Jason Nation

           Every day I try and practice a little ritual my brother Jason taught me. Every morning, before you touch your feet to the ground and make your very first step, try and think of something you’re grateful for. It’s such an interesting concept. It’s like faking a smile. You force it and eventually you’ll end up smiling and it kind of works. In some small way this tiny little prayer alters your day by that one degree and it makes a significant difference. Try it sometime. I swear even the tiniest bit of gratitude in the A.M. flips a “glass half empty” perspective on its ass. It’s the little things that get me through sometimes. Now I’m not talking about some deep chime ringing ritual where you’re chanting “Nam Myoho Renge Kyo” in an endless monotone loop for hours. I had an ex whose Buddhist meditation sounded like a dying moose right after it’s been fatally hit by a soccer mom in a mini van on the interstate. It was constant and grating and way too early for that shit!  It was a disarming sound that seriously made me crazy.  But I could certainly not object at the time because I was living in his apartment (in Chelsea) for free. I needed to meditate because I was so angry at his meditation. My method is short and takes no time or discipline. It takes all of two seconds. Just roll over and the second before your foot hits the cold hard wood...stop...and take a breath.  Then take another one and think of the first thing that comes to your mind that you are happy and grateful about (even if it’s just your warm Kmart slippers). Of course I suggest taking it to a deeper level than that but sometimes the beauty is in the basics don’t you think? I don’t need to levitate four inches above the ground in euphoric bliss or see into the future (Broadway excluded)!  And I certainly don’t need to burst into beams of light on a daily basis and channel the Dali Lama into an enlightening oblivion. I just pray for enough inner peace to prevent me from absolutely killing the bitch on the train that comes charging into the subway car the second the doors open, knocking directly into me before I can even step aside or exit! That gets me so steamed. Read my angry, pissed off.............look lady! I hate those spatially unaware New Yorkers that get all up in my personal space on the subway during rush hour, pushing and shuffling around like cows in a tight pen. If one drop of that triple venti-decaf-no foam-low fat-half soy-no calorie-cunt in a cup macchiato gets on these new white pants, I swear to god......I’ll f*n kill you lady! I’ll snap that blue tooth right off you ear so fast and smash it with my sandal before it's even 9:30!  Bring it New York!  Any divine blessing or sense of calm I'd achieved up until that point is obliterated by the time I swipe my unlimited metro card. One day I woke up and the first thing that came to my mind was how grateful I was for always being able to catch a cab 24/7. I kid you not. It’s an undeniable treat to be so spoiled in the transportation department here in the 212. Ladies and gentleman, may I introduce..........the man with helium in his hands! The second cabs started taking credit and debit cards I was in big, big trouble.

         

        I would love to see the world through my beautiful brother’s open and unclouded eyes. He’s the man. His spirit is light and free and seemingly untouchable. He is my teacher even though I’m the older one. This boy lived in a tent for six months up at the Omega institute for wellness and personal growth of the mind and spirit. He worked there on scholarship in order to attend the seminars that aren’t exactly cheap. He would plant flower bulbs throughout the grounds as a gardening assistant or be doing maintenance and general upkeep. Other times he would be serving vegan cous cous and fake tofu in the Shadowless cafe. Tank is an original that’s for sure. My words could never capture the rawness and the humor of this guy. He’s nothing but real. I’ve been asked before if I wished that my brother was gay to lessen the burden of being the only black sheep in the family. I have to say that what the world doesn’t need is another gay guy wearing angle wings and rubbing his gums with coke. What the world really needs is more open minded straight people to do the dirty work for us! That’s where the evolution comes into play, through the bridges that our brothers and sisters build.  It's the fabulous "straights" that really wedge the door open for us to comfortably come out. Who knows what kind of punk my brother would be if I wasn't gay?  Because of me and the life I ended up leading, my bro. was exposed to the dark side of what being in the closet can do to a person. He saw first hand what denial looks like.  I hate to admit that I was a monstrous, angry, misunderstood little homosexual from the time I was six years old and first begged my parents for ice skating lessons. It only took seven more years for them to give in and buy me a couple group lessons at the Ice Chalet when I turned thirteen. I had no one to relate to and no one to talk to about my “issues.” Any therapy I got was religious based and only made me feel worse. I thought it was hilariously ironic that years and years later I booked the skater track at Radio City where at the end of the show I got to play Joseph the father Jesus!  Jason was eating the bullet for me in our red neck disaster of a Tennessee public school. This turtleneck wearing, ballet dancing, figure skater never stood a chance against the hillbilly gangs of adolescent toothless wonders that ran our school. He would fight tooth and nail defending me by telling those bullies that his brother wasn’t gay even though he knew the truth. He knew that I was painting my toe nails Sally Bowles green and running around in my mother's pink beret and pearls pretending to be a spy. But he did love me enough to defend the game I was playing with myself and the world. Why was I the last to know that I was a big flaming queen?

