As i was going up the stair

As i was going up the stair
i met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd go away!

By Wilson Hughes Mearns (1878-1965)

A tale of an uncaring mother

My brother's wife has a very interesting family history. Her paternal grandfather, for instance, fled Croatia at the time of WWII, running from the nazi pogrom. He was so scarred by that experience that his children didn't know about it until the man was about to die, some 40 years later. Even then, he kept telling them it was better that they not know much, that they "should never attempt to go back". He was scared for them, perhaps? Had he done something terrible in order to get away?

What i was remembering earlier today, however, is the story of one of her maternal great-grandfathers, son of a spanish criollo and a pehuenche or puelche woman. According to the story, the criollo man was a police inspector in some little town in Mendoza province, at a time when some mapuches were still living according to their own traditions in that region. I imagine it must have been at the end of the XIXth century, because those were the last years the indians kept some of their freedom. After that, it was mostly integrate, or die.

In any case, the inspector had to visit the mapuches' tent-villages from time to time, as part of his duties. A young woman caught his eye there, and although she was already in love with a man of her tribe, the inspector's authority had apparently had enough weight to make her leave her people and marry him in town. Over the next 5 or 10 years, she bore him 3 kids, one of them being Celeste's great-grandfather. Then, one day, she abandoned them all and went back to her man and her people.

This story stayed in Celeste's family because her great-grandfather always told it with great anger. In his view, the inspector had brought his mother to civilization, giving her a "real" house and taking her away from "the wild"... And she had paid him by abandoning him and his children. I imagine it must have been hard for a little boy to understand this abandonment, especially growing up with such a father... Even for the grown man he became it was obviously impossible. This is probably the reason why neither her name nor her people's are remembered in the family.

Marilena la malabarista

Conozco una muchacha
requeteachicharrada
que con el fuego juega
y se mea en la cama.

Sus hombres: un patrón.
todos machos de acción
tocaos en la cabeza.
Pero ¡guau, qué erección!

Ojalá espabilara,
se dejara 'e pavadas.
Al fin para problemas
el circo diario basta.

Another Poem

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West.
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

-- W. H. Auden

A babe unborn i grieve

A babe unborn i grieve
a hollow in my arms
a child never conceived
a love that i can't give
but that i have.

Soneto e' Celia, que finalmente se avivó

Vivías en mi casa y no lavabas
platos, vasos, o una cacerola.
Te rascabas todo el día las bolas
y ni siquiera ésas te lavabas.

Cuando tenías ganas me cascabas
y yo, boluda, me quedaba piola.
Te cogiste a mis amigas Pancha y Chola
y a mí hacían años que ni me cagabas.

Encañonado por tu propio chumbo
finalmente te mandé al carajo;
ahora venís y me arrastrás el ala.

Pero aunque si te veo me derrumbo
ya sé ser ciega: si volvés te bajo
de un tiro. Mirá si seré bruja. Y mala.

Sisyphus as a dung beetle

Why not? It could have happened, if the greek gods had been even more sadistic.

Anyway, since we're dwelling in the absurd, consider these thoughts i found on www.geocities.com/sysyphusrock/ :

"As far as I'm concerned there is only one way to have peace on earth. That is through education, conversation and making love. After all, we are only a collection of thoughts, memories and desires. Viva the people, and long may we learn, procreate and think.

Unless, of course you eat a lot of processed food - hot dogs, processed cheeses, cheap bologna, etc - which means that you're mostly made out of lips, hooves, anuses and sawdust."

I must say, i couldn't agree more!!!

La-dee-da....

I actually feel the opposite of "la-dee-da", but since our deep feelings affect our expression, i'm trying to use a bit of reverse logic: perhaps by acting cheerful, i can also manage to feel more that way.

First there is a cheetah prowling around. These mammals are known for the high speeds they can achieve in short sprints, but this one specimen seems less easily tired. Plus, as cheetahs do, it marks its territory by spraying piss all over the place. Gotta get water-proof boots, an umbrella... and a cattle-prod wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

The cockatoo can't quit cawing, it's throat NOT obstructed like the Danish queen's, by a potato, but hurting nevertheless, obviously (not only its throat, but its whole cockatoo-ness). Colors all bright, hard to look at and listen to. Can't help it. Its pain becomes contagious.

