James Zellers and Mary Harmon-Christian

00:07 My name is Kathy harmon-christian. My age is 55 years old I am in Decatur, Georgia.

00:16 Today's date is February 10th 2021.

00:20 My partner today is Jim Sellers, and they are my friend.

00:26 My name is James Zellers. I am 59 years old. I am in Peachtree Corners Georgia. Today's date is February 10th. 2021. My partner today is Kathy harmon-christian and they are my dear friend colleague and general Guru Mentor. Well my goodness Jim you lummox me from the first go what to say to that. Wonderful. Well, thank you and it it's just great to be here. And so when I think of you I think of a renaissance man, and you are proficient in music, you read widely. You are an amazing caregiver you there's just a

01:26 You you take care of dogs you show dogs, you have this wonderful capacity to be in several different things that one might ordinarily not think go together. So I love that about you. Do you see that as part of your personality? Absolutely. My maternal grandmother would say I'm the Jack of all trades and master of none and I say that with all honesty because I think the more that you get into different things in your life if you're truly open to everything that each

02:12 Thing that you were doing has to offer to you and to show you you realized very quickly that the more you learn about something the more that you don't know and that for me just kind of Spurs me on to want to know more. I have always been somebody who is like to do multiple things at the same time my entire life even as a kid sometimes. I wonder if I had been a little more focused if maybe My Chosen professional career path would have gone in a different direction, but even at the height of my education and really kind of beginning my professional career as a as a musician, I still had and living in New York City. I was a student at Juilliard at the time and even that which you know by all

03:12 Standards most people would say oh going to a great Conservatory like that. That would be your consumed all from early morning until late night. But I did volunteer work downtown with the Covenant House working with homeless. Runaways got very involved with my church in New York City, which was Saint Paul the Apostle right there in Lincoln Center paulist fathers got me involved with the conventual franciscans really enjoyed spending a lot of time with them and even at one point contemplative while I was

03:51 My life could have gone at two different directions. Either could have I could have gone into beginning a doctorate at Juilliard after finishing one smaller degree there when I first enter the school or I seriously considered chucking it all and becoming comentale Franciscan. So, you know, I could never sit still long enough to just be focused on one thing and I kind of like that about myself. I feel like it makes you perhaps more interesting to talk to and also it gives you a real perspective and grounding that the world is not one thing. It is a variety of things and perhaps

04:38 Entering into your particular set of varieties with your eyes open and always wanting to learn and explore more. I think it can make you more equipped perhaps to handle the the the the bad times in life and just in general sort of gives you a more grounded well-rounded perspective on life. I think you're not putting all your eggs in one basket. Well, since you brought up music, I would really love you to share the story about you playing with an organ or piano when you were a child going to mass and you were young and I remember you sharing that with us.

05:38 Playing so tell us about that cuz I think that's quite remarkable actually in so many ways it got me started in what would later become my entire career in or the the biggest part of my career which is music but grew up in a Catholic household and went to Catholic school and started playing the piano at age 4 and you know, if you talk to other people in my family, you know, they say, oh, you know prodigy prodigy. I don't believe I was a prodigy. I believe that I was a really fairly intelligent youngster who had an affinity for a particular instrument and when you combine that you know, it's really it becomes, you know, kind of like Rocket Fuel that can just you know, but

06:38 I don't believe that I was anyting exceptionally special except for the fact that I enjoy playing the piano and so fast forward to 2nd grade. So I'm like I started school kindergarten a year early. So I think I was about six a lot of my cohorts, you know in the second grade were probably seven, you know got moving on to a but I was on the youngest side and which made it all the more shocking that my teachers all knew that I played the piano. I had done little performances for my class and all this kind of stuff in the first grade and we had a group of sisters that taught us. They were all teachers at various grades in our grade school that was attached to our church.

07:26 And all of us the entire School first grade through eighth grade went to mass every morning before we went to school and you know can be there school day. So there was a particular nun. I think she taught fifth grade or sixth grade or something like that who played the organ for our morning service morning, Mass.

07:50 And we get to second grade. I'm in the second grade and all of a sudden this very tall. None by my very small 6th grade, you know 6 6 year old standards has a stack of hymnals in her hands, and she said well, I've been transferred and so you're on and I was like I'm on for what you know, and she said you're going to play start playing 4 for church at 8 in the morning. So just to give you a perspective deeper daily masses and a lot of times the the hymn selections were not done until the evening before sometimes even the morning of right so literally I was handed.

