Happy Thanksgiving, Bro. I realize that you probably haven’t received the other letter I sent, but I’m feeling introspective today and wanted to talk. Jonathan’s family is here for Thanksgiving, and they’re all busy preparing a huge meal…it smells really good about now. We’re having the traditional feast: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, brown gravy, corn, green beans, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, candied yams with melted marshmallows on top, rolls and pumpkin pie with cool whip. I’m being somewhat selfish by keeping to myself upstairs, but you’ve been on my mind ever since your letter arrived last week. I wish you were here, so we could hide out in my room and, perhaps, crack open a bottle of Jack Daniels while we swap Thanksgiving stories. I know that probably sounds maudlin, but it gives you an idea of my mood as I compose this letter. The older I get, the more sentimental I become at holidays.

Do you get a Turkey dinner for Thanksgiving? I hope so, Bro. Whereas I understand that the holiday isn’t just about being a glutton—it’s also about family, being thankful and reminiscing about the past year, etc—but a heaping plate of turkey and all the trimmings sure does a body good. I suspect that it has more to do with the tradition than the actual food. Even though it’s been over 20 years since we had a huge Thanksgiving with my grandparents, aunts and cousins, I miss those days when we’d all be together.

It seems that my grandparent’s house was always ringing with laughter and stories. The women would all be in the kitchen, fussing over the food and talking—the women in our family have always been the storytellers. The men would gather around the tv in the living room for a ballgame. Unlike the women, they only talked about sports, work and politics. And I distinctly remember the thick smoke and pungent smell of my Uncle Danny’s cigar as it drifted through the house and the faint scent of whiskey on my Uncle Bobby’s breath. Uncle Bobby was always red faced and especially jolly on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The men in our family were never emotionally accessible. In fact, I don’t remember my Uncle Danny ever speaking directly to me until I was in my 30s, even though he was present at every single holiday. It always made me nervous to have to be in the same room with the men, because there was an expectation that men were supposed to talk about hunting and football and women—all the things I wasn’t the least bit interested in and knew very little about. I distinctly remember when my cousin Timmy reached a certain age where he stopped playing with me and my brother and took up residence with the men. Timmy played football and ran track in high school, and he went on to join a fraternity in college. The transition was an easy move for him, but I never quite got there. I was always more comfortable swapping stories and talking shop in the kitchen.

Timmy, Cyd and I were inseparable back then. Come Thanksgiving, we were either camped out in the bedrooms upstairs or playing outside. We would play war and The Dukes of Hazard for hours on end, and the best place to play both of those games was in the colored graveyard next to the woods, which shared the property line with my Grandparents. The gravestones made for perfect shields against imaginary bullets, and the nearby woods seemed to have been designed with last minute retreats or surprise attacks in mind. There was also a huge mound of discarded plastic flowers and Styrofoam cubes in the far left corner, next to the woods, that was great for mountain climbing expeditions and archeology adventures. And the creek on the far side of the woods is where we would spend hours building a dam out of rocks in order to pool up the water until it was at least knee deep. Then, we’d come storming out of the woods, screaming battle cries and knocking over the fruits of our labor. We’d be gone so long that our parents would send the girls to find us, and we were always disappointed to put our war on hold just to eat. I suppose this is why I get so frustrated with young people today, who are always complaining that they’re bored and have nothing to do. What ever happened to the days when kids didn’t have to be forced to play outside? I suppose that was before computers and video games replaced imaginations.

