Onward.

***

Nearly an hour later, after I pulled up to the house and deposited the bags of bubble wrap into the recycling, I noticed that a few steps in the rotting staircase leading down to the house had cleaved away from the banisters. Each hung lazily from rusted nails. But rather than stooping to investigate this new project, I braced myself against the handrails and launched myself over the gap.

Each day it seems some part of Gay Gardens falls apart. The sink with its leaks; lights buzzing and flickering from the moisture inside the walls; the clapboard popping away from rusted penny nails. And I listen to it all slowly coming undone, as creatures scurry through the walls. It’s as though Gay Gardens is a meteorite hurtling into a planet’s orbit – captured by gravity, plucked from time, slowly losing pieces of itself as it crashes to its entropic finale.

I’d forgotten to leave the porch light on, and listened as JoJo paced impatiently on the other side of the weathered door while I fumbled with my keys in the dark, the drips from the leaking porch roof slowly dotting my jacket sleeve.

Just a few more months.

With a concerted push, the swollen door flew open, knocking into the small Art Deco end table and jostling the tabletop lamp – sending it into a momentary, wobbly dance and spraying light across the living room.

Just inside the door, JoJo twirled in a circle – her typical greeting. During a time of transition, it’s always a comfort to focus on the minute details of normal life. I bend, murmur Oh my goodness! – her cue to roll over, exposing her hairless tummy and pawing at my hands.

I stood and scanned the room – visually hopscotching from the small mound of books at the fireplace threshold to the pieces of furniture jammed together, the paintings resting against the wall.

This has been a good home.

In the rapidly emptying space, there’re the slightest hints of echoes: jarring, enlivening – replete with potential.

***

In the weeks leading up to my visit with Eloise, I’d been spending every waking moment outside of work hustling furniture and planters and plants and every conceivable item into new hands.

Van Briggle pottery to a traveling nurse who carefully removed the small, matte-finished turquoise pieces from the butcher paper wrapping, her bandaged hands slowly tracing the delicate forms as she grinned. A Depression-era dresser to a petite grandmother who, from the far depths of her flea market booth, admired the piece in the dull lamplight and mused about how much her granddaughter would love it. A small 70s table to a young woman whose eyes sparkled as she looked it over in the oil-stained parking lot where we met, the rain drizzling down as she beamed, “It’s exactly what I wanted.” A tripodal, midcentury-style contemporary planter to a towering, quiet man whose deep laugh echoed in my mind as we said goodbye.

We are not so alone in this world.

***

After a few rounds of tossing battered toys, JoJo and I ventured out into the rapidly chilling, darkening evening.

A full moon cast a dull glow across the yard – now cleared of gnomes and planters, pocked with the occasional filled hole where I removed and re-homed a planting. Awkward shadows danced across the warped clapboard as I nudged a leaning downspout back into place.

Upslope, leaves sparkled from neighbors’ holiday lights; wind rustled through the trees, expelling saturated, rotted wisteria vines. The lights’ twinkling glow filtered across the yard, falling over the scuffed, upturned earth where the garden used to be.

Moss clung to the edges of the paint-chipped concrete birdbath, rainwater from the afternoon’s showers glutting its shallow bowl – refreshing it, finding the worn grooves.

Overflowing, dancing down to the ground.

Alive in the moonlight.

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Beautiful Splinters

Outside, rain beat the last leafy hangers-on from their branches as rivulets cascaded down the clapboard, its longstanding paint bubbling out—lesions awaiting a lance. Overly-saturated potted plants brimmed with water as the unceasing rain fell down, down, down—quietly lingering in every one of the yard’s myriad depressions, slicking the pavers pocking the weed-cluttered, soggy grass.

Lamplight glowed dully, illuminating the living room, the air heavy with the smell of buttered, peppered eggs bubbling in the dented cast iron skillet. Laughter filled the house as my sister and I recounted past family foibles. And then, as we quietly watched JoJo bat around her toys, a nature-inspired metronome broke the silence.

Drip

Drop

Drip

Drop

Spanning a badly patched seam, a strand of rainwater dribbled down the sunporch wall, over a painting, and pooled onto the chipped, white floor. After wiping down the painting and shuffling it aside, I piled towels along the floor, and situated a bowl beneath the small bubble slowly expanding along the ceiling.

A few months ago, when I recognized that I couldn’t stay here, I realized why it was that I sequestered myself in this cracked, rotting shell in the first place—chose to stick with it for another year.

