As the Gay Liberation Movement fired opening volleys in the cultural wars in large cities on the East and West Coasts of the country in the late 1960s following the Stonewall uprising in 1969 in New York City, I continued my private battle against guilt and fear, my search to become the “happy homosexual” mentioned by Dr. Holmes in my abnormal psychology class at the University of Texas in 1964. In an effort to take charge of my romantic destiny, I expanded my search beyond the Texas borders and moved across the country in 1968 to the Pacific Northwest where I located a familiar sanctuary. Truly familiar, and truly a sanctuary. To my own amazement at the time and amusement years later, I joined the Mercer Island Baptist Church, a very small (fewer than a hundred members) Southern Baptist church on an island suburb of Seattle. I can’t explain why I looked for the same religion that was largely the source of my deep feelings of guilt except I was twenty-two years old living alone three thousand miles from home, had still never heard of a lesbian bar, and a very kind definitely straight woman (my boss Becky at the CPA firm I worked for) invited me to go to church with her.
My faith rewarded me with true love. The volunteer Minister of Youth at the church flirted with me and kindled my passion with lingering glances that made my insides vibrate. Sherry was a beautiful woman eight years older than me with dark skin she cultivated, opaque eyes that swallowed you whole. She had perfected a long lingering look that promised secrets too profound to utter, and at age thirty she was a sexy ticking time bomb. She was also married to a successful stock broker who managed the trust established for her by her mother and father who lived in Abilene, Texas where he was the OG oilman millionaire. Sherry and the pastor’s wife Janice were always together except for the nights she invited me to her home on Mercer Island when her husband worked late, her three young children sent to bed early.
Sherry was not only my first introduction to the unrequited passion of married “straight” women but also my first introduction to the uber rich. Whenever I rang her doorbell and stepped into her house I realized this was how money lived. Money gave you gorgeous lake views, plush white carpets often muddied by a playful registered Old English Sheepdog, a magnificent grand piano in your living room, a fireplace that crackled and offered more than warmth, children that lived downstairs. Cheeses I couldn’t pronounce could be placed on silver trays and served with fresh grapes and crackers to accompany a bourbon and ginger cocktail that helped me overcome the awkwardness I always felt in her presence. Music came from somewhere, and I felt I was surrounded by invisible speakers set at the perfect volume. Yes, this was how money lived. Sitting by her on the plush carpet in front of the crackling fire listening to music while I sipped my cocktail, I found the long hours of just talking met a need I’d had forever. This woman was the woman I was meant to spend my life with.
I, however, moved from the two-bedroom nicely furnished modern Bellevue apartment in a large complex I had shared with a roommate who decided to leave two months into our lease into a sparsely furnished one-bedroom garage unit above Lake Union in downtown Seattle. The eccentric landlady was an ancient woman that lived next door in a large old home where she smoked cigarettes, watched a black and white TV in her smoke filled living room all day, and tried to control her even more eccentric renegade son who woke me up when he roared in on his motorcycle at ungodly hours. I had limited contact with both of them.
Winter in Seattle was not as cold as I feared, but it was still miserable weather for a transplanted Texan. Days were short, and the sky was overcast – sometimes bringing damp chilly drizzles that mixed with fog over the lakes. No one carried umbrellas because it never really rained, but I had to use my windshield wipers on my daily commute across Lake Washington to work in the local CPA firm which turned out to be substantially different from my job at Arthur Andersen in Houston. I had my first tax season experience in the days tax returns were prepared by hand and had to be checked and re-checked for errors, a steady supply of new returns stacked on my desk every night. They were like mushrooms that multiplied in the dark, and there was plenty of dark. It was dark when I drove to work every morning and dark when I drove home; some days I never saw the sun because I ate a sandwich for lunch at my desk. I lived for the nights Sherry called me at work to invite me to come by later.
The minor obstacles of her husband and three children proved major ones for her, the money spoke up, and Sherry rejected my pleas to leave all behind and run away with me. After a year I realized the Pacific Northwest with all its beauty could not bring me the love I wanted so I did the only reasonable thing for a Southern Baptist lesbian who couldn’t find a girlfriend. I called my parents and told them I was coming home to Texas, and would they fly to Seattle to ride three thousand miles with me in my dependable Buick Skylark to keep me company? I had enrolled for the fall semester at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas to prepare for a celibate life in the music ministry of the church. My mother responded to the news by saying she had given me to God on the day I was born so this newfound devotion had always been my destiny. My dad mentioned Fort Worth was a lot closer to home than Seattle. Regardless of their motivation, they were thrilled to make a road trip with the prodigal daughter who was returning to the fold.
I gave my notice at Simonson & Moore with a feeling of regret because I genuinely liked the people in the office, but I had a calling to pursue. No one argued with God so they wished me well in my new career path, although I’m sure they privately believed my resume was about to take a strange turn. The year was 1969, I was twenty-three years old, and I answered what I believed to be a sign from God communicated through a woman who loved her life with her husband and children more than long talks with me in front of a crackling fire. I confessed my sins and trusted God to forgive me, but I couldn’t manage to forgive myself for who I was. The drag queens might have been liberated at Stonewall that year, but my liberation was about to begin in a seminary in Texas.
I'll Call It Like I See It 