As I stated before, our family doesn’t get together much anymore. Both of my grandparents have passed away, and it seems that each of our families have drifted into their own individual holiday traditions. Timmy has four kids of his own now and is getting ready to become a grandparent. He’s recently took over Uncle Danny’s sawmill and is a deacon at the Campbellsville Baptist Church. I really have very little in common with my cousins. In fact, the last time I saw Timmy was at my grandmother’s funeral, which was almost a decade ago. I saw my cousin Linda at the hospital, when I had my tonsils removed, and that was
because she’s a nurse’s aide. She didn’t even realize it was me until she walked in the room to take my temperature. My two aunts generally swing by the apartment twice a year—for Willow and Audrey’s birthdays. I know that it’s common for extended families to splinter and grow apart as marriages take place and grandchildren arrive on the scene, but it sure makes me sentimental for the old days. It also makes me wonder what the holidays will be like once my parents are gone. It used to scare me to think about spending the rest of my life alone, but Jonathan showed up and changed all that. I realize there are no guarantees in life, but it’s times like these that I regret never having kids. I imagine there’s a certain comfort in knowing that a part of you will be left to carry on your stories and traditions once you’re gone.

—resumed a couple of hours later

Well, the feast is over and Thanksgiving has once again come and gone. It never ceases to amaze me that we spend so much money, effort and time preparing a meal and then gorge it down in twenty minutes or less. I suspect that the essence of the holiday is really in the meticulous preparation, which leaves one plenty of time to contemplate all that he or she has to be thankful for. The meal, on the other hand, is the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. As with most holidays, it’s actually the rituals and traditions that mean the most. And I must say that this Thanksgiving will probably rank up there as one of the more special ones, as I spent the holiday away from my nuclear family but with my in laws. It was also the first time that Jonathan and I provided the food and hosted the meal, which makes me feel like I’ve finally graduated to manhood and should be allowed to take my proper place in the living room, with the men folk.

This year is also memorable because I have so much to be thankful for. Not only do I have a wonderful relationship with my family, but I’ve finally reached a place in my life where I’m comfortable with who and what I am. My family accepts me wholeheartedly, and I have two wonderful nieces who love me unconditionally. I’ve finally been lucky enough to find love and to begin establishing my own familial traditions and memories. And in this horrible economy, I have a job with a company that just keeps expanding and growing. I truly feel as though I’ve finally reached adulthood, and that I’ll be alright when the time comes for my parents to move on. Not that I’m in any hurry for them to go, but I’m less scared by the idea. I’m very grateful for all the special family memories of holidays and family relationships. Despite the dysfunction, I never once doubted that I was loved, and without me even realizing it, all those eccentric family members taught me the importance of family and what it truly means to become a man. As usual, I took a few trips down some winding roads before I reached that conclusion, but life has a way of eventually getting us back on track.

Well, I realize that this is a short letter, but I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you and chatting on Thanksgiving. I can’t wait to hear some of your own holiday memories. I miss reading your dreams and adventures. You have such a compelling voice as a writer and a creative knack for storytelling. Take care and write soon.

That’s absurd, right? We’re everywhere. Plus, it’s not like gay couples don’t vacation in The Great Smokey Mountains. Pigeon Forge is home to Dollywood, after all, and the streets are literally lined with dinner theatres and outlet stores. I understand that this particular vacation spot is in Appalachia, and that Southerners, in general, are not as liberal-minded when it comes to matters of diversity as, say, people from New York, but this is The Most Visited National Park in the United States, with literally millions of visitors from all over the world passing through these streets on an annual basis. One would think that the local vendors, much like the vendors of New Orleans, would have become more accommodating by osmosis.

In their defense, the Queer community is just as invisible in other aspects of mainstream culture. I mean it’s not like I can buy a gay pride t-shirt at Walmart or receive a K-Mart flyer in the mail with a same-sex couple or a transman on the front. In fact, far too many small town residents still think of us as being “Those people from San Francisco” or “That one oddball guy at work;” and issues such as Same-sex Marriage are considered liberal social battles being played out in blue states up North. Many Southerners mistakenly assume that these battles never affect the people here.

