Still More To Come?

So...after a weekend in which current and former love figured, it was back to reality. And I'm not talking about the TV shows that, in spite of what they're called, are "reality" in the same way that Twinkies are food.

So, after that weekend, today shouldn't have come as a surprise: The classes were great and the department meeting was long and boring--though, to be fair, not as long or boring as the previous couple of meetings were.

I still can't believe how tired I felt last night. The ride I did yesterday, while nice, is the sort of ride I used to sneak in between commitments. Yesterday it was a fairly big deal. These days, just being on the bike is a big deal for me. At least I didn't feel sore in or around my new organs. However, the ride showed me that I do need to lose weight.

Speaking of bikes, I've ordered another. It will be made by Mercian, as two of my three bikes are. However, unlike my other Mercians, which are "diamond" frames (often referred to as "men's " bikes), this one will be a "step-through" or "ladies'' frame, in which the top bar is dropped rather than horizontal as it is on the "men's" bikes. This means, among other things, that it will be easier to ride in a skirt or a long coat or sweater. Plus, this new bike will be equipped with fenders, a chain guard and "porteur" style handlebars.

From what Hal at Bicycle Habitat (from whom I ordered the bike) says, I'll probably have the bike in late July. If it arrives then, it will make a nice, if somewhat late, birthday present to myself. Of course, I'll be celebrating two birthdays this year: the Fourth, which is my natal birthdate, and the Seventh, the date on which I had my operation.

Now I'm feeling tired again, mainly because I've had a long day. And I'll have another tomorrow. I won't complain, though: I have a feeling that there's even more--of what, I'm not quite sure--to come.

What Was Happening Then

Rode about 12 miles today: to Bicycle Habitat and back. Hal was doing a bit of work on my three-speed for which I don't have the tools . The trip there was also a good excuse to ride into SoHo. I still like the energy and some of the architecture, even if Broadway was long ago turned into a mall and there don't seem to be natives of the neighborhood anymore. There don't seem to be artists, either: Their time in SoHo passed about twenty years ago.

I once worked around the corner from Habitat, which is how I found about the shop. Hal was working there then; later, he would leave for a few years. Charlie, the owner, wasn't there today, but he always seems to be there. I guess that's normal when someone owns a store for more than 30 years.

Sheldon was also there. He was an old riding buddy, along with "Crazy Ray" and a couple of other co-conspirators. Back in the spring, I encountered him at the shop. He had just started working there; it was the first time I saw him in a decade or so. The interesting thing is that I find myself talking with him in ways I didn't back then. As you can imagine, he's learning things about me that he couldn't have suspected, much less known, back in the day. And I'm learning that there's more to him than I thought there was. There would have to be in order for him to remain married to Danielle!

Anyway, somehow we got to talking about travel and, specifically, France. He knew that I'd taken trips to France, but didn't know that I'd taken as many as I have, or lived there. And I didn't know that he spent time there when he was a young vagabond musician. He was playing the music of his native Trinidad, which made him and his band something of an attraction over there. He spoke fondly of his time there: He had, as I had, happy experiences with the country and the French people. And he has never spoken any French: He said he simply "met people." And I'm sure they were taken with his smile, which is friendly with a charming little touch of mischievousness.

And I talked about my bike trips. I took two of them, if I recall correctly, during the time we were riding and hanging out together. I don't know how much he knew about the last one: It was around the time we lost touch, I think.

That was the trip on which I was pedaling up the same Alpine climbs that the Tour de France cyclists, led by Lance, scaled. I prided myself on my climbing back then, and I was happy to see three stages of the Tour. However, I felt that I was spinning my wheels--OK, it sounds like a terrible pun, but it fits--during that trip.

The last major climb I made--on a bike laden with full panniers and handlebar bag--took me up le Col du Galibier. It is one of the most renowned climbs. Unlike l'Alpe d'Huez, one of the first climbs I made, the road didn't reach the top via a series of virages. Instead, the climb was almost straight--and steep. Plus, depending on where you're coming from, you have to climb either le Col du Lauteret or le Col du Telegraphe to get there. Neither one is terribly difficult--or, at least they weren't given my conditioning at the time and in comparison to other climbs I'd done. But either is enough to take something out of you before you start on the road up Galibier.

I told Sheldon a story I've related elsewhere (When you open the link, scroll ten paragraphs down.) about my ascent and descent of Galibier, and how it started me on my present journey. I mentioned the message I received and how it foreshadowed what I would experience at the end of that day, when I saw the woman who made me realize I simply had to begin my gender transition.

What Sheldon may realize is that I may have learned as much about him--and myself--in telling him the story as he learned about me. Not to aggrandize myself, but I feel that, these days, when I tell such stories about myself, I can gauge not only what a person is actually thinking (which may or not be what he or she is saying) but also something about how that person relates to his or her own experience. In Sheldon's case, I realized that he has had to be willing to learn things about himself that he could not have imagined--and learn them at a much earlier age than I did. Maybe moving to another country when you're twelve years old will do that to you. And I thought that moving to another state at age thirteen was an education--and letdown!

