in the sanctuary of taylor mac.
“he died and crossed that river styx / he was born again of the fig and stick, from the fig and stick…”
I walked into the theatre that night carrying so much with me, some of it light and some of it, most of it, just not. My most immediate concern that day forgiving myself for making myself sick smoking a cig with my new work friend and neighbor earlier that day. An embarrassment and yet almost a relief after I’d spent the week swimming in thoughts of Nex Benedict, how they died and what their grandma said. Another one of our youths - another one lost again and gone forever, again left me enveloped in rage and fear and despair - baseline for American queers since 2016. It’s a dangerous time to be us, it’s just a dangerous time to be when all we’re trying to do is live our lives and be weirdos in peace.
I invited one of my guy friends to go with me, from my daze back in L.A. from City College, trying to hold myself accountable, reach out more from this fortress of solitude, not always the easiest thing after past freak outs by others. I’ve come to find that many straight cis men have a much easier time accepting my previous ID as a lesbian than they do anything resembling gender fuckery, lemme tell ‘ya. He’d never said anything suspect, others have and do, though, which makes reaching out all that much harder. I’d actually expected he’d bail after I sent him a cap of the preshow email and running time - four plus hours, no intermission, but there he was sitting there next to me. I did always consider him more brother than friend.
“his breath ran out with all the blood / he was born again of a phallus of mud..”
I did not know what to expect, other than Taylor Mac spectacle. Of course I’d wanted to see the 24 Hour Songbook in San Francisco in 2015 and of course I couldn’t afford it, the price of the ticket or the length of the show. And I wouldn’t be able to now, were it not for the reciprocal tickets I’m afforded working at the Rep.
One song for every year since the first Pride - fifty-five. Instructed by Mac to look it up later, that he doesn’t understand it all, either - the two little old lesbians sitting in front of us would not heed and would reference every one of the songs in the program. And make me smile every time.
A heaven set, heaven sent as it exists for us that is and always will be the one one we make for ourselves. Not difficult to lose sight of given, like, America, given these feelings of loss, of abandonment, feeling alone out here by myself and vulnerable. I began weeping before his first song, the first song even ended.
“oh what a wish / you could have all the world, but you asked for a kiss…”
Weeping from joy, weeping from sadness, for all that we and I have ever experienced, I felt the threads of my grief converge on the stage that night, in the lyrics, the stories in this most beautiful, most debaucherous mass for our people, this requiem celebrating and marking ourselves through time and through history.
Thoughts of mi familia in that mournful mariachi, soundtrack of family gatherings, weddings and funerals alike. Grieving the distance between us, their silence, grieving that I’ve never felt I belong to them. Past lovers, a best friend gone from AIDS, straight friends gone from just not understanding this journey or mine. Guiding me through, guiding me through, those artists and their voices singing for us and singing for those who have gone before, for those whose shoulders we stand on, this music guiding me through to the other side - to the other side, my freedom, my life, these things that are already there and have been.
In the form of an Irish folk song I saw Nex Benedict in their most awful death and mine in this most beautiful, my transition, “oh what a wish / you could have all the world, but you asked for a kiss / and will the stonewall stop us, will the stonewall stop us / while the worms crawl through us all / will the bones enthrall us / will the bones enthrall us all to live again?..” That night I would mark just over one hundred days on T. Four plus hours later, after no intermission, there he was sitting there next to me. I did always consider him more brother than friend.