June 14, 2026: “The Boy,” Shared Joy, “Waiting for the Bus”

It has been a quiet weekend of shared joy.

Yesterday, my wife and I attended our local Pride Fest, manning a table for the library where I work.  It was a sunny, warm day with strong winds that upheaved tents and sent pamphlets and brochures flying.  But none of that mattered.  It was all about welcome and acceptance, seeing people for who they are and greeting them with a holy Hell yes!

The United States is so divided and angry right now, marching quickly toward totalitarianism; kindness and empathy and joy are endangered species.  I sometimes don’t even recognize the country in which I grew up, and that makes me feel like a kid who wants to run away from home.

Marie Howe writes about a runaway . . . 

The Boy

by: Marie Howe

My brother is walking down the sidewalk into the suburban summer night:

white T-shirt, blue jeans—to the field at the end of the street.

Hangers Hideout the boys called it, an undeveloped plot, a pit overgrown

with weeds, some old furniture thrown down there,

and some metal hangers clinking in the trees like wind chimes.

He’s running away from home because our father wants to cut his hair.

And in two more days our father will convince me to go to him—you know

where he is—and talk to him:  No reprisals.  He promised.

A small parade of kids in feet pajamas will accompany me, their voices

like the first peepers in spring.  And my brother will walk ahead of us home,

and our father will shave his head bald, and my brother will not speak 

to anyone the next month, not a word, not pass the milk, nothing.

What happened in our house taught my brothers how to leave, how to walk

down a sidewalk without looking back.

I was the girl.  What happened taught me to follow him, whoever he was,

calling and calling his name.

Howe’s narrative is pretty familiar to me.  I loved my father, but he could be a pretty hard guy.  He had pretty clear ideas of the roles of men and women.  From a very young age, I was expected to learn my father’s trade (plumbing) like each of my three brothers did.  My father’s expectations for my sisters were a little more open and accepting.  One of my sisters became a registered nurse.  Another became a medical transcriptionist and coder, running a local hospital’s entire medical record department.  My oldest sister drove trucks for the mines in the area and also became a licensed Master Plumber, like my brothers.

Me?  Well, you know how things turned out for me.  English professor.  Writer.  Blogger.  Musician.  Actor.  Director.  Poet.  My life choices seemed to come right out of the book Being the Black Sheep of the Family for Dummies.  Until I started dating the woman who would eventually become my wife, I’m pretty sure my father was convinced I was gay, which was the only thing worse than being a poet in my father’s estimation.

I know my father was proud of my achievements.  He attended almost all of my poetry readings, even though I’m pretty sure he didn’t quite get my work.  At the very least, he respected my accomplishments.  He learned to accept me for who I was.  And that’s pretty much the best gift a father can give his children.

I never put any expectations on my kids.  I don’t care whether they’re gay, straight, bi, or trans.  My only hope for them is happiness.  Even if (God forbid!), they became Republicans, I’d still love them, although that would really test my threshold of acceptance.  

At the moment, there’s a UFC fight going on in front of the White House to celebrate you-know-who’s 80th birthday.  I’ve been avoiding news reports all day because I know the kind of crowd that event is going to draw, and, after this weekend of love and acceptance, I don’t want to end it with beer-drinking, red-hat-wearing white supremacists spouting hate speech in the same place where Martin Luther King spoke about his dreams for America and Americans.   Not gonna do it.  Wouldn’t be prudent.

I’m not a person who hates.  (This has been put to the test over and over in the last ten years.)  I didn’t raise my children to hate.  Life is way too short to hand over that kind of power to some individual or group.  If my one contribution to the universe is raising my daughter and son to love unconditionally, I can march up to the Pearly Gates with my head held high.

Saint Marty wrote a poem for tonight about the shared joy of the human experience . . . 

Waiting for the Bus

by: Martin Achatz

Some know each other, greet on approach

the way mothers greet children coming

home from war.  Patient as sheets

on a clothesline, they wait for

the blue-and-white bus to appear, know

this hurried world will soon swallow

them into grocery stores, medical appointments,

soul-killing jobs cleaning hotel rooms

or dropping baskets of fries into boiling oil.

