Representation matters in life and one of the reasons behind Black History Month and months dedicated to specific groups is to ensure that contributions to history, art, culture, politics, etc are added to our greater understanding of human history. It is a fantastic opportunity to broaden your horizons and discover wonderful new facts, books, and films or in the case of this post: music.

Soul music is a genre where most people think of Aretha, Gladys Knight, Chaka Khan or Patti Labelle. Oh and you should because they are absolutely fierce along with so many others.

I am one of those people that love a musical exploration. Say what you will about streaming sites but they have led me to some of my favourite singers and bands of all time. I though go the step further and seek out the vinyl albums of those artists. Soul in particular has a depth on vinyl you won’t find digitally.

This Black History Month post is dedicated to two singers that I found along the way. They may not be as well known to you (or they might).

Marlena Shaw has been singing since the 1960’s and is one of those singers whose songs have been sampled by many hip hop artists, used in commercials and famously sampled in Blue Boy’s 1997 “Remember Me.” One of her biggest hits to date was “California Soul” written by Ashford & Simpson. It appeared on her 1969 The Spice of Life album. If you want an introduction to Marlena, look no further than this album. Shaw co-wrote the first track “Woman of the Ghetto” which is the first track and the sound of her voice mixed the power of the lyrics makes this song one that could be released today and its message is still relevant. Possibly even more so given the Black Lives Matter Movement. This album also contains songs written by Carole King, Barry Mann, Bobby Miller, Cynthia Weil and others which Shaw performs with power more than vulnerability. “I Wish I Knew (How It Would Feel to be Free)” will have you spinning and singing along to her call.   

I can’t recommend her enough. To start you off listen to “Woman of the Ghetto.”

Ann Sexton (not to be confused with the writer) has also been performing since the 1960’s. Whereas Marlena came from New York, Ann’s roots are in Southern gospel. Her 1977 album The Beginning is how I fell in love with her voice. It’s not just that her voice can fill a room and that she can convey her emotions so that you feel them. It’s that her style very much feels like that friend of yours at 1am who is helping you get through a rough time, or needs you to listen to her going through a rough time. She don’t want answers, no, she wants an ear. Too often we forget that most of us just need someone to listen  to us rather than solve our problems for us.  The opening track “I Had A Fight With Love” will have you moving and feeling her groove. Where her vocal mastery shines is on the tracks “I’m His Wife (You’re Just A Friend)” and the sultry longing in “I Want to Be Loved.” That last track was made for 3am, when the world is quiet and you can feel all the power of the Witching Hour.

Have a listen to “I Want to Be Loved” and tell me what you think.

Till next post...

Coming Out
John, Cornwall, UK
(formerly, New York, NY)

I knew I liked men before I knew what to call it or that it was an issue for some people. I don't think we ever stop coming out, that is the sad reality for us even with all the progress we have made. That said, I do like to mix it up at times when asked if I am gay. Sometimes I'll respond "only on days that end in y," or "only during months that end on the 30th or 31st." When asked about February, a sly wink and silence is a sure way to continue the humor. My "grand" coming out was a two part event separated by about 6 months. I came out to my friends in 1992, I was 15 and the day I decided to tell my best friends in high school was April Fool's Day.

That was not intentional.

I met my friends on the bus as I did every morning and I knew that it had to be then. I had been carrying around secrets the last month, things at home were not that great because my mother and stepfather were always fighting, our relationship was problematic to say the very least. As a result, my friends were like my family. We told each other everything and hung out all the time. The month before I came out though I distanced myself as I had discovered the West Village as well as cruising areas.

So that morning, instead of going to homeroom and first period, we went to the diner near school and over coffee I told them that I was bisexual because I thought that would be easier for them to digest. They of course reminded me it was April Fool's Day and it was only after seeing my face that they realised that I wasn't joking. The thing is, I was still lying. I wasn't bisexual, I knew I was gay and so within days I was truthful about being a gay man. I was very lucky at how supportive they were. Nothing changed with them and in fact, our bond became stronger because we were back to no secrets.

I had always had issues fitting in at school from being the class nerd, the teacher's pet, too skinny and picked on for looking weak. When I told two friends who didn't go to the same high school as me, they suggested that I meet another guy from their school who had also come out. I think it was an attempt at a set up but I agreed and it was hanging out with him and his gay friends that I was introduced to the Hetrick Martin Institute (a gay youth center in the West Village) and BiGLYNY (Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Youth of New York). I also went to my first gay bar, Uncle Charlie's at the tender age of 15 with the world's worst fake ID bought for $20 in Times Square.

