Alabama – Yellow Brick Missives

April 29, 2020

The Land

Micaceous red clay caked beneath my toenails as I stretched, forcing my weight down—propelling myself skyward, toward the reach of towering long leaf pines.

This is neither our land, nor the families’ before us. It’s the land of the Muskogee Creek. And we, random descendants—a family whose surname dapples papered deeds of colonizers’ past—are, at most, undeserving stewards whose “rights” to this bounty are tenuous and never truly justifiable.

***

Borne from exhaustion and a borderline comical series of unfortunate events in New Mexico, I found myself without a job, and forced from my RV site. Like recognizing a bad dye job, I acknowledged it was time to return to my roots—the clay, the green, the creek carving its way through the land as it’d done long before we skipped stones from its sandy banks.

Outside, six inches of snow covered the ground, the sun slowly damning the powdery clumps to frigid slush. Bertie shuddered awake, the side view mirrors vibrating from the slow rumble rippling beneath the sheet metal siding. JoJo slipped under her blankets and commenced her pre-departure routine of heavy napping.

Ten minutes later, Bertie crept out of the RV park, up the hill I coasted down nearly a year prior when I landed in Santa Fe—and felt the same sense of awe and curiosity and pure, unadulterated fear surge through my veins.

This was not your place. And that’s okay.

At the road, I attempted a U-turn and promptly rolled into the far curb. Quickly recalibrating to driving my 10,000 pound home rather than my sedan, I waved apologetically to passing motorists—whose windshields held an unobstructed view to a homemade sign taped to my back window that read, “Thank you for your patience.”

***

The mechanic’s child stared intently at me, her captive audience; her snuffles punctuated each page turn as she recited the names of the coloring book’s line-drawn characters. Behind her, a candle slowly burned down into a sickly sweet cinnamon-scented layer, barely overpowering the olfactory bouquet of oil and spent rubber.

Beside me, JoJo gazed up, visibly annoyed. Hours prior, I’d limped Bertie off of the interstate into the small Texas garage, and all but begged the mechanic to consider helping my aged, rusting beast of a home get down the road. And eight hours later, we’d entered the costly homestretch.

With my heart in my throat, I continued on through Texas, anticipating every slight bump or shudder to end in Bertie’s mechanical failure. But days later, after weathering storms and traffic snarls and impatient drivers, I rolled from asphalt onto gravel, off the county road: the land, my goal.

***

The next day, I hugged my childhood hair stylist and promised an imminent appointment while attempting to place the patron who sat in her chair—head foil-wrapped, waiting to be streaked. The moment I walked out the door, I recognized her as my former neighbor.

Shortly thereafter, I nearly toppled from my bar-side perch in a hipster-focused coffee shop populating a downtown storefront blocks away from my childhood home.

Easily the oldest person sidled up to the poured concrete countertop, I stared vacuously cow-eyed at the kind barista when he said to pay whatever I felt was appropriate.

“First time here, huh?”

“Not in Opelika. But yes, first time here.” In a coffee shop that didn’t have an early bird special, with current music, where I felt aged like a bottom-shelf wine, far from the glare of an unintended spotlight whilst visiting my estranged grandmother in the same nursing home where my great grandmother died.

My mind wandered as another barista opened a side door, illuminating a small cocktail bar in the space adjacent to the coffee shop. Narrowing my eyes, I attempted to reconcile the crumbling, vacant downtown of my youth with the vibrancy of what lay before me—expecting an unseen director to shout,”YES, that’s it! Confusedly nostalgic!”

***

A brisk breeze cut beneath my jacket and danced across the clover field sprawling before me and my father.

“So, you’re back?”

Less a question and more a pronouncement, the words’ weight didn’t go unnoticed. I paused.

“Yes.”

With another invisible hurdle cleared, we eyed the field and I explained what I intended to do there: the site where I’d begin again.

I exhaled, breathing into the wind a smile I felt forming—the joy and anxiety behind it melding with the squeak from the hinge of our broken childhood seesaw far afield. A short distance away, grassy tufts sprang around tumbled rocks—humble markers for beloved family pets returned to the red earth.

Everywhere a memory: a footnote for life chapters to be written.

A chance for rebirth.

