I'll Call It Like I See It

by sheila morris

storytelling for truth lovers

  • then sings my soul – Part 2 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)

    then sings my soul – Part 2 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)


    The call came on a cold Sunday afternoon in February of 2004. It was Amy, Janie’s older sister. I knew immediately this wasn’t a good call because I hadn’t spoken to her in years. I’ve been trying to call you at home, but I decided to call your cell phone when I couldn’t get you, she went on slowly. I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Is something wrong with Janie? I interrupted.

    Sheila, Janie died Friday morning in Africa. Her voice broke, and I felt her pain across the distance. We don’t know everything. Someone from the Foreign Mission Board called us Friday night, and said she didn’t come to work so her boss went to her house and found her. They thought it must have been a heart attack. That’s all we know. Her voice caught with the struggle to keep from being unable to talk. There was a silence on the line. Just the empty sounds of grief and loss.

    As I said goodbye to Amy on this bleak Sunday afternoon in February, I wept. Janie’s health had been a battle for a very long time. She inherited the genetic predisposition of her parents’ illnesses including diabetes that robbed her of her sight, heart attacks, breast cancer. Each time there was a crisis, she came back to the United States, was treated in Nashville and stayed with Amy and her husband Gary who took care of her. But she always returned to Africa. I visited her once in the hospital in Tennessee and begged her to stay at home for better medical care and the support of her family.

    Africa is my home, she said. My heart and soul are with the people there.

    *****************

    Janie and I became good friends the fall semester we enrolled at Southwestern Seminary in 1969. She graduated the previous spring from Carson Newman College in Tennessee, her home state, and grew up soaked in Southern Baptist doctrines and traditions. She was barely twenty-two years old, had already lost both her parents to illnesses but was very close to her two religious sisters. Her sisters had encouraged her to continue her graduate work in a seminary which led her to Southwestern because of its sacred music program offering a graduate degree, its proximity to her home in Nashville, and the size of the enrollment which fluctuated depending on the number of people feeling “called” to the ministry. Janie felt called to foreign mission service.

    The seminary had a touring choir known as The Southwestern Singers. This was a smaller auditioned group that made annual trips for two weeks each spring semester. The itinerary was different every year, but the chartered bus that carried us was uncomfortably the same. No complaints from me; I’ve always enjoyed a bus ride no matter the destination. Janie and I both were accepted into the choir and were excited to find our first spring tour would be from Fort Worth to Philadelphia. Along the way we stayed in the homes of the members of our host churches which improved the attendance for the concerts. We signed up as roommates for the tour.

    The intimacy of riding next to each other cross country on the bus during the day and spending every night together, often in the same bed, proved to light a fire that even I couldn’t extinguish with my mindless chatter, constant attempts to impress her. The physical closeness infatuated me – it was exhilarating, heady. As we rode hundreds of miles, I rarely glanced out the windows. Miracles do occur, and God works in mysterious ways. This is my testimony: when I was twenty-three years old, somewhere between Texas and Pennsylvania, Janie derailed my celibacy pledge. Thank you, God.

    Two years of seminary classes altered my perception of the clarity of my calling into the ministry. My vocal coach who was a really great coach, an accomplished soprano, encouraged me to pursue my accounting career because the Baptist denomination discriminated against women’s leadership in their congregations. CPA firms and the church both practiced random acts of unkindness toward women. I began to wonder if I had missed my calling and switched my major to theology from sacred music in the spring semester of 1971. If my singing was less than stellar, I could always preach on a street corner.

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    Please stay tuned for Part 3.

        

        

       

        

  • then sings my soul – Part 1 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)

    then sings my soul – Part 1 (from I’ll Call It and Not Quite the Same)


    Since I knew from the age of five or six that I had what the Bible lovingly called “unnatural affections,” I also understood the threat of eternal damnation that could be my fate, unless God wrought a miracle and transformed me from my evil thoughts and desires. During my teen years I felt particularly wicked as I lusted after the girls in church and my favorite female high school teachers. In 1963, when I was seventeen and felt the flames of hell licking around me, I read a small pamphlet called a Statement of the Baptist Faith and Message. I thought I had discovered my saving grace, a distinctive Baptist teaching called “the priesthood of the believer.” While this doctrine produced volumes of theological intrigue, my simplistic interpretation at that point in my life was no one stood between God and me. What a relief. No need for confessions to a priest or necessarily to trust the ravings of Baptist preachers. I was redeemed. It was a doctrine that kept me tied to the church and allowed me to censor its bad tidings for more than forty years.

