You Used to Smile

repulses him. Silent beside my grandmother on the same twenty minute drive we'd taken so many times that summer. I could feel the distance growing, but didn't understand it yet instead had a sense of certainty to group in me. I made myself a promise, even if it meant becoming a stranger to my loved ones, even if it meant keeping secrets, I would have a life of my own. That's say Jones, reading from his extraordinary memoir How We

Fight for Our Lives. Said is a story of love and the unspoken, courage and shame, a mother and a son, and a long hard road to becoming who we really are. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. Describe for me the landscape of your childhood. The landscape of my childhood

was really mostly the suburbs of North Texas. I grew up about fifteen minutes north of Dallas, Texas, and so that very kind of sprawling North Texas plane landscape that was it. And I literally lived off of Main Street, and I remember having a sense of feeling like, oh, I'm in the heart of suburban Americana. But we were like off Main Street in an apartment complex, you know, So it wasn't like, it wasn't quite like that ideal.

And then otherwise, an important part of the landscape of growing up was Memphis, Tennessee, where both sides of my family actually are from generations and generations and generations act and so I grew up with a really strong relationship to both of those different southern landscapes. Can you describe your mother, Well, one thing is she she raised me as a single parent. She did not graduate from college.

She you know, studied for a few semesters in Memphis, kept her books which later became really important for me because I grew up in a house full of books and in a house with a lifelong reader. She read like three newspapers a day. She had literally like a second purse that she would like shove all of her newspapers in to carry around with her throughout the day. Then she was always reading. You know, there was a lot of particularly in the nineties, like it was a

really booming moment of black contemporary fiction. This is when Alice Walker, Terry McMillan, Gloria Naylor, Tony Morrison are all bestselling authors. So I grew up in a home rich with that kind of tradition because of her. And then one thing else I think that was really cool about my mom, aside from her biddy and her humor, is that she had the sense of the world. She worked as a flight attendant for a long time when I was younger, and actually worked for the airlines my entire life,

and so she had traveled a lot. She was always in different capacities over the course of her career, just interacting with a lot of different kind of people, which meant that she brought that worldly nous, this appreciation for diversity and otherness into our home. And and so even though we were growing up, we were living in you know, two bedroom apartment, paycheck to paycheck, often eviction notices on

the counter. We were always discussing the news. We had a sense an appreciation of culture and of art, and you know, we were trying different cuisine. She was always studying different recipes from different cultures. Um, so you know, we would have Indian currie one night for dinner, and then maybe a Pope pie the next and then she'd be making like Mexican fajitas. So there was just a richness to her that she always brought home and I loved And I guess the last thing I would say,

we laughed a lot. My mom was very funny, and I would like to think that I got some of my humor from her. Well, and you have a great laugh, So I thank you. Do you think that that worldliness and that sense of you know, sort of connection to the wider world contributed to a sense of stability and security even though there was this paycheck to paycheck, you know, eviction notices on the kitchen counter kind of existence. I

think so. I think, you know, as a kid who in my teens was coming into an understanding of my sexuality as a gay man, for example, or you know, my love of arts, which my mom always supported. She was always just like she loved that I was drawing and writing and reading, and you know, always encouraged that part of my life. I think culture, I guess I

would say it was like a tether for me. It was kind of like even amidst the instability or the stress, being working poor is stressful, it's exhausting even on good days. But I think having a sense of there's this world out there that we are connected to, either to our appreciation or by how I'm starting to write myself, I think it gave me a sense of hope, and it added dignity to our lives, you know, to our conversations, because we have so much to talk about beyond just

the rigors of living paycheck to paycheck. It's a beautiful word, dignity. And along with this dignity came a careful economy of speech, said, and his mom talked about a lot of things, beautiful things, but there were places that it seemed they just couldn't go. This way of talking or not talking was a family condition. There was code on phone calls, if someone paused and said, well, it was good to hear your voice. That signaled the end of the conversation when said is twelve or thirteen.

