My Blog... | Michael Carroll Green

my eyes.

My eyes see a me
that others cannot see.

Bolder,
Older!

Other than this me that is,
in this time and place and now.

I see me -
but not the me that you see
when you look at me!

Weight of the World

Weight of the World.

Decades lay waste to a butterfly existence.

Life in a blink cannot compete with eternity

when the wind blows a dusty sentence out of time.

Dreams make trouble for those who can imagine the future

but know they will not live to see it.

TRUTH.

Who can see the truth? Imagine it?

Not many.

I have see something less than truth,

but not the thing itself

I have even tried to bring truth to life,

but have never brought forth more than faulty dreams and desperation.

BURN.

You can burn bright.

We all can.

It doesn’t mean you’re better -

only brighter.

Life does not prevail,

despite great wishes,

and a heart’s desire.

Life does not prevail, and Dreams fail,

laid low by age and infirmity; life and reality.

This March is slow, and leaves no survivors.

Hope for another answer fades as days pile up.

the thing that pisses me off the most is that i never imagined being this age! when i was a kid, the most i ever imagined was how old i’d be at the turn of the century. that’s over thirteen years past now, and i’m still around. what do you do when all your milestones have passed and you’re still around wondering what happens next? what do you do when the people you remember being born are watching their own children growing up…and you know it can only get worse, after all.

the more this continues, the more we are forced to watch the generations pass,and the more we are forced to watch our own bodies continue to grow older and fail. i don’t like it. not one little bit.

Appalachia and Her Children…

Appalachia breeds children every day.
But when Her children start paying attention
to the rest of the world, She loses them…
Every time.

I came from people that didn’t give a rat’s ass about world order. They never had the time, nor the interest. Between working their fingers to the bone, likely at the local textile mill, trying to grow enough food for the family to eat, preserving said food for the Winter months, going to church, visiting family members, and spending a precious few moments of solitude at home, there just wasn’t a spare minute to worry about what was playing on Broadway, or what the latest fashion trend might be in New York City (much less Paris).

Never mind. Let the world turn, they said (without really ever saying so at all). Leave us alone, they said. Leave us here in the heart of Appalachia. Let us live amidst this natural beauty uninterrupted. We’ll pay your taxes, and we’ll pay in to your social security. but you better be ready to give it back when we need it. Money’s precious. So is life. This is life.

Why did I want something else?

What made me a dreamer — a stranger — a foreigner in my own home, and in my homeland? What twist of fate, or chemical imbalance, made me yearn for more — feel the need to leave that place of safety and security. To roam — seek to know the world — travel to places my family never cared about, see things and people my family never needed to know, and live a life so unlike anything and everything I ever knew?

I wish I knew, may never know. Will always struggle to know. May go to my grave never knowing, or understanding what drove me to take this different path — this different life — this strange and utterly foreign life, so far from all I knew.

I have dreamed. And I have questioned when and where I could. But what is truth, and what is only perspective? What is a lie, and what is fancy? And who can tell? Will Tell. Even cares.

Did you know my father? Was he like me? I lived with him for eighteen years but could not tell you who the man really was, what drove him, how his mind worked, or what he craved to do in the world, but could not. Perhaps we are not meant to know such things about our forebears, and yet I find myself asking — wishing I knew — could know.

Did you know my mother? Am I like her at all? Did she ever care for things outside her front door? Want to see things? Dream things? Be things? I ask her questions like these and she must think I am mad. Why do I feel the need to ask such questions? She looks at me with such great love, but such great sadness. Why can’t she understand why I ask questions?

