About a Boy

The book that Big gave me was an exceptional piece of work. How might I respond in kind? What information might it be helpful for a Sir to have concerning his boy? And I guess it wouldn’t be the incidental stuff, that he wouldn’t be likely to pick up from reading the nearly two years of soul-bearing his boy has done in his weblog.

Huh.

During the course of a therapy session, with Michael, my therapist when I first moved to NYC, something I said elicited the observation, “You contradict yourself…”

“Do I contradict myself? Very well. I contradict myself,” I responded, without missing a beat, quoting Walt Whitman, “I am vast. I contain multitudes.”

Paradox heaped on paradox. That’s me.

Check it out.

A motherless son, who has had five mothers.
My father’s father.
A Christian with no faith.
Cosmopolitan country boy.
A minimalist with a cluttered desk.
An ever-credulous cynic.
A spirited pessimist.
A latte-swilling tea drinker.
A shy extrovert.
A passionate neutral observer.
A connoisseur of fine meatloaf and scalloped potatoes experiences.
A man of conviction who sees all sides of any question.

And yet, and yet… all of these contradictions and so many more are resolved again and again in the crack of a whip, the click of a padlock, immersion in water, a highway stretching out endlessly in front of me, any piece of music—from Bruce Springsteen to the Chorale Symphony—presented with passion and inviting me to sing a long.

And now, this new contradiction: a Top with a Sir, whose collar he serves.

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