exploration

L.G.B.T.Q. Couples

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

I can group under one of those letters, but the subject of the group bores me. I don’t know if it’s because I never felt I needed a group umbrella under which I could live a validated life. I’ve faced discrimination many times as a woman in the professional workplace, but never was it related to being an “L” (or a “G”; I’m confused about the letters in this group and never know if I’m saying the letters in the right order or if I’ve left off a letter…).

When I first was coupled as an “L”, it was with a “B”, who was mostly an “L”, but was ending an extramarital affair with a man. This had me wrapped around the axle. I was not surprised about my proclivity toward being and “L” given that I only had heartbreakingly strong crushes on women. I wasn’t even thinking sex, it was the companionship, sense of humor, shared experiences and safety I felt with them. And later, yes, the sex, too. 

My first relationship was longterm and it existed before I even had a vocabulary to call it what it was or how it should be identified. It ended sadly, with both of us to blame. Toward the end of this, I had a short “You’re Cheatin’ Heart” type of an affair that I spent more time trying to get out of than I was in it. I consider it a bad “gap” year in “L” couplehood.

Then, I met my now wife; the best coupling. All of the longings of my lifelong crushes wrapped up in a spunky, sassy, hilarious, comforting and quite handsome “L” with blue eyes in which I could swim for days. Getting married to her was the best day of my life. Many “Ls” were in attendance, as well as non-“Ls”.

On balance I think the labels and alphabet soups are irrelevant. The only “L” that means anything to me is love.

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Shift from Faith

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

The 60’s and 70’s, God love them, were rife with fashion trends. So many influences from beatniks, mop tops, preppies, pret a porter, elephant bell bottoms, hip huggers, hippie dungarees, fringe vests, velour, embroidered prom shirts, platforms, spike toe boots, earth shoes and Adidas runners. It boggles the mind. Also boggling was how utterly ridiculous it looks in a backward glance to those days.

My childhood friend, Faith, was raised in a fairly conservative family, so clothing trends weren’t followed avidly or with chameleon-like change. Her mother sewed and made all the family’s clothes, save for her father: he had a uniform for work in the Postal Service. 

Despite Faith’s strict upbringing, she had a wild streak in her that I was more than happy to encourage. One summer’s afternoon, bored as planks, we schemed to wander out of the neighborhood to the waterfront, having to cross many streets with traffic. Our goal: procure soft serve cones. Having limited to no funds, we “permanently borrowed” money from my father’s change jar. Enough for three cones, with jimmies.

The afternoon heat made short work of melting the ice cream quickly, much quicker than I could eat it. It melted all over me, creating a Jackson Pollack effect on my white short set and sneakers. Faith had the foresight to wear a dark outfit, thereby avoiding any patterning on her clothes. 

I panicked, realizing I’d be caught in myriad crimes: questionable acquiring of money for this trip; biking too far afield from the neighborhood; and eating sweets too close to dinnertime. But the clothes were going to be the giveaway to this caper.

Faith said I could wear something of hers home and she’d sneak my clothes into one of her mother’s washes (hopefully with bleach). My sneakers were ok, because the chocolate that melted on them looked like mud or dirt, which would only get a routine rebuke from my mother.

We snuck into Faith’s house and I changed into one of her dresses, a summer “shift”. All would be well. I hoped. When I got home, my mother did a double-take, asking in one breath where did I get the outfit and didn’t I hate dresses (I did. Vehemently.)? I responded saying it wasn’t a “dress” dress, it was a summer shift and that I borrowed the shift from Faith.

“Why”? I hadn’t thought up a reply to such a direct, terse and logical question. I mumbled something about wanting to see if the shift felt cooler than shorts. Skeptical, but growing disinterested, she asked “And is it?”, and I said “Yes.” I quickly feared that she might take this as a green light to start buying me dresses and added “But it’s horrible for riding my bike”.

End of subject. I changed onto my own shorts and top and my mother said she’d wash and iron the shift to return to Faith. And my faith in my guardian angel increased by ten-fold that day. Consequences of guilt related to fibbing and theft would be dealt with in Confession— the magic erase sponge for all bad little Catholic girls’ souls.

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The Prison of Self

/ Carla M. Burzyk / Leave a comment

The prison self is made of the strongest bars imaginable. Inescapable save for one key the only the self holds. For many, the self is unaware that it holds the key. The prison of the self can be figurative, theoretical, or real, even. But if you’re it in, it matters not.

Some prisons are depression or addiction: immense expanses whose borders are enormous, until you run into them hard. They hit you hard and repeatedly. Sometimes, unrelentlessly.

Other prisons are smaller, but no less imposing. Self-doubt, guilt, procrastination, or greed. These incarnations are a little more manageable, in that if you try with honest effort and tenacity, you can be free of them, either temporarily or permanently.

Another sort of prison and I’d say the most confining and intimidating is the loss of faith. This is an enigmatic confinement , because first, you don’t know that you’re imprisoned and aren’t moved to do anything to escape the confinement.

What’s the route to becoming aware of your lack of freedom and escaping to a greater sense of liberty? This question has been a seminal one for the greatest thinkers throughout the ages: Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc, Hildegard von Bingen, Gautama Buddha, Becket, Shakespeare, Dante, Rosetti, Browning, Yeats, Cather, Bonhoefffer, Rand, Ghandi, Mohammed, Thersa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, King, Churchill, Jordan. All came up with personal hypotheses and treatises that met with acceptance or rejection or worse.

The only way to escape this prison of doubting faith is to self fashion the key with materials consisting of mercy, grace, gratitude, acceptance and intent. Getting through the locks brings one to a place of tenuous serenity that lasts only as long as one keeps “awake”. Being awake is critical to survival in these days of isolation and uncertainty and fear and lack of leadership.

By escaping this intimidation prison of self, one can also fashion approaches to flee confinements and stay open to the graceful possibilities of the present. And to keep roaming freely in the great wide world of the physical and infinite expanses of the metaphysical. And to figure out, one day at a time, as Mary Oliver encourages us, what to do with this one wonderful wild life that we’re given.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA