Demain, dès l'aube ...

One of the first portraits I took of Gary
Skiing at Chief Joseph Pass, Montana
Winter 1999

Demain, dès l'aube, à l'heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m'attends.
J'irai par la forêt, j'irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.

Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.

Je ne regarderai ni l'or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j'arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.

--Victor Hugo

Gary, Annie Wright, and Billy the Ass
Taken at the Grubstake Restaurant
Ravalli County, Montana
May 2000

The opening lines of Camus’s book The Myth of Sisyphus state that there is only one question worth pondering—whether to commit suicide. When faced with the absurdity of life, does the rational man have any choice other than to end his own participation in the farce? Of course Camus was posing a philosophical question. Most people facing a wall, and seeing no way past, do not pose philosophical questions. When the road ahead is just too rocky to bear, when there is no end to the proverbial tunnel, let alone any light, I doubt that people reflect much on the absurdity of life.

Once when a close friend was wondering if life was worth living, I bought him a copy of Camus. I had forgotten the opening paragraph, and frankly remembered only the very end of the book. “Il faut imaginer Sisyphe heureux.” (We must consider Sisyphus happy.) When I reread the treatise, and saw the question Camus poses, I was aghast that I would give this book to someone actually contemplating suicide. My friend, however, saw the true message, and the crisis passed.

Suicide has been on my mind a great deal these past thirty years. When I first came out to myself as gay, I met a good number of young men who had either contemplated or attempted suicide. I heard of many more that had succeeded in killing themselves because they could not reconcile the person they knew themselves to be with the expectations of family, church, society. There may be valid reasons for killing yourself, but being gay is not one of them, I said to myself. If by being open and vocal, if by being visible as a gay man, I could prevent even one person from doing himself in, I had a duty to speak out as loudly, and as often as I could. Thus began a life of political activism.

Gary watering the dogs
(Faylene and Speedy)
With our friend, Ted Rivers
Taken at Seaside, Oregon
Spring 2000

I must admit that there have been times that I have considered the question personally. For me, always, the dilemma came back to the people who would be left behind to clean up my mess. I was especially concerned about the effect my death would have on my mother. This is not something I normally talk about, so I have no idea just how common suicidal thoughts are in the general populace. The closest I ever came was when Richard was sick and could not summon the strength to go on. A friend who knew such things suggested that 20 Tylox would be enough to allow Richard to go to sleep and not wake up. I seriously considered taking the capsules myself, for without Richard, I did not want to go on. At the last minute, I refrained, and held Richard’s hand while he swallowed the pills and went to bed. The next morning found Richard still alive, very sick, and our white bedroom carpet stained red from his vomit. His system was so used to drugs by that point, that the overdose merely made him sicker. Had I taken them, with no personal history of drug use, I surely would have died.

These days, the one thing that upsets me—the only thing that really upsets me—is finance. I have given up trying to stretch too few dollars over too many bills and have turned all such matters over to Kevin. Before I did that, however, I once again considered ending it all. It’s very hard to see any light at the end of this tunnel, even with both of us working, but with Kevin handling the checkbook and watching the mail, I can at least ignore our situation. I thank God every day that Kevin is part of my life, for without him, I fear that I would no longer be writing you all. He is my rock in these troubled times.

But what of those who have no Kevin in their lives? Those who see the bills piling up, hear the debt collectors calling, who have lost their jobs, are in the process of losing their homes, and have health concerns with the attendant expenses those bring? The ones who fear that they are not in a tunnel, rather a cave with no exit ahead?

