Expressions

As a high school senior, graduation is just around the corner. In my 13 long years of education, I have read about the establishment of America by refugees fleeing from the Church of England in search for religious tolerance, which later developed into the constitutional separation of church and state. I have studied the progressive Civil Rights and Women’s Rights movements whose efforts were made to create social and legal equality amongst all races and all genders in America. I have learned about America’s rallying support in World War II against the Nazis and the evils of the Holocaust—the horrific persecution of millions of human beings, targeted singularly for their religion. I came to associate these ideals of security, tolerance, and equality as the “American Way” throughout this nation’s great, albeit tumultuous, history.

            However, in all of my education, I have never heard the term “LGBT”—Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender—used in any instructive context. Not once was mentioned in any class that just 50 years ago, gays and lesbians were beaten and arrested at will by the police force. I never learned that it took the American Psychiatric Association until 1973 to remove homosexuality from its published list of mental disorders. No American history text book ever mentioned the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City, which was a major turning point for the gay rights movement; nor Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California, whose assassination was just less than a year after his 1977 election to office; nor the torture and murder of 21 year old, openly gay student Matthew Shepard that made breaking nation-wide news in 1998 and ten years later has introduced a new gay-friendly  policy against hate crimes into legislature.

            Nope. Nada. Nothing.

Teachers design entire lesson plans surrounding the Civil Rights movement, in which the African Americans countered racism for social and legal racial equality. There are entire units devoted to the Women’s Rights movement, in which the women of America countered sexism for social and legal gender equality. But for any LGBT Americans, who are facing social and legal inequality, there is not one word spoken.

For the group of teenagers that have the greatest suicide rate, there is no educational support against the very prejudice that they face. For those who are facing the greatest discrimination of this generation—not racism or sexism, but anti-gay intolerance—there is not any acknowledgement for their movement.

            Let’s face it: the Civil and Women’s rights movements are archaic. They’ve ended. They’ve triumphed. They’ve passed. Yet the movement that is now, that is hot, that is dynamic, that is consequential, is completely invisible.

Today, our generation has the rare educational potential to be involved in a movement that we are living through right now. Last September, in 2011, the infamously-suppressive “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was repealed so that discrimination against sexual orientation would no longer plague the military. In contrast, just this month, in May of 2012, North Carolina passed an amendment to their constitution that forbids same-sex marriage. The LGBT movement is becoming a full-fledged life force, growing in momentum and influence, and we know nothing about it.

            Even our hometown city of Atlanta should be screaming its history to us. In 2010, Atlanta was voted as the “gayest city” in America. Every October, the Pride Festival is held in cities throughout America, including Atlanta, for support of the LGBT community. This June will be dedicated as “Stonewall Month” in honor of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising. Yet this local culture is kept hush-hush, and its connection is essentially hidden from everyone, and especially from those who need it most.

            Gay teens face slander on a daily basis, even from the simple and ignorant slur of “That’s so gay!” Gay teens are bullied to an alarming and dangerous extent. Gay teens commit suicide more frequently than any other group of teenagers. In this time of insecurity and intolerance and inequality, we could use some foundation of refuge, some sense of hope, some feeling of connection.

Nobody has revealed to us that there is refuge in history.  Nobody has assured us that there is hope in the growing movement. Nobody has shared with us the available connection to the LGBT community.

Because nobody knows it.

            By presenting controversial topics through an educational lens, it is possible to analyze the facts—and only the facts—of the subject. The facts are: Sexuality is a single factor of everyone’s being, just like gender, religion, and ethnicity (and whether orientation is determined by nature or nurture is still undecided but is still rather irrelevant). Heterosexuality is the far more predominant form of sexuality, but homosexuals and bisexuals are not at all dismissible (we are everywhere). America is a nation founded on a Constitution created for tolerance and equality for all citizens and the distinct separation of church and state (and yet, the legal right for same-sex couples to unite in a domestic partnership is still under fire).

I, personally, would have surely appreciated LGBT history being brought to my attention in those few critical years of my fragile youth. It may have made the process of acknowledgement, self-acceptance, and “coming out” slightly less terrifying. It may have given me greater security in myself when I heard, “Don’t be gay!” from across the room. It may have helped me to hope for my well-deserved tolerance and equality someday in America. That, I think, is worthwhile for education.

