What My First Reading Taught Me

Arriving early for the Lammy finalists reading
I talk a lot about always feeling other, always feeling alien. For the most part this feeling of otherness is something that envelopes me like my skin. I tend not to think about it unless something irritates me, sort of how we tend not to think too much about the skin we’re in until a blemish erupts, or a mosquito makes a meal of us.
Tuesday night I had the great honor of participating in the Lammy Finalist Reading at the Leslie + Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art in New York (Yes, Virginia there is such a thing, and if you haven’t been there I urge you to go check it out.)  It would be the first time I ever read in public and I admit I was a tad nervous—okay more than a tad. Also New York itself unnerves me: all those people, all that crackling energy, all that movement. My brother met me at Penn Station and we went to a diner for lunch. And then it was 5:15 and we were walking into the museum. I was the first reader to arrive. They were setting up a display of finalists’ books for sale and there it was—on the left at the front—Unbroken. My Unbroken. I stepped back. Was this really happening? I pulled out my phone and took a picture in case it all suddenly disappeared like a dream.
I was fourth to read. I listened to the first three readers and thought Oh crap, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that. And then I was on stage reading. “I was twelve, and in seventh grade. He was the new kid…”
And then my three minutes were over and I was stepping back down to the ground, the sound of 
Look there it is--Unbroken
applause ringing in my ears.  As I’d glanced around the crowded room after my last sentence, I suddenly realized for once I didn’t feel other, didn’t feel alien. I felt embraced, supported
by my brother and his fiancée, by the listeners in the room, by the other finalists. Wrapped in words, in an art we’d each created, I felt included. And that was a heady feeling.
At the end of the evening I talked to everyone, offered congratulations, praise, promised to meet up in June at the Awards ceremony. I hugged a mother and daughter, Sophia and Rosette, who came from the Bronx and who’d bought Unbroken then came back to shyly ask me to sign it for them. I hugged them both, feeling warmth and acceptance and encouragement, and the pull of my Bronx roots.
As I sat on the train making my way back to Philadelphia where my adored partner and our dog were waiting up for me, I reflected on a simple truth: sometimes the walls we see around us, walls that keep us out, are walls we built to protect ourselves from a world that might welcome us if we only gave it a chance.

Comments

  1. Well deserved applause Larry Benjamin, well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. thank you Ann! I'm doing another reading in Philly next week, I'm wondering if I'll be less terrified. LOL

      Larry

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Catching Up With...Stacey Thomas, the Philadelphia Wedding Chapel

A Fatherless Father's Day

Gay Pride Month - Virtual Roundtable