lots of information, and long thoughts.
-these notes are unlike any I have written for any episode of any LyU podcast series -for two things, these notes are long and they are not particularly episode specific -for a third, in them I give my thoughts of what I know of Jay's life, and his experiences, as a whole -if you stay and read, hang on. we are going places this episode is, essentially, me interviewing Jay -I do not do what I consider my best job of it. but maybe that is for the good -this episode, acl59, is sort of a follow up to the previous episode, acl58. you may want to listen to that episode before this one -acl59 repeats some/ much of what is talked about in acl58. sometimes repetition and additional details open up greater understandings. I think this is one of those occasions -if you are interested in additional fleshing out of Jay's process of his becoming his truer self (a fulfilled and happy gay man, in a loving relationship, who adds to himself, those he loves, and his world); and have the means (a subscription is required); I suggest you read his essay on the events discussed in acl59 on Medium.com before listening. Jay's essay: The Internal Battle That Delayed My Coming Out -in acl58, Jay tells us of milestones in his discovery of, acceptance of, and embracing of his being gay -there is more to the story, including the effects of his family's dynamics; his general living environment; and TV shows that represented the type of life, the type of family, Jay "should" have/ thought he wanted to have -in this podcast episode, I try to bring out details of Jay's Medium.com piece; and, as I said atop, I try to make overall sense of Jay's life experience -unusually for episode notes, these notes do not follow the episode itself; rather, they are a rough summary, a capsulized understanding, of it -they are so long because I attempt to both capture the essence of what Jay wrote in the essay; and because I write, at the end, how I myself understand Jay's life experiences. how I make sense of them, from a metaphysical viewpoint. this viewpoint is entirely mine. it is, most likely, not Jay's we all make sense of life, others, ourselves, our circumstances in our own ways pertinent points of Jay's story (as he writes about in the Medium.com essay): -unusually for the era of his childhood, and for the neighborhoods he grew up in, his parents were divorced; and while other kids' moms were stay-at-home mothers, his mother worked outside the home -because of the divorce and his mother's decision afterwards, Jay did not see his father after Jay was four; that is, not until Jay went looking for his father when Jay was twenty-one. though there are pictures of Jay and his father together during the earliest years of Jay's life, Jay has no recollection of his father from that time -his mother remarried; Jay grew attached to his stepfather and to the son his stepfather had from a previous marriage, Jay's stepbrother -Jay's stepfather died of cancer when Jay was fifteen -Jay was thus left fatherless twice -at the time and everywhere he looked, Jay saw only traditional families of a father, mother, and their children. his family structure was different -also, at the time, television media presented as normal, usual, and expected families styled after a traditional nuclear family. TV shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, Father Knows Best, and Leave it to Beaver -Jay enjoyed being with and got along well with girls. he had over the years three girlfriends; having a girlfriend is what boys of his era did. his last girlfriend, their relationship occurring in their twenties, became his fiancé; the two married, in San Francisco, early in Jay's teaching career. they were married for a year, until Jay could no longer. His ex-wife in time remarried; she and Jay remained in sporadic, distant contact for the following few decades -Jay enjoyed being with and got along well with girls. he had, over the years, three girlfriends; having a girlfriend is what boys of his era did. his last relationship with a woman, when they were in their twenties, began as platonic. she subsequently became his fiancée; the two married and then lived in San Francisco, early in Jay's teaching career. they were married for a year, until Jay could no longer. in time his ex-wife remarried; she and Jay remained in sporadic, distant contact for the following few decades that is Jay's story. below is my personal understanding of Jay's story -my takeaways from the piece in Medium; from the knowledge I have of Jay from spending bits of time with him over the past decade; and, especially, from listening to him tell many events of his life, including his travels (recorded in the majority of the previous fifty-eight episodes of acl): -Jay is a deliberate thinker, and a future-planner -he has lived/ lives a considered life -Jay benefited greatly by finding/ deciding what was most important to him in life; he pursed those goals. some of the goals changed; sometimes his pursuits were for years; in the case of the Peace Corps, decades -Jay did through the whole of his life the work of self-discovery; and the work of taking action; to get where he wanted to go, who he wanted to be/ is -his considered thought and actions have resulted, happily, fortuitously, in him living the life he wants to these understandable, and perhaps somewhat usual, explanations of how to build a successful life, I also add my own. these are entirely my thoughts and not Jay's; they are not endorsed, and have also not been denied, by him -In my understanding of how life works, from a metaphysical perspective, Jay participated as fully as he could in his life, in life, in the universe; and the universe, life, met him, and helped him along his way -after a number of false starts and efforts; after he made earnest attempts at finding/ living a full, good life, one good and loving for him and for those around him, which did not work out (girlfriends, getting married, moving in with a man early on, two other long-term relationships); those experiences, though not complete successes in themselves, nonetheless provided him with information. information which he used to further understand how to be true, I suggest truer, to himself -after finding out, and by circumstances, the decisions of others, and his own decisions, determining what he wanted, how he could/ would most live life, he went after what he wanted in the best ways he knew how -fine and dandy. most people, perhaps you, reading this might probably agree -let me, however, rephrase, re-understand how Jay participated in his life. he not only lived his own life, did his own thing, as it were; he