I started to live two very different lives, one in The Bronx which was closeted save for a few close friends who knew and one downtown, especially on Saturdays when BiGLYNY met at The Center on 13th Street. In Manhattan I was out and proud while at home I was isolating myself from my family by not being honest. My dad died when I was 9 and so my mom was the only parental figure in my life. She was both mom and dad to me. I was also mama's boy so it hurt both of us that I was distant. Truth is, I was afraid. I was afraid of what honesty would do to an already strained mother/son relationship.

During that time I became more involved with BiGLYNY and made friends who are still like family to me. Everyone was at various stages of coming out and their stories were just as diverse. I was fully immersed in the gay scene, going to clubs, sneaking back into our apartment through the fire escape at 5am. I stayed away from home for days, sometimes with my then boyfriend, or with friends, or with whoever I picked up. I lied to my mother and said I was staying with friends from school but that was never the case. In addition to my youth group, I had a circle of friends who were artists in the East Village, they were part of the more alternative scene within the gay scene and introduced me to different types of music, modern art, and leant me books that were subversive and thought provoking. They were responsible for "gayducation."

As I became stronger and prouder, it became harder and harder to go back into the closet at home. At one of our weekly BiGLYNY meeting's I began discussing with a then friend about coming out to my mother. The first thing he said was make sure I have a place lined up to stay that night and for a few days after, and make sure I have some money just in case. I hadn't thought about the reality of the situation till then even though I knew from the group that some were living in shelters, or with friends because they were thrown out. I hadn't thought that that was a possibility.

I had very little money saved but a friend of mine from high school offered to help me out if I needed it and a place to stay for a few days. I then arranged to stay with a few other friends as my then boyfriend had been at college on Long Island so living together was not an option. In retrospect, it was very organized.

One September evening I got home late after spending the afternoon going through my plan with a few friends. The only thing I knew as I opened that door into our apartment was that I had a place to go to, a bag packed under my bed and about $300.

I called out for my mother as soon as I walked in and she answered back from the bathroom. I didn't even ask her if I could go in, I just barged in while she was on the toilet and said "I need to tell you something."
She looked at me surprise. "Now is not the time."
"Yes it is."
She looked at me as if to say "fine."
"Mom, I'm gay."
She sat there in silence.
I said it again, just in case she hadn't heard it. "Mom, I'm gay." I began to tear up because as I heard the words I said, I felt like I had disappointed her. I had let her down for not being the son she had always thought I was.
She looked down at the floor and then up at me. "Huh, well I knew you were having sex with men but I didn't think you were gay."
Now it was my turn to be shocked. "What? How did you know?"
She gave me an all knowing look, you know the ones that mother's give you when they are onto your bullshit. "Johnny, not a single girl has called this house in months except for Gaby and I know you are not having sex with her." This was and remains true. Gaby and I have been best friends since we were 13.
She then asked me to turn around while she got up from the toilet and I stood there expecting the worse. Waiting for her to explode but she put her arms around me and said "I love you." I broke down into tears. Tears of joy this time.
I turned around and she gave me a kiss on the cheek, wiped tears from my eyes and then asked, "you're not going to start wearing women's clothes now, are you?"
I let out a laugh. "I'm gay, not a drag queen."
She smiled and said, "Ok." Years later she did see a photo of me in drag and thought I looked pretty but that is another story.

Our relationship became stronger after coming out and continued to strengthen until her death in 1998. She protected me from the homophobic rants of my stepfather and was always proud of me. She became a maternal figure to all of my friends and there was always a place at her table for any one of them.
​
I am eternally grateful for who she was and not a day goes by that I do not thank the stars that my coming out experience was positive. I know so many people who weren't as lucky and I never take that for granted. Not even now twenty five years later.

Below is the full text of St Mark's Ghost as read on E43: Inspiration Under Lockdown. Click here for full podcast. 

St. Mark’s Ghost

way he laughed, you could tell they had history. Did they know each other from the clubs? High school? Either way, it didn’t matter. He knew them well enough to join them. It was the magic of the city. You could belong if you really wanted to.

He gave Mikey a look and this time he looked directly at him. His eyes lowered as if he knew Mikey’s secret.