The teaching of homosexuality in history and the gay rights movement is inevitable. America has a long history ahead, and for the first time, we are able to teach a generation a historical movement that it is living through. This might provide some security from persecution for LGBT Americans across the nation—especially for those in their fragile youth. This might be the next step for gaining LGBT tolerance and equality, today—a step long overdue. This might be proof that the “American Way” does not require unjust persecution or bitter resistance to make a change—we have already seen one Holocaust.

There has been a faint voice whispering throughout America’s history. It hums the dismal, repeating macabre of injustice that has been tuned with history; it hisses the disgust and distrust of a culture that has been mistreated by its own country; it screams a burning message that has been silenced for far too long.

Isn’t it about time you listen?

And then she came down

Like an angel:

As pure as a white rose

Kissed with dew,

Eyes as blue as the sky,

Draped in the violet of royalty.

She landed on Earth,

Softer than a butterfly:

Beautiful, lovely, and wonderful

For all to see.

A beacon of light, hope, and love

For all to behold.

And God wrapped her in a ribbon

As a gift:

A Mother

To care for the world,

To love all of His people, and

To bless one special family

With a happiness unimaginable.

Within every book, there is Treasure.

Within every secret, there is Beauty.

Within every storm, there is Sunshine.

Tonight we battle Time, itself,

And clutch onto each other with all that we have,

For all that we are.

I am the luckiest man in the world

To be with the one woman

Whose smile makes my heart want to dance.

Tonight, we can make magic:

I am your Prince,

And you are my Princess.

And I promise to never let go

Of my Treasure, my Beauty, my Sunshine,

My Caroline.

     I was scooping out purple, glittery goop from my ear for weeks. It was just one of my battle scars.

     Many years ago, Carol and I met at a summer tennis camp. Our friendship started with a love note dropped in my tennis bag and a crush that she could never quite shake.

     We were two teenagers trying to make the best of a boring weekend with bottles of paint, white t-shirts, a blank board, and the pent-up restlessness at the end of a long winter.

     But it was more than just another creative experiment that we dreamt up. Paint Day 2011 was a historic milestone in our relationship. It was a deep ocean dive into each other’s soul—adventuring out from smiles and hacking into tears.

Yael Naim would sing:

How can you stay outside?

There’s a beautiful mess inside. 

     In Carol’s back yard, we armed ourselves with our white shirts, seven bottles of different-colored paints, and the impish anticipation of slinging and thrashing and chucking paint at each other’s face.

     She dribbled some of the purple, glitter paint into her hand then smeared it all over my face—it found its way into my ears. I retaliated by sprinkling her with specks of pink paint. She swung the opened bottle of green paint at me, the emerald liquid arching into the air and splashing all over me. I threw a fit of yellow-drenched hands. She sprayed red all over my white shirt. I launched orange. She threw blue.

     We paused every so often to work on the blank board—what was supposed to be the only lasting testament from Paint Day. There was green splattering, and there was pink splotching, and there was yellow splashing. With red on my fingers, I painted a heart amidst the beautiful mess.

     We squealed and we smiled and we giggled and we hugged and we rolled around. It was true love in its most innocent form. 

     Yet the war on our innocence had begun. The heart strings of one were tuning into the dark melodies and undulating rhythms of the other’s hidden symphony of sorrow. Inside were two soldiers crying out to each other in a life of agony, of struggle, of war.

     A gay boy facing a straight world: I was sprinkling the tears that I spilled while struggling to find my identity, to accept my sexuality, to secure my self-confidence. I was throwing a fit, longing for my father to voice those three little words that every little boy thirsts to hear. I was launching my fear that even if I accepted myself, he never may, and I will be robbed of those three little words forever.

     A poor girl grappling depression: Carol was smearing my face with the tears of an unrequited love—of a ruined star-crossed romance. She was swinging at me, envious of the genuine smile that is so intrinsic to my life. She was spraying the blood spilled from her wrists, cut as punishment for what she “deserved.” Her mother was barricaded in the bedroom threatening to end her life; Carol was throwing her compassion to break those barriers and to reach that despairing heart inside.

     There is a cavern of heartache and anguish in that portrait. With purple, glitter paint I outlined the edges of our board: I knew that there had to be a silver lining to all of our suffering.

An outsider once said:

It’s a little… messy.

I replied:

Aren’t we all?