The lion lies low in the bush, paralyzed by fear, cheetah-piss dripping on it. The rest of the fauna take bites off each other. A giraffe nips me in the rump -- jokingly, it says. Still: auch! Sometimes i forget it only appears herbivorous. It takes some tough teeth to try to chew on my ass, though. I hope it learned its lesson, but i doubt it.

The jungle is dry, untended. The rainy season's far and away. Hippo A justifiedly complains about the lack of water, Hippo B tries to deny it, but instead its parched skin cracks, making it all more obvious. I think to myself: "H2O!" (He's 2 Obtuse!).

Then i come across a baboon who announces the end of the world. It's a tragic occasion, as it used to be a very optimistic baboon, but in just 30 years it's turned into a regular Chicken Little. Mood-swings aside, cherry-red buttocks and all, it has amassed, unlike that other silly bird, a great pile of credibility. Now some other animals will attempt to scurry away with chunks of it; Personally i hope they manage (credibility ends better than the world), but if not, maybe the grubs i didn't have are good that way. Not that that'd help the ones i do have.

On the brighter side, the baboon's claim allows me to put our jungle jangle in perspective. Plus i remember the concern in the eyes of the gazelle on hearing the cockatoo: shiny depths, like beetle wing cases, not looking away.

Anyway, gotta get to bed. I have rolled too many dung-balls today.

Updating and the entry of 13/12

Hmmmm...

Today i have been publishing the entries i wrote during my vacation. It seems my entry of december 13th made people uncomfortable. To be true about it, it has also made me a bit uncomfortable.

M & M are correct when they say sexuality should be a private thing, and that my talking about my own so much is awkward. For one thing, this image comes to mind: me, standing on top of a mountain, pointing to myself with both hands and yelling "Look at me, world! I'm gay!!!!"

But i'm not as oblivious as that. When i talk publicly about my sexuality the only thing i make known is my sexual orientation, and that is because i believe homosexuals must be visible if we want to make things better for ourselves in society. I don't know how it is for heterosexual people, but for me as a homosexual man sexuality is in my mind very frequently (mind you, i've written 'sexuality', not 'sex'), because of the impact that societal views on that sexuality have always had in my life.

I truly wish it didn't have to be so. Bourgeois or flock-minded as it may sound, what gay people want is not prominence because of their sexuality, but the opposite -- which is flatness, i suppose: not to stick out, but to be acknowledged and treated as part of the normal sexual spectrum.

Of course, by saying this i realize that, in some eyes, i'm climbing on top of yet another mountain and yelling "Look at me world! Poor, suffering me!!!"

I can't be 100% sure, of course, but i don't think that's my motivation.

Anyway. About M.'s objection on my use of the love (bla bla) argument with the priest, obviously i meant a feeling that is not only mutual, but among people who are able to decide about their lives and in full command of their discernment, so that excludes paedophilia and zoophilia. Of course, it can also be argued that most people are never in full command of their discernment either, so true, there is a point here: heterosexual people shouldn't get married either, nor have their relationships recognised by society (har har har!).

Enough of this. I had a great break and a good beginning of the year, though it's a bit of a downer that the break is over. I hope you're all fine out there, too.

Morbid mood

Today i visited the Musei Capitolini, which contain an amazing collection of art and remains from ancient roman times. The pieces they have are described in their website, so i won't go into that here. In their basement, however, there is a tabularium, meaning a display of inscribed stone tablets, mostly funerary stele. This one, from the 2nd century a.C., caught my eye, so i transcribed it:

Dis•Manibus
ALEXANDER•VIXIT•ANNIS•III
MENSIBUS•IV•DIEBUS•XIIX
Quintus•CANVILEVS•ALEXANDER•PATER
ET•CLARINA•MATER•FILO•CARISSIMO
PIENTISSIMO•BENE•Merenti•FECERunt
Hic•Conditus•Est•Te•Rogo•Praeteriens•Dicas:•Sit•Tibi•Terra•Levis.