Without further thought, Mikey knew what would happen next. The young man would hang out with the girls before heading back to his friend’s house up the street. They would get high with weed bought in Alphabet City and watch from the rooftop as sundown lit the street below up.

His stomach growled and the young man disappeared, as did everything else. Like a screen wipe in those films that kept him up at night. Mikey looked around and he was stood in front of Chipotle. He could see the sign for Gem Spa and Andromeda but not much else was familiar.

The street was sanitised now,  you could almost eat off them. He felt the hunger pangs again but he didn’t want Chipotle. He thought of a slice but even St. Mark’s Pizza was gone. It too was consigned to history along with all the friends who once called that street home. Friends whose voices he could barely remember as the years passed.

Mikey heard the thunder above, within minutes the city streets would be drenched and umbrellas would cost $10. The temperature would remain and so would the stickiness. He headed towards Second Avenue. He knew that Veselka’s Borscht and their perogies would ground him again. Each taste of hearty Ukrainian food would let him wander through the rooms in his mind. He would see birthdays, first dates and smiles from a time he could never forget.

Why else had he headed to the East Village? 

Before I begin, I want to say a massive thank you to all the health professionals out there saving lives. A massive thank you to all front line and essential workers who are keeping the World going. There is not enough money in the world to put a value on your service right now. We know that what you get now is not enough. We have to remember this the next time we are at the ballot box.
 
So what has been up here?
 
Well prior to the lockdown, I broke two of my toes so I was pretty much housebound for a month before the actual lockdown order was issued. You would think that hubby and I would be used to this especially after working from home for 10 years now but we’re not.
 
None of this normal, it shouldn’t feel normal and I don’t ever want it to feel normal. I want to know that until a vaccine is made or we get this virus under control, that we are all doing our part to remain safe, not infect others and to have a good look at ourselves and our relationship with this planet.
 
Because of this, like many of you, I have had my good days and bad days. At first, I felt bad about feeling bad. I kept seeing things about how we should use this time to do this, do that. It was adding unnecessary stress and as a result, I made a video in response (insert link).
 
Truth is, none of this is normal and if you write a masterpiece, great, if not, look after yourself. It’s a pandemic not a sabbatical.
 
That said…
 
The revised edition of Lu’s Outing was published in February 2020. I can’t tell you how wonderful the feedback on the revised edition has been. In addition, I have posted a few readings from Lu’s Outing which are available on my Facebook Videos here. 
 
My next book The Deadbeat Club will be available next month. It is currently with the editors and although it was a struggle the last few months to polish it off, being able to go back into the world of Lu and Si, made it worthwhile. The Deadbeat Club is novel length for those who wanted more after reading Lu’s Outing. The story picks up a few months after the end of Lu’s Outing. Lu still adorably clueless but learning to love himself through friendship, support and humour. 
 
With The Deadbeat Club out soon, it is a great time to subscribe to my newsletter as I will be offering the first chapter for free to those on my list. Please subscribe here.
 
In addition to working on my books, one of my stories, “Sleeping Dogs” will appear in the May edition of Triangle Writers Magazine from Breaking Rules Publishing. I am very excited about this upcoming publication. “Sleeping Dogs” is a story that is very dear to me. It is written in a style that I love to write in. Please head over to their site. You can support them and me here. .
 
I have also released previously short stories with new original artwork. I understand that with the world in the state that it is in, it may be difficult to focus for long periods of time. So if you do need a 10 minute break, please have a look at my Authors Page here. 
 
This pandemic has pushed me out of my comfort zone and one of the things that I have been enjoying is posting videos online. Like many writers, I prefer to hide behind the page. That said, I look forward to posting them now. If I am wearing a baseball cap it’s because my hair is a mess. If you want to see them, be sure to like my page on Facebook or follow me on Instagram. 
 
Finally, if you have read any of my work and can spare the time to review it, please either use Goodreads, Amazon or just tag me on a social media post. In these uncertain times, visibility is so important for an independent artist and every little thing you do, can make a huge difference to us.
 
Stay safe, stay healthy and most importantly, if you don’t need to go out…stay the fuck at home (the pandemic has me in touch with my Bronx roots, so I have been dropping the F word like a M****ha fucker).

I was a sensitive child, very attuned to things around me and prone to spontaneous tears. The kids picked on me for being weak and called me mantequilla (butter).  I had this sense for as long as I could remember that there was destruction on the horizon. I developed a voracious appetite for history and current events. It's one of the reasons today I find myself so angry at what I see happening around me. The more I want to throw my hands in the air and say I don't care, the more I care. I am stuck in this vicious cycle.

