Wind-sprints

 

This afternoon I stopped by the Rosedale United Church office to pick up a pair of sunglasses I'd left there when I did a "Christmas memory" reading last December. It's the furthest from home I've ventured since getting home from the hospital last week.

On the way out, I stopped by the chapel, a place I utterly adore in its pristine Protestant simplicity. The nave was dark, except for the light streaming through the brilliant stained-glass windows.

The church dates from 1914. In the warm months, it smells wonderfully of age—the olfactory patina of a century of summer sunlight gently baking into the wood. It's a sweet, nutty scent I associate with the old Canadian churches of my childhood and, therefore, in part, with childhood itself.

I'm used to Rosedale being full of light and music, full of people, including people I love, but there was something beautiful and holy about the embracing silence and the dimness. I was suddenly awash in memories, and I put them in a good place in my heart. They'll come in handy in the coming months.

Outside, waiting for my Uber, I watched a sixteen-year old boy in a green t-shirt and black shorts do wind-sprints from one end of Whitney Park to the other. Back and forth he raced, almost flying.

He could have no way of knowing how beautiful he was in that moment, in his youth and strength and unselfconscious disavowal of barriers.

He pumped his knees higher and higher with every stride, effortlessly gathering speed. At one point it seemed as though gravity was deferring to him, releasing him into the air, more than that he was merely running.

He shouldn't know any of those things. Part of the beauty of being sixteen is the not knowing.

I smell Toronto summer in the air this afternoon, even if only traces of it on such a cool, misty afternoon. But it's coming. I have been loving this moment since 1982, my first summer in the city.

Watching the boy, I was remembering the summer of 1983 when I trained for the Toronto Marathon, racing myself through impossibly green neighbourhoods just like this one, and in endless circles around the track at the athletic centre at the University of Toronto. I felt immortal, and the future just rolled in front of me like a flat highway with no traffic.

I hope the boy in the green t-shirt felt a bit like that sprinting through Whitney Park this afternoon. That would be as it should be, and all would be right in the world.

Venerating the Sacred Labrador

Since my mobility has been excellent since my operations last week, I decided to try to take Beckett for a walk and see how far we got. Amusingly, his 12-year old arthritic Labrador's gait is the perfect step match for my own post-op ambulations, so we were in sync.

It was unseasonably cold all day after yesterday's terrible storm, but by 4:00 p.m. the light was gleaming, so out we went. The winds and rain yesterday had ravaged all but the hardiest foliage, but there were still traces of hardy lilacs and some apple blossoms on the tree, here or there. The air was damp and delicious and cool, almost autumnal, but floral instead of spicy.

On the way home, through Riverdale Park, we came upon a group of South Asian young people who were celebrating. Earlier, we had seen balloons in festive marigold colours of orange and yellow festooning their picnic table, and an arch they had constructed. The women were wearing beautiful long dresses, so it was obviously an important celebration. The table had been laid with a cloth, upon which were placed dishes of delcious looking Indian food.

One of the young women caught my eye and smiled, and asked if she could pet Beckett. Since Beckett loves to be petted by women—since he was a baby, he has loved the pitch of women's voices, and responds to it like it's a drug—I told her that of course she could pet him.

Her hand was painted with a beautiful, intricate lace of henna, and her nails were laquered pale pink, almost white, and were very long through Beckett's fur. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, and let her pet him. One of the young men took a picture.

Another young man told me that they were celebrating the baby shower of one of the couples there.

"I saw the decorations earlier," I said. "This was clearly the party to be at this afternoon." He laughed warmly, flashing beautiful white teeth. "Next time you must come one hour earlier, my friend!" he replied.

I told him I regretted not having done so, and was surprised to realize I actually meant it.

Six or seven more of the young people came over to meet Beckett, and he was in heaven, basking in the all the attention, and the rhythmic, gentle scrape of the young woman's nails in his fur.

A cloud moved away from the sun just then, and the entire park was bathed in glorious spring dusk sunlight, gold and orange like the marigold balloons. I caught a sudden whiff of exquisite jasmine perfume on the breeze from one of the women in the flowing dresses.

I remembered all the Victoria Day Sundays I'd spent with dogs in this park—Harper, Simba, and now Beckett— and for the life of me couldn't remember one as lovely as this one, or a scene as poignantly optimistic, full of life and possibility.

Cancer

A week ago, I received the news that I had colon cancer. I spent five nights at Toronto General and had three surgical procedures, one under general anaesthetic. I’m home now, and resting, and very happy to be back in my own bed. Next week, I will be referred to the oncology department at Princess Margaret Hospital, arguably the best cancer hospital in Canada, for further treatment, possibly chemotherapy and/or radiation. After that, it will be back to Toronto General for more surgery.

