Don’t Let Fear Drag You Down

Written for the class "Public Relations Advanced Writing"

The night is cold and finding the Blue Moon Lounge on the dark and deserted Gottingen Street has already proven to be an adventure. Entering the bar, we push down a narrow flight of stairs until finally reaching the coat check. What appears to be a hefty woman lumbers over greeting us and tells us to enjoy the show. She turns around and heads back to a group of rather tall women. On closer inspection, one notices strong jaw lines and Adams Apples on the women, which range in appearance from scary to oddly attractive. They are men in drag and they are proud of it. Before long the show starts.

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Natasha, one of my high school friends, as well as my girlfriend and me, sit at a table with Dr. Chris Frazer, a professor of Latin American History. He is one of the last acts.

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At one point in the night, a bald man in a blonde wig and black cocktail dress leans against my table and lip-syncs Beyoncé’s If I Were a Boy. The irony is striking, but the visual has the desired impact. I tense up. He slowly pulls off his large curly wig and his shaved head is revealed. The illusion of femininity is destroyed, but a new one takes its place. He is the epitome of accepting oneself no matter what people may think. He chooses to embrace his desires and his lifestyle and by removing his wig he also embraces himself. He is not hiding anything, but putting everything out there despite fear of judgement. The performer takes a step back and then returns to the stage where he collects tips from the line of individuals offering money. As the song ends he donates his collection to a local social rights organization fighting for gay rights in Halifax.

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This act strikes a chord with me. More than anything else, I admire his bravery. He is being true to himself and though I find no desire to wear a cocktail dress, I can understand how he must be feeling: free, liberated, and perhaps a bit scared. In 2008, Statistics Canada found that one in 10 hate crimes were committed as a result of sexual orientation and of these 56% were violent. Considering a survey from the same organization reported that only 1.7% of Canadians were admittedly gay or bisexual, it seems that these individuals were being targeted. Despite Canada legalizing gay marriage in June 2005, homosexuals coming out to friends, family, and community still face the fear of discrimination. Their bravery in the face of this, present perfect examples of being true yourself in the face of oppression.

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Throughout my life I have met many of these brave individuals, but I grew up with two of them and their stories remain ingrained in my mind. In high school, I had two groups of friends. The first were all agnostics and the second were all Baptists. I tried to avoid inviting these two groups to the same events as fights would regularly break out amongst them. Each group had one girl that stood out. In their own way, they were both leaders with strong personalities and stronger opinions.

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The agnostics had Meagan. She was a guy’s girl, the kind that you could invite to the theatre knowing that you’d be able to watch an action movie, pay only for yourself, and not call anyone the next day. Her coming out story begins on our first Thanksgiving home from university. I had invited my agnostic friends over to reminisce and just before they left, Meagan brought me up to my bedroom, sat me down, and took a deep breath. The silence was deafening.

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“I have something to tell you,” she said as she pushed her short brown hair out of her face. I leaned back in my desk chair for a moment and then leaned forward.

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“You’re a lesbian,” I blurted out expecting the comment to break the awkward silence and garner either a laugh or a quick denial.

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Unblinking, Meagan nodded with a smile. “Yes.”

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I don’t remember my exact response, but it included five questions beginning with, “Did you kiss a girl before me?” and ending with, “What do you think about the girls in our graduating class?” She answered them in a good-natured way and then headed home leaving me astonished. That night I cried for the first time in five years.

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I didn’t feel betrayed nor did I judge her in anyway. It was just an overwhelming realization that everything you knew was slightly different than you understood it to be. After learning something that carries so much magnitude, I was left to adjust my view of both personal history and social justice. That night, my view of homosexuality and all issues related to it were altered and solidified. Previously, I believed that compromise was necessary and gay civil unions were the right answer. But how could I believe that my friend, whom I had known since elementary school, didn’t have the same rights that I enjoyed. The idea seemed preposterous.

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This was not the end of Meagan’s coming out story. Though I was the last of our friends that she had come out to, she still had to tell her parents. Months went by without any word between them until a rumour started to go around our small hometown. She went home that weekend and revealed her sexual preferences to shock and discomfort. Her father refused to talk to her until the following night when he came down from his bedroom and sat next to her on the couch.

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“So, do you think Angelina Jolie is hot?” he asked testing the water.

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She responded, “Hell, yeah.” He laughed and left. In his own way, he was showing that he accepted her. I know that Meagan was scared telling her parents and I admire her for facing that fear.

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My Baptist group of high school friends had Natasha, the sort of no-nonsense Christian that growing up in a small town to very conservative parents created. Her faith was only eclipsed by her eccentricity, which regularly expressed itself in unconventional ways. Two years went by after Meagan came out and in May 2007 I went home for Easter. Natasha was bringing home a girl that resembled a surprisingly cute boy. When I arrived home after the three hour drive with the pair, I told my parents that I thought that Natasha was coming out of the closet this Easter break. They scoffed, suggesting that I was reading too much into her short hair cut and transgendered friend. There was no way that two of my best girl friends would come out. In a graduating class of 70, we had already had our 1.7%.

