T. 1.
I hiked with Gianna to Red Rock Canyon, the other day, after waking up at Tommy’s house. We walked for forty five minutes on a flat trail towards a canyon pocketed in the middle of Orange County. Hidden indeed: we turned a corner and all of a sudden, opening away from the brush and the trees that providied coverage from the sky and closed us in from the world around us, red rocks that folded on top of each other rose from the ground. The sight felt rare. Gianna maintained silence. We lingered. We walked back.
Heading back, Gianna told me how much she missed her husband Ryan, who spent the weekend in Chicago. She needed people who were relaxed to surround her for the day. She needed community to fill in for Ryan’s absence. “There’s part of your brain,” she said, referring to her husband, “that identifies with the other person. Your identity becomes bound up in your partner. For example, I’m making a drink right now, but Ryan is normally the one who makes drinks well, and I miss him so much. He would know how to make this drink right.” I told Gianna about Tommy. “It sounds like you like him,” she said, “but you sound really guarded,” and I said, “I know.”
The next day, which was yesterday, I was hired to run a church service with little plan. The pastor and I made eye contact, wide-eyed and scattered. The service ran on. And I left as soon as it ended to meet up with Tommy. How often can I meet up with Tommy…we went to Wursthaus to eat sausages. We walked around downtown Santa Ana for Mexican Independence day. We went back. After another episode of Slaysian Drag Race, he relieved my stress. And we went to sleep.
I dreamt that night of the artist Chaz, from Lake Mary, walking around high-grassed fields alongside me. In and out of vision, he ran the local music scene, and I spent time taking photos in the fields. We were making, we were relaxing, the weather was mild.
And many people in the dream walked around with beige T-shirts of a photograph halfway covered with a red, rectangular filter. They were trendy, and I did not like them. Chaz walked up to me. He said, “you’d actually really enjoy that band,” and I said, “oh,” and he said, “everyone here is part of the scene,” and I said, “oh,” and decided to let down my skepticism. My guard fell. I walked around the fields. “You should make something,” Chaz said, and I said, “alright.” The T-Shirt was designed well, and I enjoyed the band.
I woke up several times that night with Tommy’s arms wrapped around me. That’s not normal for me; that’s not normal for the gays I know. The first night that he held me, I burned hot. My liver felt like it was on fire. I felt bruised. But last night I woke up feeling alright. I slept well. The world felt alright.
When I was growing up, some strange but not unique interpretation of Christianity told me that there were two ways to make meaning in life: Children, which deferred some existential questions onto offspring, and something called Meaning, which takes time out of the equation (no deferral) if you live a “meaningful” life “now.” And I knew I was not straight, but did not accept being gay, so I knew I would not have children. The only option, I guess, was a sort of religious, monastic adherence to Art. “You’re called to be single,” my mom told me, and others have told me the same (including a circle of pentecostal praying christians, speaking with the authority of God, saying “you’re better alone,”) and it’s been burned into my brain since then. It’s a line, even if I don’t believe it, that has been seared onto me. I need to unthink it.
I woke up in Tommy’s arms last night, after my dream to make art with the people who relax me. And I felt, for the first time in my life, like I could have it both ways. I can make. And I do not need to be alone. I want to make the T-Shirt from my dreams. I’m no longer skeptical about it.