Gary at the gates to Ashland
Lexington, Kentucky
Taken August 2000

At two o’clock this afternoon (I’m writing at just short of midnight, January 27^th, 2009), Kevin showed up at my desk with bad news. Gary Pitts, the man I lived with for nine years, from January 1999 through May 2008, had committed suicide in Denver. Many of you on my mailing list knew Gary. Most of you knew of Gary. I don’t pretend to know the demons that Gary was facing. He had had no contact with me after he left for Denver the end of May. The note he left behind cited health concerns, but mostly financial fears. He had moved to Denver talking about jobs that paid three and four times his salary in Missoula. His best friend lived in Denver and he wanted to back in a big city. I don’t believe he was ever happy in Missoula, nor do I think he ever knew just how much I loved him. The past ten hours I’ve driven Kevin crazy as I ask him over and over if he knows I love him. In Gary’s note, he asked that I not be notified, because I would become a “drama queen” about the situation. If that’s what I’m doing, I apologize. I need to come to terms with this, and the way I approach problems is by talking—or writing—about them. Gary had a much different style, and tended to keep things close to his chest. I often felt as though I was wasting his time when I would try to talk out a problem.

Gary was wonderful with animals. In 1999, when we first got together, I had one MinPin, Speedy. With Gary in the house, we added Faylene, Rocky, and finally Minnie. All four loved Gary unconditionally. I used to say that should he ever leave me, all four would follow him out the gate and only Speedy would look over his shoulder to see if I was coming too. We lost Speedy in 2005. I’d never seen Gary so shaken. Faylene died early in 2008, while I was in California. When Gary told me he was leaving for Denver, I asked if he was taking Rocky and Minnie with him. Minnie, he felt, was too noisy a dog to live in an apartment, but yes, he was taking Rocky. In his note, he asked his friend to look after Rocky and find him a good home. I’ve talked with Denver’s Animal Control, and I’m hoping they’ll let me bring him back to Montana. As soon as I get the word, Kevin and I will be driving to Denver to pick up a little dog who has had too much trouble in his life.

I keep asking myself if there is anything I could have done to prevent this tragedy. But as I said above, Gary wasn’t talking to me, so I knew nothing of his troubles. I honestly believed he was living a fine life, making mucho dinero in the computer industry. That’s what he led me to believe when he left Missoula. And the fact is, there is nothing anyone can do should a loved one cut you out of his life, and keep you in the dark. What I can do is give Rocky a good home. It’s all I can do at this point.

The Restaurant Cat
Taken in Nevsehir, Cappadocia, Turkey
October 16, 2000

Victor Hugo wrote the poem I’ve quoted above when he learned of the death of his daughter. The poem has always spoken to me, and tonight it has forced its way out of my subconscious to the point where I can see the words clearly in my line of sight. My translation of the poem follows:

Tomorrow as the night shall dissipate

I’ll leave, you see, I know that you now wait.

I’ll cross the hills and forests wet with dew.

I can no longer stay away from you.

I’ll walk, my eyes fixed only on my thoughts.

Head down, back bent, hands crossed, a captive caught,

I’ll hear no sound, nor see any sight.

And day for me shall be as night.

I’ll see neither the golden evening star,

Nor sails of ships approaching from afar.

When I arrive I’ll place upon your tomb

Bouquets of green holly and heath in bloom.

One of the last portraits I took of Gary
Gary holding Minnie
Taken at our home in Missoula in 2007

All gristle, and tough as nails

“Which is better, Inglistan or Afghanistan?” Imagine yourself as an English journalist, traveling across war-torn Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban. How do you answer the question? Christina Lamb’s 2002 book, The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan, is not your typical travelogue. It is, nonetheless, an extremely important book for anyone who wants to understand the quagmire we entered in October 2001 when we began our search for Osama bin Laden.

I have to admit that I knew next to nothing about Afghanistan on September 11, 2001. I consider myself a peace-loving man. I abhor war and militaristic posturing. Yet my immediate gut reaction as I watched the twin towers collapsing was “Flatten Afghanistan!” And that was before we knew that Al Qaeda was holed up in the mountains of this tragic land.

