To quote Carol Carpenter, playwright, of NEW YORK CITY, NY.
"When No One's Looking makes me homesick for the simple, hardscrabble, poetic life that unfolds daily in the Ortiz Mountains of New Mexico -- and for the raw, fearless emotions and journeys of its people, as brought to life in Sarah Leamy's protagonist Joey. It's a story about the outer and inner landscapes that lead to love, to hate, and ultimately to wisdom."
cover art
TEARS OF A CLOWN
A few years ago whilst sitting under the tree one Sunday lunch time Angela, Ellen and I talked, laughed, and played together. In the clearing beyond the cottonwoods, I taught Ellen new juggling tricks, up and over the balls went, different rhythms to their flight. Then I taught Angela to juggle. She had always wanted to learn, and that was the day. She was a quick study, full of a twenty- year olds’ enthusiasm for all things new. Her eyes lit up when she captured this, the musical movement. The beat lived in her hands. Angela juggled, grinning widely.
Moments like these bring meaning to my life.
Only a few months later I found myself staying in Asheville, North Carolina. Within the Old Europe Café, Dizzy Gillespie’s jazz echoed around me. It was early afternoon but I wished it were nighttime, for then I could go back to sleep in all good conscience. It’s not that I was tired. I was just heart-achingly sad. The fight had gone out of me. The raspberry topped chocolate cake balanced the bitterness. The bitterness of the espresso.
The bitterness at hearing Angela killed herself. Angela killed herself.
She threw herself in front of a semi-truck. Angela killed herself. Moments like these that bring everything into question. The fight left me. I sat there depleted. Deserted by my own understandings and faith, I ate the chocolate cake in front of me. I sipped the now-cool latte. My eyes burned. I spoke not a word. I sat lost.
All that I could think was that I am sick and tired of hearing how another friend has killed herself. When will this end? I’m sick and tired of having friends take their own lives. I’m beyond dealing with this in a quiet and proper manner. Angela. Chris. Alicia. Phil. I’m sick of this.
Today I read that Brandon, a teenager in Pennsylvania died by throwing himself in front of a tractor-trailer. A suicide note at his home told of incessant bullying. He is not the first queer kid to take his life. But his death caught me deep inside. I walked the Ortiz Mountains, sick, heart-sick to hear of his death. Another one? Really? It’s hard, being gay, bullied, and having no one to talk to about the struggles. I know. Personally. I was that kid. You almost lost me many a time. Invalidated by mainstream society, the artists, writers, queers and freaks (myself included) struggle unheard. We hold our heads as high as we can, finding paths to feed needs unheeded by the majority rule. We search and search. Why are we all so lost? Lost in this world of ours, unable to find a place to claim as our own, devoured by emotions, swayed by the inner loops of words misguided, persuaded to taking the final step? The ending of our own lives. We are all so vulnerable.
And I am enraged.
Enraged by this society that worships competition. Taught to fight each other for that job, that lover, that house and mortgage. Status. Money. Competition not connection. We don’t listen to each other nearly enough. We judge. We fight. Anyone that steps beyond the recognized paradigm is attacked.
Some years ago, I stayed in Britain for a few weeks. When I sat in the pub in Hay-on-wye I started talking to the old bloke next to me. Where you from lass? Where’s your husband? Kids? Family? He grabbed at me. I shook him off and then I answered his questions truthfully. There was a pause. Then he stormed at me; you live in America, eh? Too good for us are you? Why aren’t you married eh? Think that men aren’t good enough either, eh? Fucking dyke. Fucking arrogant shit, go back then, go back to that country; we don’t want your sort here anyway. He smashed his pint down on the table between us. The pub went silent. I was told to leave.
Years later I am still an outsider. Not just a phase was it? The good daughter turned rebel child. Now a woman and still a rebel. So, I stand outside, looking in, looking out. Further and further away from the dream of the mainstream. But why on earth am I seen as a threat? Why are kids bullied to the point where death seems a better choice?
Now I’m pissed. From this point in my life, I am pissed. The society we live in doesn’t teach us how to connect. We talk, but we don’t say what is real. We hold it back. Or when we do speak, it is rarely understood. The miscommunications pull us further apart. Yeah it hurts to love, and be loved. However, there is nothing more real. To me. Nothing more real than this. To know another. Intimately.
Some years ago, I found myself living in Santa Fe, and I had settled with my first girlfriend. One Friday afternoon I couldn’t take it any longer. The fights inside and outside my head. The incessant questions, what’s the point when it all hurts so much? Why bother? Why bother living any more? I packed the truck and drove up to El Vado Lake. I needed to be alone, and I needed to decide what to do next. Could I keep living life as I had been? Nothing owned, nothing owed, moving on whenever the love from another smashed through the masks I hid behind? I hid the panic attacks, but her eyes took me in and accepted my fears, held me tenderly. Still I ran. I ran.