     One more trophy survived. The white shirt I wore on Paint Day was covered, drenched, and soaked with paint. The rainbow mixed and blended; the colors dried and flaked. It has been stashed inside my closet for over a year now. I dare not to wear it, to share it with the world. Not because I am ashamed of it, but simply because it’s mine dammit. It’s my little secret, and I’m not going to let the world scoff at a beauty it will never understand.

     One day, I knocked on Carol’s door with a handful of flowers (picked from her own smelly tree). I whisked her away in my hot rod (a dented, white Ford pick-up truck). We went to a fancy dinner (at Sonic). Of course it was the traditional candle-lit feast (thanks to a candle app on my phone). I paid for her food (well, I tried to, but she wouldn’t let me).

     When I brought her back home, I knelt down on one knee and proposed to Carol with a hand-written note: “Will you go to prom with me?”

     She said yes.

Carol, herself, wrote:

Puppy love

Morphed into

True love

And boy and girl

Are tied together

With their own

Heartstrings,

The most durable kind.

     In my room, our artwork will stand as testament to Paint Day 2011, to our journey, to our unity. Like a soldier’s Purple Heart, it is a badge not of victory, but of survival. A string tapestry woven of those three little words—and infinitely more—that we will share forever.

     Time is grief’s most potent venom—it will always chip away at our painted love note. The colors will fade, and the paint will peel away, and the silver lining will grow faint.

     But just as suffering is inevitable and timeless, so too is love. True love. And what a beautiful mess it can make.

            That’s right, I am one of them—one of the many obnoxious tourists who stumble into Charleston, camera in-hand, desperately hoping to leave with the heart and soul of such a graceful city captured in a handful of 5-by-8 photographs. Cradling it between the powerful hands of the Ashley and the Cooper River, South Carolina bears the Holy City as a crown to the broad, blue ocean. I traveled here with a friend and the simple desire to enjoy the city. I could not have been more naive. To the amateur enthusiast, there is no more-inspiring playground than this sea-born fortress; to the experienced photographer, there is no more-elusive masterpiece with mystery and beauty hidden in its brushstrokes. And yet, to the veteran Charlestonians, we photographers personify the shallow ignorance of humanity: ungraceful pests, violating the peace like screaming cicadas armed with Canon Rebel XTI cameras. We are only visitors; we don’t see what the Charleston-born, Charleston-bred veterans cherish and adore about the city. That’s okay, though. My leather-bound photo album will be pleasantly filled with hundreds of delightful pictures. 

            What a place, where upon the poised neckline of the peninsula lies a time-refined heirloom. Like a delicate, antique charm necklace, Rainbow Row juxtaposes mansion beside mansion of sun-drained colors—pale, rosy pink; light, porcelain blue; soft, amethyst purple; and other pastel hues stolen from the underbelly of Iris’ rainbow—along narrow East Bay Street. In awe of the view, I rest my hand upon a crown of the cold cast iron that threads its black resonance through these jewels with the delicacy of lace. Stealing, cat-footed, into an alley between two of the kaleidoscopic mansions, we capture a picture of the envious, emerald ivy embroidered upon the aching bricks. Lean against the wall. Hand on hip. Cross feet. Happy smile. Snap. And so we move on, as unmannerly as we arrived, following the clip-clop, clip-clop of the Clydesdales leading a horse-drawn wedding carriage along the Cooper River. 

            What a place, where the sea submits to the city with a humbled, whispering grace. Behold Charleston’s richest and most delectable spectacle: the Battery. We step up onto that high barrier, the only protection for the city against the curdling collision between the Ashley and the Cooper River with the harbor. To our left, feathers of sparkling sea foam tease the barrier’s integrity; to our right, antebellum mansions stand in steadfast wedlock, facing broodingly into the sun’s scarlet cast upon the evening sky. A gentle sea spray salts our tongues—tears of inferiority, of desperation. We are not alone. Our fellow visitors grope hopelessly for that perfect picture, an artistic flash of contrast, and maybe even a flint of sun glare. Every one of us falters on the one, just that one, loosened marble tile of the walkway. Ignore it. Tilt the frame. Good enough. Snap. And so we move on, without any deeper thought, submitting to the ceaseless anxiety of the tides.

