April Rains

“Happy Passover,” Scott giggles, rolling over-top of Sherman and waking him up. The night before had gone rather pleasantly. Sherman’s uncle, visiting from Israel had made a few opening cracks about Scott’s inability to wear functional clothing and his failures in the areas of dignity and decorum, but after Scott settled into a conversation about plans to go to Turkey, Gerald just started mouthing the words “Midnight Express,” in reference to the delicious film noir.

“Start saving up,” Scott had replied. “I’ll need bail money and I have your phone number.” From that moment on they had crafted a night the sorts of which sprout life-long friendships.

“You did well last night,” Sherman responds, rubbing his eyes and trying to wake up. “It can’t be easy being the odd-one-out.”

“What, you mean because I’m Jain?” Scott asks surprised, to which Sherman nods. “Nah,” Scott continues, shrugging his right fist across the air in front of his chest. “I don’t see there being that much difference between any of us Sherry Bear. I think the kinship of religion is less in the religion you follow and more in the type of allegiance you have to it.”

“Interesting,” Sherman responds, albeit through a yawn.

“I think those who are rigid in reading the words of any religion are more similar to each other than they are to anyone who shares the title of their particular religion. Those who refuse to accept difference in others or contextualize the words they see as gospel. They are kind of the same—to me—regardless of whom their god(s) is or are. We can spin the words and choose the phrases that we follow with any belief. Some people will use any religion to justify hate and create fear where there never was reason. Others won’t.”

Sherman just lies there, taking it in.

“Anyway, I think that most people get a lot of things wrong,” Scott confides. “I know I certainly do.”

Sherman says very little in these revelatory moments of Scott’s. He doesn’t need to verify or deny the process; letting Scott come to his own solutions. He has a bewildering comfort with silence too. Something a lot of people seem afraid of. Instead, he sits up and rubs Scott’s back. For such a big polar bear, Sherman knows how to do this very well. His paws are surprisingly soft as well. That something big needs to be coarse, hard or scary seems an aberration of nature. That Scott was lucky enough to have never learned to be ignorant to that one thing led him to this man that might be the love of his life.

“I think, for the most part, people have a horrible misperception of each other,” Scott decides, as the man that has become his security and comfort continues to massage his back. “We act like things that we can define as differences—whether we call them illnesses or diseases and whether they are mental, physical or psychological in nature—we act like they make some of less whole than others. I know that’s not true. All people have their own struggles. If there is a label to pin to that struggle, or part of it, that may, or may not be helpful given on the situation, which is fine; but, for others to act like they are complete in some way that the rest of us aren’t is a delusion. It bothers me.”

Scott thinks about how Passover represents the need for Jews to once leave a land to escape slavery because of their religion. He knows that forty years ago he would have been thought of as having a mental illness because of his sexual orientation. That every individual dimension of any person can, and is, so easily extracted and magnified with judgment and ridicule by those around them. How every truth of one generation is proven ridiculous in the next.

“Nobody’s perfect. No one ever has been. It surprises me that we can convince ourselves that we—whatever we define as we—are without the flaws that others possess.”

Sherman just continues to rub Scott’s back. He knows Scott struggles with most things: a lot of easy things. He can’t cook or clean, he is not a great art instructor and he dresses incorrigibly; but, somehow he seems to have a unique insight into a lot of deep things that nobody else in Sherman’s world bothers to think about. He doesn’t get defensive about it, or have an ego that needs stroking. He just gives a shit and Sherman likes that.

“I love you,” Sherman breathes more than says, as the oxygen seems to have evaporated from his lips, making it difficult to speak. “I love your troubles and your faults and your fears. I love the package that is you and I love that I have gotten to see it stripped of all the dressings of urban life. You in this tundra has really been you, with nothing else to hide behind.”

It wasn’t the answer Scott was fishing for; but, not being a fisherman, maybe it was the answer he had cast out for. If not, given his tie-dye evening wear, it has certainly become the catch he will forever believe is out of his league.

Coming Into My Own Part 2

“But you don’t believe in God,” Sherman laughs, coming over to me and turning-down the left side of my collar. We are getting ready to go to another community event that his family is putting on. “This is all so easy for you.”

He’s joking. He knows the truth of my world. He knows the popular, and easy, perception to make by those who don’t. He knows the difference. I’ll play along though, if only to dance this holiday tradition with him. Plus, I don’t have to wear the sweater his aunt gave him.

“But I do believe in god,” I say, as balanced and calmly as I might. “I just don’t see her, or him or it in the heavens like most people. I believe that there is a piece of that god, whatever it looks like, inside of every living thing: every person; every animal. That is what I have always believed. Before I knew there was a name for that belief, or that other people held it as well. Most people don’t get that. They think I am trying to be trendy, I think.”

“They clearly don’t know you, or see your wardrobe,” Sherman scoffs. He’s right. I am an appallingly bad dresser. If trends had any merit at all to me, I would take offence to what I wear, daily. “Besides, it isn’t trendy to be Jainist. Almost no one even knows what that means.”

Again, he’s right. He usually is. Thank goodness too, because I am usually wrong. However, I think it is my beliefs that have helped give so much of my world meaning to me even when it had no meaning, or merit, to anyone else around me. It helped me appreciate that the truths of others was always as credible as my own, even if we don’t understand each other’s rationales. I always assumed that if we have a part of the same god inside of us, then we are equal: nothing more and nothing less. That helped me love my family when they struggled to love me back. It helped see love myself in the face of a world that told me I shouldn’t. It helped me believe that while I might not be right, I might not be wrong either.

“But, when you come to a dinner like this one tonight, how do you feel?” Sherman continues, interrupting my inner monologue, which must have seemed like I had forgotten how to speak from the outside. There might be a few ways to look at this. Jains don’t congregate or read from a communal holy book. I think the theory is that you have to find the meaning in and for yourself. That way you know it is your truth. You can neither credit nor annex authority of your ideas or actions to a higher power. 