July 30, 2015

White Privilege: The Lion in the Room

I’m a few hours away from another phone interview. The hurdles we clear in the course of starting a new career are stressful and tiring, and we often just long for them to be behind us, with an offer waiting in our inbox.

But for me, there’s something more wrapped up in this particular interview.

When I made the decision to leave my papered academic past for nonprofit work, I knew it wasn’t going to be glamorous, the path wouldn’t be littered with hundred dollar bills. The adage “underpaid and overworked” became my mantra, whether or not I embraced and adopted it. And it was okay, because I felt like what I was doing was worth the exhaustion that nips at most nonprofit professionals’ heels.

Part and parcel to most nonprofit work is educating the public. Whether your organization increases awareness about racial inequality, STI transmission, human trafficking, environmental conservation, planned parenting, LGBTQIA advocacy, or animal welfare, the crux is always education. Because a more informed public is more likely to speak out, stand up, and effect meaningful change.

As a kid, I didn’t always grasp the importance of why I had to do certain things, and why my parents pushed me and my sister to branch out – always reinforcing how crucial it was to be able to relate to people from different backgrounds and respect differences. During those teachable moments, I – like most my age – would roll my eyes and complain about spending yet another valuable weekend of my youth planting trees, cleaning up roadside garbage, caring for injured wildlife, or taking food to people in need.

I’d often think Where’s my freedom? Why do we have to do this? Nintendo and Bonanza marathons were much more appealing.

Little did I know, I was learning exactly what it meant to be free – and, not until I was much older, the problematic, insulating effects of white privilege.

***

Growing up in the Deep South, racial lines were socially mapped and cultivated in our consciousness through school and print media – and unabashedly writ into the landscape of our small Alabama town. In ninth grade, we weren’t taught World History, but rather Alabama History. We came to recognize “the other side of the tracks” or a “rough area” was synonymous with a predominantly black neighborhood or an area of violence. In daily dialogue, describing people without a racial preface was unheard of – there was no “There was this guy” or “That lady at the grocery”; often whispered, black became the most important identifier in a descriptive parable relayed from the day’s happenings. Without fail, that hushed tone conveyed something else – something sinister pulsing through that word and, by association, the person to whom it was applied. Everyone was guilty of such profiling – even if we didn’t realize the implications of what we were doing, we became complicit in widening that divide, contributing to tacit racial tension. But this proclivity wasn’t reserved for towns in the South. Whenever Andy and I talk about growing up, we always touch on how racism was just as prevalent farther north – just cloaked in different veils. We both grew up very differently, but we shared a privilege we couldn’t exactly articulate until now, in retrospect.

Even still, we also shared a nagging feeling that we were somehow different. In high school, I had an odd fixation with The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – the weight of the albatross a fitting analogy for the emotional baggage that’d been weighing me down, something that I was terrified was as obvious as a dead bird strung around my neck. But it wasn’t. And I could pass. Again, not until I was much older, I realized the color of my skin diluted my difference – made it more socially acceptable.

Not until I became more outspoken, and had the privilege of a collegiate education, did I start to comprehend the enormity of the problems humanity faces. We parse and segment as a means to better understand, but in so doing, we lose the connective thread that connects them all: education. And by education, I don’t mean post-secondary. I mean hands-on, face-to-face, person-to-person interaction; getting in the dirt together and finding common ground in meaningful, proactive ways. But many of us must first acknowledge our white privilege – that we have the luxury to obsess over the death of a Zimbabwe lion, while our black friends are under threat every single time they leave their home. Until we understand why black bodies are grossly policed, are subjected to structural violence, and take action to change it, we can’t really move forward to tackle everything that we face.

***

I’m inching closer to my interview, and I’m remembering why I was drawn to this particular organization: its emphasis on early, comprehensive education for every child, every family. And I can’t help but think about what I learned as a kid, and how much I want to teach my child so many of the same things – chief among them, respect.

I hope I’ll be open about difference, and be able to answer hard questions. I hope I’ll be able to appropriately frame how inequality hurts everyone, and how important it is to speak out and stand up for your friends, known and unknown – to speak and to act.

Because if we don’t first take care of our species – prioritize humanity – there’s no hope for those others with whom we share this planet.

