Believes

I can't say I believe in a god... But i can't say i disbelieve him/her/it, either. That is to say, i don't know whether there is a god or not. In fact, i don't think that dilemma is at all relevant to anything. And i do have faith. I have simply placed it elsewhere, not in a god.

If i were God i wouldn't want people to believe in me. At least, that's what it seems to me from observing the world around me. After all, if God wanted belief, he would make his existence indubitable, right?

Yes, i know that many believers would disagree with me here, that God requires "a leap of faith", or that s/he/it doesn't want to take away our freedom by imposing his existence on us, or that there are people out there that, no matter what God did, would still not believe -- the last of which would mean, incidentally, a not omnipotent God. But that's not my point. Just bear with me a little longer.

If there is a god that created everything we perceive, what we can be certain about is... everything we perceive! Trees and animals don't come stamped with a "Made by God" seal, yet trees and animals like us are here. And so are rocks, water, vacuum, fire...

I think if God exists at all in this universe he wants us to believe in his creation... That is, in each other. That is why he/it/she doesn't boom out of the sky or has neon signs that point to him/er/it. You see, believing in certain types of god allows us to discard some of those who surround us, if they're deemed to be ungodly. If it is seen as unholly, we can violate nature, too (although, if truth be told, apparently we don't need to think it unholly to violate it; that it is not God seems to be enough for us...).

But if you put your faith in life, in the idea that people can be good to one another and protect and manage their environment, in the intrinsic value of everything that exists, then you HAVE to think and BE AWARE of the world around you. And if i were God and had put a brain in people, that is precisely what i'd want people to do with it! Hence, i'd arrange things so that i became as inconspicuous as possible, so that people did not have me there to look up at all the time. Forget about what i'd want! What is best for YOU?

You see, whether God exists or not, i believe people as a species have the power to learn. We can eventually learn that we individually are safest when the largest possible number of us is safest. We can eventually learn that variety is fertile ground and that its lack kills. We can eventually learn that allowing individual ambition to soar above common rights is dangerous and must never be allowed in ourselves.

Never

'Never say never'
you say
and say it twice.
The double negative
makes it right
(you say).
Now with you i never know
what never is
when in your lips
or mine.
-No- -Yes-
i'm ever lost
but you
you're never wrong.

A REQUEST

I haven't written about homosexuality in a while, and you know how we queers are: it's all we think about. So, with a reputation to keep, here i go again.

Anyway, someone's asked me how i came out to my family, and what their reactions were. Hmmm... Well, here's an outline:

• 13 years old: M. knows he's sexually attracted to guys rather than girls.
• 18 years old: It finally occurs to M. that it may be ok to be sexually attracted to guys rather than girls.
• 22 years old: During a summer vacation at home, M. finally decides to tell his family about his being sexually attracted to guys rather than girls. He writes a letter to leave with them in case they kick him out of the house when he tells them.
• 22 years old: M. chickens out, doesn't tell them a thing, and the letter remains at the bottom of his suitcase. The chicken!!!
• 25 years old: Mom is visiting from Argentina and, during a very philosophical conversation, M. finally manages to tell her that he is attracted to guys rather than girls (and that the guy they had dinner with some days before is not just a friend, but actually his boyfriend.)
• 25 years old: Mom tears up a little and says "Finally!", and "I suspected he was your boyfriend." Then goes on to clarify she's known M. is sexually attracted to guys rather than girls for the past three years. Turns out she found the letter while going through M.'s suitcase ["Wanted to iron your shirts before you left!"]: showed it to dad, showed it to M.'s brothers, cried, cried, cried and cried some more. Then started thinking and, over some months, tried to fit her image of fags with that of her son. No fit, image of fags thrown away. Now M. finally figures out why so many conversations with mom have lately been so philosophical.

Now filling in the gaps:

Thing is, when you are growing up and you realize you're gay, sometimes you don't have anyone to talk to. You hear all these negative things about people who are supposedly like you (from what you see when they're portrayed in the media, they are not really like you, but hey, maybe you will eventually turn into them?); you hear these things from your parents, from your nearest friends, on TV, at the movies... The Bible says you should be stoned to death. You see how everybody laughs and despises and is angry at this people and, of course, you don't want to lose family and friends, so you just don't say anything. This means keeping a careful watch of all your words and interactions, so that your image of heterosexuality is unquestionable. Then eventually you realize nobody knows you, and you feel alone; that you have lied to every person you care about, and you feel like a shit; that all you do and say is carefully choreographed, and that you don't know who you are anymore. But, shikata ga nai.