But right now, in this moment, they share

stories about hernias and old dogs

with cataracts and grandkids who’ve just

graduated from high school.  They’re in no

rush.  None of them.  They savor these simple

intimacies like blueberries sprinkled on

a bowl of soggy Cheerios, milk sweet with sugar,

just like they used to eat on Saturday mornings

watching Bugs Bunny when they were kids.

June 8: "Corn Field," Pride Fest, "Pride"

Billy Collins goes swimming.  Sort of . . . 

Corn Field

by: Billy Collins

Far from any lake,

I walk in over my head.

I worked today at our local Pride Fest, handing out flyers, talking about the library's concerts and summer reading programs.  I was not far from any lake.  In fact, our table was only 50 or so feet from Lake Superior.

The sun was bright, and everyone was having a blast.  I love being at Pride Fest for one simple reason:  there is so much love abundantly present.  Old people.  Teens.  Toddlers.  Drag queens.  Trans people.  Heterosexual couples.  Gay couples.  I think I saw a German Shepherd in a tutu.  All happy being together, listening to music, eating tacos, collecting free shit from vendor booths--without encountering sidelong glances or whispers or worse.

And the young people led the charge in this love parade.  They always do, not caring if their friends are goth, studded with piercings, sleeved with tattoos, wearing a dress or tuxedo or fishnets.  They just throw their arms around each other like classmates at a 60th reunion.  Joyfully.  Without inhibition.

People can say what they want about the younger generation being lazy (no, they just want a living wage), entitled (is it too much to get an education and healthcare without having to sell a kidney?), liberal (when did being generous and open-minded become a negative character trait?), and immoral (I assume because they don't judge or condemn other people).

The young people whom Saint Marty saw, met, and spoke with today gave him great hope for the future.

Pride

by: Martin Achatz

Surrounded by flags 

of so many colors, here

is what makes me proud:

an old man and woman

walking hand in hand, 

eating cookies, wearing

matching T-shirts that read

Love is Love, Ya Fuckin' Homophobe!

June 10: "The Poet Thinks About the Donkey," Bravery, Pride Fest

Mary Oliver reflects on bravery . . . 

The Poet Thinks About the Donkey

by:  Mary Oliver

On the outskirts of Jerusalem

the donkey waited.

Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,

he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,

     leapt with delight!

How doves, released from their cages,

     clatter away, splashed with sunlight!

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.

Then he let himself be led away.

The he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!

And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.

Still, he was what he had always been:  small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.

I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him

as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

I would lay money that the bravest people in the world don't consider themselves brave.  Or strong.  Or extraordinary.  They're more like this donkey that Oliver describes, simple and obedient, doing what they have to do, one step at a time.  Real, everyday heroes who do the work of living quietly, without fanfare.

This morning, I did a presentation for the annual conference of group of writers and publishers.  It was the culmination of several weeks of preparation on my part.  I was contacted last year by the president of the organization, asking me to be the keynote speaker.  I was flattered and terrified at the same time.  I don't really think of myself as keynote worthy.  Instead, I've always felt a little like P. T. Barnum, putting on shows that fool audiences into thinking they're witnessing something amazing.

Well, there was no fooling this group.  They were all experienced writers and poets and artists.  So, either the curtain was going to be pulled back, revealing me as the imposter Wizard of Oz, or I was going to be my true self--the plumber's son who became a poet.  I was that donkey, tied to a tree, ready to move forward.

The presentation was a huge success, I think.  I didn't make a complete fool of myself, and I managed to make people laugh and clap.  I even sold some of my merchandise.  Most important of all, I was just myself, telling stories, reading poems, playing the piano, and trying to inspire.  I don't think I was necessarily brave, but I tried to approach the presentation fearlessly.  And it seemed to work.

After the presentation, my wife, son, and I walked down to the local Pride Fest to volunteer at the craft table for a few hours.  It was cold and windy.  Near the end of our time there, mist and drizzle pushed in off Lake Superior.  (Last year for Pride Fest, it rained almost the entire day.)

Despite the weather, people showed up in their rainbow and fishnet finest.  There was joyful laughter and loud, raucous music.  Overpriced food and drinks.  Dogs dressed in Pride shirts.  Balloons.  Free pinball.  And everyone there was just enjoying being themselves, freely and proudly.  

