Heaven Together

We chose my daughter Eleanor’s name even before I watched her birth nineteen years ago.

 

Three and a half years later, I got a call from the State social workers asking if we would take a girl from the foster system who was sixteen days older than Eleanor. We weren’t fond of her birth name, which had already been used by another family member as a boy’s name. Instead we chose “Rosalind,” which I thought was another strong woman’s name.

 

My son was a year old when he arrived from the foster system. We’d already used our top two boy names (“Graeme” and “Henry”) on failed adoption attempts. This time around “Oliver” was everyone’s second choice. My first pick was “Cameron”; my ex favored “Emerson.” So we put all three names into a hat and let Eleanor draw.

Rosalind came out as queer in middle school. A couple of years ago they identified as nonbinary, so we learned to change pronouns. They said “Rosalind” felt wrong and too girly, but they hadn’t chosen a new name yet. Instead they finished high school with the nickname “Lynn.”

 

Earlier this year, Lynn came into my room and asked “Papa, how do you feel about the name ‘Emerson’?” (Apparently Lynn didn’t remember Eleanor picking “Oliver” out of the Sorting Hat.)

 

I smothered a laugh. I told Lynn my ex was fond of “Emerson” because he liked Thoreau, Emerson, and the American transcendentalists. But I’m more of an English-y English Major. Plus I find Emerson too patriarchal. 

 

Lynn thought for a moment. “How about ‘Cameron’?”

 

This time I laughed out loud.

I’ve been waiting my whole life for a child named Kamryn. (That’s how they spell their name.)

 

I was ten or eleven years old when I saw my first musical. It was a touring show at Vancouver’s Queen Elizabeth Theatre called Saturday’s Warrior. After the Broadway successes of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar, a group of musicians from Brigham Young University attempted to translate Mormon culture into musical theater. Saturday’s Warrior is about a family resisting worldly temptation and trying to get back to heaven together.

 

The curtain opens on what Mormons call the “Pre-existence,” the period in our souls’ eternal progression before God created the physical universe. After kicking Lucifer and all the fun angels out of Heaven, our spirits wait around to see who will end up with the hot bodies when we arrive on Earth. Or as the Wikipedia plot summary for Saturday’s Warrior begins: 

 

While waiting in the pre-mortal Life to be born, a family of eight children promise each other that they will always be there for each other (“Pullin' Together”). The youngest, Emily, is afraid that when her turn to be born comes around, their parents will be tired of having kids, and she won't be born into their family. The oldest, Jimmy, promises Emily he will personally see to it she will be born into their family. Julie—the second-oldest daughter—and Tod—another spirit in the pre-mortal life—promise each other that, while on earth, they will somehow find each other and get married (“Circle of Our Love”).

 

Saturday’s Warrior is Mormon folk art, loosely based in church doctrine but deeply intertwined with Mormon culture. And an intense spiritual experience. Ever since I saw my first musical, I’ve always had the same vision of the family I was supposed to build when I came to Earth:  I’m going to have twins. I’m going to have one of each. The other person has a blur for a face. Vancouver is home.

 

Five decades later, I sing in Vancouver Men’s Chorus. Bear and I can see Canada on our walks. My parents live across town. I’m a disabled gay single father. And I have the best daughter, son, and child in the world.

After people find out I grew up Mormon, they often ask if I know David Archuleta, the earnest and talented American Idol alumnus and BetterHelp spokesperson. This March, David shared a personal video after releasing his newest single (and showing up online in numerous shirtless photos):

 

“When I came out I also left my church, and when that was made public I didn’t hear from my mom for a few days,” Archuleta says to his friends in a car in the video he shared. “I thought, oh no, she's probably so upset with me but then she sent me a message saying that she also was stepping away from the church.”

 

“She’s like, ‘I don't wanna be somewhere where you don't feel welcome and if you'’re going to hell, then we’re going to hell together,’” he continued. “So the song is based off of that and it’s called ‘Hell Together.’”

 

Although I don’t know David Archuleta, I’ve known a lot of gay Mormon Baby Boomers, and fellow gay Mormon Generation Xers, and gay Mormon Millennials like David. Many endured similar experiences, and some didn’t survive. Change will come eventually. Maybe Gen Z is different. But I don’t need the church to change anything, because our Mormon family has always found a way to support each other. 

My brother Doug died last year from spine cancer. In my eulogy at the Mormon church in Bellingham, “Fathers and Brothers,” I summarized our heritage:

 

When my sister-in-law posted the announcement on Facebook letting folks know Doug had died, I was moved by the outpouring of comments. Three or four repeated words stood out:  “Nerd.” “Smart.” And “funny.” I realized that’s what the comments would say for all four Leishman brothers.

 

The other words Doug’s friends repeatedly used to describe him on Facebook were “family” and “father.” Fatherhood is at the center of all my brother’s lives. That is the great gift our parents gave to each of their sons, and now to each of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

Church policies and meeting schedules come and go, but the fundamentals are eternal, like the familiar Mormon slogan “Families are forever.” I recognize “forever” is way too long for some families. But not for us.

My First

The very first concert I ever attended was at the Marriott Center in Provo, Utah, in September 1981. I saw Barry Manilow.

I’d arrived as a clueless freshman at Brigham Young University three weeks before. During my time at BYU, I was confused about my own sexual orientation. I was also oblivious to the fact that most of my college friends were gay, too. And the fact that Barry Manilow is gay.

Years later, a friend who had been part of BYU’s secret gay underground told me a story about the Barry Manilow concert. Apparently afterwards an unmarked car full of BYU security officers followed Manilow and his posse forty-five mile north to the Sun Tavern, Salt Lake City’s gay bar.

Last week I drove with my daughter Eleanor for seven hours so we could see singer-songwriter Noah Kahan at The Gorge Amphitheater. I waited for five hours in the desert, mostly in arbitrary lines fueling monopolistic profit. It was too hot, too muggy, and then too cold. We got home at 3:30 am the next morning. It was amazing.

I’ve been to other classic outdoor concert venues, like Red Rocks and Ravinia. I saw Sting play Park City, with Stewart Copeland sitting in on drums. Seattle used to host concerts on a waterfront pier where I saw artists like Indigo Girls and Lyle Lovett sing as sailboats passed by.  