08:42 Four numbers for four different atoms sometimes if the mass started at 8 at 8 in the morning I get those numbers at like 7:45, right? And here's the beauty of being a child because her child everything is possible. Right and nothing is difficult. Nothing is difficult. So, you know, I was handed these numbers and so I tried over to the you know, Oregon where the the music animals are and I open them up to the appropriate numbers and I look at it go. Okay. Sure. No problem, you know and I sit down and I play for that particular service and this happened every day, right so fast forward later in life. This is actually a skill that musicians bill called sight-reading which many of them when asked to sight-read on their instrument completely fall into a panic because it's not necessarily a skill that people teachers propagate in their students cuz they have enough to do with weekly.

09:42 Essence just to help them learn how to play their instruments that actually execute the stuff that they practiced every week in order to make it so, you know perfected and to learn something from it. So here I am working on this what's later considered a very difficult skill and I just thought this is what everybody did right, so I'm writing and trust me. I'm sure in the first couple of years. There was a lot of wrong notes. I like to say to people even though I was living in the Western World. It was a probably a lot of Chinese music or some other kind of country music not country music but music from another country because of the all of the the non-western notes that were coming out of out of the Oregon. I'm sure that that happened that everybody smile sweetly and just hung in there with me and eventually it all sort of

10:41 Came together right now and I have to add at the end of the story. So this was second grade and it went swimmingly for a couple of years and I played every day for for church before we would all go to church and song about I think it was about the sixth grade. I remember this like it was yesterday. My mother was on the phone looking very serious and she hangs up the phone. This is an afternoon and she says the president of the parish council is coming over tonight and wants to talk with us. And of course you had to know my mother great mother love her to death, but absolutely she made sure all of her kids were in line. So the next question was what did you do it? I was like I didn't do anything. She said he didn't say he just said he wanted to talk to us. So he shows up at the appropriate time and he says

11:40 Mr. Mrs. Zellers, you know your son son playing for mass now for a couple of years. He's rather young but so we wanted to come over and speak with you. We really have a need for him to step up and actually play on Sunday. How would you feel about that? And of course my parents were like are you sure that he can handle it, you know and and I'm looking at them like of course I can handle it. What's the matter with you? So she you know, the parish council president said yes, we've we've sat and listened to him play for you know the morning mass for the kids and he seems very competent and we think that we can work him into the schedule.

12:20 And then he follows the last part was oh, yes, and there's a fee of Bob we would pay him and my mother jumps in immediately says, oh no, you don't have to pay him and I couldn't hold my tongue anymore after that point and I was like, yes, I do want to get paid and I hope they didn't pay you. I really do have a good Catholic mother had that look of death. I'm sure you know what I'm talkin about which was stop fidgeting and stop fooling around in the middle of church, right? And so I got the absolute look of death, you know, looking away from the parish council president because she was just like that was really important that you could just keep your mouth closed. But you know, and I'm like, this is money. I know what money is I get an allowance money awesome awesome and well, they should have paid you but you know, I just find that story it just so striking to me that first of all they would they

13:20 Entrust you with that responsibility at such a young age cuz we don't I don't think in our day and age now we we look at children. Is that competent anymore? And I love that part of it. I love that part and and the fact that they allowed you to to work now to to figure it out it as they went and gave you this wonderful responsibilities as well as helped you to really hone that talent that you had so I think that's you know, I just bet that story just always strikes me that want to play on Sunday in about the sixth grade now fast-forward to high school on now the main organ is that the school not the music director yet, but the main organ as I stayed in my hometown for my undergraduate days to study music at a local college and by the time I left four years later,

14:20 To move on to graduate work and to leave town. I am now the head organist choir director director of Music at that church Prosperity. Where did you grow up in Mishawaka, Indiana? My home Parish was Saint Joseph parish in Mishawaka, Indiana. We were there for decades awesome. Awesome. Okay. So, where did you get your love of dogs then and you have the most gorgeous dogs some about your your your Beauties solutely. Absolutely. So my husband and I are the very proud owners of currently three. We had one pass away couple years ago, but our breed Australian shepherds herding dogs, they are.