I needed to heal, rebuild, and transform myself. And Gay Gardens was my cocoon.

But as I watched the dripping slow, and the water pool in the shallow bowl, I recognized Gay Gardens had done her job; I chuckled quietly, and dabbed the water rings on the floor.

Over the past year and a half, this little cottage and I forged an imperfect, symbiotic relationship—and this marked the beginning of its graceful end.

***

Weeks later, my head was nearly inside the oven, my eyebrows level with the wiry heating element. JoJo puttered up and gave me intense side-eye until I retreated from my Sylvia Plath-inspired attempt at staying warm. I sighed, watching my breath cloud dissipate.

Hours before, at my behest, the handyman pounded on the hallway’s walls.

“Jesus, you’re right. This isn’t even lathe and plaster. It’s fiberboard. I’ve never seen it…at least not in a house anyone is still living in. I mean, wow. I bet you get cold.”

From beneath my hoodie and coat, I exhaled deeply in his direction, following the rapidly cooling cloud with a vacant stare until he continued with his line of questioning. Soon thereafter, he left, citing that he’d be unable to fix the heating system.

Roughly an hour before he arrived, an antique dealer perused furniture and haphazardly sorted collections of keepsakes earmarked for sale, cherry-picking pieces for his shop.

Once a curated refuge, Gay Gardens has quickly become a staging ground. The structure remains, rotting quietly, nobly. But the home I created has been reduced to piles of once cherished items, each sporting a fluorescent price tag—an intended passport to others’ waiting hands.

After he left and I drew up his list, I scanned a tabletop cluttered with planters. They’d been so vital when I moved here; I needed to plant things—watch them grow. Scouring deserted thrift store shelves, the warped cabinets of a hoarder’s house, I’d seek out chipped and worn, dust-covered planters and revive them. Filled them with soil and the hopeful starts of a new plant. I yearned to see the planters’ glazes glow in the sun, the tiny greens nested inside them slowly pushing upward, filling out their translucent tendrils, the ends dripping with nascent buds.

But now their vegetative charges would grow without me—under someone else’s dutiful gaze.

***

The night before my heating system failed, I sat on the sunporch floor, my hands shaking—hovering over the small, identically sized boxes labeled “Mementos” as JoJo dragged her bed closer to the spectacle.

Quite suddenly, I was awash with anxiety. Because I knew what was inside the boxes. They didn’t contain newborn velociraptors or pictures of Ron Pearlman dressed as Vincent from the eighties television series Beauty & the Beast. The menacing “it” they held was more biting, more terrifying: paper.

As I opened the first box, JoJo gently rested her paw on my hand. She stared intently, tears forming at the corners of her eyes as they always do. I nuzzled my head against hers and took a deep breath.

“Thanks, baby girl.”

And then I started ripping. Cards, Post-its, little musings and love letters I’d squirreled away were reduced to bits, quickly filling a garbage bag. Then two.

Hours later, I looked from the emptied boxes to my palms, cross-stitched with paper cuts—the last, necessary wounds to heal.

I have to make room for less in my life.

***

Condensation pooled along the weathered mullions, occasionally overflowing, collecting along the warped sills. The heat finally kicked on, and my sinuses flared in response. Beyond the clouded panes, a humungous neon star glowed atop the steel mill downslope, casting its white light up into the backyard.

As the wind moved through the trees, rocking them side-to-side, the diffused light fell upon the garden’s withered remains. The entrance door hung open—warped and water-bloated; the veneer cleaving from the hardy core. Soon, the walls will come down; they’ll be transformed into ad hoc displays featuring all the bits and bobs to be paraded out for the subsequent yard sales.

Between passing cloud banks, sunlight glanced across the turquoise kitchen wall, amplifying the brilliant greens and cool blues. I stood and stared—through the wall, into the not so distant future, where everything around me has been reduced to splinters that once framed a brilliant life chapter.

Photo description: A view from the living room into the hallway, which is painted bright turquoise.

We’re all fragments striving to piece together a life that, at least from the outside, appears fortified, secure; but the inside is sometimes empty, a looming vastness into which the echoes of dreams reverberate and quietly die.

