Friday September 15, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 37 |
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Thursday, Aug 28, 2008
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Tour De Life by Beau Burriola |
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| Off the grid | ||
| "I just prefer it," Travis's e-mail said firmly, or perhaps it only appeared firm in the way I read it, "that's really all it is and I can't explain that better."
I could tell my question annoyed him. It wasn't the first time I asked why he decided to live in a tiny trailer four miles outside of a tiny town that sits smack in the middle of the barest part of Texas, but I was curious. Since leaving as soon as I could, I've never seen a reason to go back to the Wal-Mart desert wastelands of oil country that I call home. I wanted to know how a Gay man could live in New York, Dallas, and San Francisco and still move back to Texas. Why would anyone move back? Travis is 46 years old and we both volunteered for a community center many years ago in San Antonio, but we've kept in touch through the years with creative and sometimes rambling e-mails. He's one of the most intelligent people I've ever run into and his view of the world is refreshing, non-cynical, colorful, and contagious. Travis and I did the same thing twenty years apart. We moved to a big Gay neighborhood in a big Gay city to start our big Gay lives. Travis got very wild and came out of his "Gay party fog" (as he calls it) with a lot of bruises and an addiction that took him years to shed. My fog was more of a mist. "I hated it there. It was just too exhausting. I couldn't keep up and I couldn't grow my tomato plants." I didn't ask the question again, but I knew it was about more than tomatoes. I knew because our stories were a lot alike. When you live in a small town you at least know what to expect from life. You get up each day knowing what challenges you'll face and how you'll face them and nothing is ever really out of your control. Earthquakes, wars, and plague may ravage the earth, but small town Texas is as predictable as sunrise and there isn't a game to play or race to run. I guess if you're lost in a "Gay party fog" and spinning out of control, the predictability of tomato plants might not seem so bad. Sometimes I've wanted to assure him that not all the Gay world is as wild and chaotic as this, that there's really a lot of normal Gay men who live normal Gay lives in their normal Gay cities - going to Gay chorus on Monday, Gay bowling on Friday, AIDS volunteering on Thursday, and maybe growing a tomato plant or two - but I realized long ago that I haven't got the answers to enough of my own questions to try to dispense advice on anyone else's. Anyhow, I understand how the darker sides of the Gay community can turn some folks away. The questions Gay men face today are not new. Our community is saturated with drugs and not subtle in sex, and a lot of people get lost and lose a lot in that. For every bright spot I can point out about this chorus or that fundraiser, someone else can point to old problems like meth and HIV. For those of us fortunate enough, the answers to the questions can be found in the support of friends and a self-knit community. For others, the questions can become too chaotic, leaving it easier to leave completely. Though I now understand why Travis went back, I wonder how many more genuine, honest, and intelligent Gay folk our community loses the same way. I wonder if things like infection and addiction and "party fog" will always be a part of every Gay community. If I understand where he's coming from, I'm not prepared to buy a trailer and plan out my spot off the grid. Instead, for now, I think I owe it to all of us to try to work and change my community for the better, so that one day Gay folks can come to Gay communities from anywhere and find better options than the ones they left. Beau Burriola is a 27-year-old with a window of fresh tomato plants every year, courtesy of a man happily off the grid. E-mail him at: beaubrent@gmail.com |
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visit Beau at www.beaubrent.com
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International Readers |
REPORTS & MUSINGS FROM THE VETERAN GAY AND AIDS HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCATE
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 It's new! and live from Bumbershoot! |
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working for the freedom to
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copyright Seattle Gay News - DigitalTeamWorks 2006