Did you know my nanny? I’m like her they say. But then they say she was selfish. Willful. Angry. Smart. She gave me coffee in small espresso cups when I was a kid. It would have been our secret if I’d ever seen a secret I could keep. Got her in trouble so many times. She always gave me coffee though. And a cigarette later, if I wanted one. Nanny used to tell me stories about how she studied French. How she once got to go the the State capital with the Four-H. She stayed in the dorm at North Carolina State University (although it was a farm school then). Told me how she wanted to go to school there, and how there was no money, and how there was a great depression, and how the TVA took their land and their town and flooded it beneath the waters of lake Fontana. Maybe there’s more to that story than…

Did you look at her, then look at me, and wish personality traits didn’t skip a generation? Did you look at me and worry, even then? Was that why you started giving me books to read, and chores to do, and animals to feed. Was that why you watched everything I did and corrected me any time you saw something that seemed to come from somewhere else? I was like nanny? I was like my mom’s people. I was like my great aunt Ethel, I was like, no nothing much like you.…

I have touched the pyramids, walked the circumference of Stonehenge, and ascended the Great Wall of China. But I have never found common ground with my mother, who I love dearly, and who gave me so much of herself, from the turn of my nose to the overlap of my two front teeth. Neither did I find common ground with my dad, much as we found a lasting and mutual respect.

I am so like my parents, yet nothing like them. Made from their loins, and from their the love within their hearts, yet with dreams and desires and drives so foreign that we might never cross the thresh hold of understanding, were it not for the blood we share.

I will tell you this, dad. And this one’s just for you. I finally learned to embrace and understand all of the (bad) traits you always feared. You know the ones. The things you always hated about my mom’s family, and my nanny — your own mother. You know The things you always saw in me in spades.

I admit that I used to wonder how you could ever have loved mother, while seeming to hate everything she came from. It’s a testament to her ability to be a chameleon, I suppose.

I got that one too, by the way. That trait. I really cannot even help it. It’s a self-preservation thing, I think. Anyway, I often wonder if that very trait was what drew the two of you together. Either that, I suppose, or maybe your own family trait of criticizing anything and anyone “not Green” just couldn’t stay hidden for long, despite the overpowering drive of romantic love. Same with your mother. How did you ever come to take your father’s family’s position regarding your own mother? True or not, it seems a bit extreme. But maybe that’s just me. My own perspective. What is truth, and what can only be described as my truth? I still don’t know the answer to that one.

But back to the two of you. I guess in some ways it’s not surprising. You were both children, after all. She, by age and everything else, and you, certainly by right of passage. Children. And what you wrought! No wonder the first try gave out even before the birth pains began. I was weaker — or stronger. I guess that depends in the perspective too. I did stay to live and endure, after all.

Lived. Grew. Outgrew, one might more properly say. Not that I love being everything you never expected, but I have to confess that I could not have been otherwise. Perhaps, mom, you should have stepped off the step stool with me in your womb the way you did with the other one. Or maybe that one — that ghost brother — was the one that should have come to term, full term, and lived to fulfill all the dreams I never could — or will. It was your hem that found fate. You tell the story.

I’m sorry Dad. Mom too

I AM an artist, and a dreamer -

And all those things you’d hoped I’d never be.

I couldn’t help myself. But I guess you suspected that. Worried about it. Wished it away every chance you could.

You tried everything you knew — to temper me, test me, teach me — make me a strong and sane version of that wild and insane image (person) that you saw that I so resembled.

And I guess in some strange sense you really did succeed.…sort of. Because I am a somewhat strange blend of crazy artist and rock of Gibralter.

Apples, it seems, really don’t fall so far from the tree, despite the random mixing of egg and sperm. Don’t become something so fully strange, despite natural tendency.…

And on another note.…

Am I the only one that believed the bullshit? The only one to fall for that “you can do anything” crap?

I did, you know.

Believed it.

I really thought any of us kids could have anything.…

All we had to be was smart enough or driven enough.

And worse yet, I actually wanted that -

Wanted to try to go beyond the county line, and live a life that was bigger than me -

Bigger.

Better?

Well, in the end, different.…

Am I the only one that ever listened when all the old folks talked about all the things that they believed that I could do?

