New Passport, New Journeys

Today I got word that my new passport will arrive shortly--around Monday, the 24th, according to the State Department. Of course I am excited about that: It's yet another sign of recognition of what I, Marci, my friends, some of my family and others already know about me. A few of them understood and accepted it as soon as I "came out," or even before.

Like I always say: If you want a government to do something, you have to do it first. And maybe, just maybe, they'll follow.

I thought my passport photo was fairly good. The woman who took it--a clerk at the Duane-Reade across from St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan--told me that the State Department frowns upon people smiling (She didn't say it quite that way, but hey, what do you expect from someone making $8 an hour?) in passport photos, so I had to turn down the wattage on that beam that's lit up my face just about continuously. Everyone who's seen me lately has commented on how happy I look. So it was pretty hard for me not to smile. But somehow I did it: After all, I'm a woman now, and women can do anything. Right?

I've already decided that during my winter break or next summer--if time, finances and my healing permit--I want to go to England to see Aunt Pat and France to see Janine (if she's up to it) and Marie-Jeanne. The new me, with a new passport!

I was tempted to ask whether I could have my new passport book with a lilac or mauve cover. Not that there's nothing wrong with the dark blue cover all of my previous passports have had. But, hey, if I'm paying $75 for something, shouldn't I get to choose the color?

Oh well. After all of my talk about the spiritual journey I've taken, now I'll have something I'll need to take a certain kind of physical journey. Except that I don't see the latter as a journey: After all, who calls travelling by plane a "journey?"

I guess it's a journey if you're changed at the end of it.