Great news, though: there has been no metastasis, which is going to make it much easier to isolate and fight.

When you hear you have cancer, the floor drops out from under you. Suddenly, everyone and everything you love becomes even more precious. You can't know this exact, specific feeling until it happens to you.

The day after the diagnosis, I attended a children’s birthday party in the park hosted by dear friends, which was ridiculously joyful and lovely. After that, I took a leisurely walk through Cabbagetown and photographed the things I found most beautiful—flowering trees, blossoms, green grass, blue sky, Beckett, our house, our garden, my husband's face.

The radiance of those things was almost unbearable that day.

I’ve tried to analyze my feelings about this diagnosis, but one overwhelming feeling comes to the fore again and again: I feel gratitude.

I’m grateful for the sharp-eyed radiologist who caught this when she was looking for something else, and had the skill to ask, “What is this shadow on his colon?”

I’m grateful for the doctors, and especially the nurses, who looked after me all week. I’m in awe of the diverse, multicultural, multiracial makeup of the hospital staff, literally an amalgam of the best and brightest from all over the world who've come to Canada in a tributary, dedicating their youth, their strength, their intelligence, and their skill, to healing, especially my favourite nurse, Muuna, who has an angel's touch.

I’m grateful to live in a country where an essential five-day life-saving hospital stay is a matter of logistics, not bankruptcy. I’m grateful to those true friends and family who have generously shared colon cancer survivor stories with me, and sustained by with the bulwark of their love. They’ve boosted my morale beyond measure.

I'm grateful for the tidal wave of insight into what's truly important, and what couldn't be less important, that crashed over me from the moment of the diagnosis, and in the rich waters of which I am still borne aloft.

I’m grateful that I’m going to be mentioned in the community prayer at Rosedale United Church this Sunday, because they're wonderful people, and I’ll take all the help I can get, and gratefully.

I'm insanely blessed, no question about it.

I’m also under no illusion that the road ahead is going to be easy, or painless, but I’m also determined to fight this with everything I have and come out the other side.

If this page goes “radio silent” at certain points in the coming months, don’t assume the worst. It'll likely just mean I'm off fighting for the thing that means the most to me in the world: life, and the great privilege of living it.

On the 89th anniversary of the start of the Nazi book burnings in Berlin

 "Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too."

—Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

Today is the 89th anniversary of the start of the Nazi book burnings in Berlin that went on until October of 1933. Books were burned for being "un-German," "unpatriotic," and unwholesome by the standards of Nazi ideology and purity. Notably, "decadent" works by Jews, foreigners, and homosexuals were consigned to the flames.

Of particularly chilling significance in 2022 was the burning of 20,000 books on homosexuality, lesbianism, and transgender studies from Magnus Hirschfeld's Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Insitute for Sexology) which had been raided four days earlier on May 6th.

As we witness sweeping book banning in the United States, particularly books dealing with LGBT issues, themes on race, and feminism, as well as the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the banning of transgender-affirming healthcare for minors, it admittedly feels to some of us like howling into a storm with winds so strong we can barely hear ourselves anymore.

These screams are a notch higher, and more desperate, than the unheeded ones in 2016, when all of this was predicted in the final months of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

This. Is. Actually. Happening.

For the love of God, folks, let's wake up. Burning books is the most symbolic of acts, and it's a bellwether of terrible things, whether the books being burned are literal or metaphorical. They knew that in 1933, and we know it in 2021.

VE Day, 77 years later

On May 8th, 1945, Europe was liberated from the fascism that threatened not only Europe, but the world. By the end, untold suffering had been inflicted, and the number of the the Nazis victims' was so great that it could only be rounded off to the nearest six million, give or take. Why then, 77 years after VE Day, has fascism stirred back to life, this time in the countries that committed their militaries to defeat it? The easy answer is, people forget. And a lot of people enjoy hatred, especially hatred of difference. The irony of course is that the Nazis packaged and sold that hate as "patriotism" and "morality"—exactly how it's being sold today, right under the noses of people who would bristle at being called stupid, or oblivious. It's almost as though WW2 never happened, and the stories of horror and virtue that came out of it were nothing more than a late-night drunken rant in a bar, the name of which no one can remember. Please, please remember. This is how it occurs: one law change at a time, a scapegoating here or there, a culture war, the demonization of the press, and the recasting of history as "your opinion." You know whose opinion it was everything was going to be fine? Minorities in Germany in the early 1930s. Never forget how wrong they were.

Spring. Finally.

 

I never count spring as having arrived until the cherry blossoms on our tree decide to bloom. They bloomed last night. This is the first day of their admittedly short life. 

