Our real first gay president

Popularity

The children just told me how unpopular I am after witnessing a mock pout about the red notifications on their mother’s computer screen and the blank stare on mine. They laughed when I said there was a time when I, in fact, was popular. I defend my 2007 prowess like a grand champion. This makes them laugh hard right down to their 7 and 9 year old bones. “2007, huh?” says the 7-year-old, “Well, my mom is popular now and it’s 2012.”

No need to argue. At this juncture, all jokes aside, network popularity doesn’t mean a thing to me. I’m realizing the relationships that mean the most to me are not numbers. I’ve been thinking about the lessons my parents taught me. My Dad lived 59 years, and I’ve only drawn from my experiences with him 358 times in my first week here at Camp Clementine. I get to live in a space that not only encourages growth and exploration, but also benefits from my being here. I thank every mother I ever dated that let me learn in her house and from her children. I thank my Dad for his gentle kindness when my brother and I were children. This is the kind of father I will be. I thank my Mom for her determination to get shit done. This is the kind of mother I will be. I’m drawing from these experiences in ways that I didn’t think I would. I am not the children’s parental figure, but I am a guide. This isn’t so much boastful pride as observational gratitude. I am not a spouse or lover in this home, but I am a contributor to this family. I am a part of this family. And it feels so good. Even the quiet times, like now, when it’s bed time and the only noise is the kick-start of the air conditioning ventilation and the keystrokes I’m inflicting, when I’m reflecting on the day smelling like a campfire from the day’s lumberjacking and reverting back to my social networking crutch to find I’m still low on the popularity totem, it feels good.

My life is growing in a different direction. I’m building the foundation of my next big adventure. I don’t have time to bother with petty, even though in honesty and fairness, I did tap into that teen angst earlier this week when a couple of friends bailed on me to help me move. It wasn’t my prouder moment of the week, but at the time, I was just so angry and felt so slighted. Like how my time and effort for them wasn’t reciprocated when I felt I needed them. Other than that moment, and forgive my mentioning of it now other than being a reference point of change, I feel a shift. I’m getting my shift together. I am making organization into an art while mending my heart strings in silent meditation. I am downsized now to the things that really mean something. I feel light on my feet and ready to travel. 

I am getting either an Amtrak or Greyhound pass for unlimited travel for the month of June and getting out of Oklahoma. I need to be silent and feel foreign. I need to hear loud, screaming children in close proximity, forage for food, meet up with old friends, and photograph/film all of the beautiful, unkempt places America has to offer. I need to do this now, because for the first time in my life, I can.

I’m living on unemployment after getting laid off and eventually axed from the IBEW after 3 years of an apprenticeship swallowing insults of my female body and queerness, work ethic and dependability, and my most favorite “dress and appearance”, and I’ve learned so much from it. I know it will come to an end eventually, and I’ll return to the working force, but for now I’m really wanting to take this opportunity of unemployment and fuck the system. It is only a minimal fucking, and no debt can ever be repaid for my time and grief under these conditions, but I’m going to take it.

I’m really looking forward to loving America again. I want to retrace some of the steps Granny and Grindad took me on during those summer trips when I was a child. I want to lift my hands up over a cliff of the Grand Canyon and shout, “YOU KNOW WHAT, GOD? I FEEL YOU!” I want to cry on Del Monte Beach and kiss the sand where you told me your father smoked Marlboro Reds, fix vacuum cleaners in Portland, hug Laramie, and talk law in Lincoln. I want to upstate New York the poets. 

And when it comes time to experience these things, and I don’t get one thing accomplished on the list, I want to come home and hug my family. I’ll say I had one hell of a trip. Then, I’ll be reminded of how unpopular I still am, and I’ll defend my June prowess like a grand champion. And we will all laugh.