And in this future ruin, I pieced myself back together—filled that emptiness with something meaningful. I didn’t cure an insidious disease or eliminate poverty. But I made this particular place better. And, in so doing, proved to myself that I could, once again, make it on my own—that though I may be fractured, my edges roughened by experience, I’ve embodied the beauty of this self-reflective process, and know that my subdued resilience helped me survive, and molded me into the person I’ve wanted to be.

And that’s something.

What lies beyond Gay Gardens is unknown—a cloudy picture at best. But within that mental frame and fog, I imagine about 400 square feet with my bed floating out from the wall, surrounded by the plants I’m able to bring along. There, JoJo putters from one sun spot to the next, stretches, yawns, and dozes off. A few other pieces of furniture are scattered around the studio apartment, their valuable surface space cluttered with greenery.

And I’ll be there, assessing my new beginning and willing goodness into it, as I frequently did as I hovered over my planters—the smell of damp potting soil filling the air, the blips of green poking out toward the rising sun.

And I will recognize that I, too, will keep bending toward the light.

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Eden, Slipping

On the darkest nights, when the wind is howling through the tousled trees and leaves are rustling off their dripping branches—and the beams in the attic are groaning, popping from the barometric pressure and moisture—I feel as though this small cottage is a battered dinghy bobbing in a raging tempest. But somehow, its warped, wooden framing and patched, plastered seams always bolster it just enough—holding it firm, silently enduring the onslaught in the dark.

And then, hours later, as morning light diffuses through the seemingly impenetrable, gray cloud banks, I watch the once forceful rain drip lazily from scuffed eaves and rusted, leaking rain spouts.

Image description: a small cottage in the middle of a cleared terrace, with a stone path leading to it.

This, our home, has delivered us, its cargo, to another day.

***

As a kid, my overblown conception of a personal Eden featured a sprawling, multi-room Gothic mansion set in an open, browned field with trees lining its overgrown edges. Never did I imagine a small, dank cottage to supplant that fantasy.

When I think about the beauty of this place—what it has endured—I’m awestruck. Somehow, amid multiple housing booms and a changing skyline, it remained tucked away, sheltered behind behemoth rhododendrons and partially veiled with ivy. Coupled with pervasive rot, its decades-long neglect should’ve doomed it to become a mouldering, collapsed heap on the low, bramble-packed terrace.

And yet it remained upright long enough for a half-broken man and his faithful sidekick to move in and make it the best home they’ve ever had. But now, our time here is inching to an end.

I continue to water my plants, weed my flower beds—knowing that, as the tides swell and slowly pull this refuge from my grasp, I’ll be left unmoored in uncertain waters, reaching for a lifesaver. And honestly, I don’t know what it’ll look like.

My internal refrain has often been, As soon as you’re priced out of this home, that’s it. Back East you go. Mostly because the painful prospect of moving again is blunted by the comforting thought of returning to a place where I first made a home. But with no savings—and no ability to save—and no job prospects way over there, settling into a joyless, cookie-cutter studio miles away from the places I enjoy is my only recourse: debilitatingly sad, but pragmatic.

Seattle is lovely. It’s liberal. It’s scenic. There’s great thrifting. And it’s only a few hours away from Justin Trudeau. But I moved here coupled, with a fiscal buffer; together, it all worked—until we didn’t. Through a combination of begging my landlord and reducing every single expense I possibly could, I managed to pull this place—and myself—together over the past year. Always, though, the specter of another year loomed menacingly, with its associated cost-of-living spikes. But for a time, I was able to occupy my thoughts with surviving, rather than thinking about my imminent displacement as I’d done every moment since I’d taken over the lease. After all, I had another year, full of potential—something would come of my attempts to change my situation.

But here I am, slipping along the downward slope of my current leasing cycle, knowing that begging will do nothing now; even the slightest rental increase will make this place unreachable. The bubble continues to expand in Seattle, and there’s no cathartic burst in sight. With an entire paycheck consumed by rent, and the other pulled apart to satiate the utility, car loan, and credit card gods, I usually have between $5 and $15 left at the end of the month—and that’s if everything else stays consistent, which it never does. Unless you’re in corporate, being single in Seattle means you scrape by—you survive; you don’t live.

Seattle is no longer the grunge scene-inspiring, gritty city of the Cobain years. It’s now a polished playground for the rich—where upwardly mobile Millennials with six-figure salaries wave goodbye to longtime tenants and homeowners—most of whom are people of color who have to watch their neighborhoods be shattered by multi-million dollar box houses with Black Lives Matter signs posted out front, or re-zoned for massive micro-studio complexes.