In the ensuing seven years, I have often rued my reaction, and I have taken advantage of various opportunities to learn more about the country that every major world empire has tried, unsuccessfully, to annex, beginning with Alexander the Great. Alexander went so far as to marry an Afghan princess, Roxanne, the only woman he ever married. But even Alexander could not hold this area, and his son, born to Roxanne, was killed after Alexander died. He did leave his name in the Afghan city of Kandahar.

Genghis Khan brought his army through the area we now call Afghanistan, and one of his descendents, Timur (known in the West as Tamerlane) built a dynasty centered in the region and still considered one the greatest periods of Afghan history. In the 19th Century, Queen Victoria and Tsar Nicholas sparred over the land through their armies, as the Russian Empire tried to expand toward the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea while Her Britannic Majesty strove to keep the jewel of the empire firmly in British hands. This led to three Anglo-Afghan wars that were disastrous for the British, and subjected the Afghan people to great hardship as well.

In the twentieth century, Afghanistan has arguably been the bloodiest place on earth—at least in terms of length of conflict. 2009 marks the thirtieth year of continuous fighting, if we date the beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979. Christina Lamb first entered Afghanistan during the war against the Soviet invaders. Over the next twenty years, she made the acquaintance of many people now recognizable as Afghan leaders, including current President Hamid Karzai, King Zahir Shah, and a young woman who wished to be called Marri. Marri was, for lack of a better term, a pen pal, although the correspondence went only one way. Lamb had no way of writing back to the young woman whose letters had to be smuggled out of Taliban controlled Kabul.

The Sewing Circles of Herat recounts Lamb’s travels in Afghanistan, smuggled into the country from Pakistan or from Iran, in the guise of a young boy, a burqa clad woman, and even a pile of blankets and medicine in the floor of an ambulance. She visited Herat in the West, Kandahar in the South, Jalalabad in the East, and of course Kabul. The stories she tells are heartbreaking. Assassinations, murders, executions by the Russians, by various Afghan warlords, by the Taliban. People subsisting on a few pieces of unleavened bread. Roads, buildings, airports destroyed. Schools closed, libraries looted of books which are then burned. Art and historical artifacts destroyed because the ignorant tyrants in power know nothing of history and care less about anything outside their narrow view of religious life. Children’s textbooks that teach numbers by counting “One Kalashnikov, Two Grenades, Three Rifles, Four Armour-piercing bullets, Five 9mm bullets….” (p. 309)

After having read The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s novel of growing up in Kabul and escaping as the Soviets take over, and his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns which tells the story of two generations of Afghan women living through a modern hell, I was ready for something uplifting when I spied The Sewing Circles of Herat on a colleague’s desk. Instead, I spent New Year’s long weekend reading one of the most discouraging books I have ever come across.

And yet…. And yet… There is a sense of hope here as well. It is absolutely astounding what human beings can endure and still survive. It is positively heart-warming what people will do to guard and preserve beauty in the most violent times. And the hospitality of the Afghan people—people who have absolutely nothing, but will stop you on the street insisting that you join them for lunch or dinner. People who live by a code that says once you have opened your home to a guest, it is your responsibility to guard that guest against all others, even if the guest turns out to have harmed your family.

Lamb’s book gives a frank and disturbing look at Afghan history, culture and current events. It does not paint a pretty picture. It will raise many questions in your mind and, if you’re at all like me, will make you wonder if there is any hope for this beautiful and desperate land.

“Which is better, Inglistan or Afghanistan?” Lamb’s diplomatic answer should serve as an object lesson for all of us who would understand the world we live in.

“The question came again and the guard who had asked it had a jagged scar on his right cheek pulling down his eye.

“’Well, Afghanistan is very beautiful and the people are very hospitable. You have beautiful mountains. Also the weather is very nice. But, England has roads, electricity, schools, hospitals, libraries, running water, trains, lots of food….’

“The mujahid looked unimpressed. ‘And how much fighting do you have in Inglistan?’

“’Well, we don’t really. I mean we had a civil war but that was more than 350 years ago and since then people in England have pretty much lived together peacefully.’

