Few of the stories I share about my father in my memoir are flattering. Not only was he physically and emotionally absent, he wasn’t even my natural father. Yet I carry his name, and of my three fathers, he is the only one I ever think of as "Daddy." So on this 56th anniversary of his death, I share this tale of love and reconciliation…. 

The only thing I know for certain as my 18th month with no fixed home draws to an end is what Eulisha tells Toshar early in The MoonQuest, the same thing Pyrà tells Kamela in the opening scene of The Bard of Bryn Doon, soon-to-be rereleased fourth Q’ntana book: "There’s more to every story." There’s more to my story as well. And all I can do is listen for it and follow where it takes me, in the ongoing act of surrender that is my life. 

When a powerful intuitive impulse prompted me to turn left into the US instead of right toward the Transcanada Highway and Winnipeg, I couldn't know that not only would I not be returning to my native Canada anytime soon, but that 22½ years later I would be a US citizen; a dual Canadian/US citizen, to be precise.

Today, on the 27th anniversary of my "accidental immigration," I share the serendipitous story that got me to the US all those years ago, in the following excerpt from Acts of Surrender: A Writer's Memoir.

It took all the courage I could muster at age 20 to call Gay Montreal and stammer "I-I think I'm gay" into the phone, then take the bus downtown and purposefully talk about it, face-to-face, with a gay man.

Whether this journey lasts another day or another 474 days, I need to remember that what I’m doing is making a difference. It may not always be the kind of visible, demonstrable difference my conscious mind would prefer. It may not show up in books sales or coaching clients. Yet the fact that it isn’t always visible or demonstrable simply forces me to trust that much more. And whether I’m on the road or off, trust is what I’m all about.

I am still The MoonQuest story, just as I was that March evening in Toronto 30 years ago…the story of a bard who follows his heart and lets the tales that move through him reveal the way forward as he journeys on a quest to return story, imagination and vision to the land.

March 26, 1984: With my mother gone, all her hopes, fears and expectations for me were gone too. Suddenly, without being conscious of it or of what it meant, I was free.

Although I am posting this memoir-excerpt-as-tribute on World AIDS Day, it's important to remember that AIDS/HIV is with us 365 days a year...and not only in the West and not only in the LGBTQ community .

When at age twenty, a few months into my first job out of college, I announced that I was moving out, my mother announced that if I was going, my dog would have to go with me. Seven years of pee stains had been enough. She wanted her house back. (This story may appear to be unrelated to this Yellow Brick Road journey of mine. However, if you read through to the end, you'll see that it has everything to do with it!)

It’s a scary, tightrope-walking way to write. It’s an ever scarier way to live. In both instances, however, at least in my experience to date, the results are always more wondrous, enriching and miraculous than any conscious mind could ever conjure up, because our conscious minds have access only to the visible portion of the iceberg.

A year later in rural Nova Scotia, on the anniversary of that Toronto class, I complete the first draft of my first book — a novel I never planned to write, a novel I knew nothing about except as I wrote it word-by-word: The MoonQuest.

“Even as I’m back where I started 179 days ago, I don’t sense that I’m here to stay. At the same time, it feels as though there was a moment during these past nineteen Sedona days when I arrived at the end of this Yellow Brick Road. I’m not sure I can identify the moment, at least not yet. Perhaps it will be unmistakably clear in retrospect. Or perhaps there wasn’t a single moment. Maybe it has been more of a passageway than a portal…”