“I love it,” I say, a tear swelling in my left eye. “Nothing could make me happier than being with the people I love the most and experiencing their truths—their comforts—with them. That’s unconditional love, no?”

Sherman shrugs his arms, but he also nods. I must seem so strange to him. That he has fallen in love with me anyway makes me care for him even more.

“And that, I think, is the thing at the heart of all beliefs,” I say, choosing to let the tear travel the length of my face and tying Sherman’s tie instead. “Love each other without either hate or mistreatment. If we all did that; if any of us could really practice that, well, I think that would be something. We’re all just trying to do that. We try and we fail and we try again. No?”

“But you get attacked,” Sherman counters with a vigorous knowingness I forget he has sometimes. He always seems so assured of himself that it is easy to forget he has endured a lot too. “Tonight people will get angry and frustrated with you for not believing along with them. They’ll yell. They’ll get louder and faster.”

It’s true. But, it is also the reaction of every side. It is the reaction of each of us. Especially when grasping for the last slice of cheesecake, whether that is literal or figurative. Personally, I like to think that I jump faster for the literal, but no one is a very accurate self-arbitrator.

“I just try to remember that talking faster and louder do not make anyone more right,” I smile cheekishly, turning to Sherman and rubbing his back. “Getting faster and louder has never made anyone more right. Actually, I think it shows how far from right we all are most of the time.”

“Meaning?” he asks, as his eyes start to dance with a spark of the light I have come so accustomed to seeing in them. It’s something that sets my heart at ease. Now that I’ve found this comfort it is hard to believe I existed without it for so long.

“I mean that getting faster and louder is usually what we do when we’re afraid,” I continue. “Afraid we’re wrong; afraid someone else—anyone else—is right, more right, maybe more right; afraid the foundations we’ve built our lives around—the same ones we have used to judge friends and hate strangers—isn’t quite as right as we thought it was a second ago. That it never will be again.”

"Okay," Sherman agrees, tentatively anyway. What I have said is part of a substantive argument, but it's only part. It's theoretical and an easy thing to mouth without practicing. It's something I can say while inhaling the same breath I'll use to scream. I consider this for a second, while chewing on my lower lip in a way I am sure is less seductive than when I see female leads pulling it off on film.

"I think there is a lot less acclaim for a more contemplative, willingly discoursive..."

"You mean willing to have a discourse," he corrects me.

"Right," I smile, unaffected. "Way of interacting with the world--the people--around us that far more rewarding than this defensive, hostile stance we take most of the time. Maybe all of the time."

"What do you mean?" Sherman asks, suddenly entirely involved in this conversation, with a passion and quiet confidence I know and trust in him.

"I mean that when we trust the reasons we think the way we do we aren't troubled to question them and to let others question them. We aren't afraid of the prospect of eventually—not wantonly—seeing parts of the world in a different way. We don't box ourselves into the way we have been conditioned or trained to see the world. I think that takes courage and intelligence and respect for different points of view," I say, before shrugging. "I think that is often brushed off by the fat, loud, talkers as weakness or hesitance. But I think that type of honest contemplation in interactions is what lets us move those mountains inside of us and sometimes, allow what start out as very much other people—in self-construct, perception and global frameworks—to become a part of our world. Maybe even a part of ourselves."

“I like that,” Sherman smiles lovingly, as he blows his nose and puts the frenetic sweater on that his aunt made him and requests to see at every family gathering. Neither of us would have chosen this sweater, but I love that Sherman wears it for her. It’s an unaffecting compromise in that it neither hurts, nor changes, his world to wear it; yet, it seems to bring a peaceful reassurance to her. Watching her, you can visibly see tension lift from her face when she sees him walk in the room with it on. As though its presence marks her place in the world as she has come to know it.

I wonder how our world would be—could be—if we lived our lives that way, wearing such sweaters. If we honestly only took issue with the things that affect us in real ways instead of distracting ourselves with things that will never affect us, but are simply different, and thus, scary or fearful to us.

Then Sherman does something he never has before. He comes over to me and lifts one side of my collar. "One up, one down; just the way you like it."

Coming Into My Own

We are getting ready for the high holy days up here where the sun never sets. Literally. It is the first day that the sun won’t set because my polar bear lover and I moved up to the top of the world to be closer to his family. On a day like this, that feels like a really smart move on our part. And by a day “like this” I mean every day.

But then I look over at the polar bear that stole my heart before informing me that he was taking it up to a place that doesn’t have active postal service. He doesn’t seem his usual chipper self. In fact, he looks a little too much like me—this being the expression experts would label annoyed. I make a note to work on this in the future. It is not an appealing facial contortion. I imagine that if I wear it too many days in a row I could lose the only man I have ever tricked into loving me back.

Fortunately, this is not that day. Today I choose to be a bitch (this is what experts should label as edgy or clever, but never will get ballsy enough to do so). “Do we need to take a bathroom break,” I laugh. “You look like you are full of shit.”

This isn’t accurate, but I have been waiting to try-out that line. I guess it’s a fail. Sherman ignores this, and sits at the edge of our bed, looking forlorn.

“Scott, what do you say when someone tells you your life is meaningless?” he finally asks. To be honest, I am kind of an expert on this question. People have been asking me this question since I was eleven and challenged Tonya Harding’s guilt in the Nancy Kerrigan attack. Since then I have heard it from my guidance counsellor, both parents, strangers on the street and my parole officer—and that was just last week.

“Sherman, no one has the right to tell you how to live your life,” I smile, realizing this is one of the rare moments in our life together where I get to feel more in the know than my, normally, self-assured lover. I am so often the one that seems out of sorts with this world that it’s nice to be the one with the fortune cookie answers for a change. “They have their own lives to lead. Yours is the only one you get. Well, unless you’re Buddhist.”