“’What if someone was to steal your husband’s gun? By Allah, then he would fight!’

…

“‘He doesn’t have a gun.’

“The men looked shocked, shaking their heads and repeating ‘no gun’ to each other. They all had standard-issue Kalashnikovs slung across their shoulders and wide belts of brass bullets on their waists except for one with a Russian army cap and a loopy grin who was carrying a hand-held rocket-launcher, which to my horror he kept dropping on the ground.

“’How does he protect you then?’ asked the grinning man.

“’I don’t need protecting,’ I replied, trying to look fierce.” (pp 182-183)

The average life expectancy in Afghanistan is 44 years. For the past thirty years, the country has been at war. These people have known nothing else in their entire lifetime but killing, bombs, destruction, death. Where and how do we start to create peace, let alone democracy in such a setting?

I highly recommend the three books shown below, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and, of course, Christina Lamb’s The Sewing Circles of Herat.











By the way, the title of this post comes from a statement made by Roger Roy, an Orlando Sentinel reporter living with the US Military in Afghanistan. He was speaking of Afghan children in his November 1st, 2005 post which can be found here.

Langläufer leben länger

Interstate 90, Exit 104
Missoula's Main Downtown Exit
1/2 mile from our home
Taken 1-3-09 through the windshield

It doesn't show signs of stopping,
And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
--Sammy Cahn

NOTE: All photos can be seen full screen by double clicking on them. The complete set of photos I took on this outing can be seen on my Picasa web gallery. All pictures and links open in a new window.

This winter may be headed for the records as one of the “worst” in recent history. So far, here in Montana’s “banana belt” we’ve had over a week with sub-zero temperatures and wind chills down to 40 below or lower. We’ve had snow that has fallen for days on end, and we’ve seen one storm front pass through and move on only to be replaced by a new storm front.

Regular readers will recall my December post about getting caught on Lookout Pass behind a jack-knifed semi, or my report of our excursion to put a ham radio antenna up on top of a mountain where we were caught in a blizzard on Labor Day. But please don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. As long as I’m not spending every free minute shoveling the stuff, I like the snow. I like the way the hills and mountains around town gleam white in the sun. I like sitting in the hot tub while the snow falls on my head and shoulders. I love watching the dogs bounce through the drifts in the yard. Well, Minnie bounces, seemingly oblivious to the cold and wet. Gypsy is a true California Girl, in the best Beach Boys’ fashion, and she tends to venture out as little as possible this time of year.

But the real joy of the season, for me, comes when I strap two long, thin strips of wood onto my feet and take off cross-country skiing. I understand that there are places in this country where “skiing” means being towed around some body of water behind a boat or jet ski. And I know as well that there are those whose idea of skiing involves paying exorbitant amounts of money to ride some contraption up a mountain then schuss back to the bottom, only to get in line for another ride up, ad nauseam. The skiing I prefer doesn’t require any motive power than my own heart, lungs and legs, no ropes, chairs, boats, lifts, or fancy clothing. A turtleneck, jeans, jacket, scarf, gloves and boots, and I’m all set. Oh, if the snow is deep I may well strap a pair of gaiters round my pant cuffs to keep them dry, but that’s as fancy as it gets.

My move back to Montana in January 1975 coincided with one of the snowiest winters we’ve seen in these parts. The first weekend I was back, I headed into Missoula and spent a little over $100 at the Trailhead, Missoula’s premier outdoors store at the time. For my C-note, I got a pair of boots, a pair of bamboo ski poles that I still use, thirty-three years later, and a beautiful pair of narrow, blue Kongsberg skis from Norway. I called them my Norwegian Wood. I left the skis on the front porch of the cabin and was out skiing every day from January into April, a minimum of three miles a day of cross-country skiing. I was twenty-five years old and in the best shape of my life. The Germans have a saying, “Langläufer leben länger” which means, “cross-country skiers live longer.” As I know a number of western Montanans who have skied into tree wells and died, I won’t swear to the accuracy of the statement, but I can’t think of a better form of aerobic exercise.