My mother used to find me sitting deep in thought and say to me,  no piensas mucho nene, que te pones viejo (Don't think too much or you'll grow old).

I remember crying as I watched on TV the Fall of the Berlin Wall. The Scorpion's Wind of Change would become the sound bite for this historic event. It was one of the first times I remember crying out of happiness. My mother didn't quite understand. After all, what did it matter for a Puerto Rican boy in the Bronx that Germany was to be unified? I don't think I even understood fully why it mattered but I knew that it did. I remember whistling along to that famous intro of the Scorpions hit on my walkman for weeks. I remember thinking that we as in my generation were the children of tomorrow. I felt the anxiety I had growing up during those last days of the Cold War give way to hope. That the world that lay ahead would be better than the one I was born into.

That I would one day find myself living in a unified Germany and in former West Berlin was something I couldn't foresee. It wasn't a thought I had as I watched on TV, people climb over the wall in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Every time I cycled through Potsdamer Platz and through the Brandenburg Gate as an adult, I couldn't forget that this was not possible when I was born.

In 2011, I had to fly to London to meet with my PhD supervisor. I returned on the night flight to Tegel and got into a taxi. My German was just good enough to tell the driver where I was going and have a basic conversation. He had the radio tuned to Berliner Rundfunk, a favourite station of mine and one that shared a name with the former DDR propaganda programme. Tegel was firmly in what was once West Berlin and we were living in Kreuzberg, not too far from Templehof. Our area had once bordered the wall on three sides. It was a haven for the undesirables of the West, a perfect place for us to call home. On the way home, the radio played Wind of Change and as we drove through old West Berlin to my home, I thought of that little boy who cried at the fall of the Berlin Wall. That little boy who had no idea he would live in a unified Berlin one day. I thought about the man I had become who remained committed to the unity he was a part of in Europe. I didn't cry though, I smiled because I was happy to be home.

By 2014, we had made the decision to return to the UK from Berlin for a short period of time. We rented a house in Cornwall and within 6 months had decided that we wanted to swap life in the city for life in the country.

Last year, my niece had come to the UK to play with her football team in an international tournament. I had booked the morning flight from Newquay to London to spend the day and night with her and her teammates. It was dark as I set out in my Mazda MX-5 that September morning. I had been listening to some classic rock compilation as I drove up the A30 which was dark, lonely, and almost surreal. The Wind of Change was on that compilation and I burst into tears as I was driving. They just kept falling and I had to pull the car to one side. As the words played through my speakers, I couldn't hold back the sadness, the rage, the hope I had seen fleeing since the EU Referendum and the election of Trump. Events that continued to chip away at my view of the world, humanity and the growing anxiety I felt about the future.

Last week, we had the massive landslide election of the Conservatives and with it a definitive exit from the EU that none of us can stop. It was an election like none I had witnessed here or even in Europe in the near 20 years I have been here.  So many lies and so much hatred have infected our politics and we are more divided now than we ever were.  The wind of change had blown the opposite way here in the UK as it had done in the US.

Facebook memories this week brought up the Scorpion's Wind of Change a few times and I thought about how I have been living, how I have been thinking and the continual questioning of what next? My running joke and commentary on the times we are living in has been: These are hard times for Fiction writers.

They are indeed.

At the moment, it feels all hopeless. Things will get a bit worse before they get better which is why it is so important for our voices to be heard. We have witnessed extraordinary attacks on diversity and multiculturalism which is why it is so important to continue to write those stories, to share experiences and to put our words out there.

2020 vision is clarity. The year 2020 can be that as well. As we witness an inward turn, let us ensure that all art forms remain outward. Let us ensure that the diversity that is the human tapestry becomes the shining light in this dark sea.

Let us remember as writers, artists and as humans that the wind has changed directions but that she can and will change again.

I have been thinking a lot about identity this Pride month. I still have this automatic affinity to New York Pride even though I haven't lived in the city for 19 years and this year with Stonewall 50 and World Pride held in New York, it is hard not to think of the city, even if you have never been there.

I remember my first ever Pride. There was an atmosphere like I had never experienced before. Same sex couples holding hands and kissing in areas that any other day of the year would lead to harassment or worse. It was exciting. There was a fusion of politics, anger, humour and music in what seemed like an endless procession down Fifth Avenue towards the Christopher Street Piers, which even in the early 90's remained a symbol of urban decay, freedom and destitution. It was a crumbling sanctuary for many of us and although I am under no illusion of the safety and reality of what it was like on those piers, I also know that it remains a part of my story, my experience and my personal narrative.  