I can’t imagine having to deal with this all the time though. Talk about pressure: I don’t know how Sherman does it. He is always helping me through the hard stuff. I love him for that.

“Do you really believe that?” Sherman asks with that needing hopefulness I so often see in the mirror of my own reflection. It’s something I have never heard from him before. He’s usually so confident; so self-assured. It should be troubling, I suppose, to realize your rock is as vulnerable as you are. The way learning your parents are only human can throw-off a child’s access. I kind of dodged a bullet there. My father is a drag queen and my mother collects pictures of Keanu Reeves. The cracks were kind of apparent.

Besides, that’s the thing about religion. It’s this anomalous piece within each of us: A piece that severs itself from the rest of us; and, far too often, from each other. This very thing we think builds bridges, is so often, the thing that keeps us apart. I kind of like that this troubles Sherman too.

“Buddhism?” I laugh, trying to lighten the mood. “Hells no. I’m a Jain. You know that, Sherry Bear.”

I had been waiting for the perfect opportunity to test-drive this new nickname for Sherman. I suspect by the expression on his face that I should have waited a little longer—story of my life really—but I do know what he really means and I’m not going to make him repeat himself. Not here, where the cold and the snow and the wind make it so hard to warm up to these moments of genuine vulnerability to begin with. It’s easy to brush-off syrupy melodrama here, but this kind of honesty is rare for us.

 I roll over Sherman’s big bear belly, while realizing that it probably requires several takes for the graceful people in movies to pull this kind of maneuver off. Neither being Grace Kelly, nor having an Alfred Hitchcock, I fumble poorly.

“But I really don’t think that matters Sherman,” I say, as I wrestle myself off of the floor and back onto the bed, ever so seductively locking eyes with him. I recall some yoga instructor I took three lessons from in a heroine-park once telling me that this is the way you access someone else’s soul. “Where you see god; What he, or she, or it, or its vacuum, looks like, or feels like. None of it matters, Sherman.”

“Are you drunk Scott?” Sherman asks, quizzically. “You know this is a dry community.”

Being a lunatic, I have gotten much more graceful at ignoring such comments than I am at foreplay.

“Sherman,” I giggle. The giggle I got from Marilyn Monroe. She may have also done heroine, but I trust her more than that Yogi in the park. I smile, caressing his furry back and nuzzling up to his ear as though I am about to whisper some deep secret we can’t let the wolverines outside in on. “I’m serious. And yes, I do believe that. You only get one chance at this life. Don’t ever let anyone else’s ideas of what’s right, or wrong, guide you. No one else will ever have walked your truth—they can’t know your story, not fully. Don’t let them determine how you live it.”

“You’re a lunatic,” Sherman sighs. It’s a dance this thing of truths and sharing. Deciding how vulnerable to make yourself, even to those you love the most. It is tough, even for the few who ever muster the courage to try it. “Thanks.”

I guess this is how Sherman deals with the pressure of taking care of me. When you get it right—or, right enough—it feels like a super power. Feeling like you made a difference for someone you love: that’s magic.

“How do you deal with it—with the abuse?” Sherman asks, interrupting my inner-monologue.

“I guess…” I start, trying to come up with that trite response that makes for a really good four second sound-bite.

“Don’t do that,” Sherman protests, cutting me off. “Tell me something real. You really take a lot of abuse from people. It’s one of the things—maybe one of the only things—you do really well. Well, that and make cupcakes. Delicious, I might add.”

Sherman’s right. I make a mean chocolate-swirl. The secret is to under-cooking them ever so slightly to ensure they stay moist. I think about this for a minute. He’s also right about my checkered past. I worked in a homeless shelter where I let women call me a cunt and a faggot without ever contesting them. Then we came up north, where I work with some fairly angry Alaskan youth who call me a white dictator and an idiot from the south while they domineered our their classroom, to which I do nothing other than nod my head in acknowledgment and ask if they are done so we can move on (and back into the real world). Then there is my family—that is a game of Survivor, minus the million dollar prize, I might add. Realizing these are the instances he is referring too, I respond honestly.

“Oh, those cases,” I smile. “Sherman, I don’t take those cases personally.”

“What do you mean?” Sherman asks, aghast. “They attack you. They vilify you.”

“No,” I sigh in love, knowing how protective this big bear is of me; how he would do anything to protect me. All things being considered, I have been lucky in this life; but, I have never known this kind of love before. “Not really.”

I put my head against his chest, positioning my ear against his heart. I align our breathing before I continue. “None of those people ever really attack me.”

“What are you talking about? They attacked you every single day,” Sherman protests, emphasizing the words as though the effort will bring me up-to-speed. He feels so out of sync with the rationalization coming out of my mouth.

“It’s true. I received the abuse, but they don’t really aim at me—not ever,” I continue, breathing deeply to match his cadence. “They weren’t attacking me. They weren’t aiming it at Scott or being gay or Jain or short or slightly fat. It had nothing to do with you or me or my lack-luster skills as an art instructor. It had nothing to do with me or my religion or my sexual orientation or my skin tone. If I were Sydney Crosby they would act the same way.

“They were angry at a world that silenced them and stripped them of their dignity; disempowering them. They were angry at everything that was external and oppressive to them—at ever body who was outside of their experiences of oppression. I got caught in the cross-fire as something—someone—that was an easy target and a representative of that world that had hurt them so irretrievably. I got that. I always got that when I worked with those women and kids. They needed to release that rage. I love myself and I am proud of my life, and so letting them release that anger didn’t ever have to change me. It didn’t hurt my heart the way real abuse—the stuff that targets a person and victimizes them does. Besides, they were really clever and manipulative and I could respect that.”