He comes across a photograph of a young man wedged into a copy of James Baldwin's Another Country. He had never seen the man before, and he asks his mother about him. It was kind of like the bookmark, which I do the same thing, you kind of like shove, you know, a photo or sheet from a notebook in a book. It was like this young man who I did not recognize, and it was dated like Jackson, Mississippi, with a date in the eighties, And I was like,

is he uncle? Like who is this person? And I eventually asked her about it and found out that it was like this best friend of hers who she had never mentioned. And this was kind of the rub for our relationship, you know, amongst all of the richness and the laughter and the warmth, there would be these moments where all of a sudden, her language was like as efficient as possible. So she was like, oh, you know, we were really good friends. We would go on road trips.

Then he found out he was sick and he died. He killed himself and then she walked out of the room, and I was like what, And I think I shouted out maybe one more question because I didn't understand. I couldn't fathom as I would think. I was like twelve or thirteen, like what being sick had to do with killing oneself? Why would you do that? And she was like he had aids and she walked out. And that ended up being the first vivid memory I have of

us implicitly talking about sexuality. He was a gay man who she a gay black man who she loved very very much and lost. And the way kids, you know, kind of unwittingly get to the hard questions. They don't know what they're doing, they're just digging around and their parents stuff. That's very much what happened. It's such a theme on this podcast. In almost every episode, there's snooping of some kind or another, just this sense of what are the adults up to? And you know, what are

their secrets and what are their lives? You use the phrase economy of language or economy of speech. And when your mother didn't want to speak, she just didn't and she would pause for a really long time and you'd have to wait her out or think maybe she's done speaking, and then she would say something more right. Could you

talk a little bit about the role of religion. It's fascinated by the fact that your mother was a Buddhist and that your grandmother, her mother was a Baptist who later joined in an evangelical church, and sort of what the role of all that was for you in these years where you were you were coming out to yourself, but you were not coming out to anyone around you, not too friends, certainly, not to your mother, certainly, not to your grandmother. Can you talk us through that period

of time? Yeah, I mean, you know, really, you know, when you asked about kind of the landscape of my upbringing, I would say, also, you know, it was kind of helpful to think of the kind of the calendar of my childhood, which is to say, because my mom was a single parent raising me when I was not in school for winter break and summer break, it was normal for her to send me to Memphis to stay with

her mother, my grandmother, because it's expensive raising boys. Boys are taking through all of your things, asking you tough questions, you know, getting into trouble, eating all of your food, and so that was a really kind of important, I don't know, kind of time relationship that we had because my mother and her twenties before I was born, started practicing nature and Buddhism. She chanted namniah inge K. She was very devout, very passionate about nature and Buddhist philosophy.

And I would argue she was as dedicated to her faith as the rest of my family was to their Christian faiths at different times. I mean, there were Catholic members, they were Baptist and Evangelical, you know, but everyone was very, very passionate. I felt like often when I was growing up the only person who was ambivalent about religion, and I still am, probably because twice a year I was kind of being shuttled back and forth between these two

really intense religious philosophies. And so it was like when I was home with mom Um in Texas, I would participate and do all kinds of nature and Buddhist activities, and that was just a part of our lives. I would chant with her in the mornings and evenings, and then in the winter or summer, when I was with my grandmother, I would go to church. I was baptized, you know, at one point, I would go to whatever the like, the Christian Bible camp, all of those different things.

When my grandmother started going to a white, suburban Evangelical church, and that was very different. She until that moment been going to mostly black Baptist church. She started going to the church, you know, right basically at the beginning of high school for me, and it just felt like the kind of standard back and forth dysfunctional, but no one's talking about it. It's fine kind of relationship we'd all developed over the years regarding faith and how to live.

I think because I was entering puberty and becoming a teenager, starting to talk back and frankly starting to become more self aware about my feelings for boys, starting to stow away. Calvin Klein adds, you know that, like my grandmother finds at one point in my stuff at her house. It just made it it almost like a do or die moment for my grandmother, where I think she felt, this is where I have to take my stand. I have

to save my grandson. I've already lost my daughter. I very much feel as her perspective at that time, all of a sudden, we were going to church four times a week, five times a week and it ends within a really heartbreaking kind of moment where my grandmother asked a visiting pastor to pray over me, basically to save me, you know, the sins of my mother. And it was it was awful. What kinds of things does the pastor

say in that moment? I refrained that my grandmother had when introducing me to people at this new church, was this is my grandson's side. He's visiting from Texas. His mother was Buddhist. That was that was my introduction to