I was silly to think I’d be an exception—that I, a relative newcomer, and of all the people displaced by Seattle’s boom, would somehow hold steadfast in my battered rental cottage against the raging tides of gentrification.

I fantasized about Gay Gardens being the place where I’d make it as a writer—no one famous, but earning just enough to stay put, save up, and buy this little place as ravenous Microsofties and Amazonians gobbled up everything around me. And then I’d slowly will my other dreams into reality.

I wouldn’t have to think about selling off most of my things just so I could afford to be displaced. I wouldn’t have to imagine the carefully crafted outdoor spaces I’ve built out of nothing being plucked apart by yard salers—bird houses and garden baubles and outdoor furniture snapped up like carrion for crows. I wouldn’t have to eventually hand over my keys and walk up the front stairs to a laden car, looking back over my shoulder at my Eden: the future site of million-dollar mansions. And I wouldn’t have to acknowledge that this place will soon be gone—face the imminence of a backhoe plowing headlong into the living room, its bucketed arm pivoting to level the tiny bedroom where I curled up my first night alone in five years and sank into the inky darkness of the forested hollow around me.

***

JoJo and I complete our around-the-house circuit, and as we reach the front patio, she stares up with her watery eyes, pleading for more time.

“Alright, we’ll go around again.”

Leaves cascade down from the gusting wind, their brittle edges reminding me that I won’t experience another fall here—staring out from the sun porch’s wavy-glassed windows while cradling a cup of hot coffee.

I’ll be somewhere else—probably in a large apartment complex in Tukwila with paper-thin walls listening to my neighbors squabble. But, with hope, in the depressing box that awaits me, I’ll be able to save enough money to pay off my credit card—racked with car repairs and heating bills rather than fanciful vacations and pedicures—and save enough money to move back to the East coast, or someplace I can actually live.

The wind nips my back as I run my hands along the weathered wood pallet garden wall. I clutch it hard, my knuckles turning white.

I wanted to build so much more here.

Back inside, as I warm her towels in the dryer, JoJo claws her way up into my lap. Her head, heavy with sleep, thuds quietly into my chest as she blows a snot-laden sigh into my orange cardigan.

I rest my chin on her tiny head, exhale deeply, and murmur through tear-clouded eyes, “Wherever you are is home.”

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Be Proud

I was a freshman in high school when Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die in the coldness of Laramie, Wyoming. News of his attack trickled down through my small town’s news and gossip mills—the entire twisted, tragic narrative framed as something problematic and salacious. Few discussed it openly, and those who did defaulted to the deeply flawed victim-blaming mentality: he had it coming, after all. So I policed myself even more, venturing further into my closet’s shadows.

I’d known I was different since I was eight. Without the vocabulary to really capture what I knew, I entertained the thought that I had some innate superhero ability, or some amazingly unique, mutant-like advantage. But it wasn’t until my senior year of high school that I quietly admitted to myself that, in all likelihood, I was gay. Only one classmate actually came out, and he—and his family—were smeared across the front page of the local paper, and he and his boyfriend were given wide berth at the prom. From the periphery of the dance floor, I’d watched them watch each other, my eyes falling to their clasped hands. That’s what I wanted. Still, I never verbalized my truth, made it real, until I was nearly finished with college.

***

The Pulse massacre last year ripped through the LGBTQIA+ community; I was visiting my family in Alabama, and walked into the living room—eyes still bleary from sleep—to my parents glued to the screen, their faces screwed up in horror. My heart rate quickened and I started sweating and I walked out the front door. I kept going for a mile, circling through our family’s land and ending up back at an old, shattered playground my grandparents had helped my parents build. My ex-husband and I were in the middle of separating, and would, weeks after I returned, decide to divorce. But still, we talked through the sheer tragedy of this latest news, hearing our words echo back to one another over the phone, the world suddenly feeling so much smaller, even more fragile.

Months later, as the malignancies of the 2016 election revealed the extent to which this nation is still so deeply racist and misogynistic, I felt a hollowness I’d experienced all those closeted years ago. Again, the future felt so fragile—knowing the ensuing violence espoused from on high would be mapped more vehemently and pointedly onto people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQIA+ people, and women.

***

So many people have been lost over the past year, the vast majority of whom being people of color.

