September

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
wake me up when september ends

like my fathers come to pass
seven years has gone so fast
wake me up when september ends

here comes the rain again
falling from the stars
drenched in my pain again
becoming who we are

as my memory rests
but never forgets what I lost
wake me up when september ends

From "Wake Me When September Ends" by Green Day (2004)


I don't know how it happens, but I got up this morning and realized that it's now the middle of October. What I don't understand is, what happened to September? Like a will o'the wisp, it was here and, then, gone. September is my birthday month so, of course, that is something that didn't slip by unnoticed. A fairly large number of my friends also have birthdays in September, so it's a popular month, as far as that goes. I finished the first draft of my screenplay in September of this year, and my preferred presidential candidate, Barack Obama, continued to blast his way past the dreadful McPalin combo in the national polls.

However, for all that I stated above, there's also a certain melancholy feeling that I associate with September. Maybe it's residual, left over from the days when I still lived in a place where the seasons actually changed. There, September signals the end of summer, with leaves gently falling from trees to the damp earth below, and chillier nights giving way to cold mornings, long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, and then the full-fledged fabricized armor of coats and gloves. With September comes the death of summer, at least in most areas of this country. I always anticipated the gloomy, grey skies with a certain sadness that, conceivably, had more to do with certain situations existing during the school year that were, mercifully, absent during my summers away. Now, in southeast Florida, it's practically summer all the time, and September signals the end of nothing, only more of the same. A lot of people must love that; god knows, there are plenty of them down here. I, myself, am actually here by default, the unlikely remnant of an old relationship that went south when my then-partner went north (and west). With nothing better to do, I opted to remain in Florida, for better or for worse, and I'm still here, 10 years after leaving Dallas for this morass of swampland and overcrowding, traffic and inflated prices, high crime and bad attitudes. I don't give a shit about the fucking year-round sunshine or the palm trees or the much-vaunted casual lifestyle that compels people to attend the theater dressed like they were going to their Uncle Morty's outdoor barbecue. But, what I do care about, and what will keep me here until I find a better option, is the relative ease with which gay people such as myself are assimilated into the population. We have our own neighborhoods, our own businesses, our own physicians. In the cities of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, people mostly don't care who you're living with, who you're dating, or who you're sleeping with. There are areas where you have to take it a little easy on any same-sex pda's but, for the most part, being gay is a pretty easy row to hoe here, especially compared to many other areas of the country. This, in spite of a sorry, piece-of-shit homophobe named Jim Naugle who, after 8 (I think it's 8) long years as Mayor of Ft. Lauderdale is finally leaving City Hall to, oh I don't know, go harass gays in some other corner of the U.S., probably Washington D.C.

But, I digress. The title of this blog entry is "September", not "Fear and Loathing in Ft. Lauderdale". September is also the month of 9/11, not that you need me to point out the obvious to you. It seems like forever ago, but it hasn't even been a decade since it happened. I still have the newsreel tucked away in my mind. I'm standing in front of the television set watching Matt and Katie as I dress for work; one plane has already hit the World Trade Center and they're speculating that it's a private plane gone tragically off course, when a second plane hits, right while I'm watching, and suddenly two words immediately burn into the minds of everyone witnessing this: TERRORIST ATTACK. I think it was in that moment that everything changed forever; King George and his ruthless minions took charge and the long cavalcade of lies and subterfuge began in earnest. By the time the last of the two World Trade Center buildings crumbled down into dust and debris, the wheels were already turning, hurtling our country into an abyss of unfounded rumors posited as facts, military attacks on foreign soil, needless suffering, more death, billions of dollars thrown away, and the loss of America's dignity and reputation in a world grown increasingly wary of our judgement, and of our dedication to pursuing any interests other than our own.

It was in September--this September, last month, in fact--that I got an e-mail from an old friend (herself the mother of another old friend) that her son had committed suicide in North Carolina. It saddens me to say that I was shocked but not surprised. Jay (not his real name) was a beautiful, sensitive boy; pushing forty, and with large, liquid brown eyes, a mop of brown hair, full, red cheeks, and a sweet, childlike face, Jay exuded a youthfulness that hid a very troubled soul plagued by bipolar disorder, and addiction issues that I had assumed (mistakenly?) were in the past. We'd first met when he was 18 and I was in my late twenties, and he went to work for me in the box office of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic Orchestra. Jay's mother was the office manager, and she and I were already good friends, so I was more than happy that her son was coming to work for me. A friendly, funny, organized, and highly intelligent guy, Jay was easy to like. I quickly came to realize that he also had a certain volatility that seemed to be at odds with his usual easygoing self. We confided in one another and I came to understand a lot of his problems, although the drug and alcohol thing hadn't yet started. I also sensed that he was gay, but let him get around to coming out to me in his own good time. There was never any sexual or romantic feelings between us, but I did feel that, on some level, he understood me as no one else ever had (or has, to this day). I'd say that it was like having a soulmate for a brief while, but then so much can be read into that and be completely misunderstood that I won't even classify it as such. Despite his eternal boyishness, he also had something inside him that was very old, and the instinct to understand things, without assigning judgements. At least, that's how I found him to be. The last time I saw him was in March of 2007. We had gone to North Carolina with the idea of possibly purchasing property for our retirement years, or as a second home, or as just an investment. There was no set plan. We were in the Chapel Hill area and Jay made the three hour drive from his home in Wilmington, and we enjoyed a great time catching up on the years that had passed since we'd last seen one another. He'd put on a little weight (which he needed) and looked good--and happy. Or at least, he looked happy on the outside. Turned out that he was far from happy, having recently separated from someone he genuinely loved. At the end of the day when he left to drive back to Wilmington, he hugged me tightly and smiled cheerfully, promising to be better at keeping in touch. And standing there in the chilly spring evening, I knew that I would not see Jay again. There were a couple of e-mails between us, and he tried to make another go at it with his boyfriend, but it didn't take. Totally true to character, in the end he remained completely organized, getting all his affairs in order before breathing the fatal dose of pure helium that killed him. The police officials told Jay's parents that he just went to sleep and felt no pain, but how can they know that for sure? Besides, he must have felt that all the pain that led up to this must have been worse than any that would be endured in dying.

I know that when some people die like that--commit suicide--the ones who knew them, the ones who are left behind, say that they don't understand how he could do something like that. But, I do understand it, all too well.

In September, I realized that I didn't have the wherewithal--a catchall word that I truly love--the desire, the focus, or the dedication, if you will, to edit my screenplay and do what rewriting needed to be done. No matter how long I sat in front of the computer screen, I just sat. Nothing happened. I stared at the screenplay in front of me until I was almost cross-eyed, before bringing up I-Tunes and shopping for songs that were totally unneeded, then switching to Amazon to shop for DVD's that were completely unnecessary, and, lastly, engaging in heavy social networking on internet sites for people who, with few exceptions, will probably never even meet each other.

And so I am here, in a state that I often despise, writing about a month that has gone down in infamy, and trying to make sense of my own misdirection and lack of focus. Is this a middle-aged thing, seeing friends go, and then reviewing one's own life, one's own mistakes, one's own mortality? Maybe it is appropriate that I write about September, because that's where I am now, at least in terms of me being in the autumn of my life. A time for discarding what is no longer needed, like a tree shedding its leaves. What to do next? That's a good question.