The Letter Q

by Sarah Moon

  If there is a God, he loves you too. If God is a lesbian, she loves you.

  Speaking of lesbians, I know you have a crush on the lesbian at the coffee shop who looks like a boy. Get used to it. When you’re older, you will have a crush on a famous lesbian television star named Ellen DeGeneres, and you will live in a neighborhood with lots of lesbians, and some days you will wonder — or your friends will wonder for you — if you were meant to be a lesbian.

  You will have lots of friends.

  Try being vulnerable in front of them — they’ll like you for it. You don’t have to pretend like you can’t be hurt. Everyone can be hurt. It’s okay to be hurt, to show hurt.

  It’s also okay to be scared, to not know what to say or what to do when you’re sitting at the corner of Castro and Market waiting for the bus home from school. It’s 1989, and you’re fourteen, and gay people are dying of AIDS, and you don’t know what the hell is going on or if you will grow up to be like them, smoking and laughing and dancing and dying. But try not to judge them. They are brave. They are beautiful. They are scared. You are all those things too.

  Some of your teachers are gay. You can tell them the truth.

  You are a gay jock. You don’t know this now, but this will bring you currency in a few years.

  Speaking of sports, when you’re older you will join a gay basketball league, a gay tennis league, a gay softball league, and a gay flag football league. Who knew?

  Your mom doesn’t know much of anything about you. She thinks she does, but she’s too depressed, too judgmental, to know you. She is scary. When you’re older she will learn to love you the way a mother should, but right now she is incapable of it. It has nothing to do with you. You are the most lovable boy in the world.

  Your dad loves you, but he doesn’t always say the right things. When you come out to him during college, for example, he will say to you, “Well, I guess this is what I get for raising you in San Francisco.” Your dad will say this because he’s scared. A few years after that, though, he won’t be scared anymore, and he will invite you and your boyfriend over for dinner. And it will be the most normal dinner in the world.

  Keep a journal.

  Learn to cook.

  Buy stock in a company called Apple.

  I know that there isn’t much to watch on television right now that can be described as “gay affirming,” but when you’re older there will be an entire channel, Logo, devoted to gay programming. You won’t end up watching a reality show titled The A-List: New York, because cattiness will never appeal to you.

  You know the porn videos you found in your dad’s dresser when you were eleven? I’m sorry you found them. You were just a kid.

  You don’t have to have sex with people who don’t love you, who don’t know you.

  You don’t have to pretend to be anything you’re not. You don’t have to “act gay,” or “act straight.” You don’t have to “act” at all.

  You have many talents, but fashion is not one of them.

  Your talents, to name a few: Being a good judge of character. Not causing harm. Throwing a football. Parallel parking (but don’t try that yet). Ping-Pong. Singing in the shower.

  Always remember: The more homophobic someone is, the more likely it is that they hate themselves. Their words and hate mean nothing except that they are in pain.

  You are worthy of love.

  You are worthy of respect.

  It’s okay that your friends make fun of you for liking folk music. It will make a comeback!

  In a nutshell … I love you. Go forth, my younger self, and be happy!

  Benoit

  P.S. Isn’t it weird receiving a letter from your older, wiser self? You’re probably wondering a few things, like, what the hell does this older, supposedly wiser version of me look like? Well, though I am thirty-six, I’m told that I don’t look a day over twenty-eight. So, while you didn’t get the fashion gene, you did get the youth gene. Hooray!

  Dear youth,

  I am fifty. I know you, but maybe not as well as I think I do. We’ve got the same hair; I still do the long, snarly thing, although I spent some decades as a short-haired bearded lady. Can you imagine? I’m pretty sure you can’t. Also, the tips are brown and the roots are gray. So you made it. This far at least.