I did, you know.

Listen.

I really heard the things they said about getting out, and getting something better?

Something that might put something other than lint in my hair.

All I had to do was work hard enough, and keep my focus -

Dream of a life that was larger than life -

Special…

Significant?

Well, in the end, distant.…

Am I the only one, in the end, that ever bought the line?

The only one to really make a go of it?

I did, you know.

Bought it.

and more than that, I really tried to live it…

What I never knew was that maybe I wasn’t smart enough to really reach the top.

For all I tried, the closest I could get was close to it -

B+

Near enough to see that life, but never quick enough to catch it.

What I have? What I had?

It was good.

I know enough to know that I tried…

and I did a lot.

Went far, and lived large.

And in the end, I’ll own that.

I know I did what I could do, given who I was and where I came from — given — shit! You know what? I could have done a whole lot worse than this.

There’s a porch swing out there somewhere, where kids can swing as far as they like

without ever worrying that it might break.

and a swing set, bright and shiny, that never flies too high.

Never rusts, or fades in the Summer sun. I know it’s there. I’ve wished it into being.

My Written Word…

I’ve been writing something — this or that — ever since I learned to write. Sometimes I’ve shared it, spoken it, published it…sometimes not. Maybe now’s a good time to share.…

Been thinking a lot about growing up lately. Always been on a search for understanding where I came from, and how the “me” that’s me came about. I mean, I can see some of my parents, and even grandparents, in my look and my outlook, but somehow the way all those genes came together in me was something altogether new to all of them…and I don’t just mean the “gay” part.

I used to figure that I was either adopted, some sort of changeling switched at birth (by fairies), or that I really came from outer space. And if it was hard for me to figure out where I came from, can you imagine how hard it was for my parents! My dad figured out pretty early that I was some sort of an enigma. I think at first he tried to deny it, but by the time puberty came around, he knew trouble was only a matter of time.…

A word or two about gun regulation (and the art of communication).…

I’m sure the headline for this blog alone will elicit some strong emotions. That’s OK. Keep reading.…

I’ve been watching all the recent conversations and sparring about gun control with dismay. It seems like, once again, all the players are determined to go off into their corners and refuse to engage in meaningful dialogue. I’d like to be wrong about that, but I fear that the further away we get from the most recent tragedy, the less likely we are to see positive movement. All the arguments I’ve read are the same ones I’ve seen before. It’s all or nothing for both sides, and nothing new in the dialogue. Not overly surprising, I suppose. You see, we’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. We’ve lost the ability to participate in an enlightened discussion designed to help move our society forward (and avoid horrific incidents like the one at Newtown). Debate and dialogue, the art of rhetoric, used to be respected terms — aspirational traits. No longer. Today, rhetoric is used to describe the talking heads we see on television or listen to on the radio — spin doctors who seek only to sell their point of view, and are only willing to listen to their own point of view. Our own government reflects this loss, as evidenced by the recent fiscal cliff debacle.

We need to regain the ability to communicate in this country. And until we do, we’re doomed to see more and more examples like Newtown. We need to actually enter into a dialogue about guns and gun regulation. I’ve been hesitant to even enter the gun debate at all for fear that any position I might take (as a centrist) would be attacked from friends and acquaintances on both sides of the issue. I have also been avoiding the temptation to address the fact that Newtown was as much about the way we deal with mental illness in this country as was about gun control. In that case (as in other cases), the two issues have been completely intertwined. Fixing one without addressing the other will ultimately fail when it comes to fixing the problem. There. I said it. Not just one, but two taboo topics that our society must choose to deal with and find a way of changing the current paradigm. Failing to do so will result in more tragedies and more sorrow.

Times they are a changing…

I first acknowledged myself as a gay man shortly after I graduated from college in 1979. I’d had a few encounters, but it was only after I finished school that I really allowed myself to accept that I was gay, and that being gay was likely to impact the rest of my life. For the first time I found myself accepting myself, and identifying as a gay man. It was a start.