    It was a doctrime that carried me to a Southern Baptist Seminary where I rather ironically had my first lesbian relationship when I was twenty-three years old, a seven-year relationship mired in our mutual feelings of guilt and my infidelity. I first saw Janie in the fall of 1969 when we both entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. We were standing in line at the Registrar’s office, waiting to pay fees for our first semester. She had on a black dress with a white collar and black shoes with low heels. Her hair was a wavy fair brown color with blonde highlights. She was a couple of inches taller than my five feet one, heavier. Her size reminded me of my grandmother on my daddy’s side. Pleasantly plump. She was in an animated conversation with another girl in our line. She laughed a lot and seemed to be having a good time. I couldn’t imagine anyone enjoying registration. In addition, I expected the atmosphere to be a bit more serious and otherworldly in a seminary setting. This young woman seemed slightly irreverent.

    When classes began, I found I had every one with Janie. We both enrolled in the sacred music program and shared the basic courses including the Oratorio Chorus that was a requirement for every music student. We didn’t sit near each other. I was in the alto section, and she was a soprano. Janie loved to talk during rehearsals and entertained the rest of us. Our conductor, Mr. Burton, was less than amused.

    The introductory vocal class was taught by the dean of the music college, Dean McKinney.  Each of us had to sing a hymn for him in front of our class of twenty-two students. No piano or other accompaniment. A cappella – I remembered my first audition with Miss Pittman for the high school a cappella choir, the feeling of not belonging. I had sung solos in church all my life, but it was very different to sing in a classroom with other musicians listening. I was nervous. I don’t remember my first song or the choices of most of my classmates. We were adequate and eager to prove ourselves, but when Janie sang for the first time in class we understood that her voice was already where we all wanted to be: clear, rich tones that touched a deeper level within us. She was a soprano with a full timbre and no pretense, not the operatic colatura who tries to impress with shattering glass, but the potent strength of the mezzo who sings from her soul.

    I had never heard a more beautiful voice.

    I loved that voice, but it was her sense of humor and love of family that made my soul sing.

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    Please stay tuned.

  • A Cappella (from Deep in the Heart)

    A Cappella (from Deep in the Heart)


    Daddy, please tell Mama I can’t possibly try out for the high school choir this year, I pleaded. I’ve got to spend extra time in the gym so Coach Knipling can scout me for the varsity basketball team next year when I’m a sophmore. The three of us sat at the kitchen table in our rental house in Brazoria, Texas (pop. 1,291) in the fall of 1960 – I was fourteen years old, the only child of schoolteacher parents, and the discussion had turned into a rare argument.

    Well, Selma, Sheila’s got a point, Daddy said. She’s not as tall as the other girls so the coach needs to see her shoot. Her set shot is as good as anybody’s, and she drives the paint well, too. I think she can make the varsity team next year if she puts in extra gym time.

    Set shot, hook shot, free shot, dribble, dribble, dribble, Mama said with exasperation. All I ever hear in this house is some kind of ball talk. Softball, basketball, volleyball – and now you’re taking her to play golf with you after school. What’s so great about balls? Round balls to put in hoops, over nets, in holes or in leather gloves. They’re games, for heaven’s sake! I’m talking about culture, music, things that will last her a lifetime. Does anyone sitting at this table seriously believe that a five foot, two inches tall fourteen year old teenage girl will ever have a chance to play sports designed for giants when she gets out of high school?

    She paused to look at Daddy and me. Daddy picked up the newspaper on the table and looked away. I stood up from the table and stared back defiantly at her.

    Mama, you don’t understand. There are no freshmen in the West Columbia high school choir. It’s just for upperclassmen. Besides, there are only a couple of kids from Brazoria that have ever made the a cappella choir. They say we can’t read music right. I’ll be the only one from here, and I’m not going.

    I looked at Daddy for help, but he was not getting into an argument with my mother when she got on a wild hair. Well, she said. I don’t know who they are who know so much about choral music, but I do know you won’t be the only one from Brazoria to try out tomorrow. I called Joyce Burke last night and she said Karen will go with you. You’ll have a nice friend from the church to audition with you. Plus, the high school has a new choir director this year who just graduated from Hardin Simmons University in Abilene. They have an excellent music program there. You girls can sing, and she won’t care if you’re from Brazoria, Texas or Kalamazoo, Michigan because you’re both altos. There’s always a shortage of altos.

    Tryouts for the choir were held in the high school auditorium. Karen and I waited with the older students who seemed to know each other because they were talking, laughing, not as stressed as we were while we stood together in the lobby waiting for our names to be called. I felt sick, out of place, afraid of the humiliation I was about to endure to appease my mother. Finally, my name was called, and I opened the door to enter the large room filled with rows of empty chairs. A woman sat at the piano onstage and seemed to be absent-mindedly striking the keys before she looked up and called my name.

    Sheila? she asked. Come up here with me and let’s listen to you sing.

    Why me Lord, I thought as I walked down the center aisle to the steps leading up to the stage. What have I ever done to deserve this?