I made the mistake of reading an article today that advocated for dissolving National Coming Out Day. The author was a cis, white, gay man whose utter lack of history and severe cognitive dissonance made me cringe. I disagreed with every single one of his points. Now more than ever, LGBTQIA+ people must be visible; we must show that we aren’t going anywhere, that the future will only get browner, queerer, and—mother goddesses be willing—more female.

Reading his suggestions, I thought back to when I came out over 12 years ago. It was a crucial, life-saving decision; the act of bringing voice to what I’d long since known quieted the malevolent voices in my mind, and stemmed the self-harming actions and suicidal thoughts that’d skewed my perception of what my future would look like. In coming out, I wrested power back from those whose narrow worldviews kept me barricaded within my private torture chamber. My mind could only take so much trauma before it went into a numbing survival mode, blunting senses and joy—clouding my mind’s eye with a grayed shroud devoid of hope.

Being out and visible for anyone is a courageous exercise. And for me, I’m quickly reminded of how much privilege I carry as a white, cis, gay man—the relative security I’m ensured that is so far out of reach for my trans* family and friends, especially trans* women of color.

Dark, uncertain times necessitate that we band together; the more closely bound we are—the more vigilant and outspoken we are, the more protective we are of our neighbors who aren’t afforded the same privileges—the better equipped we’ll be to combat the growing chill, the biting hatred of legislative rollbacks.

This National Coming Out Day, I hope more people come out and don’t tacitly endorse heteronormative behaviors that inform dangerous, violent actions.

Each of us is endowed with a moral compass. And it’s up to us to reorient the national narrative—even by taking slow, iterative steps in times like these—to advance and promote a future in which we’re all recognized as people deserving of basic, inalienable rights.

We must be confident and authentic—and wield those sources of power compassionately.

 

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Coloring Outside the Lines

The house is dark, save a few slants of remaining moonlight abdicating to the slowly rising sun. Pothos and philodendron leaves cascade down weathered furniture fronts, and rustle from the breeze creeping through the open doors and windows.

Rhythmic dripping from a leaky outside spigot acts as an early morning metronome while I fill the water kettle and push the windows open as far as they can extend. I feed JoJo, and slip on my battered shoes to empty the brimming, spigot-filled bucket around the bases of my tomato and pepper plants.

I pluck the yellowing leaves from my bush beans and reposition the baby eggplants so that they grow in the opposite direction of neighboring plants’ rogue, unfurling tendrils. Tomatoes are reddening and strawberries are beginning to drip down from their leafy flowers.

The garden is tiny, and was thrown together in desperation, with seeds and starts sown by a beginner.

***

My efforts to reclaim this oddly-shaped spit of land from the suffocating canopy and invasive ground cover began in the yard’s lone, rotting raised bed.

[Image description: an overgrown raised bed with trash and weeds.]
[Image description: an overgrown raised bed with trash and weeds.]
The house was hot, and we’d just decided to divorce; piles of boxes, furniture, and paint cans accreted in every corner. Nothing was finished. Everything was undone—in a state of flux. We’d been coloring within the lines for four years; and then we both strayed outside, scribbling in different directions.

But then and there, as the heat nipped the back of my neck, I annexed the raised bed—ripped out all of the weeds and bagged up the dirt-caked garbage. An hour later, it was trimmed and cleaned—the soil upturned, ready to welcome new crops.

IMG_8456 (1)
[Image description: same raised bed, completely cleared.]
Weeks later, I’d raised my hodgepodge garden enclosure around it—with novel expectations that it’d soon overflow with a rich vegetative bounty. But then a tremendous deep chill moved in—settling over Seattle, making it one of the coldest and wettest winters on record. Tarps and pins held the garden in place, secured my culinary cache. I naively believed I’d be rewarded for all the hours-long tending—the snow-shoveling, the pest removal.

But when the sun regained its footing and danced across my freshly exposed starts, they all bolted, leaving me to scrape off immature leaves and tiny vegetables, and YouTube multiple videos answering questions about the potential adverse health consequences of eating broccoli flowers.

All that was left to do was rip out everything I’d spent months fretting over. And start again. In gardening, there’s little room for sentimentality.

Nearly a year later, the fourth iteration of the garden has been the most successful yet.

IMG_3226
[Image description: garden enclosure with door open, along the back side of the house.]
IMG_3198
[Image description: inside of garden enclosure. Multiple plants in containers, with some tomatoes visible.]
By now I know not to expect every plant to fruit out at the same time; there will rarely be an instance in which I’m overwhelmed with immense yields.

