Somewhere Out There (Original post Jan. 16, 2010)

There's this song --- I thought it was from a Disney cartoon, but in fact it was "An American Tail," produced by Steven Spielberg --- that haunts me.

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight

Yeah, you recognize it now. "Somewhere out there" by James Horner, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Best known recording by Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram. In the movie, it's sung by a little mouse --- I don't remember much about the plot, but this little ballad is what lingers after the lights come back up.

It's a sentimental piece --- the kind of thing that Charlene from the trailer park used to walk down the aisle on the day she married Junior. Little Amber Dawn would be trotted out to sing it to Grandma Sadie on her 90th birthday. A song as sweet as Mrs. Butterworth's syrup poured over a Twinkie. If you don't mist up when you hear it, well, you're Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve or maybe just a bitchy jaded old queen.

The Disney people patented this type of wistful moment, starting when Snow White sang "I'm Wishing" and Jiminy Cricket sang "When You Wish Upon a Star." The most recent Disney example of this kind of guaranteed sentimental heartstrings moment is the goofy little lightning bug in "The Princess and the Frog" singing "Ma Belle Evangeline" to a huge star in the sky.

I love stories of wish fulfillment. One of my favorites is "Practical Magick," in which a little witch girl, who grows up to become Sandra Bullock, decides that she does not want to fall in love, because of a family curse that kills the men who love the women in her family. So she casts a spell, vowing that her lover will be someone who could not possibly exist: He will have one blue eye and one green eye; he will be able to flip pancakes in the air and catch them; and a star will be the totem that protects him.

Of course, in the movies, nothing is impossible, especially if magic is involved. The man she believes can't exist actually does show up, in the form of a sheriff --- who wears a star as a badge --- played by Aidan Quinn.

Recently, I had a conversation with a local friend who also happens to be a LifeOut member. He and his partner have lived quietly in a rural home near me in East Tennessee. They are two very circumspect professional men, who don't hide their sexual orientations, but don't advertise them either. They seem to function well within a small circle of friends without many windows in their lives open to the outside world.

"Do you ever feel like you're in a witness protection program?" I asked this friend in an Internet chat recently. I didn't have to explain where this out-of-the-blue question came from. He knew exactly what I meant.

"Sometimes," he said.

I do sometimes, as well. My living situation is different, of course. I'm single. I moved into an apartment in East Tennessee after breaking up with my partner of a few years and leaving the comfortable home we shared across the state line in Kentucky. The ex and I were very open about our lives, and had lots of friends, straight and gay, who interacted with us and seemed proud to know us as a couple. Certainly, the breakup has been as hard on these friends as it has been on each other. People got used to seeing Jdaddy and Rdaddy and now they only see one or the other.

I live alone and pretty much isolated now. My apartment is in the country. I have a next-door neighbor, in the adjoining apartment of the duplex I live in. He's a UOQ --- an unpleasant old queen --- with whom I have an easily negotiated agreement that we will live as if we are dead to each other.

There are a few other neighbors whom I see coming and going, but don't interact with. One of them has a lot of midnight visitors stopping in for five minutes at a time and then zooming off in their pickup trucks. I'm pretty sure there's some illegal trafficking of merchandise going on, but I don't need to know the details.

Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another in that dream somewhere out there

I live as if I'M in a witness protection program. The people who need to know where I am --- my kids, some friends from church --- know where I am. But I am on my own and live quietly.

I don't like being single. My bed is too big. I miss the sound of another man snoring next to me and his smell after we've made love. I miss making coffee for two in the morning. I miss small talk. I miss ... I hate being single. Absolutely hate it.

And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishin' on the same bright star

I have a cat, Marsha. She's some companionship, but her ability to maintain a longterm discussion is limited.

"Marsha, are you hungry?"

"Meow."

"Do you want to go outside?"

"Meow."

If it weren't for Marsha, there would be days where I'd never hear the sound of my own voice. Some days, I talk to her in different accents, just to pretend there's another human in the room.

It's obvious, even if I didn't say so, that I spend too much time on the Internet. Obvious to me and probably a few others on LifeOut, that I'm doing it just to interact with other people.