countless people at this church. And of course, you know for teenagers, that's just uncomfortable anyway, right, But yeah, that has just kind of gone on and gone on and gone on, and it felt like everyone was making me their little pet Christian project in this church, being really

nice and supportive. And then at the end of the summer, I think perhaps because my grandmother was aware that I was getting ready to go home and we've been having a lot of arguments, she decided at the end of a church service to actually take me to the front of the church when they say, you know, the doors of the church are open if if anyone would like to join the church, you're welcome. To do. So it's

supposed to be voluntary. The ideas, you know, if if you are so inspired, you know, you are welcome to walk up to the front of the church and kind of have this moment. What happened is my grandmother took me by the hand, and I was so stunned. She didn't really have to drag me. She just kind of led me to the front of the church, and I just felt like I was having an out of body experience.

And the next thing I know, you know, I realized this man, this pastor, has been talking for several minutes because I was just like, what's going on, And I just realized she said, this is my grandson. Said he's from Texas. His mother's Buddhist, and he basically put a curse on my mother. I've heard a lot of prayers since then, and and and before then. You know, I know what a hopeful prayer sounds like. This wasn't it.

He was basically praying for my mother to suffer and get sick and forgot to put all kinds of ailments very much like basically show her, you know, your seven plagues, so that she will see the light and come back to the church. And bring her son with her, and it was it was stunning. I mean, I I remember

how I felt. I remember bird that I felt like I was frankly about to pass out, you know, because the entire time that he's saying these really awful things, things I wouldn't wish upon, frankly my worst enemy, with a few exceptions. Um, I realized, you know, like my

mom's mom is holding my hand. And I'm not a parent, but I think it's fair to say, generally, if someone were to talk about your child, you know, and certainly your grandchild in this way, you know, you would be upset, you would be offended, you would stand up and instead, you know, I just was looking at my grandmother with her head bowed, and it was just we were just in two totally different realities, and you were just did

the Matthew were fourteen at this point, Yeah, I believe. So. Imagine being fourteen years old and your grandmother is holding your hand as a pastor places what amounts to a curse her daughter, your own mother. And what's worse, if anything in this situation can possibly be worse, is that Sayid's mother has a serious heart condition. The pastor who was saying that didn't know about but my grandmother did. But my sense of right and wrong in that moment

it was pretty clear. You know. I was like, this is wrong. This is not even for people who followed the Christian faith. I don't think that's what they want, you know, And so I remember feeling like, gosh, this is warped, this is toxic. I just felt really sad for myself, but also for my grandmother because I think though I didn't understand the depths of it, I did feel in that moment like there's no coming back from

a moment like this for us. And it's also occurring to me that this pastor and his curse and your your grandmother's acceptance of all that is about your mother being a Buddhist, you are at this point, at the age of fourteen, carrying something much deeper and closer to your identity that would be problematic in that world, in the evangelical Christian world. Absolutely it felt yeah, And and it's like, you know, and to think about secrets. I

think that nuance your pointing too, is distinctly Southern. My grandmother at that point knew that I had a crush on boys before she submits Said to the pastor. Sayd's grandmother had found a cutout page from a magazine, a Calvin Klein ad featuring Mark Wahlberg when she was going through Said's things. So she slaps him, hits him hard, calls him worldly more a code, but she doesn't speak

to him directly about his sexuality. I think grandmother's often end up kind of surveilling and policing gender for boys and girls that they're raising, you know. So it was always like act like a boy, don't be a sissy, don't stand like that, don't own your hand like that.

She knew. And so I think the fact that in this moment she takes me to the front of the church, she did not say I'm worried my grandson might be gay or whatever, I think it speaks to how deeply shameful homophobia and queerness in that space is embedded, you know that, because to me, it feels like that's really what was going on. That's clearly what she was worried about for me, but it felt like that was too

too barbed to even speak in the church. So it almost feels like my mom and my mother's faith becomes the well the sacrificial lamp. We'll be back in a moment with more family secrets. Said is now in high school. One day, his class is let out early because the drama department is putting on a production of The Laramie Project, a theater piece based on the murder of Matthew Shepard. It's all said can do to hold himself together. He

doesn't want anyone to see him cry. He remains closeted through high school and then wins a fellowship for speech and debate at Western Kentucky University and initially remains closeted there as well. He refers to this in his book as his second closeting, writing it shouldn't have been that easy to unbecome myself, I mean to me, so much of your story is about unbecoming and the cost and the price of unbecoming and becoming and this kind of

dance between those two states. Yeah. One myth that heterosexual people have about the closet, and of course there are all kinds of cultural closets, but one myth is that it's like queer people come out once and that's it, you know, like we just like we we send a flare into the air and everyone's like, Okay, Side's gay, and then that's it for the rest of sides life.