There's this bizarre belief in this world and an active push to put us all into neat categories and create one story for that category. To create one experience to create a neat and tidy story that makes sense to the outside world. For as long as I can remember, I was different. I felt different. I looked different. I was told I was different. When I came out at the age of 15, I finally felt like I belonged somewhere because I met others who were different and embraced being different. My friends did not try to emulate one another, they were their own productions and there existed a space where all the things we each brought to the table were able to coexist. I fitted in because there was room for me to fit in.

It may seem at times that I can romanticise or even pine for a simpler time but that is too simplistic of a brush to paint me with. I would never want to go back to the days when my rights did not exist. The days before I was able to legally marry my husband. I am lucky that we now live in a time where we shouldn’t have to worry about the life we have lived together being erased because there are no legal protections in place. These things were a reality when I came out. Scarier still, they could become a reality once again in the US with the GOP's face lift of the judiciary system whilst the world is distracted by tweets. They could become a reality in the UK with its impending exit from the European Union. I don't believe those times were simpler. I think getting older and remembering your youth can at times fool you into thinking life was simpler.

When I think about Pride and Identity, I reflect on that road I have travelled since I came out in 1992. Three years ago, when the Pulse shooting occurred, I struggled to comprehend anything. The fact that it was targeted at not just LGBTQ+ but also that the majority of the clientele were Puerto Ricans left me feeling isolated in a way I had not felt before. This was not helped by the lack of compassion from the highest office in the US. Not since Reagan refused to utter a word on the AIDS crisis had a President shown such a disdain for other Americans, and continues to do so.

I still struggle to comprehend and I watch with growing horror on social media how divided the LGBTQ community has become. Perhaps we were always that way. I don't know, as I mentioned earlier, sometimes your youth can fool you into remembering a "simpler time." Perhaps even because my LGBTQ+ circle is diverse that I don't often see the divisions as clearly, but when I do, it angers me. It reminds me of the hatred that is directed towards us, except that more and more the threats are coming from within the community. All you have to do is look at the treatment of our Trans & Bi members. Just this weekend in Penzance, we had a case of vandalism directed at our Trans community by self identified gay men who feel that Trans representation has no place in Pride. On a simpler level is the tension between masculine v. feminine all too common amongst gay men.

I am lucky that my circle is not just diverse LGBTQ+ wise but also in that I have many close friends who are heterosexual. It can sometimes fool you into thinking that the world as a whole has become accepting, that we are done fighting. We are told it is just a minority of people, right wing, whatever who have an issue with us. If it is a minority, it is an armed, mobilised minority and that they are that organised should frighten not just the LGBTQ+ community but all of us. All of us who want to live and love in peace.

Over the years my own identity has evolved to include multiple passports, languages, and experiences: extra layers on already layered identity. It is a reminder that I still don't always fit neatly into one category.  Sorry world, you’ll never put me into your nice little category that you can file away on a shelf. If I had to sum myself up in one word, how I identify, it would most likely be Queer. Even so, that label still causes debate in the community. It is one that some embrace, it is one that others reject. It does though create a dialogue which is what I feel we have lost sight of during Pride. Dialogue is a nice change from the shouting at one another that has become the norm.

I'm reminded often of a childhood memory.

When I was a kid, all the other boys at school had these black Adidas sneakers (or trainers if you must), and they were the coolest thing that year. I begged my mother for a pair and she said, "Why do you want something that all the other kids have? Why don't you choose something different? Something just for you."

I didn't want to be different and she reluctantly bought me the sneakers. When I finally got my pair, the kids had moved onto a new style and I was stuck with something that was now un-cool. I was made fun of, and this was on top of the usual bullying for being too skinny, a sissy, a cry baby or their favourite word, mantequilla (butter).

I wish I had listened to my mother but I didn't.

What I learned though as I grew up is that there is no point in fitting in. The system of fitting in is about conformity. Conformity is about control. Control is about subjugation. What used to be something outside of the LGBTQ+ community and Pride, has become a driving force within and that is what saddens me about Pride today. It can sometimes feel like Pride and the community as a whole has become a living parody of Mean Girls, “You can’t sit with us.”
My first Pride experiences were about standing out. I saw all walks of life present and accounted for. Most comically, one year were the "Gays Against Brunch." It was what made me feel Proud because that was what I felt when I came out. I had found a place I could stand out and be myself. I could be that awkward kid who was different and that was okay. In fact, that was more than okay, it was fantastic.