    As I walked up the steps I took a good look at the woman who sat on the piano bench. Oh, my gosh, I thought. It’s Jackie Kennedy. Of course it wasn’t really Jackie Kennedy, but she looked just like her. Her hair was the same color – not as long though. Her face was shaped the same, and she wore a dress that looked like something Mrs. Kennedy could wear, but not as stylish. Other than that, they were twins. Unbelievable. The woman was drop dead gorgeous and so young, too. She smiled as she motioned me to stand next to the piano.

    She studied me carefully. So, have you been singing a long time? she asked as she gazed intently at me.

    I felt like she was looking straight through me. Yes, ma’am, I replied. I’ve been singing solos in the Baptist Church since I was five.

    Good. Can you sing Amazing Grace for me? I’ll play the piano for you.

    Yes, ma’am. How many verses?

    The first and last will do fine, she said and began to play, but something was wrong. I couldn’t find my singing voice.

    Ma’am, can you play the song in a lower key? I can’t sing that high. Mama plays the piano for me and sometimes has to transpose the keys lower for me when I can’t sing like they’re written.

    The teacher smiled, nodded, and began to play in a key I could manage. I sang the two verses.

    Very good, she said when I finished. Tell me do you know how to read music? Can you sight read the parts as you sing?

    I know what the notes are because I’ve been playing the piano since I was five, too but I’ve never tried to sing anything without knowing the tune.

    How good are you at math? she asked. The question surprised me.

    Ok, I guess. What does that have to do with singing?

    Music is mathematical. It’s all about notes and numbers and the relationships between them. I have a feeling you can learn, she said, and flashed a smile that lit up the stage.

    She picked up a pen. What grade are you in? she asked as she wrote.

    Ninth, ma’am.

    Would you like to sing in the a cappella choir this year? I need tenors, and I don’t have many boys trying out. I think you could learn to sing tenor just fine.

    I’d love to sing tenor for you, I answered while I thought yes, yes, yes I desperately want to sing in the a cappella choir or any other musical group you plan to direct if you will look my way and smile while we practice.

    Karen Burke and I were the only female tenors in the high school a cappella choir that year. Singing in the tenor section wasn’t exactly what Mama had in mind for me, but she was pleased when I told her the news. Maybe next year she’ll move you over to the altos with the rest of the girls, she told me.

    The director’s name was Gloria Pittman, and she must have been in her early twenties since we were her first teaching position out of college. I loved her almost as much as I loved Coach Knipling but for different reasons. (Coach Knipling rarely smiled at me – much harder when you had a whistle in your mouth most of the time.) Miss Pittman had legs that went on forever – I dubbed her Piano Legs Pittman – and she taught us much more about music than how to blend our voices in choral sounds. She brought her own record player and records from her apartment to introduce us to the classics. She turned the volume up so we could hear her favorites like Mendelssohn, Schubert, Bach, Beethoven – we had to be able to distinguish Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony from his 5th, and much more. I began to close my eyes like she did when she heard the classics, tears streaming down her face from joy or sorrow…I never knew why except that she was intense, passionate about the music. She was a pioneer for our class in our “cultural development”and made an indelible impression on my young mind.

    Unfortunately, that year was her first and last as our music teacher. She had a special group of eight singers from the choir that performed as a select ensemble. They met on weekends and after school in the afternoons – sometimes they practiced in Miss Pittman’s apartment, and rumors were they smoked more than the cigarettes she was seen smoking with the drama teacher, Mrs. Juanita Roberts, in the teachers’ lounge at school. Everyone knew Mrs. Roberts was a radical liberal.

    Mama wasn’t sorry to see her go and was much happier when the band director, Raymond Bethke, also directed the choir. He moved me and Karen Burke to the alto section. He was a good band director. Enough said.

    My mother was also right about me and athletics: there was no demand for short basketball or volleyball players when I graduated from high school – even softball players needed to be bigger, faster. Choruses, choirs and chorales, on the other hand, stood the test of time for me. Both a cappella and those with orchestras, symphonies, pianos, organs as accompaniment. I auditioned many times during my lifetime, and what I learned from Miss Pittman opened doors for me with opportunities I might have missed like singing in the Southwestern Singers, the touring choir at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas ten years later.

    There was always a shortage of altos.

  • 1969 – Not Every “L” Knew She Was Being Liberated (from Not Quite the Same)

    1969 – Not Every “L” Knew She Was Being Liberated (from Not Quite the Same)


    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.