At El Vado Lake, I couldn’t see beyond my own breaking heart. Life had to be more than this. Right? I wanted to live a life of meaning. But. I didn’t know what that meant. I gave myself a choice. Live or die. Simple as that.
I left a note explaining my decision. Then I stripped, folded my clothes, and waded out into the lake. I decided this was it. To swim all the way across was more than I could handle physically, so that’s what I started to do. I swam out, heading across the lake. I swam. My arms were getting weaker and weaker. I couldn’t decide! So I turned and swam parallel to the shore, my muscles quivering as I talked to myself. I swam on and on. Oh, fuck it! I want to live!
I chose life.
Back on dry land at the lake all those years ago, I lay there, exhausted yet exhilarated. I chose life! I chose life! I was astounded. I had always thought given the choice I’d quit this life of mine. I chose life! But now what? I lay there for a while till I got my breath back, then sat up, and made a cuppa tea. (I am English after all). Then I wrote. And I wrote. That’s it!
I will live. I will write. I had found my reason to live.
Why are we not encouraged to find our own answers and passions? Does society, as we know it, deliberately keep us separate? Fostering the need to fill the inner restlessness by afternoons spent in the mall? After working all week to pay the debts from the weekend before? When at school or home, growing up, learning about grammar and arithmetic, why aren’t we taught how to cope with life? The reality and the challenges? The heartbreaks, the poverty, and the fears? And, yes, the intimacy? Why are we all so protected? Why do we hide so thoroughly behind closed eyes? Behind words of self-deceit or despair? Our defenses solidifying over the years?
I chose life. Angela chose death.
Again, I have to rage at the world. We don’t know how to have these intense feelings swell up in and out of us, and we don’t know what the hell to do with them. So. We hide. We keep our distance.
Why? Why do we hide? Fear. We are all so fucking afraid. I know I am. I know it’s not just me. I know we all can feel this disconnected. And I wish to hell we didn’t. Why does this mainstream culture feed off our silences and sense of alienation? Keeping the masses in place, filling us with regrets and alcohol?
That winter I spent in North Carolina shook me harder than I like to admit. I curled up on the floor of the cabin, lost in my inner world. I’d sit in front of the woodstove and break down, yelling at the unseen, raging against a world full of fears. Wine filled my mouth and I’d forget to swallow. Swallow this life. Swallow my rage. Swallow my needs. I was tired of this pain. (I still am.) Angela killed herself. Who’s next? Too many queer kids have killed themselves this year. It’s beyond silence. We need to do something for them. I don’t want to read that another died because of bullying, loneliness or fear.
Please. All you artists, anarchists, queers and freaks, find your passions. Find your communities. Take care of each other.
Please. All everyone take care of each other, whatever your age and whatever your family looks like.
If you know another queer kid that’s struggling, tell them it gets better. Tell them to find me, talk to me. I don’t have the answers but I have time for them. I’m still here. I don’t know how I made it. Life is incredibly hard, but it does get better. Please. Talk to each other. It’s our only hope.
Moments like these bring meaning to my life.
Only a few months later I found myself staying in Asheville, North Carolina. Within the Old Europe Café, Dizzy Gillespie’s jazz echoed around me. It was early afternoon but I wished it were nighttime, for then I could go back to sleep in all good conscience. It’s not that I was tired. I was just heart-achingly sad. The fight had gone out of me. The raspberry topped chocolate cake balanced the bitterness. The bitterness of the espresso.
The bitterness at hearing Angela killed herself. Angela killed herself.
She threw herself in front of a semi-truck. Angela killed herself. Moments like these that bring everything into question. The fight left me. I sat there depleted. Deserted by my own understandings and faith, I ate the chocolate cake in front of me. I sipped the now-cool latte. My eyes burned. I spoke not a word. I sat lost.
All that I could think was that I am sick and tired of hearing how another friend has killed herself. When will this end? I’m sick and tired of having friends take their own lives. I’m beyond dealing with this in a quiet and proper manner. Angela. Chris. Alicia. Phil. I’m sick of this.
Today I read that Brandon, a teenager in Pennsylvania died by throwing himself in front of a tractor-trailer. A suicide note at his home told of incessant bullying. He is not the first queer kid to take his life. But his death caught me deep inside. I walked the Ortiz Mountains, sick, heart-sick to hear of his death. Another one? Really? It’s hard, being gay, bullied, and having no one to talk to about the struggles. I know. Personally. I was that kid. You almost lost me many a time. Invalidated by mainstream society, the artists, writers, queers and freaks (myself included) struggle unheard. We hold our heads as high as we can, finding paths to feed needs unheeded by the majority rule. We search and search. Why are we all so lost? Lost in this world of ours, unable to find a place to claim as our own, devoured by emotions, swayed by the inner loops of words misguided, persuaded to taking the final step? The ending of our own lives. We are all so vulnerable.
And I am enraged.