15:13 Wicked smart and I think that's what attracted me to them in the first place. They're beautiful animals. They're not too large. They're not too small. You can do a lot of sports with them you can do agility you can do obedience. You can do a lot of fun organize things with them and they're sturdy little dogs that you know will go swimming and hiking and all that kind of stuff but I really appreciate dogs or animals that you give them two plus two and you can watch them in their mind add it up to four and once they've added up two plus two and number of times they figure out there are other ways to get to for it might be one plus three. It might be three plus one, you know, and they will at they will get back to you the same thing that you had asked them to do two plus two in a slightly different variation come out with the same outcome and then look,

16:13 How is that and this is what they were bred to do. They were bred to herd and to be able to think know what the objective is of their job but to be able to think creatively on their feet because they're dealing with trying to drive livestock and move livestock which are very unpredictable. So they have to be able to come up with well, if this didn't get that sheet to go from point A to point B than you know, I'll come up with another way to get him to go from point A to point B because I was told he has to go from point A to point B. So my basic love of dogs came from my father's sister my Aunt who

16:58 It was a very fun loving kind of free spirit lady. We always enjoyed visiting her. My my parents always with a little bit of fear and trepidation would send me off to visit her every year for a week. She lived in a cool place Denver Colorado, you know where I came from corn field flatness of Northern Indiana. I got to see these amazing things called the Rocky Mountains, you know, and they were right there out your window when you woke up. I mean, it was just incredible and she was a professional dog groomer. She showed dog. She raised dogs. She you know did and she did this for a living this was what you know, this was her her profession and that was how I kind of got introduced to animals the Love of Animals what the love of an animal can do

17:58 Are you you know at anyone stage in life and just the whole connection between dogs and humans how amazing and diverse and special that particular connection can be so she actually put my feet on that path and interesting Randolph it became one of those side things that I always end up doing because I can't seem to focus on one thing in my life, you know later and later in life. I came very much back around two dogs and became a groomer myself and a breeder and I think of her everyday that I'm working with my animals because she was a real

18:52 Amazing forest in my life for for that purpose in your life that we haven't talked about yet and is another one of your skills is cooking. And would you like to share a little bit about your grandmother? Sure. You're Italian grandmother absolutely growing up in an Italian household. You had multiple parents of various Generations. Let's put it that way because many times and was definitely the case for us. We all lived on the same block. And so I had grandparents that live. My father's parents lived across the street. My mother's parents live two doors down from us. We shared a driveway in the house next door to us was an aunt and uncle of my mother.

19:52 So we're always surrounded by Family everywhere and I became very close with my maternal grandmother most especially in the interim time between the death of my grandfather and her death. So it was about seven years between his passing and then her ultimately passing and because we have grown up with huge Italian dinners at her house that involved, you know, siblings of my mother's and they would bring their families and you know, so we have cousins running around and you know, sometimes dinner at a normal dinner on a weekend at their house would you know at my grandmother's house would be 15, you know that nowadays people think oh God, I should plan a meal for 15. I mean this was that was the only way I knew how to cook with the cook for no less than 5, you know, what's up?

20:52 I cook for one when I was on my own eventually was kind of like a better have a freezer because I don't have to try to know how to cut these recipes down. But in any case really it was during those seven years after the death of my grandfather my grandmother, you know was older and failing in hell and she was a bit afraid to stay by herself. So she asked me if I would move in with her and so I did and among many things that we did together. We cooked. We also pray together and interesting ly enough, we would mostly pray the rosary which is a as you know of Catholic set of prayers that are done on a set of beans that is a very beautiful bouquet prayers that people say,

21:45 And so the two things I wanted when she passed away were very innocuous things, but they still mean the world to me the rosary that she used when we would pray the rosary together which then became my rosary and I still have it, you know, 40 years later and the wooden dowel that was the rolling pin that I learned how to make pasta with because it was her rolling pin and I saw her use it and I it was how I learn, you know and in her inimitable Italian grandmother old lady kind of way, you know, I'd say but Grant we could get you one of those like, you know, motorized pasta makers were just shoots the pasta out, you know in traffic and she would wrinkle up her nose and be like no no no, no. No, you got to do it this way, you know, you got to learn how to do it with your hands and rolly pin, you know, and it was just a long it is truly if you looked at it you would just say that looks like a boy.

22:45 Table leg and it probably was I mean, these are very people people right but when it wants it still only use for that purpose, you know, it's kept in a hallowed place in my kitchen and it's only used for that purpose. So any of this homemade pasta just saying just saying my husband would probably say the same thing when we come out of covid-19.

23:45 Where are the eggs cracked in the middle of it to where it looks like a volcano about to erupt right? You know, and then you mix it in the little you know, this is all in the middle of a table, you know, and then once it's mixed should be able to roll it out and cut it and then throw it in the water from there and boil. It really is a journey of which then when you finally sample it at the end it's kind of like wow. This is the case then if I had just opened up a box and dumped it into boiling water in Okemos think so is my mind spins off from there. I'll be thinking about that. I also wanted to bring up the fact that you are a very faithful Catholic and you are a very faithful gay man to your husband you have this wonderful 20-year relationship and you are a very faithful Catholic and you know, I think I'd love to hear you talk more about how those

24:45 Do things are absolutely go together. You know, I think so many times those two things are seeing some how is need to be separate or or they don't reckon it's all about it in you they live beautifully, they that they live beautifully reconciled and I just like you to share a little bit about that either willing or absolutely absolutely thing that you I'm glad that you point out that on the surface. They probably shouldn't go together as as soon as you know that I would never say that I would never say that either obviously and I live it every day. But you know, it's unfortunate that that our church as much as I love it and it is such an integral part of me and I could never be anything else than Catholic sometimes.

