Throwing Stones

Yes I did pull over on the highway to take this one.

Moonrise over the hills.

Moonrise over poverty.

Been doing a bit of reflecting over the past couple of days.  Some of it was just taking some mental time off and looking around.  The pictures don't do it justice, but the moonrise on my way into work was amazing. 

It is a wonderful thing to take a moment and look around.  The moonrise in front of me over the river and the sunset behind me were poignant.  One beautiful thing was waning as another was rising.  Each wondrous in  its own right, but not compatible together.

Then I get to work and all goes well - I work from 8pm-ish to 10pm-ish on Thursdays.  The poverty is palpable.  Other pictures showed a glorious moon next to a boarded up city-owned (but identifiable) building. 

After work I got home and took two of the kids to see HP7.2 (the new Harry Potter movie).  Yes we were some of the fools in line for a midnight showing.  And we had great fun.  C was sick and could not come.  The eldest was away.

Yes I cried during the movie - quietly.  The pain of death, change, and relationships was also poignant.   The relationship I am in is changing.  I was going to say dying, but I hope that that is not the case.  It has changed. HP 7.2 brought that to the fore for me.  People die, people betray one another, people sacrifice all for love.

Then shouldn't I sacrifice all for love.  No.  Sacrificing for love is life-affirming; it is healthy; it does not lead to resentment.  If I sacrifice being gay it brings death to my spirit; it is unhealthy and leads to depression and anger; it makes me resent C, the kids and almost everything else.



So, the Harry Potter series, a paragon of pop culture leads this gay boy to the re-realization that the closet doesn't work; it cannot work.

The revelations from pop culture continued today (Friday).  The oldest was in NH for the weekend with the daughter of old friends.  The woman was at our wedding.  There's an interesting backstory there I'll write about sometime.

Any way I have to drive and drive and drive today to get the oldest since C was sick.  I left work at noonish and got home around 8pm.  Thankfully our friend was able to bring the oldest 3 hours closer to home!! 

My musical tastes are eclectic to say the least - classical, early middle ages, folk, traditional folk, Celtic, Lady Gaga, among many others.  I was listening to a Dead album while stuck in traffic on the Mass Pike.  In the Dark is one of my favorites - "Touch of Grey", "Hell in a Bucket", West LA Fadeaway, My Brother Esau, and Throwing Stones. 

I know gay boy and the Dead don't go together - at least in my mind.  It's a remnant of smoking pot every morning in high school to suppress being gay.  It worked; sort of.

So, there I am with a tear in my eye and laughing out loud as I listen to "Throwing Stones". 

"There's a fear down here we can't forget.
Hasn't got a name just yet.
Always awake, always around,
Singing ashes, ashes, all fall down.
Ashes, ashes, all fall down.



Now watch as the ball revolves
And the nighttime falls.
Again the hunt begins,
Again the bloodwind calls.
By and by, the morning sun will rise,
But the darkness never goes
From some men's eyes.
It strolls the sidewalks and it rolls the streets,
Staking turf, dividing up meat.
Nightmare spook, piece of heat,
It's you and me.
You and me."

That fear.   I don't know what the Dead were talking about here.  But that fear was a fear of myself.  It was a fear of what I knew but could not look at, dared no look at.  Being gay.  It was always awake and always around despite trying to smoke and drink it away - leading me to death - to ashes.

For some of us the darkness never goes.  But on the Mass Pike on a gloriously sunny day going 20mph in traffic - the Dead reminded me that I am gay.  That that is okay.  That I do not have to have that fear in my eyes.  I have looked that fear in the eye and seen that when I do that the fear vanishes.  The fear (rather than me) turns to ashes.