Enraged by this society that worships competition. Taught to fight each other for that job, that lover, that house and mortgage. Status. Money. Competition not connection. We don’t listen to each other nearly enough. We judge. We fight. Anyone that steps beyond the recognized paradigm is attacked.
Some years ago, I stayed in Britain for a few weeks. When I sat in the pub in Hay-on-wye I started talking to the old bloke next to me. Where you from lass? Where’s your husband? Kids? Family? He grabbed at me. I shook him off and then I answered his questions truthfully. There was a pause. Then he stormed at me; you live in America, eh? Too good for us are you? Why aren’t you married eh? Think that men aren’t good enough either, eh? Fucking dyke. Fucking arrogant shit, go back then, go back to that country; we don’t want your sort here anyway. He smashed his pint down on the table between us. The pub went silent. I was told to leave.
Years later I am still an outsider. Not just a phase was it? The good daughter turned rebel child. Now a woman and still a rebel. So, I stand outside, looking in, looking out. Further and further away from the dream of the mainstream. But why on earth am I seen as a threat? Why are kids bullied to the point where death seems a better choice?
Now I’m pissed. From this point in my life, I am pissed. The society we live in doesn’t teach us how to connect. We talk, but we don’t say what is real. We hold it back. Or when we do speak, it is rarely understood. The miscommunications pull us further apart. Yeah it hurts to love, and be loved. However, there is nothing more real. To me. Nothing more real than this. To know another. Intimately.
Some years ago, I found myself living in Santa Fe, and I had settled with my first girlfriend. One Friday afternoon I couldn’t take it any longer. The fights inside and outside my head. The incessant questions, what’s the point when it all hurts so much? Why bother? Why bother living any more? I packed the truck and drove up to El Vado Lake. I needed to be alone, and I needed to decide what to do next. Could I keep living life as I had been? Nothing owned, nothing owed, moving on whenever the love from another smashed through the masks I hid behind? I hid the panic attacks, but her eyes took me in and accepted my fears, held me tenderly. Still I ran. I ran.
At El Vado Lake, I couldn’t see beyond my own breaking heart. Life had to be more than this. Right? I wanted to live a life of meaning. But. I didn’t know what that meant. I gave myself a choice. Live or die. Simple as that.
I left a note explaining my decision. Then I stripped, folded my clothes, and waded out into the lake. I decided this was it. To swim all the way across was more than I could handle physically, so that’s what I started to do. I swam out, heading across the lake. I swam. My arms were getting weaker and weaker. I couldn’t decide! So I turned and swam parallel to the shore, my muscles quivering as I talked to myself. I swam on and on. Oh, fuck it! I want to live!
I chose life.
Back on dry land at the lake all those years ago, I lay there, exhausted yet exhilarated. I chose life! I chose life! I was astounded. I had always thought given the choice I’d quit this life of mine. I chose life! But now what? I lay there for a while till I got my breath back, then sat up, and made a cuppa tea. (I am English after all). Then I wrote. And I wrote. That’s it!
I will live. I will write. I had found my reason to live.
Why are we not encouraged to find our own answers and passions? Does society, as we know it, deliberately keep us separate? Fostering the need to fill the inner restlessness by afternoons spent in the mall? After working all week to pay the debts from the weekend before? When at school or home, growing up, learning about grammar and arithmetic, why aren’t we taught how to cope with life? The reality and the challenges? The heartbreaks, the poverty, and the fears? And, yes, the intimacy? Why are we all so protected? Why do we hide so thoroughly behind closed eyes? Behind words of self-deceit or despair? Our defenses solidifying over the years?
I chose life. Angela chose death.
Again, I have to rage at the world. We don’t know how to have these intense feelings swell up in and out of us, and we don’t know what the hell to do with them. So. We hide. We keep our distance.
Why? Why do we hide? Fear. We are all so fucking afraid. I know I am. I know it’s not just me. I know we all can feel this disconnected. And I wish to hell we didn’t. Why does this mainstream culture feed off our silences and sense of alienation? Keeping the masses in place, filling us with regrets and alcohol?
That winter I spent in North Carolina shook me harder than I like to admit. I curled up on the floor of the cabin, lost in my inner world. I’d sit in front of the woodstove and break down, yelling at the unseen, raging against a world full of fears. Wine filled my mouth and I’d forget to swallow. Swallow this life. Swallow my rage. Swallow my needs. I was tired of this pain. (I still am.) Angela killed herself. Who’s next? Too many queer kids have killed themselves this year. It’s beyond silence. We need to do something for them. I don’t want to read that another died because of bullying, loneliness or fear.
Please. All you artists, anarchists, queers and freaks, find your passions. Find your communities. Take care of each other.
Please. All everyone take care of each other, whatever your age and whatever your family looks like.
If you know another queer kid that’s struggling, tell them it gets better. Tell them to find me, talk to me. I don’t have the answers but I have time for them. I’m still here. I don’t know how I made it. Life is incredibly hard, but it does get better. Please. Talk to each other. It’s our only hope.
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