“But what about your family?” Sherman asks, smiling. He gets it now. He gets a piece of me that he didn’t before. He cares enough to try. That’s the mountains we’ve talked about before.

“Sherman,” I giggle. “They spend their free time watching reruns of Boston Legal and Will and Grace. Why, on earth, would I care what they think? They’ll never really know me. They’ll never really try. Not the way you do.”

“Fair enough,” Sherman smiles. That’s when he kisses me. Yeah, this is a pretty good life I live up here in the tundra. Plus, at least his family watches the news.

That’s Grandma

Sherman’s hairy face reminds me of this guy in the old myths my crazy grandmother used to tell me about as she tried to convince me that my bedroom was safe enough for her to get back to those reruns of Dallas she enjoyed so much. Or was it tequila she liked? Maybe Dallas was incidental.

Regardless, Sherman’s eyes dazzle with the same chilly grey the icebergs flanking our apartment boast. They’re kind, even when troubled. Deep crevasses chisel his warn face the same way I, shall we say, instruct my students to carve soap stone in the art classes I teach at the local community college of this tundra (wonderland). He has lived a thousand lives that I will never know about; even though their lessons are woven into the very world we build together.

That’s kind of a tough break for Sherman, because I’m not going anywhere and I bet he is kicking himself for trading down from whoever he adventured with before me. At least I am a spark-plug; although, I have also heard the term flight risk used accurately as well.

“Sheryl called this morning,” I say, jostling the white of Sherman’s polar bear hair to ensure he has not slumbered off to dreams of better days. My grandmother is a lunatic, but I love her. In spite of her perceptive ignorances, I think she loves me too—her gay, Jain, grandson with the polar bear boyfriend.

 “How is Sheryl?" Sherman asks, his eyes livening up in the way I imagine they would if he had just gotten a negative test result for the chlamydia virus. They have grown close in recent months. Sheryl and Sherman; not Sherman’s eyes: that would be weird. Ever since Sherman helped her sign-up for some on-line dating service they have shared this bond that people who have similar game-show experiences boast. It’s completely baseless and somewhat ridiculous. Well, that and he did inform Sheryl that her first lover, Jesus, was Jewish. It was one of those mind-blowing, life-changing moments for her.

As it turns out, Darwin was wrong: even dumb people evolve; Sheryl appears to be proof of that. Her fondness for Sherman is the evidence of evolution.

“My lesbian father took her to see the doctor,” I get out before doubling-over in laughter.

“Why is that funny? What’s wrong?” Sherman asks, visibly mortified. In addition to having a relatively healthy relationship with my grandmother, he has a fondness for my father that I cannot understand. I appreciated it more than words can say, but understand it I do not. After realizing my father is a lesbian, Sherman loved him that much more. That he cares for them so genuinely is probably the reason all members of my family would choose him over me in any divorce our union may lead to. I suppose my reaction to their foibles would indicate that that’s a solid choice—a rarity for any one of them.

“Nothing,” I smile, kissing his cheek for caring. “She made him go into the appointment with her, so he thought it was the incontinency problem she keeps bitching about.”

“That might not be serious, but it isn’t funny either,” Sherman responds, with the conviction I both love and loath him for. His concern for a lunatic that drinks a pint of tea before bed and then wonders why she has to go to the bathroom four times a night is endearing.

“Trust me—it is,” I laugh. It would seem that Sherman’s sense of humour is far more advanced than mine.

“How so?” he protests. I think he used to be a lawyer. I generally eat lawyers for lunch, but he is bigger than me. Besides, not knowing how to make my own parka, I imagine it is best to keep him around until the “balmy season”, a two day period in August, hits our village.

“She met a guy she digs on that piece-of-shit dating site you logged her into,” I smirk. “She just wanted to make sure all of her equipment was working. You know, since it expired in 1928.”

“And?” Sherman now questions, queasily.

“And when she came out from her examination, she called everyone, including me, to tell us the doctor checked her with two fingers and ‘if there are any problems, it’s his fault,’” I laugh uncontrollably.

“His?”

“Her on-line lover,” I say, trying, and failing, to keep a straight face. “My grandmother just had to call and tell me about her ‘two finger salute’.”

“That’s disgusting,” Sherman says, puking in his mouth a little bit.

“You don’t know the half of it,” I continue. “I was going to leave out the part where she describes her nether region as being ‘in tip-top shape’. But then, that’s grandma. She’s a moron. I mean, what did she think? It’s not like her hymen was going to grow back or something. You only get one, and it’s no one else’s fault that Sheryl traded hers in for a club sandwich back in 1812. Why do you think they call it a hymen Sherman—like Hi Men, I’m ready!?”

I have never stunned Sherman before. But then, I have to give the props for this to Sheryl.

“It’s all well and good for you to laugh Scott, but your grandmother becoming sexually active could be very serious, Sherman replies. I am sure he is right, but I can’t take anyone seriously when they are talking about Sheryl having sex. Not even Sherman. I think I viewed some old-school porn on Beta once that was that funny. It was also the first time I knew (for sure) that I was gay.

“STIs are a real problem for the elderly community,” Sherman continues, annoyed. “HIV and chlamydia are sky-rocketing among the geriatric population. With drugs like Viagra, there are a lot of highly sexual people who have no sexual education or awareness.”

“Plus, Sheryl’s Pope hates condoms,” I respond, losing interest in the conversation as it begins to get cumbersome with reality. “I think God told him they give you coodies.”

Sherman just rolls his eyes at this.

“What?” I ask, taken aback. “So I am not a fan.” Sherman isn’t a fan of the Pope’s either, but this conversation is about the sexual health of Sheryl’s lady-bits.

“I know. I know,” I say, begrudgingly. “The Pope isn’t relevant. Don’t worry. I already had the talk with Sheryl.”