  • Sleepless in Seattle – Part 3 (from Not Quite the Same)

    Sleepless in Seattle – Part 3 (from Not Quite the Same)


    When Adrian and I arrived in Seattle at the end of September, 1968 we rented a cheap motel room for a week in a sketchy part of the city south of the downtown area. The Buick Skylark seemed as relieved as Adrian and I were to be stationary for a few days. My Exxon credit card was in flames, but I couldn’t call my family for any financial help – unless I needed money to come home. That was the deal I made with my dad. Both Adrian and I needed desperately to find jobs; we combed the newspaper help wanted ads but apparently no one wanted our help.

    Then I had an inspiration. The motel had a telephone directory with tons of yellow pages. I decided to call every CPA firm in the area in alphabetical order to try to get an interview with someone, anyone. When I got down to the “s‘s” and called Simonson & Moore, I spoke with a woman named Becky who was their office manager. Unbelievably and with whatever good karma swirled around me, Becky said she was from San Angelo, Texas and added her bosses liked Texas people. That turned out to be true; Chuck Simonson and Tim Moore interviewed me, had me meet with Becky, and hired me on my first interview with this local two-partner CPA firm in Bellevue, a suburb east of Seattle across Lake Washington. What I learned from this process was that Chuck and Tim not only liked Texas people but especially liked Texas people who had experience working for one of the largest CPA firms in Houston, even if I had only been with that firm for a year. Plus, Becky needed extra help in the upcoming tax season, and here I was having passed three of four parts of the CPA exam with confidence I would pass the fourth part in November. I had landed a trifecta and more importantly, landed a job.

    Adrian and I rented a furnished two-bedroom apartment in a large complex in Bellevue not far from my new office. The cost was twice what I paid in Houston, but we planned to share the expenses. She continued to look for a job for several weeks but her degree in sociology wasn’t as marketable as mine in accounting. Finally, she accepted a position as a topless go-go dancer in a neighborhood bar near our apartment. I was taken aback by this turn of events on several levels but kept my opinions where they belonged.  She worked long hours at night and came home in the early morning. I woke up when she came in and had trouble going back to sleep. Often, I got up early to get dressed for work, and I would meet a strange man coming out of her bedroom – a man who raced me to the bathroom.

    Somehow, Adrian wasn’t the lesbian I hoped she would be, but we continued to share expenses and (to me) a disappointing platonic friendship.

    On weekends we returned to my Buick Skylark to explore our new surroundings. We drove up the narrow winding roads to see the glorious Mount Rainier, rode ferries in Seattle across Puget Sound to visit the Olympic Peninsula, discovered new grocery stores, gas stations, watched as the green leaves on the non-evergreen trees gradually turned gold, red and brown while the massive evergreens remained evergreens. I began to develop a new social life with Becky and her husband Karl who couldn’t have been kinder to me. Becky invited me to go to church with her at the Mercer Island Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church with expatriate southern members from Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. I found kindred spirits in the church who were the lesbians Adrian wasn’t… with a few complications Adrian didn’t have like being married to the pastor. The lines between right and wrong weren’t as clear when you stepped off the sidelines into the grey areas between black and white.

    On the Wednesday afternoon before our first Thanksgiving in Washington, Adrian came to see me at my office to tell me she was moving to California with one of the men she met at the bar where she worked. She was packed and on her way out of town. Seattle wasn’t the place for her. She’d send me her part of the rent for the month. She’d had a great time with me, but she was restless and needed to move on. I stared at her and tried to process what she was saying. I had no prior clue she was thinking of leaving. I didn’t have an emotional attachment any longer, but I did have this sinking feeling of financial abandonment. I stuttered and stammered goodbye. She waved to me from the parking lot as I watched from my office window while she drove away with her new boyfriend. I never saw or heard from her again.

    Thanksgiving Day Becky and her husband Karl invited me to eat with them. I was grateful for the company and the turkey with the trimmings Karl made. The conversation turned to our families we missed in Texas. When I got back to my apartment, I called my family collect – my dad accepted the call as he had promised. I was a long way from home and my grandmothers’ cooking. I could smell the aroma of my favorite pineapple fried pies while I watched football on my tiny RCA portable color TV by myself in the living room of my now too expensive apartment. I was in real trouble without Adrian’s financial support and had to figure out a new plan to live on my own by the end of the next month. The reality of where I was, what I was doing, being truly alone now struck me that first Thanksgiving in Seattle; but by Christmas I was living in an inexpensive one bedroom garage apartment on one of Seattle’s seven hills with a view of Lake Union and the Space Needle plus a commute every day across beautiful Lake Washington to my job with my new friends at Simonson and Moore in Bellevue.

    Hormones continued to rage inside the relatively safe comfort zone of the Mercer Island Baptist Church, a familiar refuge whose language and music I knew well. Let the church be the church, let the people rejoice. Hallelujah.

    My grandmother gave my dad the money to fly me home for Christmas. Life was good.

    ***************************

    To be continued. Please stay tuned.