My Father Kept Secrets
My Father Kept Secrets
by Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.
During the Harvey Milk era,
all my father's college friends
came out of the closet.
Not my dad, though.
We traveled as a family to many places.
My dad would help set up camp,
or unload the car into a couple of motel rooms,
Pineo family, party of 8.
Then he would head out and be gone for hours,
We rarely heard about what happened
on his adventures.
Sometimes he would take one child with him.
Whether to ward off danger
or to appease my mother
I cannot be sure.
You couldn’t really question my dad then;
he charmed his way out of most of life’s difficulties.
You can’t ask him now;
he's been gone since 1983.
Today, in 2021,
my mother no longer exists
in the water bag that still bears her image.
Some nice
weak-willed
frail lady
is there in her stead.
I went with him to see art movies
at University of Washington.
One time it was
movies of clouds, waves, and plants
sped up.
I was about 8.
It was boring as hell,
very repetitive,
but I remember the images very clearly.
One time,
my mother watched him arrive in a taxi.
One wonders where he got THAT money.
He often said he was robbing Peter to pay Paul
and borrowed money from me until payday.
Five or ten bucks, birthday money,
Which he repaid with ten percent interest.
She watched him making out at the front entrance
of Donna and Foster's Lombard Street apartment
with some fellow.
When he finally came up, there was a large fight
with no winners.
She told some of her children about this
at a much later date.
She had no recriminations.
Later, it turned out,
that all my father’s college friends were gay men,
some married, some single.
Back in those Seattle days,
one very rich handsome friend picked my dad up
in a very posh sports car,
red.
He parked in the alley
and leaned on the horn
We thought the horn must be broken
but this was not the case.
My father came home with a hand-me-down box.
In it were wonderful Golden Books, clothing,
and a winter coat,
far too large for me,
that became MY winter coat.
I had no idea before that moment
that the coat I had been wearing was thin
and that I was cold in it.
I did not know that I could be warmer
in a warmer coat.
Another of his friends
was the wonderful
charming
kind
beautiful
Noel. Uncle Noel.
One of my brothers is named after him.
Uncle Noel drove an English racing green Jaguar
and wore saddle shoes and a letterman's jacket.
He didn't know how to eat artichokes
but we taught him.
He read the funnies to me
and let me stand on his feet while he walked around.
When Harvey Milk so ordained,
Uncle Noel came out to us in a letter
sent to Orange County from Yakima.
He was in love with and living with Leo.
This was my first knowing look at gay men
and I thought
"Well, if Uncle Noel is gay,
then I love gay people."
I did not have the language
to describe my own queerness.
At age 6, I knew I was different.
I talked to my father about it,
telling him,
“I’m different from the other kids at school.”
He asked me,
“Do you want to be the same as the other children?”
I do not remember the rest of the conversation,
if there was any,
because that question
was all the answer I would ever need.
Being queer is tangled up with secrets
secrets kept and lost
secrets from myself
secrets that permit the freedom
to be the human that one truly is.
My mother knew what she was getting into
with my father.
She told me so herself,
back when she was still present in that body.
She loved my dad.
She wanted him in her life.
Even with his secrets.
~ November 2021
by Shelley Pineo-Jensen, Ph.D.
During the Harvey Milk era,
all my father's college friends
came out of the closet.
Not my dad, though.
We traveled as a family to many places.
My dad would help set up camp,
or unload the car into a couple of motel rooms,
Pineo family, party of 8.
Then he would head out and be gone for hours,
We rarely heard about what happened
on his adventures.
Sometimes he would take one child with him.
Whether to ward off danger
or to appease my mother
I cannot be sure.
You couldn’t really question my dad then;
he charmed his way out of most of life’s difficulties.
You can’t ask him now;
he's been gone since 1983.
Today, in 2021,
my mother no longer exists
in the water bag that still bears her image.
Some nice
weak-willed
frail lady
is there in her stead.
I went with him to see art movies
at University of Washington.
One time it was
movies of clouds, waves, and plants
sped up.
I was about 8.
It was boring as hell,
very repetitive,
but I remember the images very clearly.
One time,
my mother watched him arrive in a taxi.
One wonders where he got THAT money.
He often said he was robbing Peter to pay Paul
and borrowed money from me until payday.
Five or ten bucks, birthday money,
Which he repaid with ten percent interest.
She watched him making out at the front entrance
of Donna and Foster's Lombard Street apartment
with some fellow.
When he finally came up, there was a large fight
with no winners.
She told some of her children about this
at a much later date.
She had no recriminations.
Later, it turned out,
that all my father’s college friends were gay men,
some married, some single.
Back in those Seattle days,
one very rich handsome friend picked my dad up
in a very posh sports car,
red.
He parked in the alley
and leaned on the horn
We thought the horn must be broken
but this was not the case.
My father came home with a hand-me-down box.
In it were wonderful Golden Books, clothing,
and a winter coat,
far too large for me,
that became MY winter coat.
I had no idea before that moment
that the coat I had been wearing was thin
and that I was cold in it.
I did not know that I could be warmer
in a warmer coat.
Another of his friends
was the wonderful
charming
kind
beautiful
Noel. Uncle Noel.
One of my brothers is named after him.
Uncle Noel drove an English racing green Jaguar
and wore saddle shoes and a letterman's jacket.
He didn't know how to eat artichokes
but we taught him.
He read the funnies to me
and let me stand on his feet while he walked around.
When Harvey Milk so ordained,
Uncle Noel came out to us in a letter
sent to Orange County from Yakima.
He was in love with and living with Leo.
This was my first knowing look at gay men
and I thought
"Well, if Uncle Noel is gay,
then I love gay people."
I did not have the language
to describe my own queerness.
At age 6, I knew I was different.
I talked to my father about it,
telling him,
“I’m different from the other kids at school.”
He asked me,
“Do you want to be the same as the other children?”
I do not remember the rest of the conversation,
if there was any,
because that question
was all the answer I would ever need.
Being queer is tangled up with secrets
secrets kept and lost
secrets from myself
secrets that permit the freedom
to be the human that one truly is.
My mother knew what she was getting into
with my father.
She told me so herself,
back when she was still present in that body.
She loved my dad.
She wanted him in her life.
Even with his secrets.
~ November 2021