My knowledge of latin is nil, but i wanted to set it here in the original language to try to transmit some of the impact of seeing such an old pain, set in stone. This is the translation provided by the museum:

Sacred to the Mani gods.
Alexander. Lived 3 years,
4 months and 18 days.
His father Quintus Canuileus Alexander
and his mother Clarina [had this tomb] made
for their very dear, devoted and deserving son.
Here is he buried! I beg you, while you pass [this place] say:
"May the earth weigh not over your remains."

The stone was small, the lettering irregular. A son lost, but a fragment of the suffering of his parents has been dredged from oblivion. For what purpose?

Delphi

I've just been thinking that what one feels at seeing all these centuries on top of each other (that's what this trip seems to be largely about) cannot really be expressed by describing ruins and statues -- or at least, i can't. Besides, that's done in much detail elsewhere. Just a few flashes, though:

--the rock where the oracle-women sat for centuries, probably from before 2000 a.C. How much of the behavior of kings and tyrants did they determine from this squat, unremarkable thing? I imagine them like a succession of toads on a toadstool, old and blind, blindly guiding the throng of humanity that came to consult them. Did they possess any true wisdom? If not truly prescient, maybe they were able to look into people's needs, or into their society's... Did they ever get tired and simply spit forward prefabricated formulas of the future? "When the sun no longer shines on your path, remember that drachma coins are stamped on both sides". It's fun to think that maybe one of them saw me here, too, a man dressed strangely, sitting in the shade, sliding a stick accross a piece of paper; it's sad to know probably none of them did.

--a swimming pool among the ruins of the town's gymnasium. Round, 15 metres across, could still hold water. Served as a goat pen for over a thousand years, when even the name of Delphi had turned into a legend and the people who now lived here didn't even know such a place had ever existed. Walking among the monuments of their ancestors perhaps they thanked them for building such sturdy sties.

--cats basking in the winter sun, among all these fallen human glories.

--a marble statue of Antinoo, so perfect, beautiful and life-like after lieing buried in a mountainside for 100 times the duration of its model's life... Neck and parts of the body still shining, as if the sculptors's hands had just finished polishing the white stone; tiny holes among his locks, where a golden laurel crown was once anchored. Story has it Antinoo drowned in a river to save his lover, some roman emperor or other. The bereaved was so devastated that he elevated Antinoo to godhood, and had him adored throught the empire. His cult survived for four centuries: he symbolized loyalty. I can't read it on his face, his expression is too forlorn. I think that, though the face be that of the dead, the sculptor put in it the expression of the one lover left alive.

--a corner of the sea in the distance. The ancient port through which pilgrims use to arrive in waves is now a fishers's village, pilgrims turned into 5 or 6 tourists with digital cameras. The whirring lenses, extending or retracting, try to capture the present. They'll have as much success as the oracle ever did with the future, i suppose.

Martha

Martha went to the shoe shop and saw that it was closed. She started screaming. Why?

She is claustrophobic.

Hah-hah.

Gythio

It's noon of a very pleasant day here in Gythio, and i'm on a tiny island right in front of town. Well, technically, it's not an island anymore, because someone's built a road that connects it to the mainland. On the farther side stands a lighthouse and i'm sitting on the coast, a few meters from it. From here i can see the middle finger of the Mani, all the way to its tip. It is, again, a mostly mountainous peninsula, but at stretches, towards the south, the land becomes lower, and at times it sinks under the horizon, so that the parts that emerge from it look like islands. The clear skies and the long views here make obvious the curvature of the Earth: people living in this area must have wondered about this in the oldest of times, perhaps not only philosophers or 'great' thinkers, but simple fishermen and farmers.

The rocks i'm sitting on have sharp edges, corroded by the rain. They are calcareous, porous, cratered as if fruit eaten by birds and striated and puckered, like elephant skin. If this kind of rock is common around here, there should be at least some caverns in the area. Must find out about that.