  Hon, what can I tell you? (Not that you’re asking me.) I remember how you used to go after wisdom in the ’80s once you got to college. You’d go to lectures and readings by almost anyone, really, as long as they had put up a flyer. More than once, you were the only person attending who didn’t know the speaker. You’d sit there listening to Robert Creeley (his poetry made you feel like you were levitating) or Judy Chicago (arguing in your head, impressed), trying to get the skills and attitude you needed to become the kind of writer who was an artist. You figured you’d have to sacrifice, everybody said so, but looking for what to sacrifice didn’t seem like the right way to go about it.

  But this is getting all Star Trek wormhole time warpy (don’t be embarrassed; there turns out to be such a thing as nerd chic), since I’m wanting to talk to you before all that, in high school, when you are struggling more than you know how to admit. You already have friends you tell everything to, or almost everything, but, oh, darlin’, the confusions of intimacy, uncertainty, and desire get you pretty deep into some messes. That warm, excited feeling when your best friend French-braids your hair or tenderly touches your face to correct your makeup deficiencies? You’re both feeling it and it scares her even more than it scares you. That’s why it ends so abruptly.

  Oh, and the yearning. You want experience: touch, sex, tenderness, enlightened public appreciation. You want to be dancing between your friends as they do their elaborate steps and twirls, part of the connection, central to the rhythm, not huddled at a tiny table, waiting. You want to kiss her cherry-cola lip-glossed lips, again, more, longer, in a way that counts. You want to be able to talk about all of it until you figure it out. You want to write something incredible, a book. You want to see New York City, where you think glory lives. You already have a romance with the light brown color of Colorado dirt and the way grasses in the park go gold and dry in the summer to whisper above you when you stretch out on your back to watch the sky. You’re right: That’s hot.

  It’s brutally clear how low you fall on the high school scale of beauty. You’re fat, off the scale of hotness altogether. I say this tenderly, with matter-of-fact affection; being fat is a fact about you that doesn’t need a euphemism any more than being queer does. There’s a group now called NOLOSE: www.nolose.org. Check it out and get back to me after you’ve played water volleyball in a Lurex cocktail dress.

  Actually, you’re exquisite. You really are. You’ve got everything you need to do the things you’re dreaming of in this world. Your parents are rock solid, full of what Saul Bellow (you’ll be a little shocked by how much you enjoy his work) called “potato love.” It’s the ordinary, daily stuff that shapes everything. They’ll do their best with whatever you throw their way, and their best is exactly the kind of wisdom you’re reaching for, right there for you with the banana and Grape-Nuts every morning.

  I’ve spent the past few years asking friends who are martial artists and dancers to teach me how to fall. I’m still not that good at it, but I’ve rolled down a grassy hill with an egg tucked into my bra, and nothing broke. The key seems to be not to worry too much about which way is up. Just roll.

  I love you. I trust you. Read a lot. When in doubt, go for empathy. Talk and work. Try to do something. You’ll be fine.

  Thrive,

  Susan

  Hey there, Marc.

  I’m looking at this picture of you at camp. How old are you? Nine? Ten? Such a great picture of a great dork. I love it! You look so awkward, and yet, so ready for fun. Posing, yet somehow relaxed. In your favorite clothes. A huge T-shirt, whose colors can only be described as Sears Roebuck hideous — primary blue sleeves, two-inch bands of white wrapping around the arm at the shoulder,
Robert Indiana green for the body, finished with a half-inch blue band at the collar. I remember that shirt so well. One of my two favorites. And the pants: peppermint pink, striped with white and red. White Keds sneakers with a simple red line to match the pants.

  For this picture, posing in the green doorway of a brown cabin at sleepaway camp, your arm placed so strangely along the frame of the door, it’s obvious you have chosen your favorite outfit.

  And now thirty-eight years later, seeing you there, I love that you mismatch so profoundly and yet wear it so proudly. It is hideous, and you seem so happy in it. That’s what I want you to retain. Joy of living in what you love, despite the fact that things never seem to match. Joy of living with what you love, despite the fact that things never seem to add up.