But each evening my little garden provides: a few beans here, two tomatoes there, and a handful of mixed greens.

IMG_3232

And that’s all I need.

***

Just beyond the garden fence, the weathered bird bath stands crookedly, the tiny, placid puddle contained within it interrupted intermittently by flocks of finches. Beyond it, in the tree branches once choked by ivy, Northern Harriers sit and eye the open yard. Engorged spiders trundle down delicate silken threads anchored to newly erupted leaves.

Sun beams down and warms my dirt-covered hands, and I smile up into the welcoming warmth.

I stoop into the scraggily garden—and listen to the frenetic chirps, feel the watchful hawks’ gazes, and remind myself that I’m just another piece in this landscape.

I tend the soil, pull out browning stalks, and run my fingertips over budding fruit—their pale green, stubbly faces soaking in the light.

Preparing to fill with color.

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White Folks: Do Something

White people, we have a problem. And it’s not a new problem that’s come with this blight of a presidency. It’s always been rippling beneath the surface of our country—many of us have just been privileged enough to ignore it.

Not anymore.

So, fellow white folks, we need to do something about white supremacy. Because—and I never thought I’d quote an ex-skinhead (see Life After Hate below)—”White people created this problem and it’s our job to fix it.”

I’m no expert—just an average cisgender gay white guy in Seattle trying to rail against white supremacy and white patriarchy (and yes, I still fuck up plenty).

Here’re some suggestions for white folks:

If you barely make ends meet like me and have no extra money to donate, try:

AND/OR

  • Taking time to march, wheel, or virtually march with POC-led organizations, Solidarity Against Hate marches, or counter-protests to various white extremist rallies.

AND/OR

  • Participating in free workgroups or meetings to educate yourself about/better understand:
    • White privilege and white fragility (If you’re white, you have privilege. Period.).
    • Equity versus equality
    • Intersectionality
    • Microaggresions
    • Power and power-sharing
    • Mass incarceration/the prison complex

AND ALWAYS

  • Shutting up and listening. Don’t take up space when people of color are talking. Listen. Learn. Repeat.
  • Calling out racist shit and being prepared to be a buffer, especially if a person of color is being harassed in public. And then calling the police.
  • Recognizing that racism lies at the heart of all of the other -isms. Center racism and race in talks about gendered violence and bias. Trans* women of color are harassed, assaulted, and murdered at a higher rate than any member of the LGBTQ+ community. Women of color are harassed, assaulted, and murdered at a higher rate than white women. Men of color are harassed, assaulted, and murdered at a higher rate than white men.
  • Voting…in LOCAL and NATIONAL elections. Help unseat career politicians who serve the (exceedingly white) one percent to the detriment and continued disenfranchisement of people of color, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, and women.

If you have money left at the end of the month, start:

  • Doing all the things above.

AND

  • Becoming a recurring donor to POC-led organizations, and organizations working to combat hate—especially small community organizations. (Seriously, you’ll make some Development/Fundraising staffer’s day—recurring donations help small nonprofits more than you know.)

AND

  • Talking to your affluent friends about race. Don’t let your wealth or your friends’ wealth insulate you/them from these systemic problems. Get them involved in organizations you’re passionate about. And if you have oodles of money, pool some of your resources for multi-year grants for organizations like those I mentioned above, and others fighting against hate and for civil rights.

AND

  • Unpacking “gentrification,” and how it often displaces people of color and other marginalized community members. Educate yourself about how to combat gentrification. (And please stop acting like you’re some sort of pioneer. I guarantee most folks in your neighborhood already don’t like you and give you side-eye all the damn time. So you should probably start doing something worthwhile to build community and counter your gentrifying effects.)

AND…

…plenty of other things.

***

The point is this: Each and every single one of you white people can do something. Don’t give in to fear or apathy, and for the love of the mother goddesses, do not check out, thinking this will “blow over.” Silence is complicity.

Acknowledge that you’re going to say some stupid shit and embarrass yourself. But get over it, apologize, and learn some more. We don’t have time for pity parties. We only have time for action and for building momentum. Are you tired yet? You should be. You will be. Because you will always be learning. But an educated resistance is a stronger resistance.

So, white people, it’s past time for us to do something. Get up. Speak out. Educate yourself.

Be one more body of resistance against white supremacy.