      I never had the opportunity to come out properly. I came home one evening and my mother was in my room sitting on my treasure trunk full of all things private and sacred. It concealed things like bad drawings and melancholy poems and maps of places I was dying to go like Paris France. It was also where I hid my journal and the International Male magazines I used to jerk off to! They seemed to naturally fall open to the underwear section the same way a phone book opens right to the most flipped to pages.  Hmmmmm? When I walked in my mom had her head in her hands and was balling. "What will the neighbors think" she said?  I don't know ma....I 've never met the fucking neighbors!  She was sniffling and choking back the epic disappointment of her son’s sinful journal entries. Sodomy was not cool with the Lord.  I swear that I had just built up the courage to even write down the G word a few days earlier. “I.......think......I’m.....gay.” These four words (writen down) would screw up the next several years for me living under my parents' roof.  It presented me with a number of challenges worthy of a good reality television show. I was a straight A student with a sweet 3.8 grade point average and have a hundred other overachieving, brown-nosing details I could tell you about myself. Looking back, all my extracurricular activities and bonus projects were just another way for me to overcompensate for my secret inner “flaw” and the huge gaping hole in my heart. My brother was always there. He may not have totally understood the facts but I’ll never forget his decency and respect for the sad emotional roller coaster I was on way back then. In fact I wasn’t much of a human being till I was about twenty. I was a suppressed athlete that was crippled with an intense shyness and very, very angry inside. I wouldn’t have wanted to raise me either.

         I have moments of extreme claustrophobia down in the subway tunnels underneath New York.  When we are packed in like sardines on a busted, unairconditioned train car grateful is nowhere to be found! I feel like the heat in the sweaty summertime is cooking me from the inside out the second I take my first step into the sweltering train station. It feels like you’re walking into a hot, hot pool of sticky, heavy air. One thing I am beyond thankful for every time this year is my industrial sized air conditioner that I let blow on high till I can see my breath! I’m sooo grateful for the little arctic environment I'm able to create for myself in the middle of a sun-pounding Manhattan summer.

         Sometimes things don't always unfold exactly the way you planned and too much focus on it can leave your battery dangerously low with no charger in sight. Tank is my crunchy-munchy Tennessee guru teaching me the ins and outs of true happiness. He’s like a skinny, hand-standing Buddha with a permanent smile plastered to his face and white-boy dreadlocks made with tree sap! 

         As my stiff, sleepy ankles crack and bend for the first time in the morning, I get goose bumps from the cold hard surface of the wood floor. I’m thankful for Jason. We are the only two to come from the same hard-core Christian womb. And from my parent's history of sleeping in separate bedrooms, it's a miracle we were even conceived at all!  He gets it. And he gets me. Fond memories and thoughts start to oil my creaky, jaded joints and the idea of a fresh start doesn’t seem that far off. Maybe it will be a good day?  Jason will call me for my birthday and say “I’m so glad you lived another year.” He somehow finds meaning in the mortality of it all. I get that. A healthy understanding of death makes you make the most out of our "Earth-time." And even if this simple little morning meditation only lasts until you can get your toothbrush in your mouth you’ve made it further than most New Yorkers!

(T1)