And of course that's not the case. Every time we start a new job, every time we step into a bar, you know, every time we meet a new doctor or nurse, you know, and they're going over our sexual history. All of those kinds of moments we are having to negotiate. We're having to decide is it safe for me to share, Do I need to share, should I you know, or

I'm absolutely going to share. And it's fluid, and it's based on the space we're in, how safe we feel, if it feels relevant, if we have the energy to do so. And that was not something I understand stood

as a young man coming into my sexual identity. So when I got to college, for example, you see, and it's like literally in the first day, I mean, I'm like, after years of being like I can't wait to get away from home and go to school and I'm just gonna finally be myself because surely the only issue I'm struggling with here is my family. I step onto this college campus and it's like, within like five hellos, I've stepped right back into the closet I've taken on this

new persona. I'm trying to act like one of the jocks from my high school who never would have so much have sat with me at the cafeteria at One Word school, But that was the persona I was like trying to embrace during my first year experience that weird orientation week, you know college students have. I mean, one thing I'm thinking about is you're speaking, is the poignancy or the pain of performing a persona like in that first week to be accepted and then to be accepted.

But you're not being accepted as yourself right. The goal is simply to be accepted, and you're leaving you know, one is leaving oneself kind of in the dust. Absolutely, you find a group of friends pretty quickly where you

feel safe and comfortable being yourself. M hm. I mean, I'm just thinking about safety because as you're growing up to feeling that it is not safe to be gay, it is not safe to be black, and it is really not safe to be a black gay man, and then you get to this place where it almost seems

like you're just like fuck that. Your Twitter and Instagram handle is the ferocity and there's this moment in your book about halfway through where you describe as a ferocity you know with which you are going to be your most authentic self. Thank you for catching that detailized sure

that little easter um. You know, you go to your first few college parties, the first few times you you know, have like the messy hook ups, and and you're in a mixed group of students your age, older students, and you get to kiss a boy and plain sight of all of those different people, and no one cares because they're making out with whoever they're making out. They're nodding as you're like, oh, you found someone, you know, and

that's all that matters. You found someone. It's been on my mind so much because, of course, with the pandemic, there are still college students who were very much looking forward to getting to have those kinds of experiences. And I understand, and certainly we need to socially distance and those parties should not be happening right now. They're not healthy,

it's not good, it's not worth it. But also I do want to honor that ache I've been thinking about of queer young people who are looking for those kinds of spaces. Who were so king forward to those kinds of moments, And if you don't need them, you don't understand how important it can be to have a night

like that. You know what I mean, to dance and swing and mess your way into yourself, and that is that is an important part of learning who we are as young people in particular, right, the fun, the joy, particularly after years of self policing, you know, a bullying of anxiety and depression. It's those first few moments of like just the endorphin rush of oh wow, this is what it feels like. Is this what I'll feel like

all the time? That is a profound moment, because of course you go, oh, well, I want to feel like this forever. I want to be my full fear self. And for me, it wasn't just oh, this is a cool party. It was learning how to unite all of myselves in plain sight. I'm always kind of trying to figure out which mask, which persona is most viable in the space. Yeah, there's a moment where you're writing about

your mother, and you're right. We both allowed too deep of a contrast between our interiors and our exteriors, and there's such a price to be paid for that, the sense that who we are on the inside is not it's not what we're showing. It's not safe to show it, or we think it's not, or there's shame or self loathing.