If you are lucky enough to one day come across a message different from what you've received until then, you might start thinking (but again, you might not) that maybe the media are wrong. Your friends are perhaps wrong, too. That your parents are wrong is harder to consider, but you finally get your mind around that as well. What do you do?

You tell yourself many things, and all of them may be true: -- they will suffer if i make them go through this -- after all, i'm gay myself, and it took me years to accept it; how can i expect them to understand? -- wait, it wouldn't be me making them suffer, but their prejudices -- do i really need to tell them? -- why do i feel i need to tell them? -- after all, i live far away and only spend 3 or 4 weeks at home every one or two years -- besides, dad's old; what if this is too much for him? -- or they may kick me away, and what would i do without them? -- without their support -- and talking about support, yes: what about economical support? i couldn't stay in college if i didn't have it -- what kind of person am i, to be bringing money into this equation?

Bottom line: there's no definitive answer to any of these, so you just keep asking them.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

So yes, the moral of my story is totally wrong. I was scared in this way for a long time, and when i finally decided to talk openly with my mom, she had already done all the work on her own, when I should have been there to ease her fears and answer her questions. This must have been terribly hard on her.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

I have gay and lesbian friends who view coming out as a moral duty of any person of a different sexuality. They argue that society can only change if more people make themselves visible as homosexuals, because only openly can prejudices be challenged. And they are right, in this wider social sense.

On the other hand, there are people like my friend Dan, whose parents kicked out when he was 16. He is now 38, and they still don't want anything to do with him.

In my opinion, each person knows their families best and so can better judge their possible reactions (and still be wrong, as in my case). Thus, everybody should decide by him/herself what course is best. Nobody can ask us to sacrifice the private for the social, nor viceversa.

Both coming out to loved ones and not doing it are potentially very stressful situations, so the first thing one should have is support. If one can't talk about issues concerning sexuality with friends or known people, an anonymous care giver is a good idea. If none is available, there is the net. It wasn't a very good a resource a decade ago, but i imagine that nowadays, even if one lives in an absolutely homophobic society, a help line can be found. The words you read or the voice you hear might be on the other side of the world, but it's good to know they're there.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Finally, a few more thoughts and info:

• I think if i hadn't eventually come out to my family, i would have continued to grow more and more distant from them. Not that i would have ever stopped talking to or caring about them, but they would have known less and less of my emotional life. I don't know how much that would have affected us. Probably quite a bit.

• Good resources on the topic of coming out to loved ones are the following:

Coming Out to Parents: A Two-Way Survival Guide for Lesbians and Gay Men and Their Parents, by Mary Borhek

Growing Up Gay and Lesbian (VHS)

(Both available on amazon, and at certain school libraries)

Words for noises and sounds

On thursday i attended an art exhibition on the theme of silence. First off was a speaker who rattled on about the differences between sound and silence. Most of the time he seemed to be stating the obvious. Somehow i started thinking about words we use to describe sounds and, since i was bored, i started scribbling some of them down. Here they are:

bang___________estallido
bark___________ladrido
beep___________sonido electrónico
bellow_________bramido
bleat__________balido
bleep__________pitido
boom___________retumbo
bump___________ruido sordo
buzz___________zumbido
cackle_________cacareo
chatter________cotorreo
chime__________repique
chink__________tintineo
chirp__________pío
chirrup________pío
chortle________carcajada reprimida
clamour________clamor
clang__________estruendo metálico sonoro
clank__________estruendo metálico sordo
clap___________aplauso
clapping_______aplausos
click__________chasquido
clucking_______cacareo quedo
cooing_________arrullo
crack__________crujido
crackle________chisporroteo
crash__________choque
creak__________rechinamiento
crunch_________crujido
cry____________grito
crowing________cacareo de gallo
drone__________zumbido
drumming_______tamborileo
echo___________eco
explosion______explosión, estallido
gnashing_______rechinamiento de dientes
grinding_______rechinamiento
guffaw_________carcajada
gurgle_________gorgoteo
hoo-ha_________estrépito
hoot___________bocinazo
howl___________ululato
hum____________tarareo
jingling_______cascabeleo
knock__________golpe
laugh__________risa
lowing_________mugido
mew____________maullido
moo____________mugido
mumble_________murmullo
murmur_________murmullo
noise__________ruido
patter_________golpeteo
peal___________sonido musical como de campanas
peep___________pío
pip____________pitido
ping___________sonido metálico
plonk__________golpe seco
plop___________plaf
puff___________soplido
rasp___________chirrido
racket_________estrépito
rattle_________cascabeleo
raucousness____estridencia
reverberation__reverberación
ring___________timbrazo
ringing________reverberación
rip____________rasguido
roar___________rugido
rumble_________retumbo
rumour_________rumor
rustle_________frufrú
scraping_______rasguido
scream_________grito
screech________chillido
shriek_________grito agudo
snap___________chasquido
snicker________risilla
snigger________risilla
snivel_________lloriqueo
snore__________ronquido
sound__________sonido
speech_________habla
splash_________chapoteo
splutter_______chisporroteo
squawk_________graznido
squeak_________rechinamiento
squeal_________chillido
stridency______estridencia
swish__________frufrú
thunder________trueno
ticktock_______tictac
tinkling_______cascabeleo
trill__________trino
twang__________tañido
twitter________pío
wail___________vagido
warble_________gorjeo
weeping________llanto
whack__________golpe fuerte
whine__________gemido
whinny_________relincho
whirr__________runrún
whisper________susurro
whistle________silbido
whoop__________alarido
whoosh_________susurro
yell___________grito

English seems to be more varied than spanish... At any rate, words that describe sounds tend to be, in general, much shorter and more onomatopoeic in english than in spanish, and so the sounds they define seem to be much more precise and easier to recall (although maybe it is my command of spanish that is sinking).

Onomatopoeic words are everywhere in english. When you say "brush", you can hear its stiff bristles rasping against the thick hairs of a tangled mat of wool. When you say "clump", the four consonants plonking around that lonely "u" mirror the compactness of the clump itself, forming, coming together. And who can't hear the hooting in "owl"?

Of course, many spanish words also have clear onomatopoeic origins, but they have moved farther away from the original sound they describe. You can hear the "cry" in "grito", for instance, but that "to" at the end has been added by the necessities of gender and conjugation, so pervasive in romance languages. Still, when i say "rueda" (wheel), i fancy i can hear the rumble of heavy wooden carts rolling on uneven ground.

Anyway, what is the meaning of thinking about this? What can be its utility?

The Platypus

I read somewhere that the platypus knows its world through its bill. Because it spends most of its time in dark, murky waters, its eyes are not much use to it; to compensante, bioelectricity courses through the platypus' bill and creates an electromagnetic field. In that way, if anything comes within the range of the field, the animal senses the corresponding alteration in the field lines, and "sees".

What does the platypus perceive? Can it know colour and texture? Possibly not, and yet they seem so obvious to us... Perhaps there are other qualities to reality that we ourselves are not aware of because of our sensory apparatus. Maybe the platypus knows some of them... Or it may also be that neither platypi nor people sense anything that is real, and our senses only give us approximations of reality, enough to allow us to function in it.

I suppose the platypus does not feel the lack. Its senses have evolved to fit its needs, and the same applies to us. But what happens when needs change, or when we are (dumb? smart? cozy?) enough to ponder all this?

Octavia Butler dead

I've just found out that one of my favourite writers died on February 24th. It is a big shock. Of course, i didn't know the woman, only her writing and a little about her biography, yet it's disturbing to read she's dead... Mostly because i won't be able to read any new books from her, perhaps? Expecting them was great company, after all.

Nemi

I understood a norwegian cartoon today. Yay! (The fact that i see this as a feat is no reflection on norwegian humour, but on my still shitty command of norwegian.) The cartoon basically goes like this:

Nemi is at a bar and the guy next to her yells at someone outside of the frame:

#@%&#@ homo! God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Arne!

Nemi punches him in the face, leaves, and mutters:

God must be gay, too. Otherwise, he would not have made so many assholes!

Har har har!

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.