I Love the Way (More) Men Love

Each morning as I walk the winding, jasmine-mugged neighborhood paths in Virginia, I receive a phone call.

“Good morning, Vincent. This is Fred Dunham.” 

“Good morning, Fred,” I always reply. We talk for just a few minutes, long enough for me to linger on a wooden bridge as a runoff creek gurgles over limestone, or to follow a fox’s footpath with my eyes. Fred’s eighty, at the time, and he’s been an honorary grandpa for almost a decade. He talks about climbing basalt columns in the shrub steppe–so far from me now–and occasionally asks about my poems or shares one from the Beatniks. A few months later, after the calls have stopped just as suddenly as they started, I learn that this morning ritual was his effort to practice using my name.

When I started to go by Vincent, this wonderful man who still doesn’t really grasp caller ID, learned a new trick: since names are what you call people, he called me, to call me by my name. 

Maybe it’s the standard my dad set, maybe it’s because my mom taught me to expect those around me to treat others with dignity and respect, maybe it’s just cosmic luck to thank for the people in my life, but when I think about the men I know, I can’t help it: I love the way they love.

When my grandmother died last Easter, PJ drove me to the airport–two hours over Snoqualmie Pass–so that I wouldn’t have to take the shuttle. PJ: the first person I came out to, the guy who taught me I didn’t have to reach the summit for him to enjoy sharing the hike, the person whose work schedule I’ve memorized so I can reassure every queer person in town, when they need to go to an auto parts store, that there’s someone safe behind the counter.

There’s Tristan, who started our trivia team and DnD group, whose dazzling creativity is wrapped up in not just commitment to the bit but devotion to it–a gift to us all. There’s Trye, who loves his friends almost as much as he loves the Twister movies, but whose care for people doesn’t end there: he also focuses his research on some of the most vulnerable homeless populations, looking at which supports help them most. There’s Chris, who’s constantly connecting and building up each community he touches and who makes sure to let me know I’m always invited, even though the parties/protests/people are three towns away. There’s Tai, whose whole being radiates warmth, a smile as bright as the desert where he leads conservation teams, strengthening ecologies, peoples, landscapes, histories. 

There are the men I work with: the one who always knows a spot, and is always willing to take you to it, whose woodworking hobby became cutlery in all our kitchens; the one with great justice-oriented book recommendations who makes sure our policies protect us as people, not just as employees; the ones who literally, physically reshape our rivers and parks and trails to make them healthier, more sustainable, more diverse, more resilient. Men like Charley, who trains his llamas to take Wounded Warriors and people with Parkinsons on packing trips.

Kodjo, who tailors lessons to the students he coaches, tailors playlists to the people he knows, tailors his own dreams with the dimensions of those he loves. Arik, who puts care in every recipe, who used to wander the city with me as we walked for miles through the night. Byron, whose voice walked me home the three miles from Cap Hill to Queen Anne after the buses stopped running. My friend’s partner, Christian, who taught me gun safety, with a quiet seriousness that reminded me of the importance of life. My cousin Jeff, who let me read his manuscript when he lived with my family, and listened to my feedback, even though I was just a kid. My Grandpa Larry, who buys sacks of birdseed and hauls them around refilling bird feeders, this act of love wrapping his whole house in song and beauty and life. 

Because so much of patriarchal culture writes off any nurturing type of love as femininity or as lesser, it’s easy (and strongly encouraged) to hear “the way men love” as an oxymoron, or as a warning. But there’s also something so sweet about the love that startles through that expectation, that blooms regardless and despite it. The love that forgets to introduce itself.

I can’t help it, I love the way men love.