  You have yet to be almost killed on your bicycle by a drunk driver, yet to be nearly gunned down by Yugoslavian soldiers on the Albanian border, you have yet to fall in love, you probably have yet to kiss a girl. Let alone a boy. You have yet to have your heart broken, yet to tell Mom and Dad you are gay, yet to experience traveling alone around the world.

  You look ready for the adventure. But you look so shy too. And that will be your battle in life, so get ready. Your love of adventure and exploring the world and the people in it, but your exhaustion from being out in that world. An exhaustion that I think just comes from your fear of not adding up.

  I think anything I tell you that’s worth telling, any advice I have, I still have to tell myself every day. Be brave. Be brave. Be brave. Strangely, it seems for you and me that being brave is almost harder to do with friends than it is with enemies. So yes, be brave as you fight for justice and against those who perpetuate cruelty. But please remember to be brave in your generosity, be brave in helping those close to you. Be emotionally brave to share your feelings, your thoughts. Be brave in sharing your encouragement, sharing your time. These are “soft” braveries, but they will be important for both of us. This kind of bravery exposes us because we reveal what moves us, we reveal who we really care about. And so we risk being ridiculed, especially from Dad. We risk people taking advantage of our kindness. You will even have nightmares of being laughed at by Dad and by the whole world. But by being brave in these ways now, you will help this old man writing to you learn who he is. You will help both of us become ourselves in the big world.

  And when all else fails, when you’re feeling like everyone is against you, help those less fortunate than yourself. Do it. Even if it’s a baby bird. This is going to sound ridiculous and embarrassing to bring up, but I bring it up as a favor to ask of you more than as advice to give. Remember when Mom totally flipped out because you were supposed to be watching Ralph, but you forgot about him because you were setting up your toy farm animals, and Ralph wandered out of the house. And instead of listening to her scream at you again, you ran out and over to Peter’s house, and he had borrowed your favorite record of the story of Big Red, and he broke it and you got in a fight and he punched you in the stomach and you ran away from him too. And then walking home through the woods, you just sat down and cried because it seemed no one was understanding you, or even liking you. And you heard that baby bird peeping and peeping, and you found it on the ground all alone. You brought it home and miraculously this one lived! And just by caring for it, all those other problems lifted.

  And also remember that on the days you volunteer to read to the younger kids who are having trouble at school, it makes you realize how truly lucky you are to be able to give to others. Doing these things is good practice. Keep expanding on it. I’m serious: Save baby birds. Help those less fortunate. In the end, it’s how you’ll save us both.

  I love you,

  Marc

  Dear Nick,

  You’re not bisexual. There will be a purple night by a country club pool where you will tell your father this is what you are, but it isn’t true. It’s a lie that will dangle from your mouth like a hook from the lip of an almost-caught fish, inflicting pain-by-proxy on all those you present it to. It will remain until one night in college when the beautiful and extremely willing Sarah C. shows up drunk on your porch in a very small dress and you find yourself saying, “I can’t.” And just like that, the hook will detach. You will become the redeemed trout, the happiest one in the lake.

  A piece of advice: When a boy you love has swum out into the ocean and is waving at you from an undulating spot beyond the breakers, swim out to him. Don’t hesitate or second-guess. Just go. There are no sharks in the world. No one has ever drowned. The bottom might slide away from your feet, but it is still there. And this has nothing to do with your height, which isn’t as bad as you sometimes make it out to be. When it comes to the depths of the ocean, height is irrelevant. Even giants experience the feeling of the bottom sloping out from under them.

  There are things you cannot change, so make do.

  Things you can change: your hesitancy, your death fear, your ambivalence about all the things at the bottom of the ocean that might devour you toes-first. Focus on the fact that those really are diamonds on the surface of the water, that the element of surprise can allow you to overtake the horizon. Remember, you can hold your breath forever. When the waves roll in to push you back, go under and swim below them. Do you feel that subtle rush along your back? That’s you slipping out of time. When you come back up, congratulations: You are in the future.