“How did that go?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I said, Sheryl, chlamydia is not your friend and herpes are forever. Wear a fucking condom. Then I helped her pick-out some fruit-flavoured ones on-line. Did you know they come in blueberry and watermelon?”

This gets a smile. Sherman is finally starting to see the humour in this fiasco. “How did that go over?”

“Splendiferous,” I howl, as I mockingly jostle his hair again. It is so rare that I get the upper-hand in an argument with my big bear. “How the fuck do you think it went? She wasn’t impressed…not at first anyway.”

“What do you mean…not at first?” Sherman asks.

“I mean that when I got her to think about all of her idiot friends having sex, we came up with a winning game plan,” I smile, my voice bubbling over with juvenile glee. I roll over in bed and grab a rolled-up poster from the floor. As I peel-off the elastic, the glossy reality presents itself to the world of Sherman’s eyes. “Just look at what we came up with.”

Sherman looks down, considering the 17 x 24 sheet of colourful madness. Staring back at him is a picture of my grandmother with one thumb up and a condom-wrapped banana in the other hand. She is wearing one of my lesbian father’s more conservative business dresses and the sparkly wig I gave her in celebration of the winter solstice—the first day we had light here this winter.

Then Sherman’s eyes graze down to the caption. Herpes—it’s not just for young people. Wear a condom, bitches!

After a moment of processing, he responds.

“It’s good,” he smiles, searching for the words that will make his criticism constructive. “But, did you really need the bitches at the end?”

“Hell’s yay. It’s for emphasis,” I laugh, gregariously. “Besides, that was Sheryl’s idea. She said you have to have cuss words to make an impact. Otherwise…”

“Otherwise what?”

“Brace yourself,” I warn him.

“Okay.”

“Otherwise, those old fuckers are just gonna keep bangin’ without that balloon thingy.”

That’s all I get out before losing control of both my laughter and my bladder. It’s also the time Sherman loses it too—finally!

Moving Mountains in the Snow

“Oh. My. God!” I shriek into the darkness. “There is a wolf outside our window!”

Sherman rolls over on our air-mattress, not even batting an eye-lash. “It’s all the way down the tundra. This isn’t Little Red Riding Hood. It’s not going to try and get you.”

“I can see it,” I stammer. “That’s bad enough.”

This scenario plays itself out at least once a day: me freaking out over the smallest thing because I remember that I have moved to the Arctic Circle with my polar bear of a lover and our cat, Miss Richard Hatch. Perhaps Sherman is right to shake-off my lunacy; I did name my cat after a reality television star after all. I haven’t exactly pulled my life together is what I’m getting at.  On the other hand, he could show a little more empathy, too. I did leave a wonderful life of unemployment several thousand miles below the 60th parallel in exchange for a life as a mediocre art instructor in the land that ice takes a vacation to get away from—flying on a twin Otter no less.

Fortunately, I am a little bit in love with Sherman. This is partly because he is so good at complementing me. “You really remind me of Cameron Diaz,” I recall him howling the other night after watching a bootlegged version of Bad Teacher that ended up being dubbed in Korean. Admittedly there isn’t much to do up here in the Arctic. Especially when you bed-down with a polar bear, since the obvious activities are hunting polar bear and eating polar bear. Not wanting to kill one of Sherman’s relatives—not yet anyway—we end up watching a lot of movies.

I have been losing a little weight around my mid-section, but that is really no reason for Sherman to compare me to the most ridiculous celebrity in America, next to Tori Spelling. “You mean because I am looking so svelte these days?” I asked, knowing what was coming next.

“No, because I think you are probably about as good of a teacher as she is,” he burst out laughing. “Plus, you have a bit of a drinking problem.”

It’s true, but it’s not what you think. I don’t have a drinking problem when it comes to alcohol. Alcohol and I have a very stable relationship. The kind most people mistakenly associate with lesbians. You know, where two people have found that magical place where they complete one another without causing a hangover in the morning.

No. My problematic relationship is with Dr. Pepper. I love that stuff so much that if it were legal, I would marry it, divorce it and take it for all it’s worth, before coming back to Sherman.

This isn’t really an issue up here in the land that time forgot though since we rarely have access to anything carbonated, let alone pop. However, yesterday when I took my daily stroll to the Co-operative to harass some of my students to come back to class, my jaw dropped and the fat kid inside of me came rushing out. There, on the counter, was a box of Dr. Pepper. A box! Beside this was my other addiction—limes.

After my inner fat kid took a moment to rub the hamstring we pulled running the three feet it took to get over to the precious elixir, I read the label accompanying the sweet, sweet nectar: Dr. Pepper ONLY 3.50$ a can!!!

“What the ba-hiffy!” I screamed. I couldn’t believe they were trying to charge three dollars and fifty cents for a can. Where was Ashton Kutcher and why was I being punked? I mean, a bottle I could see, but this was just a can. I had to keep myself in check though. I remember the last time I lost it in the Co-op over the frozen pizza that was only fifteen dollars. If I continue yelling at processed foods the people of my new land are going to think I am a lunatic. Which I am, but that’s a nugget I like to share only with the polar bears I sleep with. So I purchased two cans and bolted—my go-to finishing move.

As I opened a can of the sugary goodness, I looked around the tundra to assess the notion that I am not entirely unlike Cameron Diaz.

Don’t tell Sherman, but the thing is that I wouldn’t trade any of this. Don’t get me wrong. There are things that I wish were true about myself—my life—that will probably never come to fruition. I wouldn’t mind being taller, smarter, or a little lot better looking. But, if I could have those things, I would undoubtedly be somebody else. I wouldn’t make that trade for anything. Well, maybe if I could be Gerard Butler, but only before he filmed The Bounty Hunter.

“I’m definitely not Cameron Diaz,” I finally muttered, defensively.