Heading up Spring Gulch Trail
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana

We’ve had very few winters as snow-bound as the winter of 1975, but I’ve made it a point to get out as much as I can when the ground is white and the sky is blue. There are two areas on the edge of Missoula where you can ski for miles, Pattee Canyon, south and east of the University campus, and the Rattlesnake Recreation Area, north of town and the entrance to the Rattlesnake Wilderness Area. There have been days when you could ski down the city streets, and I’ve skied to work numerous times in the past. New Year’s Day, I strapped on my Bushwackers, wider skis that do not require waxing and are wonderful for questionable conditions, and I skied down the street to pick up the bike path that fronts the railroad tracks three blocks from home.

Friday morning we woke to rain, and by noon the temperature was nearly 40 degrees in town. The snow started melting, and melting fast. I spent most of the day putting together and mounting an exhibition of my photography which will hang through the month of January in the Western Montana Gay and Lesbian Community Center. With twenty-two of my photographs framed and on display, this is the largest show I’ve had to date. It is largely the same show I had in Crescent City back in 2007, but at the last minute I decided I had to include some of portraits I’ve taken of various Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from Eureka and the Russian River areas of California.

When I returned to the Center at 5 for the First Friday Art Walk, the temperature had begun to drop and the wet sidewalks and streets were turning to ice rinks. I was surprised at the number of people who braved the elements to visit the exhibit, but there was no where near the visitors from past openings. Between the weather and the fact that First Friday was the day after New Years, I’m not disappointed with the turn out.

Saturday dawned bright and clear, and Kevin surprised me by asking if I wanted to go skiing. Kevin is not a skinny-skis person, and his previous experience involved down-hill skiing or going on search and rescue missions on a snowmobile. Still, I was pleased that he’d ask, and was quickly ready to drag the equipment out of the shed and into the Expedition.

Kevin "Boy, is this hard work"
Spring Gulch Trail
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula Montana

We headed up the Rattlesnake, as in my experience, it’s the most forgiving area nearby for new skiers. Of course, I’ve been doing this for over thirty years, so I have a tendency to forget just how awkward it can be trying to maneuver over snow pack and ice with seven feet of two inch wide wood or plastic strips fixed to your feet. Still, Kevin was game, and only fell three times getting out of the parking lot.

The Rattlesnake is one of Missoula’s favorite playgrounds, and the parking lot was full when we arrived. This meant that the trails were also filled with people of all ages walking or skiing. I didn’t see anyone on snow shoes this trip, but I have in the past. Most people were skiing in pairs or as groups of four, and we passed more than a few families with small children struggling to master the skills necessary to stay upright. My own parents were avid outdoors enthusiasts, but they were more attuned to summer and fall activities—hiking, fishing and hunting. Both my parents loved roller skating, and I had my first pair of roller skates before I could walk, but neither parent skied, so this was not something I grew up with. I wish I had. I do have a picture my father took of mother holding me up while roller skating, and we saw that scene repeated several times yesterday with parents and small children on skis.

When I first started skiing, I bought a book called The Cross-Country Skier’s Bible. It was great fun, but not a terribly good instruction manual, as I recall. I do remember reading somewhere that “if you can walk, you can cross-country ski.” In fact the writer continued, “Oh hell! If you can shuffle you can cross-country ski.” It’s not quite that simple, but almost. As long as you don’t mind shuffling with seven foot long, two inch wide boards on your feet. I keep mentioning the long, skinny nature of cross-country skis because it is the distinguishing feature of the sport.