Onwards to Gythio

Am in Gythio, a tiny port in Lakonia. Got here by bus a couple of hours ago. The Peloponnesus is even more mountainous than central Greece: elevations are perhaps lower, but valleys are fewer and smaller. The light cloud cover over Athens became thicker as we moved west and south, and soon it was raining. The country looks, again, too green for winter, and olive and orange trees are everywhere, accompanied by the ever-present cypresses. The sun pierced the clouds here and there, falling now on the water of Saronikós Kolpós and later on the hills, until it set behind them.

Highlights along the way were the Corinth canal which, narrow and deep and smooth-walled, separates the Peloponnesus from the rest of the continent. Then there was Sparta, which i hope to visit on my way back north.

Speaking of Sparta, as we were leaving it a small Peloponnesian war erupted on the bus, and the main contenders were the bus driver and the man sitting next to me. Having as background not one but two cultures where people complain and argue loudly, the episode wasn't so unfamiliar to me, but it did get pretty scary at one point, as the two seemed on the edge of hitting each other. What they were yelling was all greek to me (har-har!), but basically it all started because some ten passengers got on the already full bus at the terminal in Sparta. The bus driver complained loudly at the guy who was checking the tickets, but nothing doing, they got on and had to stand on the aisle. Some started smoking and then there was also a strong smell of salami, and i thought "this is like home!" Of course, if the company has no more buses to send, we'll all make room. No problem with me, particularly as it was just another 45 k to Gythio. As they kept repeating this name, by the way, i also understood most of them would get off here.

In any case, we were still on our way out of the city when the bus stopped again, and some ten more people came aboard. The bus driver grumbled and fumed again, but the eruption actually took place right next to me: my seat companion yelled very loudly at the driver, the many 'a's and 'o's and 'u's of greek rising in volume, 's's and 'z's spewing everywhere. The driver reacted: he stood up, still yelling, and came towards us. The guy next to me got to his feet, too, and turned, as if to leave his seat; i leaned casually away, against the window, trying to take some distance from the approaching battle -- and from his butt, which was almost in my face now. We were on the third row, but before the driver could get too near, thankfully those on rows one and two intervened, as did most everyone else, standing and sitting, all the way back to the bottom of the bus. We spent some five to ten minutes like this, with this guy very aggressively shouting, the bus driver angrily answering back, not less loudly, and everybody else gabbling more or less conciliatorily.

From some gestures and hand signals, i thought i understood that the man next to me wasn't really bothered by the people standing, but more by the fact that he thought it quite unsafe for people to travel standing on a long distance bus. The road here is quite sinuous, after all... It then downed on me that we ARE in the European Union after all, for nobody back home would have made such a fuss over the matter (although, to tell the truth, our long distance buses in Argentina are luxurious, compared to any i've seen in either Europe or the US).

I also felt for the poor driver, as perhaps his choices were very limited. Maybe he would have gotten in trouble with his employers if he had decided not to take on the extra passengers. But then, aren't we in the European Union? Wouldn't he be protected by law?

Anyway, back to Gythio: a row of picturesque houses, cafes and tavernas alongside the shore, and the rest of the village rising behind, on a hill that rolls down almost to sea. Clouds parting, the moon over the water together with anchored fishing boats. My hotel window looks right out at this, over a tiny balcony.

An old cemetery

This afternoon I walked around Athens, from Syntagma to Omonia and then to the Keramikos, the cemetery of ancient times, which is basically a huge open-air museum of death through 15 centuries: from pre-classical Greece, through roman times and beyond. I sat on the grass in this necropolis for a couple hours, my head resting against the ancient city walls, surrounded by ruins, stele, sculptures and un-excavated mounds. I read a novel, and beyond this green, fenced-off island of sandwiched time, the city went on, uncaring: heavy traffic, smog, even trains, to my left, rumbling in and out of the ground.