“You mean because you don’t bleach your hair anymore?” Sherman quickly responded. He certainly does have a swifter wit than I do, but that’s not saying much.

 “No. I mean, you’re right,” I granted him. “That was an epic fail.” Bleach blonde is a look that barely works for anyone this side of the nineteen-eighties. This is especially problematic for someone who looks like Chucky, and not in a good a way. I actually lack the one redeeming quality of that deformed lunatic doll—motivation.

No. What I was getting at was a quote David Foster Wallace once told a school of new graduates as they took that next step in the maturation process—defaulting on their student loans. That real freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad, petty, little, unsexy ways, everyday… whether we see them or not.

 I thought it sounded nice at the time. Quaint even. The way a person might recall something as a mantra or if they were to post a link to it on their Facebook page without ever really getting around to breathing life into the words themselves. But now, as I look around the tundra and consider the mental image of me with Cameron Diaz’s bangs, I think I get at least a hint of what Wallace really meant that day.

When we love people we move mountains for them. Not real mountains. Not metaphorical ones either. When we really love the people around us we care about who they are in the banal, imperfect moments of their everyday lives. We move mountains within ourselves to make space for them. We climb over our stereotypes and we deconstruct our long-held perceptions of how we saw the world before they entered our field of vision. We change the landscape of our hearts because those people become a part of how we see the one thing we always thought was unchangeable—ourselves.

Or, maybe it is they who move the mountains inside of us. Because it is their presence within us that changes us in ways our eyes and minds have yet to understand. The people we really love become a part of us and we are forever different in subtle, yet, foundational ways that defy the logic of our misbegotten world.

Sometimes it just takes a little time and the application of a few snow tires to get over those mountains, especially the ones that first appear so daunting—the very ones most worth excavating.

“No. What I meant was…” I began to say. Then I paused. Sherman has moved an awful lot of mountains for me this year. I mean, he adopted a cat named Miss Richard Hatch, sight unseen. That’s love. “You’re right. I am kind of like Cameron Diaz.”

On the outside, I am just some Cameron Diaz doppelganger. I probably always will be. The reason I forget this most of the time is because of Sherman. It’s his little sacrifices, the ones that go completely unnoticed most of the time, that make me believe I can do anything. Even move to the Arctic Circle and carve out a life in the snow.

As I collect some ice to chill the last of my Dr. Pepper with zest, I don’t know what comes next. What I do know is that the version of me that will find out is part polar bear, part rabid doll and a little bit Miss Richard Hatch, because, well, those are the people that have moved the mountains inside of me this year. They changed my world and, in the process, became a part of my soul. A part now obscured by the Northern Lights in a land free of mountains, flush with snow and in need of a screen for that window.

All Hallow's Eve--Or, The Night I Threw-Down With Michael Jackson's Ghost

Looking back on the evening that unites the living and the dead—beat it grandma—there were a few “red flags” shall we say. It was an evening full of ghouls, sharks and a dead 1980s pop star and it goes a little something like this:

To begin with, I had prepared for this night by purchasing several bags of 99 cent candies back in the south before I moved my fat ass three thousand miles up to the Arctic Circle to become a replacement art professor in the one community college where igloo construction is not only an elective, it’s a major. Unfortunately, lost in the trauma of our rickety plane-ride up to the land of unending darkness, my cat, Ms. Richard Hatch, needed the sugary-goodness to recover from her post-traumatic-fat-disorder. A skinny bitch she is not.

This left me with a freezer full of tuna and no Halloween candy. Not wanting to pay fifty dollars for the same candy I had already bought for a total of $6.99 in the south, I chose to go la-cheapo and serve popcorn.

“Popcorn?!” hollers Sherman over the phone. Sherman, the polar bear I bed-down with, is spending Halloween two villages over. He is not a fan of All Hallo’s Eve. This isn’t particularly original on his part. I doubt Frankenstein’s Monster was a fan either. They are of a similar stature. However, I was lonely and scared of the trick-or-treaters, and so I had demanded that Sherman spend the evening on the phone with me anyway.

"You are ridiculous," Sherman continues, rather judgementally.

"Tell me something I don't know," I snicker into the phone. I fully own my ridiculous nature. This is a good thing, as it rears its head at least once every four hours. For instance, I had also demanded that they play The Dixie Chicks’ Not Ready to Make Nice on the local FM radio even though they normally don’t take requests.

Needless to say, I was fucked, and not in the good way, when I realized I had consumed what had been just enough popcorn to feed the pack of Michael Jackson impersonators who were moon-walking by my window with real tricks up their sleeves.

“Shit! I’m going to have to resort to my stash!” I lament to Sherman.

“Not the fudge-os,” he moans in a smug manner. I may be a bleach-blonde but no one can pull off smug subtly. Not even over the phone. “Keep track!” he chuckles.

"Keep track of what?"

 "All the children who refuse your bullshit candy," he laughs. "As long as they don't light our igloo on fire, I support them." Sherman has a helluva better rapport with these kids than I do, but then, he doesn't have to teach them to mix oil-based paints. Trust me, it's tough. "Refusing!" he continues, "Like you are trying to get them to take a test or something."

“How do I score the kid who grabs six fudge-os, screams at me in Inuktitut and runs off,” I bitch.

“Let’s be honest, you had that coming,” Sherman chuckles. “Fudgeo’s! Pull your shit together!”

“Yeah,” I agree. “I’d have bitched-me out in Inuktitut too. Well, if I knew Inuktitut. Fuck it. I would have learned Inuktitut just to bitch-me out for that.”

“No, you’re really not that motivated,” Sherman replies. He’s right, but there is no reason to state the obvious. “By the way, did you know they caught a shark here?”

“What do you mean they caught a shark?” I scream. “It’s not Hawaii. You aren’t playing Survivor. Now, that’s ridiculous! Plus, I think I went in that Bay.”