On the upside, spring has finally arrived. The cherry tree has spoken. 

Dexter behind the camera

Last night I spent some time on the telephone with my young friend Dexter, the 16-year old writer and filmmaker I've been mentoring since the fall of 2019.

Early that October, I'd met his mother on a cross-province train ride to a book signing in London, Ontario. She and I liked each other very much, and she told me that her son was an aspiring writer and filmmaker. I told her to bring him along to the signing the next day. Dexter and I hit it off like a house on fire, and I asked to see some of his work, which was excellent for his age.

Over the past two and a half years, I’ve been reading and critiquing his short stories and his screenplays, providing feedback and a sounding board, helping him take himself seriously as a young artist. He's made some ambitious short films during that time and, in fact, he won his first film award last year.

The film he shot this past weekend—which we debriefed last night—was done from an excellent, very short, very tight screenplay. When I first read it, I was struck by his evolving confidence and maturity. As a mentor, it was a moment of the purest pride to see the growth and progress of his ambition, skill, and vision.

For my own part, I’m also the product of mentors—life mentors, of course, but also literary ones. The gift of an older writer's time, skill, patience, encouragement, and nurturing is one that I’ve been honoured to pay forward with Dexter.

But honestly, the best part of this whole process is how much fun it is to work with such an unambiguously talented young artist. Calling him a “great kid” obviously has a shelf-date, because, even at 16, he’s showing signs of being the real deal, even though he is, absolutely, a great kid. But we should also remember his name, because he’s going places.

Caitlyn Jenner Never Fails to Disappoint

 

Last night, Caitlyn Jenner made her debut as a Fox contributor on Sean Hannity. She praised Ron DeSantis, and she praised Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law. She reminded Hannity that she was "trans, but not a trans activist," hinting that there was more anti-LGBT opprobrium from her to come. This morning I double-checked her "inspirational" 2015 ESPY Award speech—for which she receieved a standing ovation—because I could have sworn it was about the vulnerability of LGBT kids, and how they shouldn't have to "take" abuse from adults for who they were. Turns out it was about that, which makes her sickening descent into what she has become even more monstrous. Obviously that was the baggage she carried into her new life from her old life as a rich, bigoted, white Republican ex-jock. The sad thing is, she could have checked that baggage and never picked it back up again. She could have been a leader, and a lioness-protector. As long as I live, I will always harbour the deepest and most profound dislike of bullies, especially adult bullies of queer children. I come by that dislike honestly, and from first-hand experience. And unlike Ms. Jenner, when I say that kids shouldn't have to "take it," I mean it.

Shaw

 

"Here are some snapshots if you'd like to see them: Shaw helping Brian string Christmas lights along the edge of the roof of our house, then calling me outside to witness them being switched on. Shaw shovelling the snow, or cutting the grass without being asked; me bringing him out a glass of lemonade, or a bottle of water. Shaw inviting friends and girlfriends over for Sunday dinner, paying particular attention to whether or not they were showing Brian and I the correct level of respect. Shaw playing his ubiquitous, omnipresent acoustic guitar while I bustled about upstairs, or wrote in my study, the music drifting up through the air vents, never a distraction, always a comforting and peaceful reminder of his presence."

—from "Other Men's Sons" (2001)

Valentine, directed by my friend, Australian film director Jamie Blanks, was released on this day in 2001. I stayed with Jamie and his then-girlfriend (now wife) Simone at their beautiful rented condo in Vancouver while I was doing the interviews for the Fangoria article. I suppose 21 years ago is a very long time, but it seems even longer, and even more dizzying, when I remember how much fun it all was, writing for the world's premier horror film magazine, running around film sets with a notebook and a tape record, jumping on planes, working with friends in the particular innocent of that last, halcyon pre-9/11 cultural moment, after which nothing would ever be innocent again. I'm grateful for the memories.

Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2022

"Magnified and sanctified is the great name of God throughout the world, which was created according to Divine will. May the rule of peace be established speedily in our time, unto us and unto the entire household of Israel. And let us say: Amen.

"May God’s great name be praised throughout all eternity. Glorified and celebrated, lauded and praised, acclaimed and honored, extolled and exalted ever be the name of thy Holy One, far beyond all song and psalm, beyond all hymns of glory which mortals can offer. And let us say: Amen.

"May there be abundant peace from heaven, with life’s goodness for us and for all thy people Israel. And let us say: Amen.

"May the One who brings peace to the universe bring peace to us and to all the people Israel. And let us say: Amen."

—Mourner's Kaddish prayer

Winter night walk

This is one of the nights I most wish Beckett was still a baby.

