The homosexual ‘cult’

I came home today to find a very interesting pamphlet among my mail. The cover, printed in gorgeous Algerian fonts read “Concerning the true nature of marriage and the cult of homosexuality”. At first glance, I (an equal-rights advocate attempting to respect the rights and choices of all human beings unless mass murder is involved, of course) was bewildered and tossed the gold and white pamphlet into the garbage. It wasn’t until I threw out last night’s pasta and curry (who eats pasta and curry? Well, that will be my next debate) also into the garbage that my curiosity to know what was actually inside that leaflet arose. So yes, I did dig into the stinky bin full of food-waste and here’s what I found.

The pamphlet contained ten justifications with quotes taken from the Holy Bible as to why homosexuality is a ‘juvenile disorder resulting from the dislocation of normal and natural family relationships’, an ‘essentially immature and generally narcissistic self-indulgence’ and a ‘blasphemy against god and a rebellion against nature’. Before I begin, let me clearly disclose that the content of this is solely based on my opinions and my personal experiences. I am not a religious researcher. I am yet in doubt of my sexual orientation. So, I am not an advocate of myself, just a nauseated self-proclaimed writer facing a quarter-life crisis, attempting to make everything else her problem as means of running away from her own!

I was raised in a conventional Catholic background. I was a convent-girl. Yes, I did go to school with all girls wearing very long, neck throttling, highly self-confidence shattering uniforms. I learned my prayers before I learned my national anthem. All the songs I knew as a kid had something to do with God or Christmas or both. All my crushes were boys from church. My mum considers herself a believer. But as I give her all of the credit to what I have become today (if that’s anything to be proud of!) I also have to applaud her for being a very understanding parent and not shoving down beliefs or broccoli down my throat. Just as she let me choose pathetic men and kept saying “darling, heartbreak is only going to make you stronger”, she also let me discover my own religious and moral grounds.

I haven’t still discovered that ground. I have denounced the concept of creation, but I still go to church. I respect my God for all the values he/she taught me that helped me become the woman I am now but I don’t own a bible. I admit I am indecisive, yet I learn so much from my shifting states for I am still in doubt. I believe that a doubter is the smartest one of all. Or should I say I doubt that the doubter is the smartest one of all! Most importantly, whether I pray to someone who could possibly exist or not, I attempt to be a good human being. I try not to worry whether the heavens will open its gates to me, but I do try to enter as many human hearts as possible. And a part of becoming that empathetic, non-judgmental, accepting human being (current success rate, 0.000007% to be very modest), I try to accept everyone for who they are.

So that is why, like most of you out there, I don’t tolerate arrogant, ignorant concepts shoved at me by people who believe that they are better than the rest or that someone, somewhere has placed them on a pedestal with the giant Final-Judgement Book. I believe in the human right to equality, that everyone should be entitled to make his or her own choices provided no one else is harmed. As I read the quotes from the Bible stated in the pamphlet – “hence the sin of sodomity condemned by St. Paul (Romans 1:24-28; Corinthians 6:9: Timothy 1:10)” – I couldn’t help but remember the verse my mother always used to say to me, also taken from the very Holy Bible - “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” (Matthew 7:3)

There’s more where that came from. "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister” (Romans 14:13)

It is inherent human nature to think that the group they belong to is better than the rest, but putting down those who are outside your group for being something that don’t fit with you, fit in with the lines that you have drawn for yourself, is just beyond egocentrism – the one value that all religions condemn. To me, it is not a preferment of God’s family, but a display of one’s own inadequacies. To me, the only thing “self-indulgent” or “narcissistic” or “needs healing” is the loathing people carry against others. I believe and I have seen how love, in its pure sense, can exist between a man and another man as it can between a man and a woman. I have seen beautiful, happy children being raised by two cooperative mothers as opposed to a pair of conflicting heterosexual parents. I’ve seen homosexuals as moral, kind and full of love as heterosexuals. How then, is homosexuality a “corruption of morals” or a “disintegration of family life”?

Finally, since this was all triggered by a bunch of justifications with the holy text in the forefront, let me finish also with a quote from the Bible. “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself” (Romans 2:1). 

A Load of Laundry for Loneliness

There it was - the massive pile of dirty laundry that has been building up for weeks now. It was mounting in the corner of my 10-square-foot room. “Wash us! Wash us!”  The clothes screamed out after a few days. Their cries grew louder and louder each week until they collapsed in exhaustion. They didn’t cry out anymore, but just lay there – dirty, stinking and helpless – waiting for me to run out of clean clothes so I will have to turn to them again.

