One the biggest regrets of my life is that I never sat down with my Mother and told her that I’m gay. I chose, instead, the easy option of writing to her and telling her that her oldest son was a homosexual.
Facing Mum for the first time, after writing that letter, I was very nervous as I travelled to where she lived. I hesitated several times before walking up to the front door, ringing the doorbell, and announcing my arrival. What a shock I got when she came towards me with open arms and, as she gave me one of her wonderful hugs, hearing her whisper the words “I always knew you were gay, I don’t know why it took you so long to tell me.”
Me and mum. Taken sometime in the 1980s, just after I had told her I was gay.
He called as he usually did, his voice sexy and deep, not hysterical, which
he can sometimes get when something’s on his mind, something I have to
ferret out, burying my muzzle in the shit of his psyche.
He said we couldn’t have dinner, that he was broke and, ‘some people have
to work,’ implying something about my life.
He said that I was fine, but, ‘a little too much’ and wondered if I wouldn’t
be happier with someone ‘more complex, more my ‘speed.’
And I said no! No! Simplicity is my goal, what can I be? What would you
like me to be?
Part two of the Interview opens with Harold’s discussing his relationship to his peers, many of whom achieved fame and a place in literary history.
Norse describes them as outcasts and I reply that they are hardly outcasts now.
Norse feels like an outcast and I hearken back to Auden’s comment by suggesting that perhaps a saint is an outcast who survives as an outcast.
Survival in this context is surviving as an artist.
Norse says he wrote because, “I wanted to write about my deepest feelings about being Gay.”
He goes on to tell a story about conversation he had with James Baldwin who was new to fame and Norse said, “Jimmy, you’ve got nothing to worry about, you’ve got it made.”
“Jimmy turned and said, ‘Whattaya mean I got it made! I’m still Black!'”
Giovanni’s Room 1956, by James Baldwin
Norse goes on to say that no matter what he does, he’s still gay, he’s
still marginalized.
Norse describes how he met with Baldwin again, after Baldwin was wealthy.
Baldwin looks in a mirror and says, “After all, I’m still James Baldwin.”
Norse stopped himself from saying, “And who is James Baldwin.”
Norse describes it as a ‘Zen’ moment when he realized that we are what we’re conscious of being.
Interview with Harold Norse Section 2, part 1.
Please note:
When I turned the tape over I unknowingly enabled a ridiculous option that stops the machine when it senses silence. The result is a little choppy.
I did my best to smooth it out.
Me and mum. Taken sometime in the 1980s, just after I had told her I was gay. 