December 26, 2014

Fortune Seeker

The carefully wrapped blue foil crumples away, revealing the fortune cookie – its tip hardened by a thin sheath of white chocolate. Like always, the brittle cookie explodes apart rather than breaking in a predictable way, and the fortune’s edge sticks out awkwardly. I toss half of the cookie into my mouth, the crumbs falling from my hand into the jadeite candy dish on the weathered kitchen table.

Bold pink lettering amplifies the fortune, more so than its capitalized letters.

BEAUTIFUL THINGS AWAIT YOU.

I inhale deeply. For someone who floats in the atheistic end of the religiosity pool, I’ve always read more into these repetitiously contrived sayings than I should – as if the folks shoving these innocuous messages into their baked shells trend into the designation of sagacious seer rather than underpaid, likely mistreated Third World worker.

Though ordinary, the sayings always give me pause – force me to let my thoughts float around in the ether, search for meaning to the words printed across the slim papery slips. This time, the words resonate with the power of a thunderous gong clash.

I look around as the apartment darkens and the lights from our dried-out Christmas tree illuminate the slow rising and falling of Toby’s tummy. And I think about this year. The last few months especially.

***

It’s pretty clear to anyone who reads my digital chicken scratch that things have been a bit off lately. I’m all for blaming it on the weather or busy schedules, or both. But really, the blame rests squarely on me.

This year has been filled with so many great things – especially our marriage. But even the happiest glimmer can be dimmed by my naturally-endowed cynicism. Over the past few months, we’ve been racing about and putting ourselves through our paces, and getting ourselves all stressed out thinking about where we want to be and how far away that nebulous place seems.

I rationalize the stress. But there’s no rationale that really sticks. I’d like to say that it stems from me busily throwing myself into writing – actually nearing the end of the unknowingly long, strenuous path of writing and publishing a book – but, as shown by my lack of blogging, that’s just not the case. With that, I’ve unknowingly flipped a switch to autopilot, hoping that everything will just fall into place. Thankfully, though, I’ve gotten a few reminders that we have indeed made progress. Still, I need to get my shit together.

***

A little more than a week ago, we returned from a foray across the Southeast. We got to see a few friends, and missed seeing more – but reveled in the limited family time we had. We walked around cherished haunts in Sanford, saw how Raleigh had changed. We visited holes-in-the-wall along our track to Alabama, freeing pieces of beloved Fiesta, Harlequin, and Riviera from dusty shelves in warehouses plopped beside I-85.

We let my parents’ woods absorb our stress, the long-leaf pines’ needled tendrils acting as natural sieves for all of the anxieties and worries we’ve carried along with us – letting the residual mess trickle down their barky bases into the micaceous red clay.

And as we did in North Carolina, we discussed the possibilities of having a child – a concept I once found completely alien and strange – and envisioned that little being taking in a sunset similar to the fragmented one we watched through the swaying trees.

And during our visit, in typical fashion, my fragile personal ecosystem got disrupted by sinus mess – an acute, almost expected souvenir courtesy of the places from whence we fledged together. So as we flew from Atlanta to LA – our slightly-too-large, Fiesta-packed carry-on’s safely, somewhat surreptitiously stowed from the flight attendants’ view – I watched how veins of lighted life pierced the darkness below, and wondered what life decisions were being made in each and every one of those little bulbs of existence.

Once home, we collapsed in a tired heap and slogged through this past week. Though somewhat welcome, my return to routine sometime carries with it a gray lining – a mapped, limited normalcy. Which Pearl obliterated on Christmas Eve with two seizures and a subsequent race to the vet. As we waited and wondered what our aged little girl was going through, I couldn’t help but wonder how excruciating it must be for parents whose kids are sick. And I thought about how I’d handle it if we actually become parents. My eyes kept welling at the thought – not at the contemplation of parenthood per se, but at the amazing power that the wee (non)existent being already has over me.

After the doctor explained the potential problems, and we bid Pearl goodbye for the night, we watched the card swipe through the reader and returned home to sit in silence as A Muppet Christmas Carol played on. And reconsidered going to our pre-purchased double feature of Into the Woods and The Imitation Game.