The pile of dirty laundry was all I had for company, each item in the heap telling its own story. Sometimes I wondered if I didn’t want to wash them up. What if the memories attached to each article dissolved in the warm water? What if the floral smell of the detergent replaced the raw scent of the remembrances? I was just another, afraid of letting go of the past. The laundry – with their stains and smells – was the only thing left behind now.

At night, when I lay awake in the darkness, the pile peeked at me – sometimes with a friendly grin and sometimes with a sneer. It formed into a caring friend who was watching over me – probably fighting away monsters while I slept. But some nights, it converted itself into a hideous monster with its head twisted and arms outstretched to get me. Sometimes it sang sweet choruses and other nights it growled and hissed at me, keeping me awake for hours. One night it would gently sway towards me like a caring lover and another night it would creep upon me arousing all the horrors I could feel and make me hide under my blanket, too afraid to open my eyes.

There were days when I picked up one or two clothes to wash, but they always ended up going back into the pile. The red dress that was worn on a first date – a date of sheer romance and frolic. A date that got me hoping for love. The black frock that was worn for my aunt’s funeral – the lonely aunt who died of a food allergy. It smelled of Jess’s tears. She cried on the left shoulder of the dress regretting how she let her mother go so easily.

The navvy suit which was worn for a job interview. The day I met Dr. Francisca who fast became my most treasured acquaintance. She took me to lunch after the meeting and introduced me to several professionals who have offered me more than I could handle during these short months. There was a slight coffee stain on the right cuff of the suit. It still smelled mildly of the rich Colombian coffee that I tasted that day.

The cashmere scarf that kept my cheeks warm during my walk from the library, having spent hours on Greek mythology research; the sheer jacket that I ran to the bakery in to get éclairs to relive me of my heartache; the green skirt in which I danced with David before he left to his home town; the pink cardigan; the yellow sweater; the cotton t-shirt…..

Memories …. So vividly attached to each item…..

I was afraid of washing them away. But I knew eventually I had to. Because even if I washed away the old memories, there will be new ones and the pile will rebuild.

The Dead One’s Tale

Darkness….. 
An incredibly bright light! 
Flashes of silver……. 
...........................................
Darkness!

I was tainted by the emptiness around me. I felt suffocated – claustrophobic. I had never before been claustrophobic. Why was I feeling like the walls were closing in on me now!?

I tried reaching forward with my right arm. My arm didn’t move. I tried lifting it up again. I could feel nothing.

Ok…. So my worst nightmare has finally come true. I was alone, feeling claustrophobic, in some kind of enclosed space and I was bloody calcified!

I shut my eyes and tried so hard to shut my thoughts too. I wished I could calcify my brain sometimes because the 24-million thoughts that run through it at any given second gave me a headache. Like right now, I was trying to get hold of my thoughts while thinking 'whys' and 'whens' and 'hows' all at the same time! Sometimes I wonder if God put a 6.2-liter LS9 Turbocharged V8 Twin Atomic-powered Engine in my head.

I squeezed my eyes shut for another minute and opened them again. I could see! Finally I could see something other than the pitch blackness and the glowing white alternatively. I didn’t feel so ‘enclosed’ anymore.

I looked around. In a flash, I was surrounded by everything familiar. Well, wait… I was surrounded by TOO MANY familiar things!

There was Aunty Katherine, the painfully parsimonious sister of my mother who thought that money was god.  She was sitting by the wall looking around with bulging eyes forming some juicy gossip in her head to talk about later. Next to her, leaning on the wall was Robert. Robert the Snobbert! He was sad. His eyes looked painfully distant, which is a look I have never seen on the teen-aged movie-addict before.

I turned to look to my right. My little sister Jen was talking to some stranger in a white dress. She seemed intensely engrossed in the conversation.

Hmmm….

I looked around a bit more. People were whispering. Why were they whispering? Why was Freda whispering? Usually when she spoke on the phone, the entire neighbourhood would know every detail of the conversation.

Curiously I focused my eyes on the centre of the room full of sad-looking, whispering people. There it was! Right at the heart of the room… a white casket filled with white roses! In it, dressed in a flowing white gown was a girl. She was pale. Well she was dead. Well, obviously! It’s not like a ballerina would be stretching in a casket!