I like to discuss politics, partly because it gives me a reason to keep up with current events, but I don't always like the voices online that I interact with. Too many people dealing with anger that seems unreasonably shrill. I can sympathize, because I know the feeling --- too often it comes from just being alone. But it doesn't mean that I tolerate it well. Thank goodness for the block key.

I could watch television, but I've lost interest in nearly every show that's on, except the "Law & Order" reruns and an occasional old movie. I've started turning on "The View" at 11 a.m., mainly because the four women remind me of a group of bitchy but pleasant old queens at a gay bar I used to go to.

I can see why gay men like "The Golden Girls" and "Steel Magnolias" and "Designing Women." They remind us of ourselves, sometimes.

I listen to a lot of National Public Radio, when the signals are not too filled with static --- there are two affiliates I can pick up at home, one in Knoxville and one in Johnson City. The hosts of the syndicated and local programs have become friends to me, people I look forward to hearing from every day. I feel OK about it even though it does remind me of some of the old ladies who watched soap operas daily at the nursing home in which my mother spent her last months.

Today, I'm listening to a Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Bizet's "Carmen." The music is wonderfully performed by singers whose European-sounding names I don't recognize. I can hear and envision the passion of two people who ignite the fires of love, burn out and then destroy each other.

Some days I feel like Carmen, who dies at the end. Some days, I feel like Don Jose, who kills her. Of course, I envision the person playing opposite me to be Rdaddy --- we found each other, we loved, and we ended it before we destroyed each other.

And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky ...

I swear I'm not consciously looking for someone to fall in love with. But I'd be a liar if I said I didn't scan the profiles on LifeOut lookijng for --- what? Something. Someone. Somewhere.

This week, online, I met a nice man, who lives in another time zone. He's younger than me, but not as young as my children. He likes literature, music, and laughter --- things I value. His work experience is in a field I know nothing about, but which interests me. His life experience is ... similar to mine. We're both regretting the recent past, both feeling wounded by love, both hating our present and hopeful about the future.

I'm a three-time loser in the relationship wars, if you just count the ex-wives and the ex-husband alone. The number of losses goes up if you count the non-conference relationships, the short term flings and failed engagements. I'm afraid of falling in love again, and I'm afraid I won't. When you've burned and been burnt, you become very shy. Still wanting, but afraid.

With that kind of experience, you know the signs of when it could be starting up again. E-mails that this new guy and I have exchanged tell me we're both wanting the same thing out of life --- one more chance --- and we've connected in a way that is making us let down our guards.

I hate the process of recovery. You have to clean the wounds, put on the makeup of fresh bandages and go out and smile as if you're not hurting. Why can't we just wake up one morning and it's good again. Why does it have to take some time, each time?

Somewhere out there if love can see us through ...

Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true ...

The nights are often clear here in the East Tennessee mountains. Lots of stars to stare at during the cold winter nights. And the temptation to wish upon them is there --- to hope that one of those stars in the distance will turn into someone who will warm one's lonely night.

The Age Thing

My youngest kid broke up with another boyfriend a couple of weeks ago and is adjusting to single status very well.

At 21, he seems to have mastered the art of the breakup very well --- you don't just stop calling or shut off relations. You talk it over with the guy and say something like "This isn't working. Nothing specific. Here's your two weeks notice. Let's make a cordial transition. And have a nice life."

It's sure a nicer way to do things than the "When are you moving out?!!" questions I used to get from my ex toward the end of our relationship.

LOL. Ha.

My kid, who is 21 --- notice how I was a respectful parent and didn't say "ONLY 21" --- is handling this latest breakup very well, in my opinion, and so is the nice young man he was with. They seem to be staying in touch --- just not as often and with as much intensity as when they were going at it hot and heavy like a pair of gay rabbits on cocaine. I've even exchanged a nice "it was good meeting you one time" e-mail with my kid's ex and he sent back a very kind note that proved his mama raised him right.

And my son is not walking around reciting his usual litany of "Men are pigs. I hate men. I'm renouncing love forever!" chants, which I think is a good sign. He seems contemplative, a little sadder but wiser, but not wallowing in misery. He's disappointed that it didn't work out, but understands the reasons why, which mostly have to do with two young men needing to take care of other things in their lives before they can allow themselves the luxury of falling in love.