  Your heart will get wonderfully broken by a motley crew of sighing actors, trust fund drug addicts, junior therapists, freelance bartenders, orally fixated ravers, and perversely undergarmented young professionals. I won’t tell you too much about these people, as that would ruin most of the fun. I will say you have my — and the entire world’s — permission to cry over them all you want. But take care not to drown in your tears. There is an elusive border dividing the great nation of Self-Respect from the third world country called Wallowing. Try your best not to cross into it, as it’s an embarrassing stamp to have on your passport.

  You will play a role in the heartbreak of a focus group consisting of orally fixated actors, junior drug addicts, trust fund therapists, perversely undergarmented bartenders, freelance ravers, and sighing young professionals. You will love some of them, and it will be very good. Then one day you won’t or he won’t, or you’ll both realize it wasn’t love at all. Some will disappear completely from the channel of your life. Others will appear in friendly syndication. Some will appear on corners on Tuesday afternoons while you are checking to see if you have enough cash for both an iced coffee and a chocolate croissant. This will sometimes happen hundreds of miles from the place you both met and left them, and you will realize the past is chasing you with a knife in its teeth and a daisy in its hand. Smile at these people even if you don’t want to. Men are handsome when they smile.

  Leave home. Fail marvelously, and succeed even better. Kick your feet up and wonder when you will be back. Stay out late. Make telephone calls from unfamiliar street corners. When your mother’s voice comes from far away and asks where you are, squint down the road and tell her you aren’t sure. Make uncertainty your home. Put the mat out for yourself. Look at your watch and think of how you’re almost home.

  Go to bars alone, or maybe with a book. Glance at strangers from across the cedar-walled room. If they smile, go to them. If they lip-synch along to whatever song is playing, pretend you never saw them. Go to dinner alone, or maybe with a book. When the waiter comes, play a game where you try to get him to sit across from you without actually asking him to do so. After two desserts, stumble into the night with the wrong copy of your receipt. Leave the green stocking cap you love in the back of a cab and spend the evening convincing yourself that it doesn’t matter. Throw an impromptu funeral. Invite all your clothes.

  Don’t take yourself too seriously. It’s very cool to be gay, and being gay is very cool. When you realize that someone doesn’t like you, don’t dwell on it. You do not need everyone to like you. Anyone who feels they need to be liked by everyone mo
st likely doesn’t realize how exhausting this would be if it were to actually happen. Be thankful that there are those who want to ignore you. There is only one you. Charge admission.

  Don’t be judgmental. It pulls you out of your body and leaves you outside the party.

  Take care of your body. You will be stuck in it for all your life, so treat it well. There will be days or seasons where you find yourself less than pleased with it, but this is natural. Outrun these moments. Quitting cigarettes will be a pain in the ass, so never start. Floss. Drink lots of water. Put on a good pair of shoes and go for as far as you can. When you look in the mirror, smile and say hello.

  A general rule: The truth is always obvious. If something feels wrong, it is probably wrong. Do not rehearse rageful soliloquies on sleepless nights or practice insults to toss like grenades at those who have insulted you before. Be forgetful. Breathe good air and stretch out on the grass. Squint at the sky and listen to birds. If something feels right, it is probably right.

  Don’t worry so much. Let it all go. And if there’s ever an emergency, you can always write it down.

  Love,

  Yourself

  Dear Ray,

  Do you remember Thrift Town?

  No, not the Goodwill — that one was walking distance from the house (and you were over everything within walking distance from home) — and not the Salvation Army either — everyone and their dog went there (you wouldn’t go near that one). Thrift Town was the best: way past the high school, past the mall, all the way down Park Row until it intersected with Center. Left on Center, twenty-six red lights past that (you counted, I remember), and almost there when Indo-European Foods popped up, next to the row of Vietnamese restaurants that your part of town had never even heard of.