I looked closer, the full face and the sleek hair caught my attention.

Wait! What?

Holy- whatever-the-slang-that-I-am-not-supposed-to-use-here…. It was me! The dead chic was me!

I was dead!

It was me, dressed in a gaudy bride’s gown, surrounded by roses (roses! I don’t even like roses!)… I was lying there dead.

People were sad and people were whispering because I was dead!

I closed my eyes again.

I felt a curling in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to throw up. I felt intensely claustrophobic again.

I was dead… I was dead….. Brianna Helen Montgomery of Bluesdale was no more!

It took me a few minutes to come to terms with the termination of my existence. But after taking a couple of deep breaths and shutting down a couple of my turbo compartments, I was able to go back to the beginning.

I was running late as usual. Trying to multitask – applying my eyeliner and putting on my sandals and throwing in the essentials into my handbag all at the same time, I stormed out of the house. I hopped into my rusty car and drove to the main street. The car was a reward to myself for the years of committed education and the little I saved off doing one part time job after another. I don’t even know why I call it a reward because it was in absolutely shameful shape. Well, at least I didn’t have to take the bus filled with middle-aged perverts anymore.

I turned on to the high-way and drove at the speed I had lately begun to allow myself to drive at. As usual, my brain was filled with things I was supposed to get done that day as I was making an imaginary checklist of dos and don’ts. Well, I bet you think you know what happened next? Really, you think I got hit by a massive truck and exploded in my upturned car?

Well, no. I drove to my workplace, parked the car and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor….. Ok, I was kidding just because I wanted you to think that I had JK Rowling skills in adventure writing. I did get hit by another vehicle.

Not a massive truck, but a speeding bus that lost control and skidded towards me. I cannot remember if I was killed immediately or whether I put some under-qualified paramedics through the misery of trying to keep me alive, but what I do remember are the undertakers.

Greasy men with red faces, they looked emotionless as they cut me open and discarded my insides piece by piece. Lungs first, the intestines, liver and gut…

“Strange how youngsters die before they live while old grumps like my mother-in-law are still alive, you know!” I remember the youngest one of the men saying.

“Maybe she didn’t deserve to live” replied the oldest.

Helloooo people, I can hear you. Quit judging the dead girl!

“Maybe she just deserved better than life, man. Better than life!” said the cross-eyed lean one avoiding eye contact with the other two.

I felt sorry for the men. They made a living off hacking dead body parts. Could life get any more miserable?

Either way, the point was, I was dead. Well the other point was, even when I am dead, my turbo engine of a brain has not shut down.

I looked around the funeral house again. I didn’t know how I could see everything and I got to admit that it feels pretty weird to be staring at my own self. Maybe I was an angel!

At that thought, I relaxed a little. Everyone wants to be an angel right? Isn’t that why people pray, confess and try to fill their earthly days with deeds that will add to good karma?

So maybe I had become an angel and didn’t need to bother about the good and the bad anymore. Hmm…. Where was St. Peter with his gigantic book then?

A car parked outside the gate. In came Leanne dressed in a knee-length, fitting, black dress. Oh Leanne Leanne!!! She totally didn’t know how to dress appropriately for a funeral. Her cleavage was showing a little too much and she had dark eyeliner on. Her pointy shoes made tapping noises on the cement floor and everyone stared at her head to toe.

She looked awkward. As inappropriately dressed as she was at my funeral, I loved Leanne. I met her during my final year as a volunteer at the Suicidal Youth Campaign. Many are surprised when they get to know Leanne’s true personality. She looks like an alcoholic party girl on the outside with her nails painted in deep shades and a thick blob of eyeliner on her at any given moment, but she was one of the smartest and the most empathetic people I had ever met. She was beautiful.

In my short life – which is now over btw – I had known many many people and many of them just passed by. Some came in when I needed them and some came in by force. Many left after a while and when they left, they either took a part of me with them or left a part of them behind. Some left hairballs in my comb and some semen on my blanket!

Well, ok in the more philosophical sense, each person I’d known in my life made me grow a little. Leanne was one of the very few people who stuck around. She was the one I called in the middle of the night when I found out that my boyfriend was cheating on me, she was the one I sent pictures of my dress choices for an important date, she was the one who motivated me to lose the extra pounds I was packing around my middle, she was the one who advised me on dealing with my overactive imagination issues…. Leanne Leanne… she was the one I stalked ‘diggable’ men with, she was the one I took a road trip with when I graduated, she was the one I shared shoes with.