We don't have to fully understand one another but we have to remember what unites us. The one thing we all have in common is that to a homophobe, or anyone who wants to hurt us, is that we are all the same to them. Their goal is to hurt and destroy us because we live as we do or because we exist.

This is why we need to stand together and protect one another. When one of us is attacked, we are all under threat.

Pride should be a reminder of all that we have fought against and all we still have to fight for, together.

27 years ago today, I came out of the closet. I was 15. I have written many times about my coming out experience so this year I thought about a different approach. If you haven't read my coming out experience, you can do so here.

27 years ago, I never thought I would be legally married to a man. I never thought I would live in a country where my rights are protected by law. I never thought LGBT+ would be as visible as it is today. 

I came out at a time where many gay bars still had blacked out windows. 

I have watched our community in that time unite for a March on Washington, fight for marriage equality and human rights around the globe. 

I have seen the cracks emerge in our community that threaten us from within: racism, misogyny, trans-phobia, complacency and its own impossible beauty and youth standards.

I once thought that being gay was just one aspect of me, that it didn't matter in the grand scheme of who I am and to an extent that is a true, I don't think I have ever been known just as "gay John."

27 years has taught me that so much of who I am is because I am a gay man. My experience and my sexuality are intrinsically intertwined. My own legal and immigration hurdles have been based on my being a gay man. If I were a straight man, my life would be different, very different.

27 years has taught me how important it is to be counted.

The world today is going backwards and those of us who lived and loved in the pre-marriage equality days understand exactly what this means.

Brunei has introduced death by stoning for homosexuality. Let that sink in. A nation has decided as a whole to actively murder homosexuals or suspected homosexuals.

Chechnya has created concentration and torture camps. Its own leader is imploring parents to kill their own children if they suspect them of being gay. 

Malaysia is denying LGBT+ persons even exist.. 

Brazil elected a President who is instituting reforms to turn the clock back on LGBT and women's' rights. It's own President was elected on a platform that included him admitting he would rather have a dead son than a gay one. 

The Trump administration is appointing judges at a pace quicker than the piling indictments; to ensure that evangelical and right wing ideology spreads like a cancer through the judicial system. 

The chaos of Brexit has put into doubt what LGBT+ protections the UK would retain in a post EU world. Take for example the protests in Birmingham over LGBT+ inclusive education. Although, well done to Parliament for passing the motion to include it nationwide in England and Wales. Yet, inequalities reigns in Northern Ireland whilst Scotland continues to put the rest of the country to shame with its progressive agenda. A reminder that even in the UK, our equality and rights can change with simply stepping across a border. It is a microcosm of the world we live in. 

Scour the news and you will find more and more stories of increasing violence against Trans persons. Homophobic attacks on LGBT+ persons are on the rise throughout the world.

It's a fucking grim picture and it makes me angry.

That said, it is a reminder of why being visible is so important. 

It may not feel safe at times. At 42, I shouldn't be worried about passing a group of people and wondering if they are going to scream "Fag" at me or worse. Yet, that is the world I came out in, and that world never went away. I locked myself in a bubble for many years convinced that that world was relegated to the past. It's a good thing I never forgot how to fight.

I stand up today at 42 and I celebrate my Coming Out because I know it will help someone else feel less alone. I know that part of Coming Out is adding to the rich tapestry that is the LGBT+ community. I know that all our stories are woven into the history of oppression and stigma that forged the LGBT+ Civil Rights Movement. I know that that history guides us forward as our struggle for equality continues. 

I know that change can only come from standing up and being counted!

I think 2018 for me started in 1998. It was the year that changed my life forever. I was then in Eugene, Oregon in my last year of college. Right now, I am in a coffee shop in Soho, London; a city that was home for eleven years. Today I live on the edge of livery stables in Cornwall, a long way from the street I grew up on in The Bronx, and the many streets I would call “home” during the last twenty years.