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Natasha never mentioned her sexual preference on the trip and I lost interest. A few weeks later she messaged me on MSN. We talked idly for a while until she let me know that she would be visiting in a week. I asked the reason for the sudden trip and she explained that it was Halifax Pride Week and she would be attending with some friends. Our MSN conversation unfolded:

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JEFF DEVILLER says: So... I have to ask. It doesn't matter and if you want you can lie and a good person wouldn't ask, but I'm a curious person... do u like girls?

NATASHA says: Lol. I was waiting for you to ask… and yes I do

JEFF DEVILLER says: I KNEW IT!!!

My response wasn’t ideal in hindsight and there is no justifying my less-than-sensitive reaction. She came that weekend and stayed the night. We talked and hung out like we were in high school. She explained that once she realized she wasn’t straight she had told a few of her ‘queer friends.’ She had waited until Easter to tell her parents. However, prior to coming home her mom called her and asked her outright.

“I was very startled and didn’t really answer,” she recalled, “which was an answer in itself.”

A day later her father called asking the same questions. “He told me that nothing was going to change the way they felt about me, and they were still very proud of me even though they don’t really agree with it.”

On the ride home for Easter she wasn’t worried that they would react poorly when she officially came out, but she felt the awkward silence that filled the car. Her friend provoked my suspicion, which was all part of her coming out plan. She is now the Vice President of the LGBT Society at Saint Francis Xavier University. Despite embracing her identity, she told me, she still worried that people would stereotype her.

“I still feel worried whenever I tell someone new that I’m queer,” Natasha explains. “You never know how people are going to react and it’s a good way to get instantly stereotyped. I want to be known as Natasha, who likes biology and hiking, not as Natasha, the queer girl. Being queer is only a part of who I am as a person.”

Natasha had to face her parents and conservative friends and tell them she was something that they felt was a sin against God. However Natasha never faltered and faced them with bravery, being loyal to her self identity. It was in support of Natasha that my girlfriend and I found ourselves at the Blue Moon Lounge. Months after she came out, she returned to Halifax for the Annual Coronation Ball, which is a large gala event in which two drag queens are named “Imperial Crown Prince and Princess.” Natasha invited my girlfriend and me to the pre-show.

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This man singing Beyoncé reminds me of the importance of being who you are despite the world and reminds me of how brave my two closest friends are. Perhaps it wasn’t the song that inspired me, but the act of singing it. Truly embracing ones identity in the face of potential judgement is a sign of bravery that all homosexuals must have and all heterosexuals must aspire to. These two girls in my life are my inspiration as I see this bravery in both of them and aspire for my own bravery to be myself against the odds.

A Dollhouse Built With Love

From the April 2008 issue of the Cobequid Check Up

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In 1931, an eleven year-old Donald Mackenzie and his seven siblings faced the loss of their mother. It was during the depression and their father had already warned them that this Christmas “Santa is hard up.”

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At the local Rexall Drug Store in Oxford, NS, anyone who spent over a dollar received a raffle ticket for a dollhouse. The people in Oxford knew of the Mackenzie’s loss and many put Don’s sister Dorothy’s name into the raffle. On Christmas Eve, the owner of the Rexall Drug Store came to the Mackenzie’s door and told them they had won the dollhouse. On Christmas morning, Don and his sister, with wagon in tow, went to the store for their Christmas miracle.

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This is just the beginning of Donald Mackenzie’s story. Now 89, Don sits in the Cobequid Community Health Centre Foundation Office patiently waiting as I organize my notes and fetch additional paper from my desk. He wears a black leather jacket over a white button up sweater and a sharp red tie. Though his hair is now white, his spirits are still high and the man exudes a certain gentle energy.

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Don served in World War II. He was part of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders and was in France on D-Day. During his five years overseas, he attended the party of a group of girls. Originally the party was for wounded soldiers, but when the men got sick, the girls invited soldiers from the local YMCA and surrounding bases. At the party, he met a girl named Jean, 17. The two spoke briefly and the following day he was invited back to the house to eat supper. The couple who invited him happened to be Jean’s parents.

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At 21, a few months before the war ended, Don had a weeks leave to go to Britain. While his buddies explored the city and visited the local pubs, Don married his soul mate, Jean.

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After the war, Don returned to Canada with his war bride. He joined the RCMP as a civilian and became a Finger Print Technician. The couple lived in Dartmouth, but when their apartment was robbed, they moved to Ontario. When they retired Don asked Jean whether they should move to Florida, British Columbia, or Nova Scotia.

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He smiles as he recalls her answer. “Oh, give me Nova Scotia,” she said. At the time he thought it was a strange choice, but reflecting on it now he admits it was the right one. “You couldn’t get a friendlier place,” he says.