The point I’m trying to make is twofold. For starters, it’s time for retailers to start assuming the social responsibilities that accompany all the wealth and power that we, as consumers, give them. Think about it. If companies are willing to pay millions of dollars for a three-second ad during the Super Bowl, it stands to reason that marketing influences people, and that an effective advertising campaign could very easily alter the public’s perceptions of the queer community. Companies such as McDonald’s are already airing successful gay-themed ads in places like France and Switzerland, and many American companies, such as Bud Light, have been advertising in gay media and sponsoring pride events for decades. But the question remains, which companies will be innovators who publicly embrace and celebrate the lgbtq community?

And my other point is that we, as queers, need to speak out against these injustices whenever and wherever possible. The time to be invisible and to simply settle for second best is over. It may seem petty at times, but we need to remain diligent in coming out of our closets whenever the opportunity presents itself, and we need to encourage our elected officials and our celebrated celebrities to do the same. We also need to put our money where our mouth is, so to speak. For instance, Jonathan and I just spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $700 on a three-day getaway to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, where the “Family Vacation” mentality prefers that we remain invisible–the place where our money doesn’t warrant fighting for, because, apparently, we’ll keep spending it there whether they embrace our diversity or not. I realize now, after it’s too late, that I should have voiced my disappointment to the clerk at Old Timey Photos, and that I should never be so complacent in my invisibility.

But trust me, I’ll remember it the next time I schedule a vacation…

Our meeting didn’t go so well. D spent the majority of our time at the restaurant on his iphone, negotiating deals with real estate agents and contractors. He bragged about his elaborate vacations to exotic locations and the former classmates (cheerleaders and socialites who wouldn’t give D the time of day in high school) that were now his friends. He also managed to inform me of how much money he was alloted each month as an expense account, his checkbook balance, the resale value of his home and how much his company relied on him in order to stay in business. In fact, he only paused long enough to inquire two simple questions concerning my life and job, but even those responses were interrupted by a text message and then a phone call. After informing the waitress that the food and her service were both inadequate, D made a huge production over using his company card to pay for the meal, and then he invited me to tour his home. I accepted, thinking that my friend might actually loosen up and talk once we were in private.

D’s house is gorgeous. During the tour, he talked about how a photographer had been commissioned to take the photos on the wall and a professional artist had painted the murals in his kid’s bedrooms. He explained, in pain-staking detail, the elimination process for choosing the color and theme for each room. He pointed out the jacuzzi, the vaulted ceilings, the personalized molding, the pool and the fireplace in the master bedroom. Actually, the only things D didn’t point out were toys, keepsakes, pictures of grandparents and indications that this was, in fact, a place where people lived and not a replica for tours just like this one.

It shouldn’t surprise me that D places so much value on material possessions. He came from a very poor family, and his mother was (in his own words) “a psychotic Jehovah’s Witness who thought it was a sin to celebrate birthdays and Christmas.” He even confided once that, after graduation, his family expected him to work and to pay all the bills while they sat at home and did nothing. My first memory of D is as the eighth grader who had to remain seated while the rest of us said the Pledge of Allegiance. Our teacher later explained that D’s religion (his mother’s religion actually) forbade him to pledge allegiance to anyone or anything other than to God. D alternated wearing the same two or three outfits throughout four years of high school.

When I finally announced that it was time for me to leave, D became visibly agitated. He explained that my text messages suggested that we were going to do more than just talk, and that he’d paid for lunch on the assumption that he was going to “get something in return.” I tried my best to be stern in clearing up any misconceptions that I might have caused. D wouldn’t have it though, and as I walked toward the door, he began to grope me and to unfasten my belt. I pushed D away and reprimanded him again, and then his eyes welled up with tears. He apologized by saying that he’d never been with a man before, and that he didn’t want his first time to be with a stranger, who might take advantage of him. I felt sympathy for D at that moment. I’d faced the same coming out process twenty years earlier and can only imagine how much more difficult the challenges would be at his age.