And yesterday, while we got updates regarding Pearl’s examinations and continued with our plans – despite our pangs of guilt – I digested all of the messages I gleaned from Into the Woods as Andy talked animatedly about standing beside Brad Goreski and Gary Janetti at the Coffee Bean outside the theater. About how it felt as though we’d come full circle – that two years ago yesterday, we’d been in the exact same place with so many unknowns ahead, rubbing shoulders with the exact same people. But how markedly different everything was as well – that we now lived a short commute away from where we were standing, that we had two furballs in our fold, two new jobs, and more than a few new goals on the horizon.

And we wondered where we’d be in two more years. That if so many things have happened in such a short amount of time, the possibilities for the next few years are endless.

Now, with both pups home and relatively healthy, I have a new, permeating sense of optimism overriding everything else. Because I’ve reminded myself that fortunes aren’t made – they’re created. Experience by experience, goal by goal. One infinitesimally small step for humankind, one giant leap for personal salvation. They’re neither measured by the number of zeros on a check, nor a large home. Each is a treasured secret that is gradually brought to fruition through measured, calculated gains and fortuitous happenstance.

And the journey to make inroads to it starts with the most basic step of all.

Living: it’s all a beautifully delicious kind of disorder.

June 21, 2013June 21, 2013

My South

It’s odd what little things claim the last bit of wherewithal I have not to crumple and cry over the shattered remains of a former life.

After all, it’s a doughnut shop, a cheap convenience store. But among the strewn cream-filled dough and dollar store merchandise, crafting supplies and thrift store clothes, is a bit of me–the late teen-early twenty-something me. So amid the wreckage I see a broken reflection, something alien and somehow familiar; something that raises the hairs on the back of my neck and whispers, “Remember me?”

And much more: places where lifelong friendships were born and nurtured from nascent beginnings, full of awkwardness and immaturity and fun; the long walks through neighborhoods and energy-fueled conversations etched into a historic landscape. Everything comfortably familiar I took for granted.

But I can only grasp at former landmarks–the pawn shop where I bought my first TV, the restaurant with the best hangover cure, the picturesque neighborhood of forties- and fifties- era cottages. All now reduced to splinters, pieces of broken lives–friends’ lives changed in moments, their voices echoing across static-laden telephone lines.

But then I have cause to breathe a sigh of relief–a luxury, really: Though drained and wrenched, they’ve made it. They’re not red X’s.

The landscape will always change. But I need friends to watch with me as it reforms, springs from its leveled state, and rises again–just like we did all those years ago: looking to the horizon of an unknown future, hoping for answers in the sunrise.

***

The Tuscaloosa tornado only took a few minutes to raze so much of what had been my home for four years–some of the most formative of my life. And I became acutely aware of how quickly so much could be ripped away to a soundtrack of reverberating tornado sirens, and the subsequent stale silence.

Evil is often guised as a fiery deity, a slithering reptile. But that evening, as I watched part of my past being obliterated, and wondering who among my friends was witnessing it firsthand, I felt that the vortex–an all-consuming monster–was close enough to evil incarnate. And when I was able to exhale, I became immensely protective of all that I identify as my South.

***

But my South isn’t as many things as it is. The Civil War never consumed front porch conversations, and Confederate flags didn’t wave from front yards dotted with rusted-out Fords. And the local ABC Store wasn’t the nexus for the incestuous relationships in which all southerners allegedly engage.

My South is a string of recollections and experiences–and each may be a little ahead or a little behind the curve, but still mine. And they all have the same base: the Alabama I experienced before I finally went through puberty; before I came out; before I knew anything of consequence; before I left it all. The Alabama between the bygone and the here and now.

The Opelika with the Walmart-Western Sizzlin’ hub near the interstate, before Opal knocked the “Western” clean off and it became “The Sizzlin’.” An Opelika with its intact mill village. The railroad town where O.B. Ennis and A&P were the go-to grocery stores before Kroger and Winn-Dixie got popular. The feed-and-seed store with the back room incubator that filled the warm air with newly-hatched chicks’ cheeps. Gorging on Tyler’s hamburgers, fries, and apple pies the first year we spent making a home out of the old clapboard house in the derelict historic district.