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If you recognize the name of Don Mackenzie it’s probably from the Chronicle Herald article that appeared in December 2007. At age 65, Don began making a dollhouse for a little girl. With Christmas three weeks away and a family too poor to buy presents, Jean knew Don would not be able to say no when she asked him to help the family out. Since this humble beginning, Don has built 36 dollhouses and sold zero. Each dollhouse has been given to a hospital, a care facility, or a child living in his neighborhood.

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Jean was the reason he built that first dollhouse. Seeing the family, Jean knew that her husband would be willing and able to grant the girl’s Christmas wish. As he continued to make the dollhouses for charities and local families, his wife would help by making curtains and offering suggestions.

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“If I built furniture too big or too small I heard about it,” Don recalls. “Sometimes I would make windows too big. I wanted to just throw them out, but she would say, ‘No, we’ll just make the next house bigger.’ She was good at that.”

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Each dollhouse is handcrafted by Don and takes three months to make though he admits that these days it takes a bit longer. When asked how he starts, he doesn’t hesitate explaining, “I just keep cutting wood.”

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On occasion Don has built dollhouses with a particular model in mind. While living in Ottawa, a young minister asked for one of Don’s dollhouses. Don replied, “If you get married, and have a daughter I’ll make you one.” Years later, when the minister had a daughter, Don already had one made based on a picture of a farmhouse that the minister grew up in.

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Jean passed away this year and is survived by the couple’s two children, two grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. Each of Don’s three great-granddaughters has her own dollhouse. He gave his latest dollhouse, his 36^th, to the Cobequid Community Health Centre to be raffled off in memory of his wife.

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This dollhouse wasn’t his first and it certainly won’t be his last. As I shake his hand, he considers the future. “I might get a few more made yet,” he says. “I think I’ll stop when I get 95 years of age.”

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He volunteers to sell tickets at Superstore as we take his picture with the farm house style doll house and as he leaves the office I can’t help but think that Don didn’t just give us a dollhouse. Don offered us a lesson in charity, love, and kindness and gave us a legacy of a war bride, her soul mate, and a town that took a little time to help a family on Christmas.

Doubt or Faith

From the February 2007 issue of Focused Press

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I’m a PR Student, but whenever I have the chance to take an elective with a more unique focus I take it. Last semester I took an Anthropology course called “Prehistoric Societies,” which was about early humans and their progressive development to present day people. This semester I chose “Christian Traditions,” which is a history of the Christian church. I find the course very interesting. Just recently we learned about the reformation including such characters as Luther, Erasmus, and Zwingli.

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But this course, with the information it contains, is opening my mind and has brought me to question my own faith, Catholicism.

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I believe in Jesus with all my heart, but I question the accuracy of the bible and, even more, I hesitate when hearing varied interpretations of the bible. Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, believe blood transfusion is bad based of a handful of scriptural quotes, which in all likelihood were badly translated cooking warnings. Because of this belief, dozens of children have died unnecessarily refusing blood transfusions. Where did Jesus say to give up on your children? Where did Jesus say that in two thousand years Christians shouldn’t be able to share their blood through amazing medical advances? He didn’t. Jesus didn’t say that. So, how accurate is the bible after two thousand years and countless revisions and translations. What was lost? What has changed?

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Breaking it down in my own mind Jesus, as controversial as he was and still tends to be, had a fairly simple message. To me, it reads as: “Love everyone, put God first, don’t judge, and do good to your fellow citizens.” And that’s good. That’s what this world needs. Killing is bad. Discrimination is bad. Judging is bad. We are all equal in the eyes of God. And I don’t know where we went wrong.

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My doubt is not based on the spiritual nature of the church. I continue to believe that there is a God and that Jesus is one of the most influential, righteous men to ever grace the earth. Was He God? That’s not a matter of logic, but rather of faith and faith is not chosen, but rather it is given. Faith is a gift and for those of us who do not naturally come by it, faith is a journey.

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I find that my faith has had its peaks and valleys. At one point I wanted to be a priest. At another I had a bizarre problem with whether or not I’d like heaven. (If there’s nothing wrong how can we appreciate eternal goodness?) As I struggle with my current doubt I’ve begun to wonder how much longer this yo-yo will continue. And happily, I’ve found my answer.

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I was in church last Sunday and a man sitting across from me seemed to be having a spiritual struggle of his own. His head rested in his hands and has face was construed in a confused glare. In my mind he seemed to be going through the same sort of doubt I was going through. And as I telekinetically consoled his spirit the answer to my question donned on me. Perhaps not the answer, but certainly a conclusion that appeared to make sense. Being Catholic… being any faith is not a declaration. You can’t just say, “I’m a Christian,” and let it be. The answer isn’t that simple. Faith is a question, that throughout our lives we attempt to figure out. Churches are there to guide us, but the journey is our own. It has valleys and mountain peeks. Being Christian is the process we all go through to find our conclusion.

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I still doubt, but that’s okay. It’s okay to question now and again. It’s okay to be thrown off balance. As long as you keep trucking along you’re on the right path. The yo-yo never stops. Life is just complicated like that.

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See you next month.