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Okay, I may have to modify my (apparently) rose-colored viewpoint. I won’t repeat the conversation in detail, but it involved myself and my next door neighbour, yesterday. What I learned was that even though our conversation was “polite,” trans-phobia is alive and well, and living in my neighbourhood.
When I had to come home early from my first Esprit, it was Jacqueline who sought me out and sat me down on my last morning, after everyone else had gone off to class or their other activities, and talked to me. She knew I was upset, even though (I thought) I had done a pretty good job of not letting it show. But she knew. And so she sat with me, there in the hotel room and talked to me about the letdown that was inevitably to follow, and how important it would be to maintain the friendships that had grown, so suddenly, and with such intensity over the past three days.
“Did someone say something to you?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I just had a feeling that you might need someone to talk to. I’m a pretty intuitive person.”
Indeed. And a kind and a generous one, like so many of the people I met there. So when she flew back to Montreal, my heart flew back there with her, too.
It’s funny how goodbyes are never as final as we think they are. Don’t believe me? Let’s play a little word association game. I’ll say ‘Goodbye.” “Good riddance.” “I’ll miss you.” “See you tomorrow.” “See you when you get back.” “See you in court.” “See you in heaven.” “You’ll always…
It was lovely afternoon, sunny after weeks of cloud and rain. I had been up the street, visiting my friend, Bev, and admiring her new greenhouse, while the dogs, hers and mine, played in her back yard. I had enjoyed our visit immensely. (So had the dogs.) So I was in a good mood as I clipped Zoee onto her lead and walked back down the road toward home. (Already, you can hear what’s coming, can’t you?) My next door neighbour was standing on the boulevard, just outside his gate as I walked past.
I knew he was uncomfortable with my being trans, but foolishly, I was determined to be as pleasant as I could be…polite, anyway. “Hi, Ben,” I said, expecting little more than silence (or perhaps a nod) in return.
What I got was just the sort of confrontation that for so many years, I had feared.
I don’t just “believe” in love at first sight. I know it exists. And I know it lasts, too. I remember the doctor handing me our daughter moments after she was born. “It’s a girl,” she said. I’m not proud of this, but I’ll confess to it, anyway. There was a momentary flicker of disappointment, but it lasted only a moment…not even a second. I know because it takes about a second to say “one thousand.” The flicker didn’t last that long. I remember feeling the warmth of her body in my arms and realizing that this just felt so right. I remember looking down at her face, her lips, (Heart-shaped!) her eyelashes, (They curled!) and at her fingers, perfect even to the tiny fingernails. Who could imagine falling in love with fingernails? But I did. And it took less than a second.
I’ve been shopping for baby clothes! No, not for a grandchild. That’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future, but it’s almost as good. I am on the verge of becoming an adopted grandmother (if there is such a thing.)
Jane Austen famously opened her novel, Pride and Prejudice with the line, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” There are other truths universally acknowledged as well, some of them sadder ones. My “universally acknowledged” truth, as the title suggests, is the power that secrets have over our lives. They bring us into painful confrontation with with our true, though denied, selves; they teach us the paralysis of fear.
I have two jobs that need to be done I’d like to have a transgendered indvidual do the work.
My wife is going on a mini vacation from Wed June 22 to June 27 and that is the time I’d like the work to be done (sorry for the short notice.
Job 1 is to restretch the carpet in the upstairs hall. It is quite bad in front of Joy’s room and loose in other places.
Hello everyone; It has been a long time since I have added anything to the blog so perhaps this is an appropriate time.
All of us in the transgender spectrum have our own personal journey. There is a commonality between our “stories” but within that commonality is our own. My own journey took many twists and turns for the longest time but now is seems fairly smooth sailing; the path forward is clear for these moments.
With gender, as with witchcraft, we, most of us, believe what appears to be true.
Someone looks at your genitalia. (That’s the test.) You’re a girl. Or a boy. How do they know? You look like one.
But how do you know? There’s something inside your head that tells you. You don’t have to look. You don’t need the test. You know. And as some of us know from personal experience, the “test” isn’t necessarily a reliable one. The world tells us we are male or female, and they treat us accordingly, but we know it isn’t so. In life, nothing is as simple as it seems. Gender is no exception.