I’m sure it was in the “Bible” that I read about the author’s adventure beginning to ski in Yosemite National Park. After two days of lessons, the man took out one morning on his own. Skiing up a narrow mountain trail, he eventually realized he was going to have to go back down the mountain. On the way back down, he noted that he was picking up quite a bit of speed and there appeared to be a tree right in the middle of the trail ahead of him. Trying desperately to remember what he had been taught about stopping, he couldn’t come up with anything. Finally, choosing discretion over valor, he fell down rather than run into the tree. Back in Yosemite Valley, he looked up his teacher and explaining what had happened on the trail, he said “I can’t remember how you told us to stop.” The ski instructor looked at the ground, cleared his throat a few times and mumbled “There’s no way to stop on cross-country skis.”

Kevin "How do I slow these things down?"
Spring Gulch Road
Rattlesnake Recreation Area
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana

Kevin found this out personally. He kept trying to make his skinny skis behave the way downhill skis do. Downhill skis have metal edges on them that allow you to turn the ski on its side and cut into the snow or ice. Cross-country skis have no such edge. Downhill skis are wide, allowing you to angle them into what is called the snowplow position which, theoretically at least, slows you down. You can snowplow with cross-country skis, but the effect is neither as immediate nor as effective as with downhill skis. None of Kevin’s skiing experience prepared him for this lack of control.

Still, he was brave and agreed with me when I suggested climbing the trail that runs on the south side of Spring Gulch with the intent of skiing back down the road on the north side. I let him take the lead, in effect letting him set the pace. This also allowed me to stop periodically and pull my Nikon Coolpix L3 out of my parka pocket and capture some of the scenery. I kept hearing comments floating back on the breeze. “This is hard work.” “This is too much work.” “Ow,” as he fell yet again. But he kept getting back up and pressing on. I was so proud of him.

At mile 1.3, roughly half way up to the place where the trail and road merge, there is a bridge across Spring Gulch, and Kevin felt he’d worked hard enough getting that far. We crossed the gulch (one of the two places I fell), and started down the road. I prefer going up the trail and coming down the road because on the road there’s a little more room for error. The trail is one set of ski tracks wide, and winds among the trees and shrubs. I have skied down the trail, but you have to be on your guard the whole time, and frankly, I don’t find that much fun. I really didn’t want to be responsible for Kevin skiing into a tree. The problem with skiing down the road is that the snow tends to be skimpier and more prone to icing over. Still, I’ll take that route by preference. The Spring Gulch loop is my favorite local run, and had we gone all the way to where the trails merge, we’d have skied close to six miles. As it were, we covered between three and three and a half including the run from/to the parking lot.

It was a stunningly beautiful day, as I hope you can see in the pictures I’ve chosen to display here. The complete photographic record of our day is on Picasa, and you can click here to access those photos. In a few I have tried to remove the blue cast from the shadowed snow, but I found in so doing, I also removed the blue from the sky. If you go to the Picasa site, click on F11 to see the slideshow in full screen mode.

One of the things I love about cross-country skiing is the way you glide through the woods with only the whoosh of your skis for sound. I have been skiing with two different friends who felt they had to fill the silence with talk, and I have to admit that I’ve never asked those friends to accompany me a second time. I love being out by myself, but as I get older, I no longer feel that it is wise to take off for a day in possibly adverse conditions without someone along, as the Scots say, in case. Yesterday, the only person I saw skiing alone, was not really alone. She came skiing down the trail completely engrossed in a conversation on her cell phone. Brave new world, indeed.

I’m looking forward to lots more ski trips, including a few to some of my favorite places, Lolo Pass on the Montana/Idaho border (US Highway 12), St. Joseph Pass (Montana highway 43, just above the Montana/Idaho border on US 93), and Mount Haggin between the communities of Anaconda and Wise River, Montana. Lolo Pass is 45 miles from Missoula, and St. Joseph Pass and Mount Haggin are roughly 100 miles from home, albeit in different directions. I won’t be carrying the D80 with me, but the Coolpix takes fine pictures and fits in my jacket pocket. I’ll keep you informed.

Rattlesnake Creek (formerly Missoula's main water source)
Taken 1-3-09 near Missoula, Montana