When I moved to Atlanta in the Fall of 1979, it was to attend Candler School of Theology. But I knew, even before I got there that I was not going to enter that Freshman Class. My plans to study Pastoral Counseling and Theological Literature were falling apart in the face of both a lack of finances (my scholarship was tied to a requirement that I serve as a minister in the Western North Carolina Conference) and in the face of my self acceptance.

Not to say I was really “out” then. It had not so much come into fashion at that point in history. Enough to be living whole and healthy. I was closeted to family, and at work — kept them separated from my personal life. Back then you could be fired for being gay. you could be attacked for being gay. You could get beaten up by the police for being gay. Stonewall may have happened, but this was Atlanta, Georgia, and that world didn’t have much to do with what was happening in New York City and San Francisco.

Looking back, it’s somewhat difficult for me to imagine that I actually lived through that time. Hard to believe the first gay pride event that I attended was not a PRIDE Parade at all. Rather, it was a protest march to the steps of the state capitol in Atlanta. Some two hundred of us marched in protest; determined just to be protected and accepted. There were a few opportunities to do outreach. I volunteered at the local Gay Center as a PR Coordinator, and later served as its PR Director. But back then, what we mostly did was publish a newsletter and a calendar for the community. We issued press releases, but they were rarely picked up by anyone other than the local bar rags. Gay was definitely not on anyone’s agenda.…

It’s difficult for me to imagine that I was closeted at work, and worried that someone might figure things out. Difficult (and painful) to remember finally coming out to my parents in an explosive session that resulted in their leaving to drive back home to North Carolina the same day they’d arrived (ostensibly to take care of me because working two jobs had left me with a case of mono).

I look back at all that and think, my how the world has changed.

I’m thinking there’s hope for gay marriage, and for equal rights.

October 13, 2012 will be Stephen’s and my 29th anniversary as a couple, and the fourth anniversary of our marriage. Seems like yesterday and forever all at once. We’ve both lived with each other longer than we either lived without the other. I started thinking about this today because there were several articles in the paper regarding gay marriage. It continues to be a hot topic, both because it’s an election year, and because President Obama endorsed it.

The article I found most interesting (and the one that prompted this blog on the subject) was regarding prop 8 news. It seems that one of the primary witnesses who testified in favor of Prop 8 (David Blankenhorn) has now changed his mind (because, he says, “I had also hoped that debating gay marriage might help to lead heterosexual America to a broader and more positive recommitment to marriage as an institution. But it hasn’t happened,” Blankenhorn wrote. “If fighting gay marriage was going to help marriage over all, I think we’d have seen some signs of it by now.”).

You can see the entire article here, btw.…

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Calif-same-sex-marriage-foe-now-endorses-unions-3655908.php?cmpid=emailarticle&cmpid=emailarticle

Anyway.…after I read this, I just kept thinking about how all the gay marriage foes were so convinced that it was going to destroy “traditional” marriage, and how ironic it was that this guy finally realized it would neither hurt nor help “traditional” marriage.

Well, I for one, am proud to say that our marriage did not result in a complete breakdown of civilization, nor did it single handedly destroy “traditional” marriage. Now I think it’s high time the Federal Government (and all the idiots who still don’t get the fact that all we want is fairness and equality) put an end to DOMA, recognize our marriage,and give us all the legal rights that go along with being married. Maybe I’m just emboldened by the progress we’ve already made, and that’s why I’m thinking it could happen, but after all, I never thought I’d see us get as far as we already have in my lifetime. And to all those States who have outlawed Gay Marriage (including my home State of North Carolina), shame on you!

five kittens, four litters, one angel.…

When they arrived at the pound they were between two and three weeks old — in one case maybe less as his eyes were still not quite open. Hard to tell as all of them had health problems; eye infections, respiratory infections, in one case even ringworm. They arrived, surrendered by people who claimed to have found them, discovered them or “saved” them.