I’d heard of the Gorge, of course, and its reputation as a concert venue. I’d had opportunities to attend shows before. My inevitable response: “All that driving just to sit in the desert?”

I’ve always been more into theater than music performances anyway, except for eras when I’ve gone to concerts with the handful of partners whose musical taste I absorbed. With my mother I’ve seen Great American Songbook masters like Barbara Cook and Kristin Chenoweth. My boyfriend in Chicago was a lesbian, at least musically, so he dragged me to Ani DiFranco, Tori Amos, Alanis Morrisette, and Natalie Merchant. My ex in Seattle was more twee – we saw Belle & Sebastian twice. 

Now Eleanor is my go-to concert date. Our first show after covid was Harry Styles at the Tacoma Dome.

Eleanor went to her first concert with a friend. It was also Eleanor’s first outdoor concert, at the Muckleshoot Tribe’s Wind River Amphitheater near Seattle. She saw the Jonas Brothers. As we drove to the Gorge, I asked Eleanor which Jonas brother is “the cute one.” She picked Joe. (Wrong – the correct answer is Nick.) 

According to Eleanor, the highlight of the Jonas Brothers concert was their opening act, a rising country star named Kelsea Ballerini. On the same day we went to the Gorge, Noah Kahan released a new duet with Kelsea:  “Cowboys Cry Too.”

Noah Kahan’s concert at the Gorge sold out long ago. Thirty thousand people stood on the darkening hillside for his entire two hour set. We watched a talented and suddenly successful young musician connect with the crowd for a one-night-only performance on the day his breakthrough single “Stick Season” hit a billion Spotify streams.

Kahan writes openly about living with anxiety and depression. His charity benefits mental illness programs. As an extra encore at the Gorge, Kahan performed “Young Blood.” He introduced it as the first song he ever wrote. Looking out at the vast crowd, he told us “I remember feeling really lost. I wrote this song so that when I got older and if I had a music career, I could remember where I came from and what it was like to feel alone.”

It Gets Better and Better. If I were a little smarter, I would have recognized fatherhood was my destiny a little sooner. But then I wouldn’t be going to amazing concerts with Eleanor.

My Triple Axel Family

Vancouver Men’s Chorus recently finished a successful series of concerts titled “R-E-S-P-E-C-T:  Celebrating Women’s Music.” It was the chorus’ first return to our cozy cabaret space on Granville Island since coronavirus silenced every choir. VMC and our audience were overjoyed to be together again. 

Gay Olympians Gus Kenworthy and Adam Rippon

Like selecting a team of Olympic athletes, VMC chooses our repertoire through a labouriously competitive yet collaborative process. Under the direction of our elected Board of Directors, the “Concert Planning Committee” confirms the performance schedule and selects each concert’s overall theme. The “Music Selection Committee” generates an exhaustive list of potential songs, artists, and sub-themes. Then the Section Representatives and other volunteers on the Music Selection Committee gather for a series of wine-infused meetings where they haggle over their favourites. Lucky songs on the bubble end up in one of VMC’s celebrated medleys.

 

Our incomparable conductor Willi Zwozdesky founded VMC forty-one years ago. Willi quietly nudges the entire music selection process forward, then works with our stable of arrangers to create a program of mostly bespoke songs, each written for VMC’s voices. Talented choreographers and dancers from the chorus add pizzazz. Ultimately Willi shapes all this material into an entertaining and powerful concert.  

Willi has always endeavoured to include women’s voices as part of VMC’s mission. Nevertheless, an entire concert with the theme of “Celebrating Women’s Music” presented unique challenges for a bunch of gay men. 

 

The original music selection process for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” occurred more than three years ago, just before I became a fulltime single parent. As it happened, this was the only time during my tenure with VMC when my complicated personal schedule permitted me to attend meetings of the Music Selection Committee. Even though none of my suggestions made it into the show, I was fascinated by the collaborative process. (Because we were in Canada, the process was pronounced “PRO-sess,” not “PRAH-sess.”)

 

We barely began rehearsing the music the Music Selection Committee chose for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” before Covid arrived in March 2020. During the pandemic we gathered remotely on Zoom, and created a couple of one-off video concerts. It wasn’t the same and it wasn’t enough.

 

Meanwhile, delaying performances of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” until 2022 gave our arrangers extra time to finish medleys with titles like “Girl Groups,” “He Had It Coming,” “Great Shoes,” and “The Empowerment Medley.” During the pandemic, VMC President Yogi Omar discovered Rina Sawayama’s song “Chosen Family” and championed its inclusion in “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” “Chosen Family” became the emotional heart of the concert.

 

An evening of gay men singing songs by and about women requires a little extra context. Willi therefore asked for volunteers to introduce several of the numbers with personal stories about their connection to the songs. I was one of three singers who introduced “Chosen Families” at our performances over the first two weeks in June.

 

Paul told about how he and his husband Gerry moved to Vancouver from the U.K. and found a home with the chorus. Two years ago, Gerry died of cancer in Paul’s arms, surrounded by friends from VMC. Yogi’s story is about how he came from Indonesia to Vancouver at age 18 knowing only two words in English. His biological family had given him two months to choose between “stop being gay” and leaving the country. Now Yogi is a pillar of the arts and queer communities, and President of VMC. 

I introduced “Chosen Family” at three of VMC’s performances of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T.” Rather than use notes, I spoke directly to the audience as if it were a stand-up set. At our first Saturday matinee, I told the story of becoming an adoptive father, then a single father, then a PFLAG father. My speech was a success by the most important measures:  I made it to the end without a PTSD meltdown, and numerous people said “I never knew you were so funny, but I hate you for making me cry.” 

 

One of the soloists complimented me after my presentation at the matinee. “But could you make it a little longer at the show tonight?” He explained that his partner is one of the dancers, and they needed a little more time for his costume change before they sang “Chosen Family.” 

 

While preparing for the evening performance, I wondered what else to say. I jealously admired Paul’s remarks on opening night, because in addition to telling the story of Gerry’s death and the loss of their “romantic” family, Paul also drew an elegant parallel between the support of his “chosen” and “biological” families. I was already covering “chosen” and “adoptive.” Wouldn’t it be cool if I added “biological” too – like landing a triple axel? 

 

As I wrote in “True Story,” I looked down and saw my rainbow “PFLAG LOVES YOU” wristband. I’m not just a PFLAG father, I’m a PFLAG son, too. So I decided to acknowledge my mother by telling the story of how I got my wristband. 

When I added a few sentences about my PFLAG mother to my original stand-up script, the evening audience saw me losing my balance. We all paused for a moment. But I wasn’t scared, because I felt the support of everyone around me. I made it to the end with only a bit of a stammer. It was like pulling off a triple axel but with a little too much spin, and not quite sticking the landing.

 

Before it was my turn to speak again the following week, I had time to revise the story of being blessed with the best chosen/adopted/biological family ever. Here’s the final version, which the VMC audience heard the third and last time I introduced “Chosen Family”:

 

When I was a kid, one of my friends was teased about being adopted. I remember her telling the bully “Your parents had to take you, but my parents chose me.” 

 

Thirty years later, my partner and I had the opportunity to adopt a baby girl, who we named Eleanor. Next we adopted Rosalind and then Oliver from the foster system. My daughters are now 17, and my son is 13. Several years ago my ex disappeared from the picture. So I’m a single parent raising three kids alone.

 

My children are the best thing that ever happened to me. But as the saying goes, It Gets Better.

 

During middle school, my daughter Rosalind came out to me in a text. Actually two texts. The first said “Papa, just letting you know I've been going to the Queer Student Alliance after school.” Her second text said “Don't make a big deal about it.”

 

This month is Pride. One morning last week my daughters and I went into Starbucks on the way to school. Rosalind slipped this rainbow wristband on me. It says “PFLAG LOVES YOU.” “PFLAG” stands for “Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays.” They’d left a bunch of these wristbands at Starbucks in a rainbow-trimmed basket for Pride. 

 

In contrast with my daughter Rosalind, I was a late bloomer in every possible way. I was twenty-three before I kissed a girl, twenty-six before I kissed a boy, and thirty-one before I came out to my parents, rather than 13 like Rosalind. 

 

Actually I attempted to come out when I was thirty, and my first boyfriend moved in with me.  The next time my parents visited the apartment in Seattle, they saw that I’d moved my bed to the larger bedroom where my roommate used to be. When we got to my old bedroom there was just a desk. My father asked, “Where does Josh sleep?” I swear I started to say, “With me, of course,” but my mother interrupted me to say “Look, the futon folds down.”

 

A year later, we finally had “the talk.” I drove up to see my parents in Bellingham, where they’ve lived in the same house for the last 40 years. I told them I was gay, that Josh was my boyfriend, and I’d quit my miserable corporate lawyer job in Seattle so I could move to Chicago  and be professional homosexual. I became a gay rights lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union. 

 

I had five amazing years in Chicago with the ACLU (and a couple of okay years with my first boyfriend). Meanwhile, back in Bellingham, my mother joined the board of our local PFLAG chapter. She served for the next twenty-five years. She sewed the fifty-foot rainbow flag they carry in the Pride Parade. As I told Rosalind at Starbucks last week, my mother made the rainbow basket where my daughter found my PFLAG wristband. Even before I adopted my children, I was already blessed with the best family anyone could have chosen.

 

Last weekend was the high school’s first Prom since Covid. Both of my daughters went. Eleanor looked radiant in a sequined Marilyn Monroe dress next her to cute nerdy boyfriend. Rosalind looked awkward but completely herself in one of my tux jackets. Rosalind and her goth girlfriend rode to the Prom in a lesbian classmate’s car, together with my daughter's gay boi best friend – a classic skinny twink, with Timothée Chalamet hair. 

 

The morning after Prom, I went into Rosalind’s room and found the four of them asleep on her king-sized bed – three lesbians and a twinkie, half naked and all intertwined. It looked like the dancers’ dressing room backstage. 

 

Our next song is by Rina Sawayama. She’s a young queer singer-songwriter who was born in Japan and raised in Britain. You may have seen the video of her singing a duet with Elton John of this song, which is called “Chosen Family.”

 

I had to wait and grow up and join a gay chorus before I found my chosen family. As a PFLAG son and father, I’m thrilled my daughter is already finding hers. Please enjoy hearing our chosen family share Rina Sawayama’s message.

 

After the evening show, fellow tenor Xavi congratulated me on landing the triple axel. Xavi knew I was going for it because he saw me practicing the night before at PumpJack. (The cute couple on a date at PumpJack also saw me talking to myself, and moved further away from the table with the crazy person.)

When my mother read the final script she complained about my recycling the futon joke. She’s embarrassed she didn’t realize I was gay for so long. I told her I didn’t realize I was gay, either. My father sees people more clearly than the two of us. 

 

Our incomparable accompanist Stephen Smith reported that he didn’t tear up the third time he heard the story. I confessed I didn’t weep this time either. Adding an extra anecdote provided more of a safety net for my tight wire act. It also sacrificed some of the shared immediacy the audience, chorus, and I felt the first two times I spoke. Every live performance is a unique communal moment. Even with a little more emotional safety net, I could tell the audience was moved.

 

The next day one of the baritones said my speech made him cry. Hugh hadn’t heard me speak before because he was out of town at a wedding. I told him he would probably have cried even more if he’d been there the week before. Hugh said it was probably for the best – because he had to sing the “Chosen Family” solo right after I spoke. I was so relieved to be finished I didn’t notice it was him singing. 

Elton & Rina singing "Chosen Family"

  

Tell me your story and I'll tell you mine

I'm all ears, take your time, we got all night

Show me the rivers crossed, the mountains scaled

Show me who made you walk all the way here

     “Chosen Family,” by Rina Sawayama

 

At the cast party, Willi saluted everyone who contributed to making “R-E-S-P-E-C-T” a smashing post-covid success. He thanked all of us who introduced songs, but told folks we shouldn’t expect another concert with forty minutes of spoken word any time soon. This year, however, our stories were essential. In addition to placing the examples of “women’s music” chosen by the Music Selection Committee in a respectful context, these stories also helped VMC’s fragmented community reconnect after two years of isolation.  

 

VMC President Yogi underscored what everyone already recognized: the theme of the concert turned out to be our chosen family. The song “Chosen Family” itself came as a powerful quiet moment before our extravagant finale, which was a Lady Gaga/Madonna mashup that involved everyone dancing, even me. “Chosen Family” was proceeded by a Girl Group medley that started with the Andrews Sisters. We ended the medley with the dancers strutting to “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge, before segueing to “Wings” by Little Mix:

 

We don’t let nobody bring us down
No matter what you say, it won’t hurt me
Don’t matter if I fall from the sky
These wings are made to fly.

 

The audience leapt up for an early standing ovation as they recognized the message of “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”:  Empowerment and Sisterhood.

In our differing introductions to “Chosen Family,” Paul and I added the twists of our “romantic,” “biological,” and “adoptive” families. In contrast, Yogi focused entirely on how his chosen family gave him an incandescent smile – like a figure skater with one amazing move. 

 

As gay men, it’s not enough to come out of the closet and find our tribe. I hear it’s not even enough to find romantic love. Whether we’ve been out (or married) for months, years, or decades, we also need to find, create, and sustain our chosen families. I was personally blessed with an amazing biological and adoptive family. But I would not have made it safely here without the chosen family I found in Windy City Gay Chorus, Seattle Men’s Chorus, and now Vancouver Men’s Chorus.  

Behind Yogi’s smile: gay Olympian Gus Kenworthy 

joining VMC from across the bar at our cast party

The cast party gave me a rare opportunity for casual socializing. A group of new tenors asked if I planned to move back to Vancouver fulltime after the girls graduate from high school next year. I told them the story of when my children decided they also want to move to Vancouver eventually.

 

PAPA:             Because I don’t have dual citizenship like my younger brothers, we’ll probably need to find me either a job or a husband in Canada.

 

ELEANOR:    Hmm. You’d better work on your resume.    

 

The tenors helpfully began pointing out single guys across the room, and asking whether I think they’re cute. I reminded them I’m still recovering from PTSD and social anxiety, and barely over face blindness. I sheepishly confessed that after six years in VMC, I’ve still never been on a date or kissed anyone I met at chorus, and only seen any of them naked during bawdy skits at Retreat.  

 

My VMC brothers are so Canadian and nice. They offered to help me finally find my “romantic” family. But you’ll have to wait a while for me to live, then write, “Quadruple Axel.”

True Stories

Tell me your story and I'll tell you mine

I'm all ears, take your time, we got all night

Show me the rivers crossed, the mountains scaled

Show me who made you walk all the way here

     “Chosen Family,” by Rina Sawayama

 

This week Vancouver Men’s Chorus performed our first post-covid concerts at Performance Works on Granville Island. Our theme this year is “R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Celebrating Women’s Music.” VMC’s intrepid Music Selection Committee and our stable of skilled vocal arrangers curated a marvelous collection of songs, mashups, and medleys. 

 

An evening of gay men singing songs by and about women requires a little extra context. Our conductor Willi asked for volunteers to introduce several of the numbers with personal stories about their connection to particular songs. For example, Lenny explained how his generation made “Secret Love” a gay anthem, sharing how he grew up going to Doris Day movies with his mother and recognizing he had a crush on Rock Hudson. Basil, who immigrated to Canada as a child from Yemen speaking neither English nor French, introduced the “Empowerment Medley” with the story of aboriginal Australian singer Thelma Plum, who wrote “Better in Blak” about her experiences with people “trying to take the colour from the conversation.” And Mark closed the first act by convincing the audience – as he had convinced the Music Selection Committee – that a medley called “Great Shoes” would work. (It does, spectacularly.)

Elton & Rina singing "Chosen Family"

Rina Sawayama is a young queer singer-songwriter who was born in Japan and raised in Britain. Last year MTV News described her song “Chosen Family” as “the budding queer anthem uniting global fans.”

 

At one of the last rehearsals for “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” the conductor announced that no one had volunteered to introduce “Chosen Family.” Willi asked if anyone had a story to share about their connection to the song. Three of us came forward. 

Yogi’s story is about how he came from Indonesia to Vancouver at 18 knowing only two words in English. Now he’s a pillar of the arts and queer communities, and President of VMC.  

Paul's story is about how he and his husband Gerry moved to Vancouver from the U.K. and found a home with the chorus. Two years ago, Gerry died of cancer in Paul’s arms, surrounded by friends from VMC.

Here’s my story:

 

When I was a kid, one of my friends was teased about being adopted. I remember her telling the bully “Your parents had to take you, but my parents chose me.” 

 

Thirty years later, my partner and I had the opportunity to adopt a baby girl, who we named Eleanor. Next we adopted Rosalind and then Oliver from the foster system. My daughters are now 16, and my son is 13. Several years ago my ex disappeared from the picture. So I’m a single parent raising three kids alone – an amazing job that typically is seen as “women’s work.” 

 

During middle school, my daughter Rosalind came out to me in a text. Actually two texts. The first said “Papa, just letting you know I've been going to the Queer Student Alliance after school.” Her second text said “Don't make a big deal about it.”

 

Last weekend was the high school’s first Prom since Covid. My daughter Eleanor went with her cute nerdy boyfriend. She looked radiant in a sequined Marilyn Monroe dress. Rosalind looked awkward but completely herself in one of my tux jackets. Her goth girlfriend wore a black dress. Rosalind and her goth girlfriend rode to the Prom in a lesbian classmate’s car, together with my daughter's gay boi best friend – a classic skinny twink, with Timothée Chalamet hair. 

 

The morning after Prom, I went into Rosalind’s room and found the four of them asleep on her king-sized bed – three lesbians and a twinkie, half naked and all intertwined. It looked like the dancers’ dressing room backstage. 

 

Our next song is by Rina Sawayama. She’s a young queer singer-songwriter who was born in Japan and raised in Britain. You may have seen the video of her singing a duet with Elton John of this song, which is called “Chosen Family.”

 

I had to wait and grow up and join a gay chorus before I found my chosen family. As a PFLAG father, I’m thrilled my daughter is already finding hers. 

Paul introduced “Chosen Family” at our opening night performance on Friday, which meant he also gave his speech at the dress rehearsal in front of the guys the day before. I drew both the matinee and evening shows on Saturday. 

 

After the concert Friday, I stayed overnight in Vancouver at a friend’s place. On Saturday morning I walked along the seawall around Stanley Park practicing my remarks. I wanted to be able to speak directly to the audience without notes. I choked up every time I said “As a PFLAG father, I’m overjoyed my daughter is already finding her chosen family.” I tried repeating it 20 times in a monotone, without any decongestion. Fortunately it’s the last sentence.  

 

Back at the theatre on Saturday, there wasn’t time for me to do a run through. Backstage between acts, Willi asked if I was ready. I told him I expected to make people laugh and cry, including myself.

My speech at the matinee Saturday was a success by the most important measures:  I made it to the end without a PTSD meltdown, and numerous people said “I never knew you were so funny, but I hate you for making me cry.” 

 

As with the speeches, chorus members share some of the solos, including the duet in “Chosen Family.” Dan and David, a recently married couple, were scheduled to sing the duet Saturday evening. During the break between shows, Dan complimented me on my presentation at the matinee. “But could you make it a little longer?” He explained that David is one of the dancers, and needed a little more time for his costume change before singing “Chosen Family.” 

“Chosen Family” comes at the end of the second act, right before the finale. So I had time to ponder. Where could I add a couple of extra jokes? Did I have anything else I wanted to say? 

 

I was jealous of Paul’s remarks because he drew an elegant parallel between “chosen” and “biological” families. I already had covered “chosen” and “adoptive.” Wouldn’t it be even cooler if I added “biological” too – like landing a triple axel? 

 

As I was seeking inspiration, I looked down and saw my rainbow “PFLAG LOVES YOU” wristband. I’m not just a PFLAG father, I’m a PFLAG son, too. So I decided to acknowledge my parents by telling the story of how I got my wristband. 

 

This turned out to be a mistake.

Performance Works is a cabaret space, which underscores the difference between matinee and evening audiences. As usual, the afternoon crowd was smaller and quieter, with a higher proportion of blue hair. In contrast, the evening show was sold out, and the raucous audience took advantage of the bar both before the show and during intermission. The vibe resembled a combined bachelorette party and tea dance. 

 

Public speaking with a hot crowd is always more fun for everyone, but it can be unpredictable. I didn’t expect “I’m a single parent raising three kids alone” to be a big applause line, which threw off my timing. When I reached the new story about my PFLAG wristband, I choked up. The audience was totally with me, but I could tell they were worried I wouldn’t be able to finish. So was I.  

 

Stand-up is like walking a tightrope – losing your balance can be perilous. As lesbian Australian comic Hannah Gadsby wrote in her recent memoir Ten Step to Nannette, when a stand-up confronts trauma, the process can also resemble therapy. The speaker’s job is to guide both herself and the audience safely through the punchlines to catharsis. 

Fortunately, with the support of my family and the chorus, I’ve made immense progress with both PTSD and social anxiety. Although my speech Saturday evening triggered more of my stammer than at the matinee, we arrived home.

Here’s a smooth version of what I was I was attempting to say when I lost my composure at the Saturday night performance. I can’t even type the words without tears in my eyes:

 

It’s Pride month. Last week I was at the Starbucks near the high school with my daughters. Rosalind slipped this “PFLAG LOVES YOU” wristband on me. “PFLAG” stands for “Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays.” Someone had left a bunch of wristbands at Starbucks in a rainbow-trimmed basket. 

I told Rosalind my mother probably made the basket. 

 

I was thirty before I came out to my parents. My mother spent the next twenty-five years tirelessly serving on the board of our local PFLAG chapter. She sewed the fifty-foot rainbow flag they carry in the Pride Parade – and made all those baskets full of PFLAG wristbands. Even before I adopted my children, I was already blessed with the best family anyone could have chosen.

I thought I wasn’t ready to tell the story behind these stories publicly yet. But after the matinee Saturday, I posted a copy of my remarks to the VMC group page on Facebook, together with a bunch of Prom pictures. When I logged back on to Facebook after the evening show, I discovered that dozens of friends had already “liked”my post. Because I was using my phone instead of the computer, I’d accidentally posted it to my own Facebook feed instead of the private VMC page. By the end of the weekend it was my most popular Facebook post of the year.

 

I’d already shared my speech with Eleanor, Rosalind, and her queer Prom posse when I got their permission to tell our story to the concert audiences. But now that my remarks were out there in writing, I realized I needed to make sure my daughters were cool with the final product.

 

When I got back to the States, I showed Eleanor and Rosalind the published text. Rosalind said “You took out the word ‘goth’ before ‘girlfriend’ – that was my favourite part.” So I put “goth” back in. Eleanor read the speech to her “cute nerdy boyfriend.” He said “I’m not nerdy! I have abs!” 

 

True story.

Read “For Good,” a story about how I become attached to my first dog, 

in the recent anthology True Stories Vol. IV

Hyphenation, or How Eleanor Got Her Name

“Eleanor” has been my favorite girl’s name ever since I read about twelfth-century diva Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 – 1204). When her father the Duke of Aquitaine died, Eleanor inherited half the territory of France. After the Pope annulled her first marriage to King Louis VII, Eleanor eloped with Henry Plantagenet, Duke of Normandy, a great-grandson of William the Conqueror. Two years later, Henry II and Eleanor were crowned King and Queen of England. 

 

Eleanor was described by her contemporaries as perpulchra – more than beautiful. In an era when women had limited autonomy, Eleanor carved out an extraordinary career as a political player and as a patron of the arts. 

 

Many folks encounter Eleanor of Aquitaine in the 1968 movie The Lion in Winter, which depicts a stormy Christmas gathering of Plantagenet family and friends. Katharine Hepburn won her third Oscar for playing Eleanor. (Technically Miss Hepburn tied with Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl). Peter O’Toole played Henry II. In their youthful film debuts, Anthony Hopkins played King Henry’s heir Richard the Lionhearted, and Timothy Dalton played the family’s political rival (and Richard’s secret ex-lover) Louis’ successor King Phillip II of France. 

However, I first learned about Eleanor of Aquitaine from the charming biography A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, by beloved children’s author E.L. Konisburg.

Fig. 1:  My favourite book by the author of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The two shields on the bottom left of the book cover display the traditional royal arms of France (gold fleur-de-lis on a blue background) and of England (gold lions on a red background).

Fig. 1:  My favourite book by the author of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The two shields on the bottom left of the book cover display the traditional royal arms of France (gold fleur-de-lis on a blue background) and of England (gold lions on a red background).

When Eleanor was born my ex and I gave her the same middle name as both her grandmothers:  Eileen.  And we hyphenated her surname: Leishman-Lehmann. 

 

As a result, my daughter’s full signature – Eleanor Eileen Leishman-Lehmann – is an endless whorl of L and E. 

Fig. 2:  Tomb of Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt. (1555 - 1628) at St. Giles Wimborne Church

Hyphens have been on my mind lately because I was researching the history of my middle name. “Ashley” first become popular as a male given name during the eighteenth century for two related reasons:  (1) the distinguished public career of Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Lord Ashley; and (2) zealous efforts by Lord Ashley’s gay maternal grandfather, Sir Anthony Ashley, Bart., to preserve his family name. 

It’s a hyphenated heraldry story. 

Fig. 3:  Classic heraldry reference textbook by the second son of ironmonger Tom Davies and “Maria Jane Fox, the daughter and coheiress of Alderman John Fox, JP”

I’ve always been fascinated by the rules for designing and describing coats of arms. As I previously confessed, the book that has survived the longest on my shelves is a battered pocket Manual of Heraldry that I found in a used bookstore in Vancouver while still in elementary school. 

 

My ancient primer still covers all the basics. But fortunately for readers – or unfortunately – nowadays I also have desktop access to Google Images, Wikipedia, and the exhaustive Complete Guide to Heraldry by eminent Victorian Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, Barrister-at-Law.

Fig. 4:  Azure, a cinquefoil ermine within a bordure engrailed ermine

When a family obtains their first coat of arms, they usually start with something simple. Then as descendants proliferate, different branches of the family can distinguish themselves by adding additional features. For example, the emblem of an ermine “cinquefoil” (a five-petaled flower) on a blue background has long been associated with English names like Ashley and Astley. The gentleman represented by the Ashley arms pictured above has added an ermine border. 

In the shield below, another Ashley branch has instead added three gold stars, which are called “mullets” in the strange Franglais of medieval heraldry:

Fig. 5:  Azure, a cinquefoil ermine between three mullets or

In addition to increased complexity as descendants divide, family unions also can complicate a coat of arms’ design. One of marriage’s primary purposes is to consolidate wealth. A lucrative merger justifies commissioning a new shield that highlights both families’ contributions. Family arms can be combined in various arrangements depending on aesthetics and emphasis, such as side to side, top to bottom, superimposed, or quarterly. 

For example, Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt. had a younger brother, Sir Francis Ashley, MP. Sir Francis’s daughter and heir Dorothy Ashley married Denzil Holles, 1st Baron Holles of Ifield. Their son Francis Holles, 2nd Baron Holles, was born a year before the death of his great-uncle Sir Anthony. Lord Holles chose a coat of arms that combined the Holles family shield, in the top left and bottom right quadrants, with the Ashleys’ cinquefoil in the top right and bottom left corners:

Fig. 6:  Stamp with the arms of Francis Holles, 2nd Baron Holles (1627 - 1690)

Quarterly, 1st & 4th ermine, two piles in point sable with a crescent as a difference (for Holles); 2nd & 3rd azure, a cinquefoil ermine within a bordure engrailed ermine (for Ashley)

In heraldryspeak the term “quartering” is not literal. To the contrary, quartering can refer to any number of individual “fields” added to a shield. 

During a remodel of the Temple family seat at Stowe, Sir John Soames designed an Armorial with 726 quarterings that represented the distinguished ancestors of the Duke of Buckingham & Chandos. The Armorial combines the arms of the Temple, Nugent, Brydges, Chandos, and Grenville families, which include ten variations of the English Royal arms, as well as the shields of other famous nobles from English history like Spencer, Mowbray, Mortimer, Percy, and De Grey.

Fig. 7: Detail from plans for the ceiling of the Gothic Library at historic Stowe House (1805)

The name Ashley is an example of a “topological” or geographic surname because it was first used by Anglo-Saxon families who lived near ash trees. Other English surnames reflect occupational, patronymic, or descriptive origins, like “Smith,” “Johnson,” and “Short.” Regardless of the original source of a surname, however, family history often focuses on real property. Plus sexism. 

 

The lavish seventeeth-century tomb of Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt., Figure 2 above, is topped by Sir Anthony’s coat of arms at the time of his death. The thirteen fields on his escutcheon collectively tell the story of historic St. Giles House and its attached 5,000 acres of Dorset, sort of like a visual title search report. Despite passing through the grip of various profligate gamblers as well as a few distinguished statesmen, for over a thousand years the property has changed hands only by inheritance and never by purchase. 

 

Early records show the property was owned by a family named Malmayne. However, the Malmaynes eventually ran out of male heirs, and the property passed to the Plecy family when Matilda Malmayne married Sir John Plecy. By 1375 the manor was known as St. Giles Upwymbourne Plecy. The Plecy arms feature six red “annulets” or rings arranged on a silver background (argent, six annulets gules three two and one).

 

Unfortunately, Sir John’s son Sir Edmund died without a male heir. The property passed to Joan Plecy, who married Sir John Hamelyn, Sheriff of Somerset. The Hamelyn arms consist of three bulls on a silver field (argent, three bulls passant sable armed and unguled or). John’s only heir, the euphoniously named Egidia Hamelyn, married Robert Ashley in 1438. It was a well-timed and lucrative merger. Robert brought wealth. Egidia brought the St. Giles Wimborne house. The estate has belonged to the Ashleys, Ashley Coopers, and Ashley-Coopers ever since. 

 

With the benefit of Egidia and Robert’s combined fortunes, the family thrived under the Lancasters, Yorks, and Tudors. When Robert’s great-great-great grandson Sir Henry Ashley III died, St. Giles House passed to his cousin Anthony Ashley, a gay government bureaucrat.

Fig. 8:  Detail from the tomb of Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt. (Fig. 1)

By the time of his death in 1628, the new owner of St. Giles House had married, produced a daughter, and been named a knight-baronet by James I. Sir Anthony’s family escutcheon became cluttered with a total of nine non-Ashley quarterings on the shield. There’s also a superimposed miniature “inescutcheon” featuring one red hand, which is the arms of Ulster (argent, a hand couped gules). All baronets are allowed to add the Ulster shield as an “honorable augmentation” to remind everyone the fees from the crown’s initial creation of the rank of baronet went to King James’s efforts to subdue Northern Ireland and fill it with Protestants.

 

A quartering containing the traditional Ashley cinquefoil-on-blue has the prime position in the top left corner of the shield, and is repeated in the bottom right corner. Two of the other fields on the top row each shows three black bulls. The bulls represent Sir Anthony’s Hamelyn ancestors. The first herd, in the top left corner, is set against a silver background, while the second threesome cavorts on a gold field. Between the bulls is a quartering representing Sir Anthony’s wife Jane Okeover, the mother of his daughter and sole heir Anne: an ermine background topped with three gold coins on a red band. Like the Ashley quarterings, the Okeover arms repeat in the bottom row (ermine, on a chief gules three bezants or). 

 

Presumably the remaining quarterings on Sir Anthony’s shield represent other brides whose dowry justified a trip to the College of Heralds to update the family arms, including the Malmayne family who originally bought or stole the St. Giles Wimborne estate.

Fig. 9:  Detail from John Guillim’s A Display of Heraldrie (1660) 

Gules, a bend engrailed between six lions rampant or, as an Honourable Distinction the arms of Ulster

“Cooper” originated as an occupational surname for someone who made barrels. Sir Anthony Ashley’s grandson and namesake Anthony Ashley Cooper inherited the Baronetcy of Rockbourne when young Anthony’s father Sir John Cooper, Bt. died in 1629. 

The younger Sir Anthony also inherited his father’s simple Cooper coat of arms, Figure 9. He used dad’s red-with-gold-lions-and-wiggly-stripe shield until King Charles II elevated Sir Anthony to the peerage in 1661.

Fig 10:  Arms of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). Rachel Weisz played his wife Sarah in the 2018 art house favorite The Favourite.

Sable a lion rampant argent, in a canton as an Honourable Distinction the Cross of St. George, argent, a cross gules

As Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt.’s tomb decoration exemplifies, what starts as a simple family coat of arms – like the Ashley ermine cinquefoil on a blue background – can easily become cluttered by strategic mergers among the nobility. 

 

Few families generate anything like the hundreds of quarterings on the Gothic Library Armorial at Stowe House that is depicted in Figure 7. That took centuries. Nevertheless, look what happened in only three generations between the arms of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, who died without heirs through a male line (Fig. 10), and the arms of his grandson the third Duke:

Fig. 11:  Arms of Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough (1706 - 1758)

Eventually someone has the bright idea of consolidation. A similar process happens with law firms. For example, after a series of earlier mergers and renamings, Seattle’s Davis, Wright, Jones & Todd merged with Portland’s Ragen, Tremaine, Kreiger in 1990. Their combined name was selectively pared down to Davis Wright Tremaine – my former firm.

 

As you can see from Figure 17 below, at some point between the tenures of the third Duke of Marlborough and his grandson the fifth duke, someone quietly deleted all their ancestors’ quarterings except for Spencer and Churchill. Then in 1817, the Prince Regent authorized George Spencer, 5th Duke of Marlborough, to “use the surname Churchill, in addition to and after that of Spencer.” The purpose of the crown’s license was to perpetuate the surname of the duke’s “illustrious ancestor” who “by long series of transcendent and heroic achievements” had added “imperishable lustre” to the Churchill name.

The Prince Regent also directed the College of Arms to register a quarterly shield that reversed the positions of the Churchill and Spencer arms, and added the Honourable Augmentation of a superimposed royal shield representing the former royal manor of Woodstock, now Blenheim Palace – the gift of Queen Anne and a grateful nation after the first duke’s dazzling military victories. 

The fifth Duke of Marlborough’s descendants have used this shield as their coat of arms ever since:

Fig. 12:  Detail from gates of Blenheim Palace, originally displayed in the Crystal Palace at the Great Exposition (1851) 

Fig. 13:  Arms of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874 – 1874)

Fig. 14:  Arms of Sir Winston's cousin Lord Charles James Spencer-Churchill, 12th Duke of Marlborough (born 1955) 

Shield in Figures 12, 13 & 14:  Quarterly, 1st and 4th sable a lion rampant argent, on a canton argent a cross gules (for Churchill); 2nd and 3rd quarterly argent, gules a fret or, on a bend sable three escallops argent (for Spencer); over all in the centre chief point an inscutcheon argent charged with the Cross of St George surmounted by another escutcheon azure charged with three fleur-de-lis two and one or

As with merging law firms and royal licensees, when families level up they have the opportunity to tidy the letterhead. After King Charles II promoted Sir Anthony’s grandson Lord Ashley from a baron to an earl in 1672, the Earl of Shaftesbury asked the College of Arms for a family shield that simply combined Ashley with Cooper:

Fig. 15:  Bookplate of the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury (1711 - 1771) 

Escutcheon: Quarterly, 1 & 4, argent, three bulls passant sable, armed and unguled or (for Ashley); 2 & 3, gules, a bend engrailed between six lions rampant or (for Cooper). Crest: On a chapeau gules, turned up ermine, a bull sable ducally gorged, armed and unguled or. Supporters: On the dexter, a bull sable, armed, unuguled ducally gorged and chain reflexed over the back or; on the sinister, a tablot azure, ducally gorged or. Motto:“Love, serve.”

During the family’s heraldic consolidation, Lord Shaftesbury abandoned his grandfather’s Ashley cinquefoil-on-blue shield. Instead, out of all his maternal forebears, the earl chose the Hamelyn triple bulls to represent the Ashley side of his family. Then he doubled down on the new theme by adding a black bull with gold horns and hooves as his crest on top, as well as yet another bull as one of the supporters holding up the shield. (The second supporter is a tablot hound, a predescessor of the beagle.)