It’s when we got too tired and covered in lead paint dust, and ventured downtown with ten dollars to entertain ourselves, starting with egg salad sandwiches and pickles at Haynies–a genuine soda fountain. How we’d let our feet dangle from the red vinyl swivel stools as we munched on the toasted bread slathered with silky egg salad. With the only noise being the buzz of a radio and the fans swirling overhead, watching the dills float around in the huge glass jar on the countertop.

Walking, contentedly full, to Southern Video–with its worn, velvet-lined floor–and renting the reliable standbys: The Witches or a Tell-Faire Peak Theatre rendition of a Grimm’s Fairy Tale, and our favorite Nintendo game, Jackal. And then walk back–our parents unconcerned about a seven or eight block walk, unlike today. It was just a blink, not that long ago.

Hearing in sixth grade about Windows, and wondering what the hubbub could be about. Being part of a generation to play outside–using our imaginations like remote controls: a mud hole as a sea; plywood and blown-out tires as a fort in an azalea bush. Fourth of July, and the neighbors: young families with big dreams for the big houses falling apart around them–gathering in the graveled alley next to our house and setting up card-tables to feast on fried chicken, ambrosia salad, macaroni and cheese, paprika-laced deviled eggs, collard greens, potato salad, pies and cobblers.

The front porch–the columns, the cold floor beneath my feet, the balustrades salvaged from a demolished house, the porch swing and fan; how I’d curl up in the wicker settee with a bowl of ice-cream and glass of sweet tea just as the cicadas started screaming their heat songs.

Coming home after band practice to a Royal Doulton bowl full of lukewarm venison meatballs. The food, an Italian-Deep South blend: pigeons and polenta; collards and fried chicken; the discount bakery’s tandy cakes and apple pies; pasta fagioli and chipped beef; Mrs. Story’s hot dogs and The Dairy Barn’s milkshakes and Thomas Pharmacy’s peppermint sticks; pecan tassies and butter cookies; cornbread and pinto beans; venison and wild turkey; pizzelles and coffee.

The landscape: azaleas and spider lilies; irises and hydrangeas; pecans and oaks where old elms used to root; kudzu and English ivy; acubas and iron weed and camellias. The people: Miss Ruby watering her mint plants; childhood friends maiming bugs with magnifying glasses; Laura and me flipping through World Book encyclopedias–stopping on colorful images of dogs and horses–and watching Bonanza and American Gladiators while gorging on pigs-in-blankets and Kid Cuisines.

Everything else: antique shops and flea markets; turkey feathers and deer antlers; squirrel traps and garden snakes; a rattler’s warning in waist-high grass; wildflowers and mischief.

Tracking time with hunting photographs: from when I’m just shy of antler tines, to shoulder-high; to a face smeared with blood, holding the deer myself. Felling trees and planting them, burning underbrush and pissing outside.

It’s the comforting sepia curling around the edges of these memories, creating a warmth I associate with home.

January 4, 2013January 4, 2013

A Gay, Man-infested Destiny: The First Leg, NC to AL

Do you ever have moments while driving when the music’s just right and you think, Wow, this is just like a movie sequence?

Alright. Maybe I watch too many movies, and bitterly know that I’ll never be in one. So instead of stardom, I just inflate those moments and revel in a kind of narcissistic, starlet-centric projection.

Hey, at least I’m honest.

Regardless, there were so many moments like that during the course of our trip that I thought it was all a dream. Like I’d wake up and still be stuck in my horrible basement apartment from several years’ past, smacking roaches with rolled up Cottage Living and scrubbing off my bedroom closet wall’s black mold with equal parts Clorox and tears.

Thankfully, it was more dream-like than nightmarish.

Still, since we both have extreme commutes, it took us a minute to realize that, no, this isn’t another drive to the office.

But when we passed the exit Andy normally takes for work, it started to hit us: We’re really doing this.

It was high time for an adventure of the Thelma & Louise sort. Minus the whole murder-suicide bit. (Although I would’ve shot that barfly bastard, too.)

It was time to rediscover and unlock those neglected parts of our personalities through roadside experiences, local food, good and horrible hotels, scenic vistas, exhaustion-induced spats, the warming sun. Dust them off. Rejuvenate them.

So we set the tone with Brandi Carlile’s hauntingly beautiful voice.

