"You Can't Go Home, Again..."

Thomas Wolfe said it most iconically, and it's true; one can return to the place where Home once was and the place may still be there, but the Home one left will no longer be.

We all do know this; I knew this, coming in. Intellectually, I knew that San Francisco is not the same town I'd left, 21 years ago. Though, a part of me believed that if any place was or is Home to me, it would be here in SF. And, actually, that's true; were any place to be Home, it would have been here...and it isn't.

I am not At Home, here. I think that there is no Place that is my Home.

For not being At Home, this is a pretty wonderful place to be. San Francisco is a beautiful city, and I can do more for people here than I have found myself able to do in any other city. My history makes me welcome in contexts where I can build relationships among disparate communities, find support for agencies and communities that need it and get money raised for non-profits. I am fearless in asking for help for others, and am able to apply that to places and people that are close to my heart.

The National AIDS Memorial Grove, for one. I am fully engaged in building and evolving this year's "Light in the Grove" event and honored to have been asked to co-Chair the evening. This is profoundly fulfilling, to do what I can do for an iconic place of remembrance; something so close to my heart and soul.

At work, though I subsist, I love the work. Watching the faces of people as I teach my workshops; people who are so accomplished in their own lives yet trepidacious - even afraid - of the technological devices in their hands. Talking to these people, peer to peer, and sharing my own thrill with and enjoyment of these devices gives me the opportunity to open a portal for them to appreciate the elegant and accessible design and truly affect their lives in a positive way.

In my classes are mostly people my own age or even older (if you can imagine!) who approach learning to use their iThings with a mixture of fear and shame and embarrassment at not knowing...dressed in bravado or humor or anger...but at least they are there. I watch, closely, as I share and demonstrate features and their use in the Real World these men and women inhabit and gradually, they lighten up... Then I start to show 'em some of the great tools these devices can be, and faces start to light up. "You mean, I can just do this...?" Sometimes I see jaws drop and even hear an "awesome" or two.

They enter, fearful and nervous; holding their devices and thinking, "I only want to be able to surf the web and watch a movie and maybe write emails to my niece or grandson..." They depart, excited about making a movie or chatting face to face from far away or seeking directions from one part of a strange town to another; manipulating maps and images and video and music and finding new and creative ways to express themselves or just to make day-to-day tasks easier.

These devices can't hurt 'em and can't be broken, and neither can the internet!

Last week, I encountered a woman who'd been in my class, before. She was attending a session before one that I was to teach, and I was there a bit early. "Hey, Nancy," I said, "it's great to see you here!" She'd been frustrated in my class and was unable to keep up with the demonstration. Her frustration had been in her way when I was teaching, so I was glad that she'd returned...

Now this is a woman of intelligence and means; one can see from the clothes and the hair and the bearing and the manner in which she expresses herself.

But. She looked past me, sort of into the distance, and quietly ranted, "I just couldn't understand anything this boy said. He talked too fast and kept telling us all this technical stuff and nobody can understand what he's talking about." Then her eyes welled-up and she said, "I think I should just return this thing; I'm just too stupid to work it."

No way I was letting THAT happen. I had her sit down, next to me, and I told her that there is no way she should return that. That she was going to see the magic in her hands if it was the only thing I did, today. I asked her to trust me, to go have a cup of coffee while I taught the next class and return in an hour and I'd be available to take all the time needed to share how this thing worked with her.

She agreed.

Back in an hour, she said, "I went to my club, had a glass of wine and read a REAL newspaper and now I'm ready for you..." And, she was.

We sat at one of the tables in the store for about an hour and I walked her through some of the steps of the programs and applications that make these things so great, especially for people such as her. Answering questions, making suggestions, allowing her to be the interface with the device and sitting beside her as I talked her through it. (Teaching her that "tapping" the screen didn't need to be aggressive was key in operating the thing.) At 45 minutes, she SMILED!

We started to pack up and she was saying that her 4-year old niece used the iThing to find Farmer's Markets in SF last weekend; something that would have taken herself two hours of phone calling to accomplish. I sat her right back down and taught her google maps. We typed "Farmer's Markets San Francisco" into the search field and BING; about ten pins dropped into the map, complete with addresses, directions, websites, hours and phone numbers.

Uh, wow.

So that was her homework for the night, "just go home and type things into the google window, Nancy, and see what you get..."

She showed up, again, a few days later to attend another workshop, after which she had scheduled a Genius Bar appointment. You GO, Nancy. She said she almost brought me flowers...that her KIDS wanted to bring me flowers because she'd stopped bellyaching and pestering them.