More from Athens

Today i've remained in the Plaka section of Athens, visiting the Akropolis and the Agorá and walking through the many little winding streets in the neighborhood. I suppose i couldn't have done anything more touristy, but as there are not so many tourists this time of year, i didn't feel like such a schmuck. Besides, people here are such that they don't make you feel an outsider. Everybody smiles and is helpful. Maybe it's the season.

I liked the parthenon very much, and imagined Socrates sitting on its steps, talking to his students. He might have never done this, but then again, he might. The caryatids in the erechtheion were even more eye (and imagination) catching. Later i found out they are not the originals, but casts of them; nevertheless, i thought them fascinating. They are all slightly different in their dress and accoutrements, in the way their hair falls over their shoulders, and even in their pose. I also thought they looked quite suggestive, exposing one leg forward, barely covered by the rocky folds of thin clothes that, if real, would have been transparent. The classics must have been aware of the erotic element in these sculptures, and it must have been even stronger then, since in their society women were so covered and hidden. How would they have looked at sculptures in general? There are a few in the Acropolis museum and the stoa Attalou that are seriously hypnotic, even though many of them are mere fragments of lost wholes, or severely damaged by weather, pollution, martial conflicts or, that old favorite of mine, religious fanaticism. In spite of it all, treasure survives: an enigmatic face that seems to take in air through parted lips; a portrait of a serious, bearded man who obviously never heard a 'no' in his life; the weighty, robust and essentially masculine foreleg and shins of a wrestler; the exquisitely detailed toes of a rider by the heaving barrel chest of a horse – all else gone...

Later i walked to the theater of Dionysus, where the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus were put up for the first time... over 2500 years ago! The stone seats are still there, and i sat on one for a while, imagining the actors and their voices, and wondering whose eyes might have been looking from the position of mine when Antigone or Oedipus Rex were performed first. Who might have been by my side? Who in front and behind me?

I climbed to the Areos Pagos, where around 50 a.d. saint Paul spilled the sermon to the athenians as it appears in the new testament (it was after that, i suppose, that they started defacing the sculptures that represented the deities and the work of their ancestors).

Then, in the Agorá, i tried to visualize the people that walked through these ruins when they weren't such, or those who might do so in the future, when as much time passes as has now passed since the now scattered marble blocks were whole buildings. What did/will they think? What were/will be their daily affairs and concerns? It's sweet not to know, and makes me want never to die.

I was seriously pooped after all the walking up and down and around the hillsides, so i stopped at a cafe and ordered an epanakotyropita (the only greek word i know, apart from ‘thank you’: efharisto!), which is a delicious cheese and spinach confection that i devoured in two minutes. I ordered another, and this time i took five.

Athens

Arrived in Athens a couple of hours ago and am now at a cyber on Syntagma square. The ferry, which was supposed to drop me in Igoumenitsa at 7:30, didn't get there until around 10:30, but the advantage was that i got to see the sun dawn over Kerkira, and it was majestic.



From Igoumenitsa i took a bus to Ioannina, and from there, at 14:30, to here. Getting from the Athens bus terminal to the hotel took about 45 minutes, as there's a public transport strike and traffic is crazier than usual – or so says the hotel manager.

My first impressions of Greece have been wonderful. The landscape, to begin with, is amazing. I was trying to compare it to other Mediterranean countries, but it's not possible. In the over 500 k of this land i've covered today, mountains are visible from everywhere (i guess that explains the ragged contour of the coast) but large valleys and plains are interspersed abundantly enough that there is a sense of openness wherever you are. As for the weather, it's an incredibly mild december. At 2:30 pm in Ioannina, northern Greece, it was 20C. Many trees and bushes are bare, and crops have already been harvested, yet the mixture of species seems incompatible: mountainsides are covered with scrawny xerophytes, yet rivers run everywhere and some trees, still green and luscious looking, grow in the valleys and hillsides. Many of them are covered by mats of ivy.

Alongside the roads (there is no true highway until 50 or 60 k out of Athens) you can see tiny shrines standing on poles perhaps a meter tall, some of them with offerings of candles and flowers. A few are quite elaborate and imitate miniature orthodox churches, but others are simply square boxes with some holy image inside and a cross on top. The only other place i've seen a similar practice is Argentina.