            What a place, where a disastrous history has landscaped an open block of land into a forest infinite with grotesque grace. The altar in the middle of the White Point Garden weds the past with the present. Once, there was the taste of Civil War gunpowder in the air, the dying screams of Charlestonians through the velvety night, and the soldiers’ crimson blood sacrificed for the protection of the silent helplessness of this land. Veterans fell here—sons, husbands, and fathers. They were murdered, victimized, mutilated. There is now a field sprouting with statues commemorating those deaths. Stop…sit on that statue, there. Pose, that’s right. Smile big for the camera. The flash strikes, the shutter closes. Snap. And so we move on, having stolen another breath from Charleston.

            What a place, where fourteen minutes north from the harbor, across Broad Street, an institution of youth and education beats at the heart of the city. A four-block square framed by Calhoun and Wentworth, Coming and King, the College of Charleston breathes with nature as its veins. No other campus has become so interwoven with the natural beauty of flora that the two become indistinguishable. Spanish moss hangs lifeless above the streets, casting shadows across crevices and alleys throughout downtown. Alongside the ancient buildings water oaks tower nobly, their powerful roots beneath violate the brick sidewalks, hand-laid in the early 1800s. The veterans and visitors of Charleston, alike, suffer a daily dance from the uprooted and dismantled bricks: Walk, admire—stumble. Recover, snap a picture, continue—trip. Hide embarrassment, curse under breath—fall. Charmingly, this blundering ballet is known as the “Charleston Shuffle.” Marking entrance, rusted-bronze letters above the Porter’s Lodge Arch whisper to her students, Know Thyself, in Greek. In May, the graduates of the College of Charleston will gather here in the Cistern Yard: women in pristine white dresses, men in pristine white dinner jackets. I can picture it now—a line of groomsmen and bridesmaids, cast from Charlestonian molds since their birth, tempered by Charleston itself. True veterans. They have not found the secret to capturing the soul of the city. No, they have done much more than that: they have united with its soul. Adorned as precious pearls upon Randolph Hall, these graduates will return, glittering, into the bloodstream of Charleston.

But not me. That’s right, I am a visitor—I do not belong. I may see, I may touch, but I will never feel the cold cast iron—that black resonance, stringing together the colorful characters that make up Charleston. With my leather-bound album full of sub-par, time-bled, breathless photographs, my delightful pictures tease me like the ocean upon the Battery—tears of inferiority, of desperation. Forever I will be imprisoned as the man on the statue, admiring the man in the statue—the veteran whose blood was bled from and spilled into the soil of the Holy City. I had desired to enjoy the city. I was ruined by it—uprooted and violated by the nature of the beast itself. Charleston stole my breath, captured my soul, infected my blood. Know Thyself, she hisses.

And so we visitors move on, continuing the blundering ballet in which we arrived.

(Source: pictureperfect)

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced or cried aloud.

Under the bludgeoning of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Honor of the Shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am master of my fate:

I am captain of my soul.

The gently glowing sun, sinking gracefully over my street, provided the only warmth in the crisp, autumn air. I was poised in my favorite thinking position: in my yard, lying on my back in the crook of a giant tree, my legs propped against the trunk. From there, I had the grandest view of the sky through the bare, twisted branches above me. Before their wedding, my parents planted this serpentine cherry tree—embodying a more beautiful image than its name can allude—and ever since, I have watched it grow throughout my youth. Winters reveal the crooked and disproportional skeleton of the trunk, but in the months of Summer, the outline of the tree is filled with shades of luscious green, gardenia pink, and polka-dotted with ruby cherries. I have never seen a sight more beautiful than the gentle spring breeze carrying away a string of the blossoms on its fingertips, leaving the mighty structure to stand proudly, only its nimble branches slightly swaying. My hands explored the familiar branches that held me for all those years: I could feel the thickness of the bark, the scars from the winds, and the potential within the dormant buds. I pondered the past years of my life as the shades of the sun bled royal magenta.

My parents divorced when I was two years old, and ever since I would share my time between the two households. Don’t feel bad for me—it’s the only life I’ve ever known. My mother and father both married into new families, and they seasoned into two entirely different environments. I have never been an avid reader, but I have always been an avid learner. I learn best through trial-and-error experimentation: Jimmy Carter once said, “Go out on a limb. That’s where the fruit is.” I guess that is half of learning. However, he did not tell of the chance that I experiment on a limb that is weak and unsupported; then, the branch snaps and rewards me with a slap to the face from the cold ground beneath. That is true learning. Each of my parents’ realms became a dynamic classroom for me in which to learn life’s lessons; the contrast between their personalities transformed me into a complex dichotomy: Mother’s warm aspirations and Father’s cool functionality.