25:41 Dude, I guess the best way to say it is viewed through the lens of men who try to be perfect but are imperfect because we're all created in perfectly. Perhaps certain biases come in and those things get kind of

26:00 Wrapped up into laws that that somehow being you know, it's unfortunate but we live in a day and age where you know, a lot of ideas at least coming down through the church is that to be gay and to be Catholic don't always mesh well together, right? We're not always welcomed as a full have a full seat at the table. Let's put it that way and maybe this comes from my upbringing in that again. It's a kid, you know who was handed a bunch of books and said, okay go off and play that big pipe organ up there that looks more like, you know, the Phantom of the Opera than than anything and the thing dwarf to me. I mean, it was huge right but yet I fearlessly just sat down and said this is a bunch of keys like my piano at home and it can't be all that hard right that that kind of fearlessness is always stuck with me and I think it's bloated.

27:00 Well in this particular case because

27:03 One of the things that we enjoy in the Catholic church, as adults is The Rite of confirmation, which is the the the conferring of the Holy Spirit Upon A young Catholic to become adult in in the Catholic community and I can say truly that my confirmation was moving and profound experience for me in that I really felt the Holy Spirit Come into me and be my guide right we think of the Holy Spirit as a as a guide to sort of help you perhaps

27:45 Help your moral compass, perhaps be a comforter to you and lonely times when you have no-one and truly the Holy Spirit has been that for me my entire life and it also at times when the church would say.

28:02 As a gay man, you can't live but you can't love another man and be in this church the holy spirit said that's bunk that you can't be a faithful.

28:17 Something it is each time when I was presented with an opportunity to do what I I felt in my heart was right and just need to say yes to who I was as a gay man to meet somebody who had the same beliefs and ideals as I did and to partner with them, you know again the church would say that's not a holy Union, right?

28:57 Holy Spirit said to me know I mean you can make it be whatever you wanted to be. And if it's if this is the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with and adhere to all of those ideals of monogamy and faithfulness and supporting them in good times and bad and all of that then absolutely this is blessed by you know, the guy that created you. All right. So I think my being able to integrate being gay and being Catholic and then moving on to finding another gay Catholic and for us to live a spiritual life together in a human life together and all of its facets, right?

29:46 It is. It's a certain amount of moxie of your pushing against what are considered the Norms, you know, and really getting past that and what is it really all about? It's about your relationship with God and if you're right with that then you know, I say why let any man stuff in the middle of that, you know any human stuff in the middle of that.

30:11 Orchard Church, what What attracted you to Jim all the wrong things? Let's put it that way, you know, you can tell that story then so, you know growing up, you know is a reflection of my family right? We were very real family with warts and all I mean, you know, we had problems in our family with addiction to alcohol we have problems in our family with smoking addictions and I saw how that really broke these favorite people of mine, you know, grandparents great-grandparents and what they did to the family structure, right? So I always said I was never going to get together with anybody man or woman. That was smoke or drink cuz what I end up with a smoker and drinker

31:02 That's why I say, you know what the core of it all was that you know, we met and we started talking about life and we started talking about what really mattered and that was when I knew that I had found the right fit with this person and then the all the rest of it is just window dressing. I mean, you know, you can try to come up with you. It's all solvable, right? You know, like when you're married, you know, you you have arguments and you have disagreements you have to decide whether this particular disagreement is going to be where you going to point steak your flag. And it's going to be World War 4 or can you take 10 and

31:45 Count to 10 and then try to say something good about the situation and mitigated and you discovered that 99.9% of stuff is not World War 4, right, you know, it's all you can figure out a way around it if you really love the person so that's really lovely gym that you know adds new depth and dimension letting what is that phrase letting water over a duck's back or you and now it's all over you like water over a duck's back. It's just ride right off know I've always been very taken by the love that you and Jim have her each other. It's it's a it's a beautiful thing and also how you can rib each other to which is hilarious and I'm honored to witness this the real life worthwhile. I mean, come on.