People are very friendly. There's again that harmonious chaos i saw in Bari, but people here are much more... receiving. Anyone you ask help of will try their best to give it, even when they can't understand what you're saying. The old lady sitting next to me on the bus insisted that i eat some of her chocolate, and the taxi driver offered me a cigarette every time he was about to smoke one himself – which he did three times in 45 minutes. I'd read somewhere greeks smoke a lot, and indeed, they do.

Athens doesn't seem dirty at all, though. Maybe it's because it's night and i haven't seen much yet, but all i can see is that it's bustling with life.

Crossing over

On the trip back from Greece i'll definitely upgrade my ticket, so that i can get a cabin to sleep in. It's 2:10 in the morning and i haven't been able to go truly under for more than a few minutes, although i've been trying since around 10:00 pm. At first i was a little seasick, because in spite of it's great size, the boat rocks a lot. I soon got over that though, but then the problem is that there are no comfortable seats to at least recline on. Am sitting at a bar, early deserted, but the chair is hard under my butt and my neck feels uncomfortable, whether i lay it on my arms on the table before me or on the wall behind. Legs and arms fall asleep in some positions and, since they do, i obviously can't.

So, i've decided to wake up, breakfast on the panettone i bought yesterday, and write and read a little.

Speaking of yesterday, it was an uneventful day. Woke up late, went to Feltrinelli and bought "I.O.U.", a book on third world debt cancellation that sounds promising. Spent a few hours reading it and drinking cappucinos. There is not much in the city of Bari that can't be seen in a day and, if there is, i've missed it. What i did in the afternoon was to sit for a long while on a bench by the coast, looking at the waves smash against the breakwaters, piqued by quite a heavy wind. I noticed that seagulls floated like kites in it, responding to strong gusts with those same sudden changes in flight direction i remember from my childhood. Bari has a definitely dramatic seafront.

- - - - o - - - -

My computer is running out of batteries, so i'll finish with this final comment: the love life of sharks is a truly complicated affair. With so many teeth going around, it is hell to kiss properly, and love bites are truly something to die for.

Strolling, and a strange talk

It's 11:46 pm and today has been a really eventful day.

I woke up early and walked down to the port, where i finally arranged to get a boat ticket to Greece. Am leaving for Igoumenitsa at 7:00 pm tomorrow, and will be arriving there on Thursday at 7:30 in the morning.

From the port i entered the old city and walked around its labyrinthine streets, visiting the cathedral and the norman-swabian castle. There wasn't much to see in the latter, as most areas are closed off, either because excavations are going on or due to repairs. On the other hand, the narrow winding ways and their chaotic traffic were quite charming. I read somewhere that in centuries past, when invading hordes threatened Bari, they were wary of entering this maze, as it was famous for the ease with which men got lost in it. Once they were disoriented, neighbors easily picked them off from roofs and windows.

Under a light rain, the place was a confusion of fruit vendors, fishermen (actually saw the tiny lights of their boats out on the bay yesterday night, from the plane), christmas decorations, smells and pastries, old italian ladies dressed like my grandmothers used to, cars and people sharing the strangled, unevenly paved lanes, the ancient limestone walls of still inhabited buildings, gnawed by time... Yet there is harmony in the way everything doesn't quite fit together. Nowhere in northern Europe can one see this organized discordance.

The high point of the day was my visit to the temple of santa Claudia. Beautiful construction in apulian romanesque style, and in one of the lateral naves there's the grave of the saint herself. There you can listen to small, intimate masses.

As i was leaving the building, i saw a woman come out of the confessionary, and another one go in. There was a tiny red light on the door next to the one she'd entered, indicating that the priest was in. And mimicking that light, an unlikely idea blinked on in my crazy brain: what if i were to go in next and talked to the priest about my experience as a homosexual man raised in the catholic tradition?