This distinction of my youth has been defined for me since the earliest days of my memory. Whether it was a creation from art class in school, a story I wrote for entertainment, or any of my other expressive concoctions at home, my mother loved every single scrap or shamble of my work with unbridled adoration and glowing glorification. I flourished under her beaming smile. Inspired by her at a young age, I would experiment with creativity, imagination, and aspirations, and even those predisposed to failure were never tainted by the shadow of her apprehension. I must have gotten my creative streak from her mother, whose paintings of flower fields and San Francisco’s harbors line the walls of our house. Even now I pass by a charcoal self-portrait I drew years ago—truly, a smudged, crooked, disproportional face that only a mother could love. “Oh, Grandma would be so proud!” she sang with blind affection as she mounted it on the legendary showcase that is our refrigerator door. I still remember my discontent—a disappointment and thirst for critique to improve, to learn. Now, I face those criss-crossed eyes and see the look of perplexed, unguided potential.

My father’s lasting impression also stands amongst those attempts at creative masterpieces on our refrigerator; however, instead of crafted by charcoal, paint, or even pencil, his was created using Microsoft Excel. My father scheduled my life meticulously for me to transfer from house to house, guaranteeing his fair share of “shared custody.” This calendar became his Bible for me to follow, and any disruption or disturbance of his holy scripture would be punished by the same tongue-lashing as if I had committed a heinous sin. Like the cutting winds of winter that tear at the flesh of a tree over the years, he thickened my skin to survive his merciless confrontations. Without finding a source of inner strength, I would have crippled beneath his impervious, icy weight. As an industrial engineer, Father imposed a structure for my life that was as uncomfortable as reinforcing my skeleton with concrete. Yet, when I open my daily agenda—outlined with a detailed schedule, filled with an infinite list of tasks, and respectfully named my “Book of Life”—I feel as if I am peering through my father’s eyes, a disciple pouring over my life with the same devotion to organization. I guess I learned, alright. I still carry his advice with me today: Keep it simple. Keep it realistic. Cut out what’s expendable.

Like the warmth and rejuvenation of spring after a long, cold winter, my mother would openly express her pride for my accomplishments and my integrity. She assured me of her unconditional and timeless love and support, and I learned the importance of an unfaltering sense of pride and self-worth. I don’t think the word “love” ever touched my father’s lips; if it did, it must have stumbled awkwardly out of his mouth and fallen to the floor a distasteful, gratuitous display of affection. The same is probably true for most of the world’s fathers, too proud to unveil any level of vulnerability, but that hasn’t made it any easier for me to swallow. To survive, I learned how retaining a modest pride and upholding an impenetrable integrity could help appease my need for his approval. It only took my neighbor and a few beers, to hear what I had dedicated years of waiting, working, and praying for: “…Ya kn-now, he will n-never say this to you, b-but your father is v-very proud of you.” I’ll take what I can get, I suppose.

            Through the naked branches above me, the final wisps of the sunset’s magenta trail were fading into darkness. Still enjoying the view from my perch, I couldn’t help but recognize how this serpentine cherry tree represented my development over the years and the growth of my writing. These familiar branches have grown from sprouts that could hardly hold a frozen water droplet, let alone a boy of my size. In the Summer, the warmth of Her bosom inspires the tree to flourish, and even the youngest experimental limbs dance proudly in Her beaming sunlight. Then, scheduled meticulously, the winter comes. As the afternoon showers freeze over into great, icy weights upon the branches, His frosty nights test the strength, integrity, and functionality of this tree. It will lose some of itself over the winter—what is weak, unsupported, and expendable will be cut out. The surviving flesh of the tree has been thickened to endure His merciless, cutting winds that have torn at it for the years. What remains is rejuvenated by the unbridled radiance of Summer’s embrace, and Her light glorifies its integrity once again. The winding bends and crooks of the tree are remnants of young sprouts whose unguided perplexity developed into particular shapes that passed the test of time, defining its original serpentine-like structure. I could not imagine a better way to grow a unique, refined, and respectable monument. Lifting my chin, I reach behind me for an unfamiliar branch newly-sprouted and lined with new buds, promising handsome flowers and delectable cherries that will emerge in the spring. I can only wonder if it will survive the Winter.