My mother died in the early part of 1998 and with her so did my sense of "home."Her death also brought up unresolved/ repressed feelings I had about my dad’s death. He died of HIV in 1986. I started to mourn them both at the same time and it consumed me.  My little sister relocated to Florida with my older sister and her husband. The relationship between me and my older sister deteriorated. She would not live to see the end of 1999 adding to an already dark period in our lives. 1998 began a period of wandering both physically and mentally that led me down some nice places and not so nice places, I met some friendly faces and some not so friendly faces. I showed kindness at times and other times contempt.

I graduated from the University of Oregon on time with the help of a close knit group of friends who I am forever indebted to, and some mandatory grief counselling. It was my mother’s wish for me to graduate from college. The least I could do was make sure I did that, even if she wasn’t physically there to see it.

 I travelled to Europe for the first time, a continent that would later become home (unbeknownst to me at the time). I technically met my husband David for the first time in London although it would be just under two years later before we would speak properly and get together. That would happen in New York though, not London.  In that time between our first meeting and eventual coupling, I would break up with my then long term boyfriend, although we had both checked out of that relationship some time before we called it quits. I would start another relationship in which a friendship that still lasts today was born from, though not without its own twists and turns.

It would be the last time I would physically see many of my university friends for no other reason that life took us all in other directions. It is one of the reasons that I find it difficult to give up social media. Though sadly, some of those I will never see again because they are no longer with us.  Their candle extinguished from this world too soon but their light still shining in my memory.

I would also start writing my first novel which would get rejected and I would then spend eight years not writing because I felt that rejection so deep in my soul that it was not the words that were rejected but me. Something that it would take me years to come to terms with and that I am glad I did because without confronting that demon, I wouldn't be writing this today.

I started my first job in publishing with a desire to learn the business because that would make me a better writer. Feel free to laugh at that.

Fast forward twenty years to 2018.

It has been a year of incredible personal loss and medical emergencies in our family amidst the backdrop of a country in chaos and a world on the brink of disaster. Again, I found myself questioning the necessity of life taken too soon and what the fucking point of it is.  One thing that helped me though was honouring my father’s memory by creating a fund in his name to aid the Terrence Higgins Trust. A fund which we can build on that will help them promote HIV education, awareness and advocacy. Removing the stigma of HIV is a cause very dear to my heart. I honoured my mother by choosing to raise funds for The Albert Kennedy Trust for my birthday and ending the fundraiser on her birthday. It was my way of saying thank you for accepting me when I came out at 15, for not kicking me out of the house and for protecting me. I am grateful for that as I know so many others haven’t been so fortunate and that is why the work the The Albert Kennedy Trust does is so vital.  In terms of the other losses, they are too raw to go into further detail right now. Maybe 2019?

I found myself bed ridden for weeks with a flu which would leave me physically weak for months. Friendships faltered and with it a new sense of understanding what my own needs were from friendship and also what I was able to give and no longer give. A similar thing happened in 1998. The death of my mother made me go from “life of the party” to something darker hidden behind a facade of “everything is fine.”

I threw myself into a self publishing contest whilst in a period of grief and mourning and unleashed Lu's Outing: a novella onto the world. With it came appreciation, a fan base and a bit of money.  Lu's Outing was a baptism of fire into the world of self publishing and promotion. It made me fall back on experience gained in my publishing days.  I repressed many of those days and with it experience, because I was spent emotionally and physically when I left publishing. I wasn't just spent, I was demoralised. By reopening that door, I found myself realising how much I learned, what I could put to use and what I still needed to learn. I channelled my negative emotions into a positive venture. I think that is called growth.

Lu's Outing also threw my writing plan into chaos. The reception of it was humbling and I not only realised I still had more to say but that those characters still had more adventures to go on. I am nearly finished with the first draft of the second book and have enough material for a third. It meant putting my other projects on hold like my collection of short stories Tangled, which spawned Lu’s Outing. Sometimes that is what life throws at you though. Twenty years ago before my mother died, I had a temporary visa to go to Canada after graduation. My life would be very different now if I had gone. What is that saying about God and making a plan? What I have to remember though with my other projects is that they will have more life in them when I return to them. Time is a writer’s greatest tool when it comes to editing in my opinion.

In just over a week, David and I will celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary. The anniversary is of our wedding in New York, the city we got together in. New York legalised same sex marriage before the UK.  It marked a new path for us after a difficult period for us and some time apart. Boy, life is different from the chaos that was my life in 1998.