32:45 Thoughts about turning 60. Is this a big year for you to have thoughts about what this is, you know, sometimes turning a decade is a big deal or not. What is it like for you? Well, I mean anything can happen because my birthday is in October and this is what February so I have a long time to get to experience it but I guess

33:09 16 won't be really any different than any other decade or any other time in my life and that even from a young child until now everything was always exciting and moving forward and you know, some people like say oh, I'd love to go back to HighSchool God's life was so you know, I mean that the high school was awful, but at the same time, you know, my high school was you know, so so but the point is it that when you have so much ahead of you, you know, however many more years. I'm blessed to be on this earth, right? I would always want to look forward rather than look back, you know, so I see 60 coming and I say, you know Bring it on Bring it on. I haven't joined AARP yet. I think, you know, I could have done that at 50. So I'm just one decade off. I need to get in there and start getting my you know, I need to go to McDonald's and get my cheap coffee on Tuesdays or whatever day.

34:09 Bring it on. It's all good. That's hilarious. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately you had a lot of people that you cared for in your life and in several of them until they've died has that experience.

34:34 Giving you some specific wisdom that you rely on or that you you think of is your growing older. Absolutely. Yes. I have been blessed and I feel blessed to be able to have cared for my mother an older brother that died of brain cancer and Uncle at the end of his life with pancreatic cancer it it's tragic and it's horrible. But at the same time these are people that were respectful to you and that you loved in your life and to be able to be there and help them is a privilege and what it teaches you I think is first of all the the fragileness of life, right? I mean whether you go in a lingering disease or something happens to take you out, you know quickly.

35:34 Don't know when were our time is up, right and so to live in the now and to make sure that you you tell your people not only in voice but also in your actions, you're amazing you're special to me and I love you and because of that I want to care for you. I want to bring you dignity in your last days. I want to bring you as much comfort and hope as you move through this transition, whatever it is, cuz we only get to see it once right. I mean some people I guess it's gone off and then come back. I've never had that, you know near death experience or you know, I've been able to come back and see a light now, that's what's up. But really none of us know what that transitions like, so it's got to be

36:31 Disturbing frightening, you know, even if for the most faithful of people but they have someone there holding your hand to be able to say it's okay, you know, and I'm with you I'll help you in any way I can it just really helps close the circle. I mean someone brought me into this world and I hope someone holds my hand when I'm going to go and so I think at the very least we could just try to pay that forward if we are given the opportunity and hold somebody else's hand is they're on their way out, you know, so that's beautiful. Jenna really is it's a wonderful gift that you have that you offer that way. It's not easy, but you know when you dive in and you say I believe I should do this. I think you're given the the the strength to be able to do it.

37:26 Well, and so is there any last things that you'd like to any last story you might like to share at this point that you feel like an urgency to know but there is one thing I would really like to just say in conclusion. I guess we touched on the fact that I'm you know married. I have a wonderful husband. We've been together 20 years. We've been married for five and I say to people when they ask me, you know, some people will say what's your greatest accomplishment, you know, my instruments my music career is taking me all over the world playing various countries living in various countries. I've been very blessed to have a great career as a teacher at various colleges and universities and and and yet with all of that and all of that that seems like

38:26 That would be the Pinnacle of anybody's life. I really feel like in this is the answer. I always give my proudest thing is that I am married to somebody who I love and who loves me and because all the rest of it is just what we do and at least for me that's not who I am. And so I really feel like if anything was written on my Epitaph it was you know, he loved and was able to receive love and you know, it was hopefully a good faithful husband.

39:06 Wow, what wonderful words to Too Close by? Thank you Jim. It's been an honor to hear you share some more about yourself and your life and to hear that and I will carry that with me in my heart, and I'm honoured. Thank you.

39:29 Would you mind just telling Kathy? How did you and Jim meet?

39:34 Oh sure, Jim, and I actually met in a bar.

39:43 Okay to gets out to be all this, you know, Holy Catholic couple or whatever we met at a bar and it was Halloween weekend and we ventured out for the same reason we ended up at the same bar and we were I think the only two people in there without a costume on but we wanted to come out and see all the crazy costumes and people dressed in drag on Halloween in a gay bar. Right? I was not living in Georgia at the time I was so I was staying in a hotel and I saw this guy at the bar and he had the prettiest blue eyes I've ever seen and suddenly everybody else all the crazy costumes and people in the bar all fell away and 4 hours later. We closed the bar down.

40:29 Just coffee talkin about ourselves and our families and you know, he's an Irish Catholic. I'm an Italian Catholic and now we just hit it off from there. And yep as the rest of the essay is history.

40:52 Yay.