The Swamp

I sometimes wake with a song running through my mind, an earworm, I believe it’s called. I’ve read that your subconscious could be telling you something by bringing that particular earworm to your attention.

But, I had an experience of a different kind the other day. 

Instead of a song running through my brain, it was an image, which seemed pressed to the inside of my eyelids. An eyeworm?

Like an earworm, this eyeworm was not static, it was fluid, like a movie. I’d call it a dream if I wasn’t beginning to wake up.

I remember being in a flat bottomed boat moving slowly through mangroves with Spanish moss hanging down from the trees and the sunlight filtering down through the canopy. It was very peaceful and quiet.

If it’s thought that an earworm might be a message from your subconscious, what is this eyeworm? Could it also be a message from my subconscious?

I believe it is.

I’ve written how I don’t see myself connecting with the gay community much any more. Far too many of my attempts at dating have left me wondering if anyone values honesty any longer. Far too many focus on the body rather than the mind, the heart or the soul of the individual or, more importantly, of themselves. Far too many feel the need to keep one eye open in case someone better comes along. Far too many latch on to someone instead of spending time with themselves for fear of uncovering painful truths or realizations.

I believe the image I saw in my eyeworm was meant to show the beauty of a swamp, an area some might not think of as beautiful. Yes, a swamp has its challenges. You don’t swim the water because of the alligators, water moccasins, or the fact the water isn’t very clean because it’s quite stagnant. Yet, the beauty is still there.

Even though the gay community has its own water mocassins-the ageism, the body shaming, the racism, the superficiality, the melodrama, the perfectionism, the hypersexualism-it also has its beauty.

We are creative-dancers, actors, designers, singers, composers…

We are diverse-all races, genders, sexualities, capabilities…

We are caring and nurturing. When young people have succumbed to the effects of bullying, community members have rallied, when possible, to help the surviving parents try and understand. When Daniel Pierce, a young man, videotaped his coming out and subsequent eviction from his home for being gay, a GoFundMe page was started and raised over $90,000 for him to find a place. In the 1980s when gay men by the thousands began dying of some then-unknown disease and the government barely lifted a finger to do anything, it was the lesbian community who rallied to help their brothers.

Maybe the eyeworm was to remind me of this: Looking past the difficulties and the ugliness, you will find the beauty.

And maybe that is my challenge this year.

After all, I can always venture into the swamp, I just don’t have to swim in it.