Tale of a tourist
b y Lee L y n ch
O n e of m y cats died last night, after I’d
returned from a glorious day at Crater Lake.
M y old friend Carol, here briefly from C o n
necticut, w as with m e for both the death and
the trip.
E d iso n , the cat, w as thirteen. He’d lost his
m other at an early age and been adopted by a
dyke w ho m oved in with m y ex-lover and m e
in C onne cticut W hen the dyke took off for
Florida, E d iso n becam e ours, and when I
broke with the lover, E d iso n becam e mine.
He w as overw eight and overbearing, a nested
som ew here around infancy where food and
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affection were concerned, craving abnorm al
am oun ts o f both. B ut he w as a handsom e
c a t form al in h is constant tuxedo, and loving.
T he official greeter in m y household, I
co u ld n ’t keep him off a guest’s lap, wanted
oonot
>
B u t he’d had cystitis for years. A n opera
tion helped tem porarily, m edication helped
to a point, tom ato juice, with its crystal-
d isso lvin g powers, kept him go in g a while
longer. I buried him this m orning, under a
crooked tree, the first occupant of a pet
cem etery m y lover and I Envisioon. W e’re
p lanning an E d iso n M em orial Seat under the
crooked tree. Sh e baked an E d iso n M em orial
Cake. A n d I’m left trying to m ake sense of the
im perm anence of life. How we seem to just
p a ss through it, like tourists in a park. W hy
just yesterday, I’d think, tears w elling up, E dd y
w as running after m ice in the back field. O r
last tim e I Looked, there he was, sleeping in
h is regal black and white robes on m y bed.
Then there’s Carol, m y old friend. Last night
sh e w as still here too, and we sat sharing the
nearly w ordless sign a ls of twenty years of
friendship. W e m et in college, she a fresh
m an, I a sophom ore, both from New York
City. W e later becam e lovers, then broke up,
joined living collectives, settled separately in
New Haven, met often for C hinese dinners
and prolonged gigglin g fits. Keeping our
connection gave u s both a feeling of con
tinuity, of perm anence.
C arol talked about another college friend,
from w hom she seem s to have grow n away.
A bou t how relationships, friends, change.
A bou t how people, pete, p ass through, som e
tim es out of our lives, and we through theirs.
S h e com forted m e with talk of Gordie, her
diabetic cat, w ho finally died after years of
insulin shots and four “Last Birthday” parties.
At each of these celebrations sh e 'd ply him
with lox and sm oked whitefish. I w as there for
each party. T h is year, I w ould not have been,
but we celebrated C arol’s birthday the night
before E d iso n ’s death. A nd I served the cats
canned shrim p. Fu nny little rituals of lesbian
life. T he w ays we m ake family, to keep, and let
g o of, one another.
S o yesterday, one specific yesterday in
twenty years of them, Carol and I toured C ra
ter Lake Park, talking of Gordie, old friends,
college, New York, our new lives and lovers,
of how it is to be queer in the world, of how
queer it is to be in the world.
T he park w as riotous with bold life. Even
before we reached it we stopped to behold a
gorge, its water, in otherw ise dry Southern
O regon, bursting along a path through the
rocks, hurrying, shouting, a s sure a s w e 'd
been twenty years before. W e tried to capture
that q uick life with cam eras.
W e drove through a forest of m am m oth
p in es teem ing with every living thing indige
n o u s to these parts. W e rounded the rim of
Crater Lake to behold that first breathtaking
w ond rous view. The lake, so m any thousand
feet below, w as a piercing blue, m ellow ed by
lu sh green coves. Boatloads of people were
like toys in a bathtub. Large birds wheeled
above, defying the frightening heights. We,
too, clim bed a s far a s we could and tim or
o u sly peered over edges. M osse s, flowers,
pines, m adrones, insects, m ore birds.
N othing, despite the holy silence, w as still W e
were tiny transient lives am ongst m any, cling
ing, like the hardy white pines, to our ow n
rocky prom ontories. Building, like the birds,
nest after n e st N o u rish in g ourselves, like the
deer, on the greenery of ou r lives: friendships,
loves — hearty food s both. T iny chipm unks
darted up and dow n the cliffs. The cliffs; the
m ountains; longer lasting, m ore significant
than a thousand chipm unks, trees. C ard,
me, Edison.
T hen E d iso n w ho’d died, all warm and soft
and furry, in m y arm s. I walked around today
stunned, weeping, know ing full well his death
had to com e. B ut after a day like that? In the
face of all that life? After Crater Lake, after his
m orning exploits with the m ice?