“You were swimming in the Bay?” Giselle, my former babysitter-slash-street hustler, asks. I had been so worried after the Michael Jackson incident that I Skyped her into the evening’s events. “Isn’t it kind of cold?”

“Keep up G-bird. I didn’t say I went swimming. I went wading. I was looking for lichen.”

“Okay. That makes more sense,” she laughs. “You are a fat ass.”

“True story,” I agree.

“This conversation is getting taxing,” yawns Sherman. “Tell me about your day.”

“Welllllllll,” I begin obnoxiously. I, like most people, feel I have something of great value to say when, most of the time, I definitely do not. But today I actually do. “I walked outside for recess duty. As has been previously discussed, recess duty is not my favourite time of the week. PS-that kid urinated again.”

“Wait a second,” Giselle interrupts. “Why do you have recess duty at a community college?”

Sherman is right, this is a taxing conversation. I choose to ignore her in the hopes she will go away, just like I had done with Michael earlier in the evening. He had moon-walked off into the night. Giselle probably won’t get the hint though. She has only rarely been confused for being smarter than a fourth grader; although, she does have a medal to substantiate this claim.

“Whatever," I continue. "So, Brenda, the secretary office administrator, walks out behind me and goes, Scott, you look like a girl as she whips out a cigarette from the secret compartment in her parka.”

“What a slut,” says Giselle. “And I should know.” Damn, I knew I kept her around for a reason. But Brenda isn’t a slut. She’s a covert anorexic. I only learned what a covert anorexic is when my aunt informed me that she is also one. “We’re anorexics who don’t pull it off very well,” Dallas told me. “The intention’s there. We just can’t pull the trigger.”

Kind of like the Barak Obama of the eating world.

To Brenda’s credit though, she had definitely pulled a few triggers in her day. She is not the kind of woman you would want to row-sham-bow with, is what I’m getting at. She’ll kick you in the balls, and then she’ll do it again, just because she can. Basically, she is my god. Not wanting to confront her now, I conceded graciously.

"Thanks Brenda," I chose to reply instead. "I really needed that right now."

This was followed by an awkward silence during which Brenda probably thought about resorting to her finishing move several times, but ultimately did not.

"I was only joking," she says, confused by this, probably new, sensation of regret that has swept across her like a twenty-four-hour flu you want to dine-and-ditch as soon as possible.

"You should do stand-up," I respond. "I think I should go deal with that kid who's peeing over there. Later, B."

"You're a cold mess," laughs Sherman. "I'm going to bed. Good luck."

And that’s about the point in the night that Michael Jackson moon-walked back across the tundra and cut the power-line to my igloo for not getting a god damned Fudge-o cookie.

Seeing Michael Jackson in the most unlikely of places got me thinking about belief. It is kind of astounding what we choose to believe in, what we reject and how critical we are of everybody else's choices.

Joseph Smith created Mormonism in the 19^th century, and Ron Hubbard created Scientology in the 20^th century, but somebody created everything else too. We just don’t keep good enough records to remember that. Some equally creative buddy thought up Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and even my personal favourite, Jainism. Not to mention the three thousand other options. Whether any one is better, or worse, depends entirely on the point in history you are looking at and the personal-lens with which you are looking. Each one yields corruption. Each one spites the others. Each one allows for the mistreatment and discrimination of its non-followers (the non-believers).

So, no matter what you believe in—god; gods; witches; my mother’s cooking; nothing at all—I don’t think that says much about you. No merits are won, or lost, with what you believe. The telling truth of who you are and what you represent is in what you allow to exist in other people. To not just tolerate a different point of view, but to actually believe that it holds as much potential for truth and connection and hope as anything that resonates your own spiritual truth.

That would be noble. That would make you something—someone—worth believing in. Regardless of the mask that you wear on your own face.

The revelation was kind of like a Halloween miracle. Plus, I really enjoy Michael Jackson's moonwalk.

Oh, and by “something like this” I mean that is exactly how Halloween went down this year.

How to Move Mountains--Snow Tires Pending (The Year That Was)

“Honey, I’m home!” I holler as I prance through the door to my igloo. “Today was the shit!”

The day was really just as banal as any other but without cable you have to turn it up a notch. There was the ordinary shit. I usually have to yell at one of the local wolves who wants to eat me alive. Probably because I’ve put on a few pounds, or, as my mother describes it, “Holy shit Scott! What the fuck happened to you!” And then, there’s the Yeti who lives down the ice sheet people refer to as a road here. Try making daily conversation with a Yeti. It’s tough.

But today there was something rather exceptional as well. All day I was aware that I would be coming home to a house an igloo full of puppies. Or, as I like to think of them, little people with lots of back fuzz.

“Puppies!” I roar, as I grasp them all up into my arms like someone who wasn’t hugged enough as a child and will forever over-compensate with his own children. Part of my joy in these little minions is that I have great visions of starting my own dog-sled business. However, I am also well aware that I don’t have the motivation to turn this idea into a reality. Instead, I’ll probably train them to boil rice (my staple food) as I become yet another parent who is satisfied with the mediocrity of his offspring. I mean, it clearly worked for my parents.

“How do your parents feel about their new grandchildren?” I ask Sherman. “Are they thrilled, Angelina?”

“I’m not Angelina Jolie. Stop calling me that!” Sherman barks. “And you’re no Brad Pitt either!”

“Well, I’m not Angelina Jolie. I don’t have her bone-structure. You do. We have seven children. Ergo,” I say, bobbing my head. “Deal with it Angie.”

“At best you’re Roseanne Barr,” Sherman rationalizes.

“I guess that makes you John Goodman,” I counter. Joke’s on Sherman. I actually find John Goodman oddly alluring. Especially up here in the Arctic. Body heat, check.