There are moments where, even after I come out to my mom, at one point, the awkwardness of talking about dating, of talking about boyfriends would be so intense at times in those first couple of years after I came out to her that sometimes I would just give up. I would like raise a question hin and she I would look at her and she would have a look of total panic on her face, and I would change the subject. And I think that is an aspect of identity that

doesn't get as much mainstream attention. But actually, I would argue is a much more common, ongoing part of queer life because it's something we're constantly negotiating. We'll be right back,

you know. That's sort of brings me to the part of your book where you write about a relationship with you call him the botanist, that is, you know, just defined by its violence and defilement, and that goes on for a bit even as I is finding his footing, settling in and becoming more himself with his new college friends, there is a strong undercurrent of self loathing. This self loathing takes the form of his being drawn into encounters with sadistic men in which this inner directed hatred gets

played out in terrifying ways. One of these he calls the botanist a cold and punishing man, and the other he calls Daniel. Daniel fully intends to kill said, and very nearly does. There's a moment where a professor of yours says to you, said, what happened to your smile? Used to smile all the time? What was that trajectory? I think it's funny. You know, we've forgotten it already because our conversation about queerness and LGBT rights as a

country has moved pretty quickly, which is nice. But you know what, I was a high school student in a college student when we would talk about these kinds of issues. We didn't use the word ally. We didn't talk about this, We didn't talk about inclusion. The word was tolerance. Remember that that was the kind of euphemism or the framework that we would talk about. Basically accepting gay people, trans people weren't even a part of the conversation at the time, right,

it was like this, we are tolerant community. And and so I think what I discovered as a college student was that though I wasn't being bullied, though I wasn't being harassed or explicitly other it was fine. You know, people dated, people knew I was having crushes or going on dates or hooking up a bit. You know, I would break it up a bit with friends and mixed company. I realized, I think over time and in retrospect, that it was tolerated. I didn't feel comfortable, I think talking

about the less fun parts of my sexual identity. I didn't feel comfortable talking about the messiness, the confusion and things that we now have. I think a far better conversation about grape culture consent. What does racism look like in a sexual context? You know? What what is sexual education and sexual health for queer people look like? Like? All of that was not I didn't see a way to bring that into the conversation. I don't think my

friends did. We didn't have that tool. And so it's one of those things where it's important for us to understand that just because people aren't explicitly trying to kill us does not mean that we are truly free. And I think that's the struggle when you have been alienated for so long you don't even understand that you're kind of trying to survive on like crumbs and small morsels.

You're not really getting sustenance. And so though you know, a lot had changed and it felt more inclusive than where I grew up in Texas, for example, I think I started inflicting my own shame and starting to keep my own secrets on my own. I think America is really good at getting women to be sexist to women, getting black people to be racist to ourselves, getting queer people to inflict homophobia transphobia on ourselves and each other.

You know, it's almost like that toxicity is like whispering in your ear for so long that you start saying it to yourself. And I feel that, like in college, that caught up with me. Does that makes so much sense? It's like internalizing it becomes the internal annihilator. Oh, absolutely to that point. I mean, you know, thank goodness for Women's studies fellows and Audrey lore did Glory Anzell do it.

You know, I remember taking a women studies class in college and seeing the phrase internalized sexism, and I thought my whole body was going to burst into flames because it was such a profound idea, like, oh, of course,

we can totally internalize all of this stuff. And one of the things I identified with, I guess is that this And I'm wondering whether in my identification, I'm right, this period of time where you are kind of acting out of this internalized toxicity, how long after that is it that your your mother who has been I mean, your mother's secret in a way is that she has this heart condition. It's not a secret, but she basically acts like it doesn't exist, and she keeps smoking cigarettes

and she just lives like somebody who isn't sick. She just refuses to be sick, right, but it catches up with her, and you get a phone call that she's very sick, and ultimately your mother dies. There's something in there about becoming real. In the aftermath of your mother's death, you're with your uncle and you've never explicitly come out to him, and now you're there and you're making arrangements about your mom, and you're right. There were no more

masks left for me to hide behind. And I just wonder whether it's too nate and tidy, perhaps, but it felt to me that, I mean, you and your mother really loved each other, and her loss was huge. But it also feels like it may have been the thing that rendered or kind of undid that particular kind of

acting out of that deep internal self annihilation. Something I say often about losing my mom is that it was the most humanizing at that time, the most humanizing experience I've ever had, even more so than literally, you know, someone almost killing me, which at the time did not feel like this profoundly enlightening. It was just like a horrible thing that happened, you know. So how I saw it when my mom died, I felt like grief, and it was. It was staringly painful, but it it revealed

the depths of our relationship to one another. It revealed her humanity as an independent person, as just a woman, as a daughter, as a sister, as a friend, you know, just watching and meeting and have you know, just seeing over and over again, all of these people have just such an intensely profound grief because of their relationship with her.

I think something about that and the finality of death, as you have these moments where you're like, gosh, she was an incredible person, because of course your next thing is want to go I should tell her. I want to tell her this, I want to tell her what I now understand. And then you go, oh, but I can't, you know, so you're in this like loop. I think that that loop of bereavement introduced me to myself in a way. It it is hard to find language for it.

It feels way to some simplistic to say it made me want to live more. But I think maybe it helped me understand that my mother this whole time had been fighting for her life and trying her best. And here I am, if not being ambivalent about my own life at times, being my own worst enemy at times literally, I mean, in the case of Daniel, just kind of almost willingly forfeitting my life, forfeitting at least my appreciation

for my life and my my well being. And I think there was something about the profound loss of my mother where I just feel like, how dare you? You loved her so much and you now feel the full range of her love for you, How could you do this? How could you fail to appreciate the very person she loves so much? It's not like there was like a

single moment where all of this became clear. But I think beginning with the experience of losing my mother, it's one thing to understand your sexual identity or racial identity, at least enough to be able to talk about them, which is not nothing. I think it's an altogether different journey to say, Okay, what are you going to do with this life? What are you gonna do with the

self that you've been working so hard to name? And I think in a way it was like, and maybe this is the tragedy of the book, homophobia and all of the failures of identity kept my mother and I from having some really important conversations that I still wish we could have. And I think when I lost her, there's something about that deficit that I felt like I have to make up on my own. Now. Oh, how

we fight for our lives. We try and we try, and perhaps the magnificence the deliverance is in the trying, And perhaps those who are lost to us are finally not lost to us. Perhaps the conversations we couldn't have are the ones that swirl around in our heads and hearts and keep us going that's really beautiful. It occurs to me too that if we can if we enter analize annihilation and we internalize toxicity, we can also internalize love. Yeah,

it's possible. And you know, and I think, and as a writer who's always is drawn to annihilation, you know, I mean, in some ways, that's that's it's much easier. That kind of peril is often, you know, like clear and present, and it often has to be dealt with

the moment it emerges. Right. But but the rigor of love, the rigor of like you know, in a moment you see where my mom's in the emergency room when I'm in high school earlier in the book, and she's like just has her fist in the air and says, like

I must win. The rigor it takes to become the kind of person who can have that kind of determination, I would say it's three times as difficult as simply trying to escape immediate peril your side eating one left passage from his memoir Always like Us never really got away. It seemed we just bought ourselves time, a few more gasps of air, a few more poems, a few more years. History hurt more than any weapon inflicted on us. It hit back harder than any weapon we could wield, any

weapon we could turn ourselves into. I sunk down, I looked away. I felt that loneliness and let it settle in heavy and final. I don't know how long I sat on the floor in that restroom, staring and seeing nothing. Eventually I stood up again and washed my face, still avoiding my reflection. It seemed as if my life were waiting for me outside that room, like polite guest I had left behind at the table. It was rude to

keep him waiting. It helped to think of my life as someone separate from me, a person who didn't deserve to be abandoned. Sending back down in front of the pile of books, I returned to Reginald Shepherd's words. He was gone, but they were still here. I thought about all the poets who had kept me going. One more minute, one more step of the drowned and the drowning, Reginald Shepherd wrote, I felt the cord pool taught between us. I took a breath. I started a draft of a

new poem. Family Secrets is an iHeart Media product action. Dylan Fagan is the supervising producer and Bethan Macaluso is the executive producer. We'd also like to give a special thanks to Tyler Klang and Tristan McNeil. If you have a family secret you'd like to share, leave us a voicemail and your story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is one eight eight eight secret zero. That's

secret and then the number zero. You can also find us on Instagram at Danny Ryder and Facebook at facebook dot com slash Family Secrets Pod, and Twitter at FAMI Secrets Pod. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.