The Gay & Lesbian Review

Her brown eyes caught my attention first. Luna’s always found this absurd and claims her eyes are boring, that there is nothing special in them. I wholeheartedly disagree, though I know I might never manage to change her opinion. Her eyes are that of the soil in the ground which enables yellow daffodils to bloom in spring. Her eyes hold pools of happiness visible even on the darkest of nights. They sparkle with every smile. If she’s terribly upset, her eyes will simply go blank.

My sister was hesitant to deliver the news. “Is there someplace where you can pull over?” she said. “I’m stopped at a red light. What is it? Just tell me.” When she found out, she was blindsided with grief. She worried I would be, too. The first image that came to my mind was James and his sister, Samantha. He would’ve been 11 at the time, while Samantha would’ve been 9, the same ages as my sister and me. My family had just moved into the neighborhood. We were playing in the front yard when James and Samantha rode by on their bicycles, slowing to get a closer look at us. At that age, friendships were like arranged marriages. Our parents bought a house and we sought out the kids closest by.

WHEN MY FAMILY recently traveled to the desert town of Mo’ynoq in northern Uzbekistan, our dinner host plunked a bottle of local vodka down on the table. As is common in the region, we began the rounds of toasts that would regularly punctuate our meal. Most of us toasted the Aral Sea. This was why we were there; to work with an Uzbek journalist and videographer on an environmental documentary about the decimated sea. “To the sea,” we said. “May it one day return.” Last to go was our 11-year-old daughter. She raised her glass of water and said, “To the LGBTQ people of Uzbekistan. I hope they will be accepted.”

Keith Haring is all over Kutztown. His presence seems only to have increased since he moved away from the sprawling cornfields of our shared hometown in 1976 to live in New York City. It’s his life and story that draw me endlessly back to my hometown and into thoughts about the meaning of queer childhood and young adulthood. I used to pass his family’s thin brick house on Normal Avenue each day when I’d take a walk after school to clear my head. There’s a Keith Haring statue of a boy and his dog that sits in the town park. My friends would use the statue as a meeting place in the summer when we’d roam the town, bored and trading stories about where we’d like to run away to. At night, we’d scale the statue, perching atop the red metal structure. I remember once climbing up onto the dog’s back after a June storm, slipping, and falling in the grass, laughing, green stains on my jeans.