 

Perhaps his lordship’s choice was purely artistic, or it reflects an allergy to the fur or flower in the traditional Ashley shield. Sometimes you’re in the mood for something more butch. Or maybe he wanted a reminder that the best thing the Ashleys ever did was marry into the Hamelyn family and acquire lovely St. Giles House. As someone who happens to be both an Ashley and a Taurus, I’m glad he picked the bulls.

Fig. 16:  Detail from the Ashley Cooper arms
Argent, three bulls passant sable, armed and unguled or

In addition to simplifying his family coat of arms, the Earl of Shaftesbury also formally adopted the double name that his descendants continue to bear today:  Ashley Cooper. 

 

In the Anglo-American tradition, a “double name” is a surname that consists of two separate words as a single unit. They’re pronounced with a single primary emphasis, like “Mayflower’s” rather than “May flowers.” In contrast with your first and middle name or names, a double surname automatically passes to your descendants.

The practice was particularly common in Wales because the Welsh only had a handful of surnames to choose from (Jones, Lloyd, Davies, Williams, etc.). You can therefore safely alphabetize each of the following personnel files under the letter that begins the “penultimate” or second-to-last word:  David Lloyd George, Ralph Vaughn Williams, and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

 

In England, double surnames are generally referred to by the intimidating nickname of “double-barreled” names. Double-barreled surnames resulted from a shotgun wedding of sorts among the gentry. An expanded surname can preserve to some extent an illustrious family name that would otherwise have gone completely extinct along with the last male descendant bearing the name – just like so many of the family names represented by the quarterings illustrated in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 above. 

Triple surnames are possible but uncommon. The five-hyphenated record is usually credited to the nobleman whose heritage inspired the extravagant armorial in Figure 7:  Richard Plantagenet Campbell Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd (and last) Duke of Buckingham & Chandos, 2nd (and last) Marquess of Buckingham, 3rd Earl Temple of Stowe, 5th (and last) Earl Nugent, 7th Viscount Cobham, and 10th Lord Kinloss.

 

Sometimes when a man marries an heiress he has enough confidence in his masculinity to append her surname to his own. Or at least to add it to his children’s surname.

Fig. 17:  Pre-1817 bookplate of George Spencer, 5th Duke of Marlborough (1766 - 1840)
Shield:  Quarterly, 1st and 4th argent, gules a fret or, on a bend sable three escallops argent (Spencer); 2nd and 3rd, sable a lion rampant argent, on a canton argent a cross gules (Churchill)

In the United Kingdom, double-barreled names can be either hyphenated or unhyphenated, which easily causes confusion. File Kristen Scott Thomas under S, Phoebe Waller-Bridge under W, and Helena Bonham Carter under B (although Ms. Bonham Carter has been quoted as saying her hyphen is optional). Autism researcher Sir Simon Baron-Cohen hyphenates. His Kazakhstani cousin Sasha does not. 

Modern Ashley-Coopers now insist on hyphens. In contrast, as Fig. 17, Fig. 13,  Fig. 14, and Fig. 15 suggest, dropping the hyphen can be the final step before switching to a favourite single surname. 

Fig. 18:  Leishman family mug available for purchase online
Shield: Gules, three swans argent; Motto: Industriae manus (“hands of industry”)

 

Here in the States, double-barreled surnames are generally called “hyphenated” names. Our modern phenomenon uses sheer punctuation to unite two families, without any cash or real estate directly involved. Just the names, and the families, and the rest of their baggage.

Fig. 19:  Or, rose gules, seeded or, barbed vert. Aber auf Deutsch.

As Arthur Fox-Davies noted in A Complete Guide to Heraldry, traditionally the most important name in any double-barreled surname was the last name in the series, like placing the verb at the end of a German sentence: 

 

In the coat of arms for a double name, the arms for the last and most important name are the first and fourth quarterings. By a rare exception Lord Shaftesbury bears the arms of Ashley in the first and fourth quarters, and Cooper in the second and third. 

 

Before literacy, elementary school queues, phone books, and the internet, no one really made alphabetizing a priority, and husbands called all the shots. Things are very different nowadays. Google any random bridal website and you’ll learn “there are no set rules or etiquette when it comes to deciding exactly how your hyphenated last name will read.” According to Brides magazine, “The only decision is which surname sounds better before the hyphen and which should come after.”

Fig. 20:  Quarterly, 1 & 4 gules, three swans argent (for Leishman); 2 & 3 or, rose gules, seeded or, barbed vert (for Lehmann)
  Instantly generated online with DrawShield - try it for yourself at home

 

If we knew then what we know now, we probably would not give Eleanor her hyphenated surname. “Leishman” and “Lehmann” are too similar, yet no one can remember which ends with the double nn. Regardless of word order or hyphenation, our combined surnames sound like they belong in the PBS sponsorship for a Wall Street brokerage firm. 

In any event, filling out forms with a long hyphenated name is an invitation to a lifetime of own-goal confusion. Let’s just say that after a few years’ real world experience we gave both of the other kids the plain surname “Leishman.” Eleanor’s unique double surname gradually disappeared as a practical matter, with no sign of the Lehmann barrel except on formal documents. A few years later my ex got married and changed his surname anyway. 

Fig 21:  Quarterly, 1st gules three swans argent (for Leishman); 2nd argent, three bulls passant sable, armed and unguled or (for Ashley); 3rd or, rose gules, seeded or, barbed vert (for Lehmann); 4th sable, a lion rampant argent, on a canton argent a cross gules (for Churchill)

Despite my personal preference for keeping things simple, I hope Eleanor marries some earnest hippie boy who insists on keeping both his parents’ surnames. For example, Figure 21 represents what a joint coat of arms would look like if my daughter married someone named “Harry Ashley-Churchill.”   

 

I look forward to spoiling my quadruple-hyphenated grandchildren. Tom Daley can teach me to knit heraldic onesies. Nevertheless, in contrast with the demands of my seventeenth-century namesake and fellow homosexual Sir Anthony Ashley, Bt., no one will need to be named Roger, Ashley, or Leishman as a condition of staying in the will.

Fig 22:  Arms of the last Duke of Buckingham & Chandos (1823 – 1889), located in the ceiling of the Headmaster’s Study at The Stowe School