What Am I Gonna Say?

I knew she would ask. She always does. What am I gonna say?  

Of course, the story doesn’t start there. Yikes, I wonder where it does start? I guess the second week of 7th grade is a good a place to start, when Jenifer rushed up to me with a secretive gleam in her eye, “I know who likes you, Linda?” 

“Who?”

“Mark Truman.”

“Who is Mark Truman?” 

A day or two later someone pointed him out playing catch with a football in the hall. A skinny guy with a crew cut and a strange point of hair combed down onto the middle of his forehead. I was not impressed. I was however, flattered to have been noticed by an 8th grader.  After that we said "Hi" when we passed in the halls.

That Friday, at the after school football game, he walked up to me, asked if I was going to the dance Saturday. I said yes, since I did plan to go. He said he would see me there and walked away. The dance was just as one might imagine. All the boys on one side and the girls on another. Kind of dark but not too dark. Now and then a boy would brave the divide and ask a girl to dance. Eventually the Mark Truman guy, acting very 8th grade cool, sauntered over and asked me to dance. Uh oh It was a slow dance. ‘Ok. I can do this’, I told myself. We danced the obligatory back and forth back and forth of jr high. No words that I recall. When our hands were about to release, he put his ring in my hand. Asked me to go steady. I was so shocked I did not have the ability to gather myself together enough to say no. So I numbly nodded and we each made our way back to our respective genders. I was shaking. I couldn’t speak, I just showed Andrea the ring. I had no clue what it meant or what to do now. 

Suffice it to say I spent the next 5 months convincing myself I loved him. We made out a lot at parties. Once someone was talking about lesbians. I had no clue what they were talking about. He made a big deal about being the knowing elder male, and took me to another room. He told me it was when one girl would put on a fake penis and have sex with another girl. He wanted to make sure I wouldn’t do that. His description did not sound like anything I would want to do. Then, of course, after the 5 months I had to convince myself I was devastated when he broke up with me. Oh the tragedy of it all! I say that sarcastically, but really, it was tragic. It set me on a road of disconnect from my own impulses and onto one of responding to others desires. 

Most of the boyfriends I ended up with I was generally responding to someone liking me. Some of these guys were quite nondescript and I hardly remember anything about them. Some were really fun and I genuinely liked them. 

In 9th grade Jack decided I was the one. I didn’t like him. Undeterred, he walked me home from school every day. I would hide in the bathroom, but there he was when I came out. He called me every night at exactly 9:00, when study hours were over at my house. Eventually I realized I liked the attention. Then with all that time together I did get to know him and finally decided I liked him and we went together for a year or so, including the 5 months I was in Japan. He wrote to me every week, which was very welcome, so far from home. 

Later on, Jim was my boyfriend. He was fun. We laughed a lot. He was adventurous. For some reason he did not go to the retreat a lot of us went to one weekend during our Junior year. Don’t remember what the retreat was about but I met a guy named Chris.  He thought and talked about such interesting ideas. He was like no one I’d ever met before. I was quite intrigued. Eventually we were making out in the top bunk in my room. All of a sudden I remembered, ‘I already have a boyfriend!’ I had totally forgotten about Jim. Of course, once back at school the next week I had a dilemma. Pretty soon I had to choose. Yup, loyalty won out and I chose the original forgettable boyfriend. One more wrong choice among a lot of wrong choices which I realized later was a lot of me not doing the choosing, which was a wrong choice. 

I guess you know where I am going with this. I surely did the boyfriend thing. But looking back, I don’t think the connections meant all that much to me. Its not that I didn’t genuinely like and care about them, it just didn’t go very deep. 

My parents had a farmhouse outside of town to give a place where us nine children could run wild. My senior year, once we could all drive, I would occasionally have a “slumber party” there. Five or six girls stayed out there for the night. The rules were clear. No drugs, no drinking, no boys. I guess you know where this is going, too. Oh we had some fun, wild parties including all of the “nos” of course. 

One of my best friends, Ann, was dating Rusty. I wasn’t dating Steve, but he was cool. The four of us were in a double bed. Ann making out with Rusty. I was pleased to be making out with Steve. Then, maybe to all of our surprise, we just switched partners. That was wild enough But then we switched again and I was making out with Ann. Steve and Rusty did not know what to do and everyone felt quite awkward. Well, not everyone. It didn’t last long but it was just enough for me to know, ‘OH, this is where I want to stay.’ I was back with Steve way too soon. That precious moment just faded into the background as we all made our way through our last year in high school and out into the world. 