You see, a few weeks ago i wrote a dialogue on this blog, imagining such a talk. I feel christianity in general and catholicism in particular have been extremely negative forces in the lives of many gay people. Religion-inspired morals constitute the main factor that keeps homosexual matrimony from being legalized in most countries, but that is only the most visible of evils the church has inflicted on gay men and women: worst of all are the self-loathing, the guilt, the low self-esteem, the depressions that many go through. Because of the anger i feel at this, my imagined dialogue was quite simplistic: in it i left the priest without words or justification, made him apologize, humbled him as i believe the church should be humbled for the pain it's caused. Of course, i realized such a dialogue was unrealistic when i wrote it, not the least because, if i were now to use the aggressive and prideful tone my character uses on the text, the priest might simply tell me to go away (pride is always bad in a religious setting; have you noticed that?).

Besides, i really didn't want to attack the priest this time. I wanted to hear about the church's position on homosexuality from the mouth of a church-man. In spite of everything i've read about it, i'd never gotten the information from the source, and this was the perfect occasion.

So, while the woman was inside, i thought about how i was gonna go about it. First, i didn't want to tell the guy any lies about my background. Second, i wanted to be sincere about the way i saw things, but without attacking his organization. Third, i intended to remain as open-minded as possible. Fourth, i didn't want to tell this man what i thought the church should do, but rather hear what the church is doing. Fifth, i was determined to stay calm.

In the end, we talked for about 10 or 15 minutes. The priest struck me as very friendly from the moment i saw him. He must be in his mid-fifties and sports a thick, blond beard that doesn't hide the openness of his expression. His voice is calm. He was able to talk in a relaxed fashion about the issues i raised, much more easily and naturally than i'd expected. I wish i'd had a tiny tape recorder tucked somewhere but, having lacked it, here's a transcription of the talk, paraphrased and translated and as near-to-reality as i can remember it:

-- Come in, come in!

-- Good morning, padre. I'm actually not in here for confession, but because i would like to talk with you about something that's very important to me, if you have the time. I'm not from this city and although i was brought up catholic, i've grown distant from the church. I haven't been inside one as a worshipper in many years. Mainly this is because i'm disillusioned with it and yes, because of it, also with catholicism, particularly because of its views on homosexuality. I can't understand how love can be a sin. Why is it bad for two men who love each other and want to commit to share their lives to also share sex? Why is it impossible for them to get married in the eyes of the church?

-- OK. First, let me ask you: how did you actually become disillusioned with the church? Was it first hand experience that pushed you away from it?

-- Well, yes and no. As a young kid, i didn't feel i knew the priest well enough to talk to him about these things. He wasn't very accessible, but of course i'm talking about 15 or 20 years ago. Nevertheless, as i grew up and had to come to terms with my sexuality, i discovered that most of my problems with accepting myself could be traced back to the morals taught to me by the church. So yes, my priest wasn't very open or inspiring, but no, nobody i knew at my church was directly nasty to me because of my sexuality. There were other issues that made me lose faith in the organization, but they are not related to this.

-- I ask you because nowadays we priests get very particular directives on how to discuss this topic. It's more common than you might think, and many come to us to talk about their homosexual feelings, not only men, but also women. We know homosexuality has always existed, and that many famous people in the past, especially artists [?!?!?], have been homosexual. These are people with a superior sensitivity (that's why so many of them are artists) [again, !?!?!?], people who have difficult lives already, because they are surrounded by a society that's hostile to them. Only a few, and later, after much suffering, decide to live their lives openly, not caring about their communities or families [huh!?!?!?]. So we are cautioned not to be harsh. Have you read any of the documents the church has published about this?

-- No, I can't say i have.

-- Well, they are not harsh at all. But to answer the questions you asked before, i have to make it clear to you that it all comes down to the scriptures. We might get into a discussion of everything else, but that is the bottom line. I don't know if you want to argue about this: i might say that homosexuality is unnatural, but you might argue that it is also found among animals, or that sex is not only used for procreation. That kind of thing.

