a silly old love song

I have to admit pessimism does get under my skin every once in a while. It’s a useless way to see the world… but, well, come on… people are mean. And stupid. And so god damned resistant to change. So sometimes I let that cloud my perception and blind my ability to see our infinite potential.

I saw through that murky veil tonight as I drove home down 128 in the rain. I was pleased about the accomplishment of a good tour at Beauport. I had a crowd of eight potentially stiff upper lips. But, they… really were engaged… and bedazzled. Well, that’s not really too amazing when one considers what that house is at night. And I can tell a story or two in an interesting fashion. Or at least I’m told…

But it was the fact that one of these stories was so… incidental and intriguing to my tour that makes me believe in the goodness of human nature. Maybe it’s a trifle. Or maybe… maybe it really is testimony to the fact we can and do actually evolve as people.

It’s only a recent addition to our monologues that we state the fact that Sleeper was gay. It’s kind of overstating the obvious, but we punctuate it with the reference to his unyielding, unrequited affection for his neighbor. I have found that reference to unrequited love immediately humanizes his sexuality. Maybe it’s my romanticism… but… I think that is one heartache to which most people relate.

Tonight I was able to discuss that ill-fated emotion with some more detail… and consequently more discussion from the people who followed me from room to room. And the conversation was so… normal. 

I don’t mean to trivialize this – or the emotion of a heart that I cannot verify with a direct comment from the man who felt it. But, it was this normalcy that made my own heart smile as I drove home tonight. That I was discussing a man’s love for another man without any political thrust or delicacy to avoid offending an intolerant listener. It was as if I was crooning about Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy with my girlfriends. That the gender of the parties was inconsequential. That the important part of the conversation was – as it should be – the emotion in his heart. Emotion over which I and anyone else can only speculate. But emotion that is evident in every creative thought that built that house. Emotion that is obvious in the last letter he wrote to APA saying that nothing was ever more dear to him than Red Roof. 

Maybe it really is inconsequential. But, well, if it is… isn’t that an amazing thing?