I hear Jim grew up to be a race car driver, after getting busted playing Robin Hood, breaking into houses in the rich part of town. Don’t even know what happened to the rest of them. 

I went to college, a new campus being built on a golf course. Every year the golf course got smaller and the college got bigger. One of my claims to fame was getting busted 3 times in one day for swimming naked in the golf course pond. No reason to tell you that except to let you know I didn’t kill all of my wild impulses.

Yes, I had my boyfriends there too, Actually, I finally had sex. I had gotten really good at doing everything BUT…So it was good to be finally saying yes. Although the bad habit of shutting down at the last minute more or less remained. At least that was what I thought was leaving me somewhat disconnected. I was attracted to a couple of my professors. I could tell they were tempted but I am glad to say they did not go there with me. 

Every time I came home Mom would always ask, “Have you met anyone special?” I always told her about whoever I was seeing at the time. It was nice that she was interested. I loved being able to share and was grateful that I could talk with her, at least pretty openly  I did not tell her I was having sex. As liberal as she was politically, she was pretty tight around things like sex. My brother and his fiancé had to sleep in separate tents on the family camping trip just weeks before they got married. 

Turns out I only went to college for two years. Inspired by LSD, I got on my bicycle and headed northwest from Madison, Wisconsin. Thus began a wonderful and wild adventure. I made it to Boulder, Colorado in time to hear the Grateful Dead. I fell in love, so I stayed an extra week. Then headed to Mexico with another guy. Eventually, I ended up in Northern California on the coast.  

I lived for a while in a Buddhist commune where I learned about tantric sex. Had a crush on Eric who lived on a houseboat. Maybe I was more intrigued by his lifestyle than him as I went on to build my own houseboat. I did get to sleep with him when he stayed with me on my boat so he would be there to help me float it up river when the tide turned. He and I are still friends. I slept with three different guys who all lived at the hippie commune I lived at while I built my boat. How in the world did I get away with that? Those were the days. 

Then, then…Gail came up from the city to our country commune. She was there to see Richard, a professor without the ethical boundaries my professors had had. Somehow, miraculously and to my great joy, she ended up in my bed instead of Richard’s. 

To find myself with a woman literally felt like an earthquake in my psyche. Still, just like that moment years before with Ann, I knew this was where I belonged. With Gail, yes, but even more, with a woman!!! 

Gail kept coming up to the commune from the city but now it was to see me, not Richard!!! I often visited her in the city. I was finally really into sex! I was afraid this precious fragile bubble might pop when I went off for a couple months in the summer to take care of my grandfather after Gramma died (It didn’t). I knew Gail and I weren’t really in love. But I also knew we were really precious to each other and well, I knew it wasn’t just Gail. A whole new world was opening up and I was ready, finally, to dive in!!! 

I went to the library in that tiny Illinois farming town where I was caring for my Grandfather. I cautiously took out everything I could find about lesbians (there wasn’t much).

Yes, I was ready to dive in… but, but, but…It was easy to be gay in Albion. These were the hippie days of exploring and challenging just about every boundary we could find. Half the women in Albion were lesbians, and by far the most awesome ones. What an amazing place to come out!   

But back in small town, Illinois, I was on my own. I felt like I could explode with so many brand new thoughts and feelings running around inside me that I really did not know what to do with. It was like the very Earth beneath my feet was no longer solid. I was filled with so much excited energy and nowhere for it to go. I was terribly hungry to talk to someone. Anyone! But also appropriately terrified. I knew no one in Illinois or in Wisconsin, where my parents lived, who was gay. I knew enough to know that not everyone thought of it with the joy I felt. I kept my mouth shut, as hard as it was. My grampa must have said 15 times, “I hope you find a good man to make you happy.” I wanted to scream, but of course I didn’t. 

All summer, with Grampa, my cousins, my aunt and uncle, I kept my silence. I love them. I enjoyed them. But was always aware that a huge chasm was between us that they knew nothing about. Especially this family. They were conservative Christians and I knew for certain how they would think about this wonderful and delightful happening in my life. I was not going to expose this precious new world I had just discovered to their judgements. 

Before heading back to California I headed up to Wisconsin to see Mom and Dad and the few siblings still around Madison. 

I knew she would ask. She always did. I had no clue what I was going to say right up to the minute that Mom, curled up with me on the couch, said, “Have you met anyone? Is there someone special in your life?” 

Quiet for a while, I finally began, “Well Mom, what is our agreement? Do you want me to be honest or just keep things comfortable?”

“Well, Honey, I suppose there will be things I would rather not hear.” 

“There will be.” 

“But I want us to be open and I want us to be honest. I want truth.” 

So did I, and so I was.