When one is transparent, nothing stands between you and another.
I practice transparency daily. It is an active practice. It isn’t meditation or prayer; it doesn’t involve solitude or retreat; it isn’t reflective.
Transparency is invisible. It is the antithesis of barriers. It’s what does not come between people.
Imagine standing eighteen inches from another person. Simply standing. You are looking right into the other person’s eyes. And there’s absolutely nothing between the two you. No suspicion, no unfinished business, no questions. You’re simply standing there and swallowing the other person.
In the past, I built walls and fences and reasons why I couldn’t be intimate with people. I placed these impediments between us to safeguard myself. And it worked. I distanced people. I protected myself. I was as insulated as a cold water pipe.
And alone.
The other day I met Pup. Pup lives in Charlotte. We exchanged two simple phrases, and then I lobbed my telephone number and asked him to call me.
Five hours later we were talking on the phone. With tremendous ease and humor; with nothing in between us but five short miles. Pup called a mystery man out of curiosity. And like children in sandboxes, we played, entertaining our curiosities with laughter and silences.
“I like how you use the word ‘lover’ to describe your lovers,” Pup said to me last night. “You don’t talk like other people,” he admitted quietly.
“It’s like there’s nothing between us,” he said.
Indeed, Pup. Indeed.
black lie? And just what is a white lie anyway? Is it a menial lie? An itsy-bitsy lie? Why do we even parse lies? A lie is a lie. Whether it’s as small as an amoeba or as large as an elephant.
door close and I can hear the clang of his belt as the weight of his pockets draws his jeans to the floor; I can feel his shirt being stripped from his torso like cellophane; then our bed tilts like a little rowboat as he lifts the comforter and slides in behind me. “Hijo,” I whisper, “did you have fun with your friends?”
handsome now,” I whisper. “Jajaja, Papi,” he whispers into my ear, softly purring, “You’re always handsome.”
his entire weight atop me, pushing my breath from my lungs. He lifts himself up from me, then lowers himself into a comfortable position, moving his hips delicately.
something does take the bait, I’m not going to yank the line and hope that I’ll hook the guy. I’m not interested in a catch. I’m really interested in the nibble, the interest, the wink, the nod, the text, the call, the voice, the hello; the validation that I exist somewhere else than in this hotel room. That I’m recognized.
where I lived. I wanted to live in an icon. And in Chicago, there’s no greater icon than the Hancock Tower. I mean, you don’t even need to give anyone, and I mean anyone, the address. All you need to say is the Hancock Tower.
Trump Tower. All three were born to the same design firm, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, and for which I worked for eleven years.
HARLAN DIDRICKSON 