Now here she was, my beautiful, out-of-place Leanne, clasping her hands across her ample chest, bowing her head and praying. Yes, she was praying.

Well, Leanne and I both were not too high on religion and god. We thought of ourselves as more philosophical, scientific, logic-oriented people set out to define ourselves with proper understanding. We believed that the rules of religion were not necessary unless you didn’t know good from bad and needed someone to spell them out for you. After all, all most religions do is judge and what good ever comes out of judging?

As she prayed, she looked up from the corner of her eye. I laughed. She looked really uncomfortable. I knew she was trying hard to make her eyes tear... well, because that is what people are supposed to do at funerals! People are supposed to be sad!

But knowing Leanne inside out and knowing how similar we are, I knew that she had come to terms with my death. She missed me of course! She had to miss me! I was her best friend! But she was smart enough to wrap her mind around the fact that everyone dies. Even if my death was premature and unexpected, that is how it works sometimes. Existing things need to be whipped out for new things.

Both Leanne and I were startled at the sound which suddenly filled the small room. “waaaaahhhh…. Why did you have to go!!!! waaaahhhh” came the continuous wailing. It was coming from just beyond the door. I peeked to take a better look.

Nan Reese!

Oh no wonder. I rolled my eyes and laughed again.

I was half mad and half ridiculed by the annoying whines of Nana Reese.

This was a woman who had no involvement with my life. I hadn’t spoken to her since high school, after she shunned me when I asked her for a $2,000 loan for college. She was a woman who re-carpeted her kitchen floor every six months because she had nothing better to do with her money.

After I asked her for the loan with the same interest as the bank, she avoided me like I was a cat carrying mad-cow disease.

She stopped answering my parents’ telephone calls and made some sort of excuse to avoid the family dinner at Christmas.

Now here she was, out of the blue. Dressed in an over-sized wrap dress, gaudy gold jewelry and wiling for dear life.

I looked at Leanne and winked as if she could see me.

See this is what I hate about funerals. People who don’t turn up when you are alive turn up when you are gone. Relatives you have not seen in decades come out and shed tears for you and god knows what aspect of the fact that you are dead is saddening for them. Friends who don’t return your telephone calls when you were alive suddenly become your best pals and end up talking about what a wonderful life you lived.

Ex-boyfriends turn up with bouquets of flowers that they should have given when you were alive and suddenly you become the love of their lives that died. Suddenly, you become the climax of their life-stories.

“Oh and this woman I loved five years ago died in an accident and my heart is still broken,” they would say to their dates hoping for some sympathy which will justify his careless behaviour. “Please understand why I am so afraid to commit…”

Well, I don’t get the point of funerals. If I had thought I’d go so soon, I would have written my will (which I had been planning to do for years by the way!) sooner. I think people should throw parties instead of having funerals. (I think one sappy movie I watched had this going).

People should have parties with smoked salmon and rich wine, dancing and karaoke; dress up and bring dates! Talk about the life the dead person lived and rejoice at the memories they left behind – be thankful for the done life! That is how funerals should be.

If I could plan my own funerals, I would opt for cheap sunflowers which as big and yellow. I would have laid myself on a bed of flowers instead of a ridiculously pricey casket that is going to melt to the ground anyway.

I would have opted for soulful music instead of hour-long prayers. I would have… I would have…..

But it didn’t matter anymore. Because I was dead and no one listens to the dead man!

No, my story doesn’t have a culmination. There is no hero and there is no mawkish running-towards-someone-in-the-pouring-rain scene.  There is no grand end and there are no heart-melting twists. Yeah, so basically that was the story – me being dead and all - and this is the end.

Oh yeah, just one thing! Life is full of darn surprises that can blow up in your face, so do what you have to do and do it NOW! For all you know, tomorrow you might be lying in a box surrounded by people who don't really care!

I Departed

I glide down the azure stairs,

Feeling cold as the granite beneath my bare feet

I lingered for years to sense your heart

You lugged me around with your pungent words

Like a vine battered, beaten

Unloved ‘till wasted

You are callous

Pitiless is your being

Like a fraught child

Keen to give all up for a scrap of care...

When I opened my eyes to see

The true colors of you

I was so dazzled by,

I departed.