I have spent the last few days walking around London. It’s something I love to do more and more with each visit because I no longer live in a city and I am a born and bred urbanite.  I love taking in the sounds, the sights and life around me. I have walked down streets and seen the ghosts of my former self, yet they don't haunt me as they once did. They are reminders of how far I have travelled. I have caught up with friends who have seen me through my worst and now at my best, or at least as the person I am now.

The city has changed and grown but so have I. I had to smile when my iPhone played Saint Etienne's London Belongs to Me. I was walking through Leicester Square; a name I couldn't pronounce in 1998 and one I only knew from another Saint Etienne song, He's on the Phone. I remember when I thought that  London did belong to me and I belonged to it. But if I am honest, we never belonged to one another but did become a part of one another.  London lives within me as does all the places I have lived in the last twenty years.

It took twenty years for the boy I was to find another home and it was only when I learned it wasn't that home wasn’t a place. Home is where my husband and my girls are, and although they have been in Cornwall the last few days whilst I have been here in London, they have been with me as they always are.

I wrote this piece a few years ago when I turned 40. The inspiration came from the few photographs I have of my father, John Daniel Lugo, Sr. On this World AIDS Day 2018, I remember him and the millions who have died from this illness that does not discriminate
.
                                                                             Legacy

     All my life I have been told we look alike. That I am the spitting image of you.  That we were one and the same. When I was three I had the same wispy dark blonde hair that you had at that age. I saw it in a photo grandma had of you on the sideboard in her dining room. In the photo, your eyes were wide and exploratory. It looked as if you were seeing beyond the camera, the future perhaps.  

     When I was eight I saw a photo of you at the same age and it stuck with me. Your eyes were different now. They had a sense of a fate already accepted. Auntie Patty told me that when you were seven, you had a dream you would die before your time. After that, something changed in you.  Your eyes were dark pools of knowledge that perfectly complimented your now brown hair.  My hair colour changed too.  My eyes were different now too.  They had been since you looked into them as the ambulance pulled away. It was good bye not see you later.

    When I was thirteen I saw a photo of you. Grandpa told me we were the same ages in that one as he ruffled my hair in that way that made me tense up.  I could see the similarities in our eyes. You had long eyelashes that probably made your sisters jealous. All the girls at school were jealous of mine so I could relate. Your Romanesque nose seemed smaller than mine but I could see what Grandpa meant. You smiled more than I did.

   When I was eighteen just before graduation, Mom walked in and looked at me in a way she hadn't before. She leaned against the door frame and said “It's like seeing a ghost. You look more like him every day." I smiled because I didn't know if that was a good thing or not. I had seen a photo of you at 18 and you wore your hair like you were Carlos Santana.  My hair was frosted and combed  to the side. I couldn't see past that.

   When I was twenty three I looked at your wedding photo as I unpacked them from a box. You were the same age as me then. In the corner I noticed my stroller for the first time.  I remember feeling guilty that my parents had waited to give me a name. I saw your choices as my burden.  You were smiling from ear to ear as if that moment was the summit of your happiness.  I knew then that I was born out of love and that conventions mattered very little to you. I knew then that sometimes it was okay to put the milk in before the cereal.

    When I was twenty eight I framed a photo of you and me side by side both the same age, twenty eight. I wanted to see if it was still true what they said. Our eyes were similar. Both of us with dark pools of experience looking back at the camera. Your smile still outshone mine but the way our cheeks lifted was almost identical. My skin colour only slightly darker than yours, easily explained by a sun tan. Your hair was slightly longer than mine and you wore a bandanna on your forehead for some reason.  My hair was short and manageable. Our similarities were more important than our differences.

    On my thirty third birthday, Auntie Patty was at my surprise birthday party. She took one look at me and put her hands on her face. "You look so much like him!" She smiled. I smiled back. I had learned to smile when people commented on how similar we both looked. You were handsome and loved. This meant I was both those things too, right?  But there are no photos of you at thirty three. How could I still look like you?

     I'm older than you now, nearly forty. My skin is smooth. My eyes are dark with introspection. When I smile my youth is a trick of the light. The crow’s feet and worn hands always give away my real age. The photo of you at three now hangs on the wall in my office at home. All my friends ask if that was me as a child. I used to wonder what you were looking at in that picture. Perhaps you knew then that one day I would be mistaken for you. 

*****
This year, I set up a fund in his name for the Terence Higgins Trust. It is open year round for donations and will go to ensure that we continue to fight for a cure and eradicate the ignorance and stigma attached to this disease. 

https://john-lugosr-1955-1986.muchloved.com/?cac=1