A s if to em phasize the p assin g of all things,
C arol left today, to return to her/m y old life
back e a st
I called a new friend. S h e ’s eighty and wise
with com m on sense. “How,” I asked her, “can
I reconcile these th in g s? Life and lo ss? Death
and unstoppable, boisterous b e in g?”
“You know," she said, not even pausing to
think, “Crater Lake is the result of a kind of
death. It w as created by a volcano that caused
incredible destruction. A nd we’re left with a
beautiful, beautiful lake we w ouldn't have had
w ithout that death.”
W e all p ass through our Crater Lakes.
Son's discovery of
dad's gayness leads
to problems
D e ar Dr. Ray,
I’m furious. I’m alm ost thirty years old and
it is only in the last couple of years that I
learned to accept m y gayness. Being gay has
alw ays been real traum atic for me.
W hen I w as thirteen m y parents discovered
m e fooling around with m y cousin, w ho is a
couple o f years older than me. There w as a
b ig scene w hich resulted in m y being sent to
m ilitary school for two years to be ‘Straight
ened o u t’ Before I finished high school I had
Dear Dr. Ray,
tried twice to kill m yself.
In college I went through ‘aversion therapy’
w here I looked at slid e s of attractive m en and
then had to sniff som e awful stuff out of a ,
bottle. It w orked for a while. But so o n I felt
m ore attracted than ever to guys. I have al
w ays felt inferior.
I finally started go in g out to a gay support
group. W ith the help o f m y friends and som e
se ssio n s with a therapist I m anaged to put
m yself back together. Now I see that it is ok to
have these feelings and that it is redly society
that is screw ed up.
Last week I went hom e to visit m y M om ,
w ho is divorced from Dad. Sh e told m e that
sh e recently found som e letters from m y D ad
to another m an. It turns out that m y D ad is
ga y too!
I can harldy believe it The m an is a prom i
nent physician and very active in h is com
m unity. N ow I think he is a slim y hypocrite.
Instead of standing by while m y fam ily
p u nishe d m e for being gay, he should have
helped m e o u t It w ould have been so m uch
easier to accept being gay if I had know n that
m y dad w as gay too. Instead I felt like a freak. I
w ent through hell and it’s h is fault
N ow m y D ad has asked m e to stay with
him for the holidays. (He d oe sn’t know that I
know .) B u t I’m so angry that I m ight just slu g
him if I see him again. W hat shou ld I d o ?
A Furious So n
D e a r Furious,
You have every right to feel anger and d is
appointm ent with your dad. W e all expect our
parents to be honest with u s and to protect
us, and that d id n't happen with your dad.
Your first step should be to allow yourself
som e tim e to cool off. W hen we react out of
ange r we often say or d o things that we regret
later. You m ay feel like dum ping your dad at
this point but chances are that you still have a
lot of attachm ent that you’ll feel m ore strongly
a s tim e heeds this w ound. (If you d idn’t care at
all for your dad, you probably w ouldn’t feel all
this anger.)
It is not a goo d idea for you to spend this
holiday with your dad if you are still feeling
explosive anger. You shou ld write or call your
dad and tell him everything you know. E x
plain that you want to d isc u ss this issue with
him , but that you need som e tim e to sort
th in g s o u t
If you want to m aintain a relationship with
yo u r father you are go in g to have to confront
him at som e p o in t It is perfectly ok to tell him
how angry and disappointed you feel. Re
m em ber, you have a right to your feelings:
they are perfectly legitimate.
T h is is the tough p art You are a lso go in g to
have to be w illing to hear h is view. It is im
portant for you to rem em ber that your father
grew up in a different era. A s a closeted
hom osexual with a fam ily and a com m unity
reputation, your father m ay have believed that
he w ould lose everything (including you) If
h is hom osexuality were revealed. He m ay
have felt unable to help at the time.
It m ay help to keep in m ind that you both
suffered from society’s prejudice about
hom osexuality.
Ultim ately you will have to decide whether
yo u want to continue your relationship with
yo u r father. If you do, yo u ’ll have to put your
ange r aside at som e p o in t
Dr. R a ym o n d M. Berger, a Portland p sych o
therapist, is author o f G ay and Gray: The
O ld er H om osexual Alan published b y the
U niversity o f Illinois P r ess. To schedule an
appointm ent with Dr. Berger call
503-246-1563.
Have a problem ? Need advice? W rite to
“Dr. Ray” in care of J u st O ut, P.O. B ox 15117,
Portland, O re gon 97215. You will receive a
personal reply.
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