The sex that I had with D was aggressive and awkward. He not only violated every stipulation I made, but he critiqued and criticized my performance as we went along, as if it were his mission to shame me. And when my body didn’t respond to this onslaught, he criticised my manhood as well. I actually got up to leave a number of times, at which point D would beg me to give him another chance. When it was all finally over, D instantly became cold and aloof, and he promptly escorted me out of the house before I could even put my shirt back on or wash up in the bathroom. I received several text messages on the way home. One message to warn against disclosing what had just happened; another inquiring if I was “alright,” as though D might have actually experienced a moment of regret. I didn’t respond to either of the messages.

I hope D finds peace and happiness one day. I really do. As a gay man, I understand the need for acceptance, and how important the confrontation with demons can be to one’s personal development. But honestly, it never occurred to me that I had been stumbling head first into an exorcism.

Forbidden Fruit can be succulent, but I prefer bitter sweets. Seek me at the crossroads round midnight. I’ll be the horned buck with the blank stare.

The lure of your flesh is mesmerizing; the scent of your sex a drug. I sense your animal urges. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I’ve done this before.

This may sting a bit at first, but it won’t leave a scar…

Shall we begin?

As for how this all fits together in my mind, for some time now I’ve seen myself as a wizard. As an archetype, the magician, which is among other things a wizard, is that part of the psyche that overcomes the intellectual challenges in life. It is the creativity of the inventor, inspiration, and that part that seeks answers to burning questions. Also, for me, a wizard develops their ability to effect change in the world, which covers artist and scholar, but I think that it sums up “therapist” best of all.

I naturally identify with the well known wizards, like Gandalf, as portrayed by Sir Ian McKellum in “The Lord of the Rings” movies. He embodies the wisdom of the elder, something that I find more and more comforting as I leave my twenties further and further behind. Also, McKellum invests the role with a quirky sense of humor and a touch of the eccentric.

Those traits are brought even further to the front in the wizard Dumbledore, from the “Harry Potter” books and films. In addition to the sense of whimsy, he has a very kind demeanor, and assumes a fatherly role with Harry. For me, he is very much an image of my inner parent, to use the language of transactional analysis.

However, these days I find myself very strongly identified with The Doctor from the British show “Doctor Who”. His profound intelligence and ability ability to manipulate events, to mention to bend time, space, and physics to his will, mark him as an expression of the magician archetype. The character is also very funny and very eccentric. This is best expressed, I think, by the portrayals of the Doctor by Tom Baker and Patrick Troughton, but I find myself even able to identify with the drier, more “straight” performance of John Pertwee. (I’ve always had a thing for mod clothing).

However, the main reason I identify with the Doctor is that he continually reinvents himself.

This last year of school my practicum experience has taught me several important lessons, perhaps the greatest lessons I’ve learned in graduate school. The first lesson, which also reveals my growth area, is what I think of as translation. While gender, sexuality and queer practices are a part of every person’s life and work, it takes a degree of finesse to meet the client where they are. While I possess strong communication skills, taking knowledge out of the academic setting into the everyday is a skill I will continue to hone. My experience in the Women and Gender Studies department has echoed and supported this awareness. By imposing my own understandings and my own language upon another person I can easily alienate them, subverting the entire relationship. What is important is that I bring the skills I have to the situation, which includes my knowledge and understanding, but that I don’t become burdened by terminology or my own expectations. To meet the client where they are means using a language they can understand and in a way that is helpful to them.

This brings me to my other great lesson, which is also the most important lesson I learned in graduate school, which is to bring all of myself to the situation. That means, for me, taking the risk to own my uniqueness, my humor, my passions, and my interests, in other words, to be as authentic as possible. The more that I was able to own who I was with confidence, the more confident I became as a practitioner. Every significant step that happened this semester occurred because I took ownership of the process, trusting my own judgment, and playing to my own strengths. At the same time, I learned that therapy isn’t about me, it is about the client. The skill is to be able to bring my strengths to the client, to be authentic, while maintaining professional boundaries.

And, of course, I need to organizised.