The snow is falling softly and heavily in the park. It's not too cold, and sound is muffled everywhere. The snow shades the streetlights and park lights, making them glow like Japanese lanterns in the dark.

In the winter of 2014, when this picture was taken, I would have let him off his leash and aimed him in the direction of the snowy park. He would have run, leapt, gambolled, rolled, snuffled, and tunnelled. He was the fastest dog in the park in his youth, and he streaked through the snow like a mink-black horizontal avalanche.

The puppy of those winter nights is a far cry from the stately, dignified senior Labrador at the end of the leash tonight,

Beckett still buries his face in snowbanks in search of the perfect dollop of scent—his sense of smell is still extraordinary—but he walks cautiously and delicately now. He stays close. His eyes aren't what they used to be, and while he still considers snow and winter to be the most perfect natural miracle, everything is...shorter. Briefer. More poignant. More valuable.

He's happy to get out in the snow, and very happy to be back inside, in his bed by the fireplace.

I'm blessed to understand the place in the road in which he and I now find ourselves. I can see where there may soon be some sort of a bend. I pray it's not too close, but it enables me to easily remember how important time is—time for the soft, constant touch, time for the gentle, constant voice. Time for paying attention to his every reaction, which lets him know I'm nearby, and listening, and caring, and loving, and cherishing all the moments that make up all the snowy nights we still have together.

Mostly, reminding him that he's never, ever alone.

And on nights like tonight, when there are so many memories of so many other snowy nights, over so many years, in "his" park that they crowd in close like benign, bittersweet, ghosts, that's everything.

On this day in 2014

 

On this day in 2014, my dear friend Eliezenai Galvao, her husband Jean Douglas, and her two sons, Artur and Raul, became Canadian citizens. The ceremony was simple and powerful, with the judge reiterating the importance of our Canadian values of tolerance, and the embracing of diversity among our citizenry, in his welcome. The only thing more enduring than the respect and admiration I feel for this lady is my love for her, and for her family, especially her boys—both of whom have now graduated from the University of Toronto—whom I consider nephews of the heart. It was a proud day for me as a Canadian to be able to claim this wonderful family as fellow citizens. Oh, and it snowed—of course. Because Canada.

Teachers we've loved: Pierre Olivier, Collège du Léman, 1975

The teachers we've loved: Monsieur Pierre Olivier, a patrician John Houseman-type at Collège du Leman, circa 1975. Picture the Rector of Justin, but French. He insisted on Gallic professorial formality, but he gave it, too—we were all "monsieur" or "mademoiselle" to him. He never had to raise his voice in class. Forty-seven years later, I can still hear him say "Monsieur Rrrove" with a guttural French "r." He was never really interested in the English "w" but nonetheless made the whole thing sound like an unfurling banner. Notable also was that in the early 1970s, an era of breathtaking sartorial ugliness, he was always impeccably and classically attired. He enjoined us to become ladies and gentlemen, but we already instinctively knew we had the blueprint standing at the blackboard, lecturing us about French Equatorial Africa and occasionally teasing us in Latin.

Throwback Thursday, magazine edition: 13/1/22

TBT: One of my all-time favourite interviews, with author Terri McMillan, for The Advocate in 2005. A friend recently asked me if this had been a tough piece to write as a gay man—“unpacking,” in the modern parlance, the use of an anti-gay slur by a beloved novelist, doing it with empathy, professionalism, and the presumption of goodwill as the baseline; and, most importantly, with an honest commitment to the critical importance of context. The truth is, it wasn’t tough at all. In 2005, with social media still in its infancy, the reflexive appetite for outrage, and for the utter destruction of people’s lives and careers because of perceived sins and failings that would be the norm 17 years later, wasn’t yet part of the culture. We still asked lot of questions, and we were beholden to facts. For myself, I welcomed the idea of dialogue with McMillian, not only about language, but the context in which it’s used—in this case by a woman in great pain, feeling deeply betrayed, and under great duress, and who later profoundly regretted using the word. I found McMilllan warm, open, honest, vulnerable, profoundly decent, and certainly no homophobe—that latter impression backed up by her longtime friend, the late Black gay novelist E. Lynn Harris, whom I also interviewed for the piece, who described her as being "like a sister" to him. Indeed, what struck me most about McMillan was how little she needed to do the interview at all: by her own account, her fanbase couldn’t imagine why she was bothered by being called "a homophobe," going so far as to ask her “Who gives a shit what gay people think?” The fact that Terri McMillan was bothered, that she cared what gay people thought, that she was worried she had caused pain, and wanted to explain, made all the difference, and meant everything to me, both as a writer and as a gay man.