-- No, no. I realize the scriptures are the real issue with the church. What do they say, exactly? I'm afraid i haven't read the bible since i was very young. Does Jesus say anything against homosexuality? Why can't the sacrament of matrimony unite people of the same sex? Where does it say that i'm immoral? I don't want to sound proud, but i consider myself a moral person, in that i try to be careful with my actions, so that they don't hurt others. We all make mistakes and have oversights, of course, but that is what being moral means to me.

-- Of course, i am sure you are. And part of it probably comes from having suffered and been marginalized. That is why Jesus said to the pharisees that prostitutes and thieves were closer to the kingdom of heaven [encore: ?!?!??!] than themselves, and that is why the church does accept and embrace homosexuals; only the practice of homosexuality is a sin. Jesus himself doesn't talk much about homosexuals. It's saint Paul who condemns homosexuality and effeminacy [!!!] of any kind. Jesus does say, however, that matrimony is to be between man and woman. The sacraments are seven, and they are what they are: they cannot be changed, added or subtracted from. Take people who divorce, for instance: they are breaking a promise they had made to god. In the same way, a catholic homosexual person has a compromise with god not to practice homosexual sex, or any sex outside marriage, for that matter. This is something that concerns heterosexuals too. Men come here and speak about how they love both their wives and their lovers, but that is not right in the eyes of god; you were talking about love before, but it's not love that's the problem, you see.

-- Then it all comes down to accepting scriptures, whether we find them logical or not, whether there is a reasoning behind them or not. I can't understand why love isn't enough.

-- Be careful there. We cannot be christians unless we accept the word of god as it is. We cannot question it. But here: have you ever wondered why god made you like you are? He has a purpose for us all, and he must have had a purpose in making you homosexual.

-- Yes, i used to ask myself that question all the time, but i never found a satisfactory answer.

-- Well, think about it.

-- Mm-hm. Thank you, father. I really appreciate this talk and the time you've given me.

-- I'll pray for you. You say a prayer for me, too.

-- Thank you. Have a good day.

And i left. For some reason, by the time our conversation ended, i was almost in tears. I couldn't think why: i was not sad. I hadn't heard anything new, had i? There had been some inexactitudes, generalizations and unhappy parallels drawn, but the man had tried to be as open and helpful and kind as possible. Perhaps, because i was nervous about broaching the topic of my sexuality with someone i didn't know, and because of my perhaps obvious display of emotion towards the end, he'd been led to believe that i was having a real conflict with my sexuality. Regardless: the conversation felt good, as did his treatment of me.

In any case, it took me some 20 minutes to realize that what i felt was an immense sense of... exhilaration! I mean, we had gotten to the true bottom of the issue! A church person had just told me that i could not be catholic! Indeed, i could never accept a text without questioning it, no matter who is claimed to have written it! Some might say that it's a question of faith, and that i lack it, but i would contend it is a matter of trust in individual humans, instead. The church is made up of men; it is a human institution. There have been better and worse popes and priests, but they have all been men, with human ambitions and interests. Priests have translated and interpreted scriptures, too, and in 2000 years of very turbulent history, they may have manipulated them, too. Finally, however much they believed their hands were being guided by god when they were writing the gospels, the apostles were human, too.

Anyone out there wants NOT to be catholic with me?

After midnight

Rereading yesterday's entries (which i actually finished only a few minutes ago), am noticing too many references to men and gayness. Maybe i'm getting horny, but if that were the case i'd probably be able to tell (you'd think! hah-hah). More likely, i just miss having someone to hang out and share my time with.

Am definitely open to getting to know people, though there's nothing yukkier than meeting someone you really like and then leaving after a couple of days -- or weeks, in this case. And for the time being at least, home is back in the north, so staying is out of the question. Maybe i should try to be more sociable with Lars Jon. He's this farmer who lives up there with his sister, probably the only openly gay man in a 10 k. radius, apart from me. He seems nice and all, but it might be hard to communicate, as my norwegian is nearly as good as his english, or so i hear. It's pathetic that we live so close to each other and we've never really spoken. I don't think he even knows there's another gay man living 200 meters from him! Oh, well...