The admitting officer took a look and completed the paperwork — sort of. No pictures were taken, and in all cases, they were marked “feral” and “aggressive” — a code that would allow them to be quickly euthanized. They’d been judged “throw-away” animals — too much trouble and too likely to die — and so they took their places, all together in one cage, on the waiting list to die.

an angel appears.…

Fortunately for all five of these kittens, one shelter volunteer came in and saw them in their cage, offered to foster them, took them home, fed them all milk every few hours, paid for their medical treatment, and did everything she could to see if they could make it. Slowly, they all began to come around. Slowly, they began to move around. Slowly, they began to gain an ounce or two of weight.

subbing.…

We met the kittens when their foster mom had to leave town. They arrived at our house with all their medications. Adorable, but sick, we took over the job of coaxing them into good health. They began to respond. Weight gain. Health improvement. We bought toys and finally got them to play. It was hard to say goodbye when their foster mom came back.

Life in stages.…

Because they were fostered, and because they were all too small to be spayed or neutered, all five kittens were subject to being returned to the pound before they could be adopted. So what had originally been a short-term case of fostering became a longer one. During the wait, mom had to again leave town, so all five kittens came back. All happier, all healthier, and all full of energy. Still on a few medications, they finally gained enough weight to be spayed/neutered. We took them in and brought them home. Easy.

Finally, one family called about adopting, and so now we’re down to four. Tomorrow their foster mother comes home again to take them home, and we will surely miss them more this time. They’ve all developed such sweet and varied personalities, and they love attention.Our own cats would be furious if we kept them, but it sometimes seems so tempting.

Once the kittens leave, they will be adopted and we will likely never see them again. But they will be happy, healthy, and will hopefully all have found loving homes where they can live out the rest of their lives.

All it takes is one angel. All it takes is a little time. Do good. Save lives. Five kittens are alive, happy and healthy because one woman took them home.

…and on another (sort of sissy) note.…

I was at the gym today, struggling to make/retake some progress on my chest, when a couple of guys came in. They were probably late twenties or early thirties – a couple (clearly), and cute.

Yeah. I know. But I couldn’t help it. And you’re wrong.

It wasn’t about being a lecher or anything like that. It was about the fact that I knew, just by looking at them, that these two boys had never, ever, lived through the process of growing up, and coming out, that I did, and that everyone in my generation did.

You could just tell.

I mean, these were boys, GAY boys, mind you, that had never, ever, had the wind knocked out of their sails. Never worried about who they were. Never doubted that they were ok. Never worried about the fact that everything about their lives might even remotely be considered unacceptable to the vast majority of the public.

These boys had never learned and/or never needed to learn to hide, or be ashamed, or be afraid.

And on the one hand, I was glad for them. I mean, after all, isn’t that what we all wanted?!? Didn’t we want a world where that could begin to happen? Where boys like these boys could exist and prosper?

I know that! Believe(d) it. And yet, I also envied them. And I almost, just the least bit, found myself feeling jealous of them. In fact, for more than a minute or two, I even found myself looking for reasons not to like them. Not in a mean way, but in a green way, and not on purpose, or even on a purely personal level. Instead (I tell myself), I was actually feeling envious/jealous, and even a wee bit angry with them, on behalf of all the gay men and women who never had (and never would have/will have) the chance to be like them – live like them – look like them.

I was mad for all the sissy boys (like me), and all the drag queens, and all the bull dykes, and all the transsexuals, and the silent, invisible men and women who hid inside themselves (or, worse, inside heterosexual relationships) because, who they knew they were, was not acceptable, or even in some cases understandable.

I guess it must be a little like the Jewish people who lived through the holocaust felt – what blacks who lived through slavery and segregation felt — thrilled that their children and grandchildren would never know what they knew or feel what they felt – but at the same time