I have to say that my afternoon at Pride Fest put things in perspective for me.  Yes, I felt pretty accomplished this morning, standing in front of an audience of 80 or so people, doing my schtick.  Brave even.  But, seeing all the people at Pride Fest, knowing the kinds of ridicule and shame they are made to experience every day of their lives--that is real bravery.  They are heroes just for being who they are, living their lives authentically.  

Now, I know that members of the LGTBQIA+ community don't see themselves as brave.  They don't want to be heroes.  They just want to go to school or work, live their lives, love and be loved.  Just like everyone else.  Yet, society doesn't always allow that, and that breaks my heart, especially for my family members and friends and coworkers who are targets of this kind of intolerance.

As we were leaving Pride Fest, it was almost raining.  A group of teens were just entering the festival grounds.  They were all decked out in miniskirts and pink capes.  As we passed them, one trans kid joked, "You know why it rains and is cold every Pride Fest?  Because God hates us."  The whole group laughed.

That little joke, told so offhandedly, encapsulates everything that is wrong with society and some organized religions today.  These young, queer people have seen and experienced so much ignorance and hatred in their short time on this planet that they think God hates them (if they believe in God at all).  It made me ashamed to call myself a Christian, even though I know that not all Christians are bigots or homophobes or transphobes.

I was surrounded by some of the bravest people in the world today.  Not because they were rushing into burning buildings to save dogs.  Or diving into Lake Superior to save a drowning person.  Or chasing down a mugger.  No.  They were brave because they were just being themselves, unashamedly, with incredible happiness.  

Say it with Saint Marty, bravely, loudly:  love is love.  Amen.

June 11: Sun Rose Thinly, Pride Fest, First Idiot of the Day

Santiago watches his lines . . . 

The sun rose thinly from the sea and the old man could see the other boats, low on the water and well in toward the shore, spread out across the current. Then the sun was brighter and the glare came on the water and then, as it rose clear, the flat sea sent it back at his eyes so that it hurt sharply and he rowed without looking into it. He looked down into the water and watched the lines that went straight down into the dark of the water. He kept them straighter than anyone did, so that at each level in the darkness of the stream there would be a bait waiting exactly where he wished it to be for any fish that swam there. Others let them drift with the current and sometimes they were at sixty fathoms when the fishermen thought they were at a hundred.

The old man knows who he is.  Knows how to fish better than anyone.  He's been at it since he was a boy.  It's in his blood.  Genetic, even.  He is a fisherman.

My son and I attended Pride Fest today.  He's been looking forward to it for weeks.  He wore his "Proud to Be Me" shirt and a Pride flag as a cape.  His long hair was wild.  It rained the entire time we were there, but he didn't care.  He bopped from booth to booth.  Talked to friends and strangers.  Played pinball.  Ate a nacho cheese soft pretzel.  He was completely happy.

Before we went to Pride Fest, we hung around for a while at the library where I work, just killing time.  We went to the petting zoo that was set up for the kids.  Dogs.  Goats.  Horse.  Chickens.  I read in my office for a while.  My son played on his phone.  

We went to the bathroom before heading to the festival, my son all caped up and ready.  I was in a stall.  My son was at the urinal.  I heard the door to the bathroom open.  I heard a male voice say something, and then my son said, "Yes, this is the boy's restroom."  The male voice said clearly, "Disgusting."  

"Excuse me!" I shouted from the stall.  "I'm his father!"

I came out of the stall.  There was older man standing by the door, eyes downcast.  He shuffled to the urinal to do his business.  I went to the sink and began washing my hands.  "You know," I said over my shoulder, "everyone is welcome at the library.  If you can't handle that, maybe you shouldn't be here."

The man finished at the urinal.  He turned and came to the sink and started washing his hands.  He never looked at me.

I looked at him and said again, "Everyone is welcome."

Without looking at me, he went to the door and left the bathroom.  I followed him,  He didn't pause.  He headed straight to the stairs that lead to the first floor.  He didn't look back.  I watched him from the top of the stairs.  He just kept walking and left the building.

My son had returned to my office.  "Well," he said when he saw me, "that was the first idiot of the day,"

That's all my son said.  He brushed it off.  Refused to let the encounter ruin his day.

Saint Marty couldn't have been prouder of him.