They left their options open --- smart kids. And I don't feel the need the go around singing Burt Bacharach songs, just to make my kid Get Over It:

What get when you fall in love/You only get lies and pain and sorrow/So for at least, until tomorrow/I'll Never Fall in Love Again ...

Ah, youth. A time for first feeling the intensity of emotions and when people, full of the self-discovery that they can have Serious Thoughts, make world-weary pronouncements about themselves and vows about how they will live their lives.

Things like:

"I have to be a success by the time I'm thirty."

And:

"I could never date any man older than 25. OK, 30. Well, maybe 35, but that's it, and only if I'm desperate."

And my personal favorite:

"I feel so OLD!!!!!"

And they wonder why some of us grab young men, put ballgags in their mouths and chain them naked in the basement for a week. It isn't about the sex. It isn't about the pain. It's just about making them SHUT UP for a while.

In someone's blog today, I read where the author confessed to being jn his forties, and that he was OK with that, actually happy. He didn't say anything about "feeling young for my age" or "having a second chance at life." He just sounded glad to be where he was. It made him sound kind of hot, actually.

Young men get all pissy about those of us, who, having passed the midlife mark --- contrary to popular belief, midlife, in gay years, does NOT occur at age 25 and after that, we all become sweet old Aunt Sissies, playing our Judy Garland records and saying, "Oh, Mary." We may do it a little more discreetly, but we still flirt with each other, strip off our clothes and try to do the same things we used to do, albeit it takes a little more creativity when our pot bellies get in the way and our arthritic knees protest. But we do it, because we still CAN and still WANT TO and because we probably are more knowledgable about the give-and-take of relationships.

When I was in my early stages of open experimentation with gay sex, I had an older lover, who explained the stages of same-sex love to me.

"Everybody has to start somewhere," he said, watching me wince and utter a muffled moan as he removed the last clamp from my left nipple. "In some primitive societies, all young men were instructed in the art of gay love by an older man. Hmm, that's going to leave a mark. Sorry about that."

Later, as we were cleaning up the dishes and putting away the handcuffs, he continued:

"Men would reach adulthood with experience in the physical acts of love with each other and if they were lucky, they found a partner-lover, someone who shared their maturity level and could identify with their life experiences up till that point. Can you help me remove this harness? My back is a little stiff ..."

And later that evening, when we were under the covers cuddling, he gently traced his finger across one of the veins in my arm, which was tied above my head to the headboard.

"In later life, they would take on the role of the elder, passing on the wisdom of lovemaking that was given to them as a gift by an older man when they were young. Are you still having that sinus problem or can you sleep with your mouth duct-taped tonight?"

I was always grateful to my former lover for sharing what he had learned with me. I know he was proud of me, if a little uncomfortable, when I walked up his basement stairs and out of his life, leaving him in the stocks staring at the key just out of his reach.

My point is, we do evolve in our lives. We remain the same person we always are; we just add new layers of wisdom like fresh coats of paint. One of the wisdoms is that there's always more to learn --- when we older guys get together and chat with younger friends, we often let them do the talking. It's partly because they're usually pretty and lively and that's fun to watch. And it's also because they remind us of ourselves at the same age --- full of the excitement of new knowledge gained every day and anxious to tell someone that we've learned something new.

And yes, we're laughing at them, too, for their pretensions and bravado, because they remind us of the way we were at that age. Back then, we thought the idea of being older than 20-something was a death sentence, just like they do. We couldn't imagine having sex with someone with a receding hairline, a thick waist, or gray chest and shoulder hairs, either, let alone two men of that description wanting to do it with each other.

And most importantly --- like them, we couldn't imagine anyone PREFERRING an older man instead of someone pretty and young like ourselves.

But it happens. Some of us do. And that's why we don't take offense when someone with an unlined face says, "I don't think I could date someone older than 35. They'd just be too old."

One of the lessons of maturity is that it's better to be a kind person than a cruel one. That's why we don't say things like, "You're just too young for me" in response.

We let it slide, and smile. Your time will come.