Because, really, when your hands are numbed by a random cold snap, you’re excited, sleep-deprived mind can only think about coffee, and a plane ride back to Raleigh from a business trip leaves you exhausted, Brandi is your only recourse.

Only she can knock that frost off your hands, get you through a few miles before the coffee sets in, and soothe you to sleep. (Well, maybe not the driver.)

We add a few Neko Case songs to the playlist for good measure.

Ready.

Set.

Go!

***

By the time we get down to Atlanta, the sun is setting beyond the gridlocked traffic. So we occupy our time entertaining thoughts about what we’ll do if Rick Grimes sidles up next to us on that poor, doomed Clydesdale, warning us that “Atlanta belongs to the dead now.”

*Creepy silence*

Alright, so I should probably cut back on The Walking Dead. (Still, there could be much more worse looking zombie-killers, right? Right.)

As we wind our way through the rest of Georgia and cross the Chattahoochee into Alabama, I clarify where exactly my parents live.

“Basically in the middle of nowhere. Partially underground.”

Meh, clarity is overrated. Before long, we turn onto county roads, then onto back country roads. I slow at the unimposing mailbox and pull onto the gravel access road.

***

“Here we are!”

“Wow. Okay. This is a little creepy.”

“Oh, it’s not that scary, ” I reassure, walking into the surrounding darkness, rattling padlock chains against the metal access gate.

Andy inches closer to the open car door.

Tammy the Prius putters down the narrow, mile-long road. On either side: dark woods. Above: a beautifully clear night sky studded with stars.

Along the way, I point out the family dog’s grave and a historic house site, then motion down the road to a partially illuminated hillside.

“There it is.”

***

We pull up to the stone and glass façade and are soon greeted by my parents and Petey, the hyperactive Jack Russell (then again, “hyperactive Jack Russell” is redundant).

My parents usher us and our ridiculously overpacked luggage inside (hey, we really needed ten pairs of shoes between us). After the requisite reunion with my feathery brother–the every curmudgeonly 25 year-old African Grey, Scooby–we give Andy the tour of the hobbit house before settling in for the night.

It may have been the driving. But I think it was the unfamiliar pitch black silence replacing the usual ambient streetlight-fratastic ruckus that drove me into a deep sleep.

***

Waking up to sweet potato muffins and pancakes the next morning reminds me how lucky I am to have the family I do.

As does hiking with my sister, talking about life and the future, all the while crunching leaves and branches under our feet on the way down to the creek.

About an hour or so later, we walk back in and find our dad watching The Walking Dead Season One finale.

“Wait, didn’t you start watching that before we left?”

“Well, yeah, but this damn TV is busted, so I had to watch the whole disc to get to the last episode.”

“Ah.”

He turns back around, hunches toward the TV, and continues watching, letting loose the occasional “Ewwgah!” as Andy and I prep to leave for my hometown, Opelika.

***

Conjuring stories from my childhood and teen years while driving past my parents’ former historic home, and through a newly revitalized downtown, makes me nostalgic for the little things that made my childhood exactly that. But most of the stores I remember have long since moved, the streets have been reoriented, and the town where I grew up has an even more foreign air to it than when I visited during graduate school. Still, I watch Andy take in the places I cherish and dovetail them with our personal history, gaining a greater understanding of where I come from and how I’ve changed.

And I do the same thing as we peruse an antique mall, pick up things, assess their appeal, and, in most cases, laugh before putting them back.

Over dinner that night, the family eats well, drinks fully, and reminisces about past times and future times, exuding a certain glow—one that’s a mixture of pride and longing.

In the morning, syrup-soaked French toast and black coffee fuels us to continue our trek. (After family photos, of course.)

And then my hometown becomes a check off the list as we head to Little Rock.

But not before we log away more memories–to push us on when we get frustrated and wonder why in the hell we ever thought this was a good idea.

While delicious, heavy carbs can only fuel you so far when you tire at the wheel. New memories, though, are like jolts of caffeine. Reminding us that this is what it’s all about: figuring out this crazy life on our own terms.

And reveling in the journey.