also, and at the same time, because the two are connected and part of the same, participated with the universe, with life -this participation with the universe, with life, also caused, also naturally brought about, the universe's, life's, participation with him -he would not have gotten to where he is had he not been an active thinking and participant in his life experience in the first place; -AND, I think, I suggest, he would not have gotten to where he is, who he is, if the universe, if life had not also joined with him, worked for him, in getting him to where he wanted in the words of the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho: "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." allow me to give some examples: -Jay early on took to heart the idea, at first forecast by his mother, of his living in California -Jay in eighth grade decided to become a teacher; a year earlier he decided he wanted to be a Peace Corps volunteer; both dreams were later realized -Jay went to a college which specialized in teaching teachers. when it came time to look for a teaching position, he decided to apply to public school systems in San Francisco and Los Angeles -his criterion for where we wanted to live was that it be in California; that it be a place where it never snows and that a car would not be needed. he later learned more about LA's auto culture and that city was eliminated from consideration -it so happened, and for the last year that it did so, that the SF public school system had a recruiter visiting the New York City area (where Jay lived), the year he needed to find a job. he wrote asking for an interview. in short order, he was asked to and went to the interview; and subsequently was offered the job -Jay had no money given to him to accomplish his dreams; he had no relatives who lived in California and knew no one in the state -he moved to San Francisco in 1969 and lives there still -he moved to SF sight unseen. he moved there still under the belief (usual at the time) that he had only to marry a woman and he would then become "straight" (heterosexual). he moved to the City not knowing, not hearing, not having any idea at all that SF was/ is a gay mecca. (a gay mecca is a place where gay people are accepted, embraced, and congregate) -some years later, while volunteering as an usher at the SF opera, he kept hearing about the benefits of owning a home from the other ushers and from one person, a real estate agent, in particular; his family had always rented. Jay decided to buy a home; years later, from only the money he earned as a public school teacher, he bought one -it was from his first and only family vacation as child, when he and his family visited relatives in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia, that Jay got the travel bug, deciding he wanted to travel -over the course of the following decades, starting when he first lived in SF, and to the present, Jay visited 127 countries (perhaps 120 of them United Nations recognized countries); in three of them he stayed and taught for two months; in Mauritania (in West Africa), he worked in several educational capacities for two years -he decided to become a teacher. as a side benefit of his desired profession, being a teacher gave him the opportunity to travel -After teaching for fifteen years, Jay began traveling during several summers and winter breaks. he met people and made friends along the way and through hosting-exchange programs, most prominently Servas -he lived smartly, fully, and prudently. he shopped for clothes at thrift stores; did not worry about the latest fashion trend; took public transportation; eschewed expensive dinners. a school secretary at one of the SF public schools he taught said about him that "his travel is his car" because that's where his money went, not into an automobile purchase or auto upkeep; he typically hitchhiked while traveling in both the USA and foreign countries for the first few decades -his longest-term relationship before his present one came to an end by the other man's decision -difficult as its ending was for Jay, its ending came, it turned out fortuitously, just before Jay was about to retire from his 34 years of teaching -the timing of the split opened up the opportunity for Jay, at the age of 56, to fulfill his long-ago seventh-grade dream of being a Peace Corps Volunteer. A year of applications, interviews, and preparation later, he did so. He served as a teacher and building a curriculum supporting at a school for two years in the West African country of Mauritania There are other examples of things working out for Jay in his life. None of his opportunities opened up without his participation, to at least some degree; none without his active thinking and doing; but some/ many of them are nonetheless, in my mind, downright miraculous. I have not even mentioned how he came to be involved in the SF Gay Men's Chorus and where that led him, including the live possibility of a different career, the founding with others of a still robustly-active international organization in 1982 (GALA Choruses History) and a reaffirmation of his love of being a teacher; how he found his way to a certain person's home in London in an against-all-odds way; how he made it through some very sticky travel situations, including serious medical and other life-threatening scares, an attempted mugging, and freedom-threatening legal troubles in the USA and foreign lands. You can ascribe all these events to luck, or to chance, if you want. I myself ascribe to the concept of you make your own luck. You make your own luck by considering, thinking, preparing, acting, being willing to respond to and working with what circumstances give you. By living. Living consciously and actively. It is, in my eyes, in my own experience, in my own observations, a case of being true to oneself; in being for and actively acting towards good in one's life, and for others, and in Life, that increases/ opens up these opportunities/ good fortunes. Your acting with and for life is also life acting with and for you. Parts of the same. We are not separate from life but inexorably a part of it. We have the potential to be participants for its good. I am not denying the reality of difficulties, disappointments, times of trouble, illnesses including some that may last, sometimes sadness. I've had times of them all; still do. I'm not denying that eventually or soon there is physical death for us all. Those are parts of the whole. Parts of the whole of life. I am suggesting, I am experiencing, that the Universe often obviously works with you when you work with the Universe. 35 minutes 07-24-23 debug comment |