 “Whatever,” he huffs. “And no, I have not told my parents about the puppies.”

“Well, get on it,” I suggest. “We’re going to have to bring them with us when we go back down south for the holidays.”

“We’re not going down south for the holidays,” he snarls.

“Fucking right we are,” I proclaim like a politician talking about cleaning up city streets or lowering taxes. “There is no way I am staying here with nothing to do.”

“This place isn’t so bad,” Sherman says, defensively. “With global warming, it isn’t even that cold.”

 “The cold is to here like Susan Boyle is to singing,” I gripe. “Extreme.” This is kind of like complaining about Andre the Giant’s height or Michael Phelps’s ability to swim, in that you don't really notice how much more extreme an outlier is after a certain point, but in retrospect, you long for the days when they were just a little ahead of the pack.

Trying to change the subject, I pick up the runt of the litter of rabid dogs I have brought home and stare at him. “I think we’ll call you Yuri, after the guy from Dr. Zhivago.” Then I hand him to Miss Richard Hatch, the cat I have brought up here from civilization. “Here Miss Richard—Happy Holidays!”

“Your cat doesn’t want a rabid dog!” Sherman howls. "Plus, that dog is a female. Get your eyes checked."

“Sure she does,” I protest, petting Ms Richard's mangy coat. “She is lonely. Look, she is shedding from stress.”

“She is shedding because of her Jenny Craig weight loss program,” Sherman rebuttals.

“Who comes to the arctic to lose weight? Miss Richard, go out and find that back-fat. It keeps me warm at night.”

“Why did you name her after a moderate celebrity from a game show again?” Sherman asks. He already knows the answer though.

“Because she is large and in charge!” I howl. This seems to excited Ms. Yuri, who then bites me.

“Have you never regretted that decision?” Sherman asks, choosing to ignore the fiasco going on around him.

“Neverrr,” I say, parroting my collegiate art students.

I know it’s kind of a douchey stunt to name your pet after a super-star, and I don’t usually like to name-drop unless we are talking about Roseanne Barr, or, as I like to think of her, the place heaven hid happiness. However, it really does work for Miss Richard.

Come to think of it, the one thing more ridiculous than naming your pets after celebrities is quoting them. Celebrities. Not pets. I am all for quoting pets.

I snuggle into Sherman’s big, hairy, lap and cradle Miss Richard Hatch in one arm and Miss Yuri Zhivago in the other. “The point isn’t to live without any regrets. The point is to not hate ourselves for having them…We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn’t remind us that we did badly. It reminds us that we can do better,” I whisper. “That’s Kathryn Schulz,” I blabber on, as though I am ahead of Sherman on some cutting-edge intellectual race. This is obviously ridiculous, as he then proceeds to point out.

“I know who said it, fat ass. You aren’t the only one who YouTubes TedTalks, you know. Besides, you totally butchered that quote, considering you call yourself a journalist.”

“A yellow journalist,” I say in my defence.

But then Sherman ponders that flawed, imperfect, quote for a second. He holds it up against the year that has been and the future that still awaits us. In the short span of six months, he met me in the woods, we visited his parents at the zoo, we’ve moved to the Arctic Circle together, I went from being unemployable to being a fourth-tier college art professor stand-in, and we just adopted a rabid puppy to keep Ms. Richard Hatch warm at night.

“Besides the fact that Ms. Richard Hatch is not a lesbian, and therefore has no interest in a rabid female dog named Yuri, I don’t regret a single thing that’s happened this year,” he says, embracing me further and kissing me on my third eye. “You know…we have been engaged for a month and a half now. What do you say we take the Air Otter over to Alaska and try to get a Sarah Palin look-a-like to officiate for us?”

“Un-fucking-believable,” I mutter to myself.

“I thought you’d like that,” Sherman says, a little bewildered.

“Oh, I do!” I exclaim, jumping up to grab my parka before this silly polar bear changes his mind. “It’s my dream come true. Right down to the Sarah Palin look-a-like. It’s just so unbelievable that you would think so too.” It is unbelievable, and yet, here it is. “Now let’s go. I want to be legal before Yuri starts foaming at the mouth.”

As I close the door to our conjugal igloo—the one with the sun roof in a land that only has three hours of daylight—I think about the other great writer who I’ve chanced upon this year. David Foster Wallace once told a school of new graduates that real freedom “involves attention and awareness and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad, petty, little, unsexy ways, everyday” whether we see them or not.

 I thought it sounded nice at the time. Quaint even. The way a person does when they call something a mantra or post it to their Facebook page but never get around to living it. But now, as I look around at this land, I think I get at least a hint of what Wallace really meant.

When we love people we move mountains for them. Not real mountains. Not metaphorical ones either. When we really love the people around us we care about who they are in the banal, imperfect moments of their everyday lives. We move mountains within ourselves to make space for them. We climb over our stereotypes and detonate our long-held perceptions of how we saw the world before they entered our field of vision. We change the landscape of our hearts because they become a part of how we see the one thing we always thought was unchangeable—ourselves.

Or, maybe it is they who move the mountains inside of us. Because it is their presence within us that changes us in ways our eyes and minds have yet to understand. They become a part of us and we are forever different in subtle, grafted, foundational ways that defy the logic of our misbegotten world.

Sometimes it just takes a little time and the application of a few snow tires to get over those mountains, especially when they first appear so daunting. Often those are the mountains most worth excavating though.

As I close the frosty door to this cavern in the tundra, I don’t know what comes next. What I do know is that the me that will find out is part polar bear, part rabid dog and a little bit Ms. Richard Hatch, because those are the people that moved the mountains inside of me this year. They changed my world and became a part of my soul. The world might not be able to see that, but the track-marks exist in parts of me I never understood before, in a land covered in frozen water: a land where all the mountains of my former self have dissolved.