This stuff; I love. I love it.

But Home? Not so much. I am happy to be in this nice city; the weather's good and the people are friendly and I think I'm making more of a difference than I have in a while on a day-to-day basis. That's nice and good. Though, I am as alone here as I've been anywhere.

Personally, deeply lonely; financially, skating on a very thin edge that is about to crumble.

Now that I've come here, thinking it was Home, I think I see that I have no place that is Home. I do have several Hearts in several places that can offer a Home of sorts to me; friends whose arms outstretch when I come within reach. Wonderful people with whom I share parts of my history of learning and adventure who welcome me into their homes, share hearth and larder with me, love me for whoever I am.

But I have no Home, really. I see that, now. I'm glad to have come to San Francisco, finally, and seen what is true. Not having remained anywhere for enough time, no place I've been can be a Home to which I can return. It was only my Home when I was here, making it so.

San Francisco is a new city; very similar to the one in which I lived for over a decade, so long ago, and in which I became a great part of the man I think I may now be as I may have continued to evolve, along the way.

Now that I am here, though, I see that it does not recognize me as part of it. I don't feel unwelcome, and I do see opportunity; as I might in any City. The difference, here, is that I have a good reputation and a History on which to stand when reaching out to do more good work. This is work I am compelled to undertake, and I like doing it in San Francisco.

I've accepted responsibility for a few projects that will be seen-through, and then I'll see what shapes up for me. A good friend, a man whom I admire greatly and have for nearly thirty years, chuckled the other day when I said something about what the Universe might have in store for me, here in San Francisco. He looked at me and said, "Kile, you're assuming there is a plan..."

I laughed and said I knew that, but that it is so comforting to embrace such a possibility, as the truth is that there is no plan nor a planner; nobody's watching out for me but me, which makes all of this randomness seem so....unsure.

When all is said and done; I'm not the surest bet!

A Special Note to Volunteers in AIDS & HIV

Yesterday, I received a letter of thanks from someone I won't identify, here. Though many who read what I write, here, may know him; what he says is directly relevant to anyone who gives of themselves to support agencies and facilities in the fight against AIDS and HIV. I can add nothing to what he says; thus, I cede my space to this man to share what he has to say...

Hello

Some of you have been getting emails from me intermittently for the last decade; some are more recent recipients.  All of you are aware of my battle with HIV/AIDS.

On October 28th of this year, I celebrate a special anniversary.  It will be 20 years ago to the day I sat in Whitman-Walker clinic in Washington, D.C. and Dr. Graham Beard and Dr. Henry Wray forever changed my life; they told me I was HIV+.  I was a senior in college, bartending at the local college watering hole, dating a nice Jewish girl from Chicago and sleeping with my first boyfriend, a med student from [redacted for privacy].

Some of you are aware, at my low point, Christmas of 2005, I survived fungal meningitis, but not without physical cost.  My T-Cell count was 2.  1-2.  Several of you more sensitive folk held a naming contest for the 2 of them.  Ever since then, I have worked with some of the top doctors in the world that specialize in patients who long term survivors with low t-cell counts.  It has been a long, hard road over these last years, and I am thrilled to tell you I was told today my TCell count is 211, the highest it has ever been and my viral load is undetectable.  As an added bonus, my uric acid is under control, and I have not had a gout flare up in 9 months... I have put away my Gouty the Clown red nose and shoes.

Why am I telling you this?  Is it to tell you how happy I am that things are looking up? You bet.  But there is another reason.  Many of you reading this have served on Boards of HIV/AIDS organizations across the country; volunteered hundreds if not thousands of man hours to help those affected by HIV/AIDS, and have written so many checks for AIDSRiders, AIDSWalkers, AEF, GMHC you drained the ink in your pens and some of your savings...  sometimes you might wonder... to what end?

Read my note above.  I am walking, living, thriving proof that all your efforts count; they matter.  The drugs that raise my TCell that cost millions of dollars to develop, the services available in San Francisco, and all across the country, that support those affected by HIV/AIDS, my ability to co-exist in this community...you had a part in it.  And for your full circle moment, this allows me to work diligently for [redacted for privacy], be of service to the recovery community here in SF, and try as best as possible to be available as a friend and family member.

So I guess this is a long-winded Thank You note. 

So, thank you....  what more can I say?

See you soon (it feels great to write that)

------------------

I can add nothing to what this man has to say...

Onward, all...

Kile