September 11, 2012December 13, 2012

This Day

By now, Facebook is flooded with photographs and recollections. Some heartfelt; others, forced. Twitter is aflutter with tweets and twits. And Google + is, well, I don’t know because I never use it.

And plenty of people are critiquing each other’s sentiments, determining who really deserves to feel the crushing weight of the day’s albatross.

Rationales aside, each of us appropriates this disaster. We do so to determine how far we can remove the deeply-set emotional knife from our chest—until a future time when this day passes with only the slightest sense of a phantom pinprick.

It just takes a flip through old journals to recognize my complicity in this unsettling enterprise—the pages devoted to this day fattened with ribbons and miniature flags, and riddled with clichéd lines like these.

But what can never be captured appropriately are the ways that this day jarred our collective consciousness. Because each American’s life was uprooted from seemingly stable, solid ground. Whether blocks, states, or continents away, we each felt the impacts. And something broke inside us all.

I cannot fathom what those who lost someone experienced. And I cannot know how it felt to be there.

All I can imagine is being a high-schooler in Alabama. Being told by a friend, “The World Trade Center and Pentagon just got attacked. And something happened in Pennsylvania.” Hearing the job fair’s buzzing conversations silenced by the principal’s intercomed order back to class. Rushing to AP Government and Economics and watching the planes crash into the towers, and the towers collapsing.

Over.

And over.

Answering parents’ panicked calls to the office alongside the overwhelmed secretaries. Retrieving friends from classes to return home. Hearing my Pre-calculus teacher’s sobs in the hallway after learning that her daughter’s plane had been rerouted to Canada—that she was safe. Experiencing the after-school stillness.

Returning patrons’ strained expressions, and hearing the occasional proclamation of the apocalypse while asking, “Paper or plastic?” Sitting and watching the news coverage in silence. Reading the headlines.

Feeling the images burn into memory.

Knowing I’ll never forget.

August 28, 2012December 13, 2012

Fishes, Loaves, and Rainbows

It’s not often that, as an adult, you have a chance to tell your parents that you’re proud of them. Regardless of whether or not they do admirable things after you’re out of the proverbial nest, it just seems weird to have such a verbal exchange with someone who changed your diapers. But then you get reminders of just how much they do–not for personal gain, but because they want to make a difference.

And I had one such reminder this past Sunday. During our weekly phone conversation, my parents summarized the first meeting of an LGBT support group they helped organize with other progressive members of area parishes. Yes, “parishes.” Contrary to the Vatican’s problematic dogma, and the hate that’s regularly spewed by bishops and other Catholic clergy, there are plenty of tolerant Catholics out there fighting for equality. Even in Alabama.

“Hey, yeah, I’ll let your mother tell you more about it. We may have to move to a larger space for the next one. And we had at least one each of the LGBT.”

I smile. Southerners: we preface everything with “the.” Dad hands the phone to Mom.

“Hey, honey! We had a great turnout. And everyone liked the door prizes.”

Again, I smile.

It’s almost cliche to write that growing up gay is fraught with challenges. But it is, especially when you’re cognizant that your identity–even if you can’t quite yet put a name to it–is seemingly irreconcilable with your religious background. Being gay in a hyper-conservative state is hard. Being gay and Catholic in Alabama is even harder. But my sister and I went through the motions our parents expected of us–you know, living under their roof and all. Still, we preferred mimicking the chorus member, who’d bang on a tambourine at the most inopportune moments during Mass, over paying attention to what was being said.

And as often happens, we left the roost and took our respective positions regarding religion. By now, our parents have accepted our decisions, and don’t push. We respect each other’s beliefs, or the lack thereof, and they use their faith to build bridges rather than walls.

Without any provocation or emphatic suggestions on my part, they each attended a symposium led by a progressive Catholic ministry. There, they learned more about LGBT life and rights in the context of Catholicism. They came back energized and determined to make a difference. And last Friday, they, along with a handful of allies–my sister included–saw the first glimpse of their efforts: 25 to 30 LGBT-identified individuals gathered for their first meeting. Some had been out for years and coupled for decades; some were new to the community. And each of them found a place alongside my family.

While I’ve long since forgotten most of what I learned in CCD, I do recall that excessive pride is sinful. More than that, it’s dangerous.

But in this instance, I think it’s heavenly.

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