Strength in the Snake-Pit

Jade Donigan 2/28/2009, page 1 of 4

Strength in the Snake-pit

Defining the Gay Lifestyle

Time always seems to crawl at the end of the day. In the morning, it races by; so hard to be on time, to remember where everything is, to be where I need to be. But by the end of day, it’s as if each moment is the step of some slow, cautious reptile, patiently picking its way across a desert.

I’m not a patient person.

It’s hard enough to sit without fidgeting as the minutes tick by, one by one, until the bell rings. It’s harder still in art class, when I can never seem to put the beautiful image drifting through my thoughts onto paper. I might as well try to sculpt smoke with my fingers. Each senior in the class is required to pick a theme around which their work will revolve; mine is the tarot card deck. The project of the day is a card called Strength. Usually shown as a woman gently controlling a lion, my version is a bit different--a beautiful nude woman is entwined by a massive snake. She smiles calmly, as if the handling of a deadly python were an everyday occurrence. I love the concept, but I can’t seem to get it quite right. The pastel won’t take on the right texture on the matt board, colors I haven’t touched wriggle their way onto the scene, and the soft, glowing gold I’m trying to build in the background is closer to the color of urine. Frustration seems to be the theme for the day.

While frustration could easily be a theme for my life, it would be more accurate to say that “lifestyle” is the theme of my frustration. That word can irritate me more than any tedious art project, especially when used in tandem with the word “gay.” I’ve heard the term “gay lifestyle” used so many times that I think I’m developing an allergic reaction to the phrase. Then again, I’ve never been talented at tolerating any sort of shaky assumption. The assumption here is that there is one single lifestyle that all homosexuals pursue. The problem is, I don’t think any such thing exists. It’s a cold, dry, slippery term with a disapproving voice behind it. For those who actually are homosexual, it’s a term with a particularly painful bite.

The concept is like a vice, tightening around me, limiting what I’m capable of. The irony is that before I came out, people told me I was capable of anything. Afterwards, that changed. During a conversation with my friends about careers, I mentioned pursuing journalism, art, and drama. “But of course!” exclaimed my friends. “Gay people are always good at creative things!” Even my family isn’t always immune to the illusion. When I joined the cross country team, my uncle congratulated me for “breaking the stereotype.” The paradox here is that he would have never mentioned anything if he thought I was heterosexual. I run regularly, I love the outdoors; it was completely natural for me to join the team. Why does my sexuality change that? Friends were shocked when they learned that I wasn’t a partier, guys were surprised that I wasn’t promiscuous, my family was astounded at my athleticism, my political moderation, my spirituality. Everyone had a notion about who I should be before they actually knew me.

Now that I’m older, that’s changed somewhat. People seem to have realized that I don’t live the gay lifestyle…I simply live my lifestyle. I rarely have occasion to get angry at that attitude anymore. Rarely.

There’s a girl in my acting class. She’s friendly and comical, but there’s a nervous shift in her eyes, a slightly protective stance that she adopts when I walk too closely to her. She looks at me the way one looks at a dangerous animal, one that might decide to bite at any moment. I walk by her in the hall, we exchange hellos. I hear her voice, an attempt at a whisper to the girl next to her, as I walk away: “It’s not that he isn’t nice…but he’s gay. He admits it. Isn’t that just a little creepy to you?”

The coils shift and tighten. Something cold wraps itself around my heart. I can’t breathe. It’s not what she says that bothers me. It’s the sudden, overwhelming fear that nobody will get me. Nobody will ever know me, understand me completely. Nobody will ever see things from my perspective. They’ll get flashes of color and light, but never the whole picture. They’ll never see that I don’t subscribe to a lifestyle, that I just live. I think I’m alone.

The bell rings like a thousand semi-trucks driving through a glass wall. As I get up from my chair and swing my overloaded backpack over my shoulder, I look down at the woman, standing alone against a background the color of faded sunflowers. She is Strength. I notice the snake isn’t twined around her as much as she’s supporting it. She holds it gingerly, caressing its head with almost motherly affection. Her expression is light, playful. As if the handling of a python were an everyday occurrence. Because it is, for her. For me. For all of us.

“Don’t take it too seriously,” her smile says. “It’s only life, after all.”

It’s my life. I live it like a runner, a writer, an actor, an artist. I’m a fighter, a lover, a dreamer. I read Stephen King with all the lights on. I snack on fresh vegetables at the movie theatre. I prefer stormy weather to sunshine. I’m gay. I am Strength. Because as much courage and fortitude as it takes to fight the serpent, it takes much more to keep it tame. To accept it. To embrace it.