Anyway, it wasn't just happy or satisfying, it was invigorating, to have that conversation with Sheldon. But it was strange to talk about something that was happening at a time when we saw each other nearly every day and he didn't know about. Some language must have a word for such an experience.

Lives Begin And End With The Old And New Years

Today, over lunch, Bruce pointed out, "This will be your first year in your new life."

As he's been in my life for longer than any other friend I have, it was especially gratifying to hear from him. And Charlie, the proprietor of Bicycle Habitat (where I bought my two Mercians as well as a bunch of parts and accessories) said the same thing, almost verbatim, when I stopped in his shop.

On the penultimate day of this year, it's difficult not to think about the upcoming year--or the one that's passing, or the ones that have passed. In some small but odd and interesting ways, they all intersected today.

I've known Charlie and Hal, his ace mechanic for only a couple of years less than I've known Bruce. I used to work for American Youth Hostels, when it was located on Spring Street: just around the corner from their shop on Lafayette Street.

Today, when I went into Habitat, I saw Esta, Charlie's wife, for the first time in about twenty years. She concurred with my perception of time: Our last meeting was shortly after the elder of her two sons was born, and he's twenty-three years old now, if I'm not mistaken.

Of course, the last time she saw me, I was essentially a different person. She said as much. Actually, she said that she doesn't recall me, as I was then, so well. I didn't mind that, actually. But then she also said that even though she couldn't recall my male incarnation that well, something was "familiar" about me when she saw me today.

She's not the first person to say that upon seeing me again after a long absence. I didn't ask what she meant. It might have been my speech, my body language or any number of other things.

I've encounters with people I hadn't seen in some time and even though I couldn't very well visualize the way those people were in earlier times, they were also "familiar" in some way.

I don't know what she was picking up on. But I know that I tend to remember people by something more essential, if I do remember them. It could be some glimpse I had into their characters, or even their souls.

Getting a glimpse of somebody's soul, however, isn't always as wonderful as it sounds. Indeed, nothing can be more terrifying sometimes--especially, it almost goes without saying, when you see darkness there but have no language for expressing it or any other means of defending against, or fighting, it. That is what sometimes happens to children.

And it happened to me more than a few times as I was growing up. Perhaps the most extreme example came with a longtime family friend. Something about him had always given me the creeps; I knew, for reasons that I could not explain, that neither I nor any other member of my family was safe around him.

Tonight my mother explained at least part of that man's dark essence: "He was manipulative. That's something you had to understand if you were going to spend any time around him." Yes, that was something I felt when I was a very young child, even though that word wasn't yet in my vocabulary, much as the language of self-help books and pop psychology wasn't part of most people's everyday parlance at that time.

He always managed to get people to do things that were not in the interests in their well-being. That's how he was on a good day. On a bad day, he'd wreck something in your life without your seeing (at least not immediately) his hand in it. Then he would offer his hand to help.

By now, you might have guessed what he did to me. Yes, he sexually forced himself on me. I'm still not exactly sure of when was the first or last time he did it. I know that the first incidence of his forcing himself on me that I would recall--when I was thirty-four years old--took place when I was about nine years old. Though it was his first sexual exploitation of me that I would recall, I know it wasn't the first or last I experienced with him.

When he "finished with" me that day, he made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. I kept that promise for about twenty-five years. The truth was, for many years afterward, I wouldn't have known what to say, or how to say it, even if I didn't have any fear of what he "might do to" me.

So why am I mentioning him now? Well, I was talking to Mom a little while ago, and she told me she found out, the other day, that he died in February. She learned of this from someone else he manipulated and took advantage of, though in very different ways from the way he abused me.

In one sense, I am more fortunate than that person who gave my mother the news: I haven't seen the man in more than thirty years; he was in her life until near the end of his.

So how do I feel about his death? Well--as terrible as this is to say--not a whole lot. Not having seen him in so long, I am past hating, and even fearing, him. Whatever rage I felt over what he did to the child I was is gone now: That child, by necessity, has become me. He cannot harm that child again, just as he cannot harm me now, or anyone else who came into contact with him.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that he didn't improve the life of anyone he met. In fact, I'd say he wrecked a few lives and derailed a few more. But, at least now he can no longer hurt anyone.

I can't say I feel relief or an urge to sing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead," or anything like that. All I know is that another chapter of my past is done, on this penultimate day of the year that started in one life and ended in another.

Another Countdown

Today I saw the doctor. Next week I see my gynecologist again. My fingers are still crossed: I hope to get the "all clear" signal. To do what, you ask? Well, to ride my bike and have sex. And, possibly, to do some heavier lifting, though I'm in no hurry to do that.

If I do any or all of those things, my lack of physical activity for the past three months will be evident. I thought about that today as I was walking around in Chelsea and the Village after seeing my doctor and before I went to the college.

I feel so flabby. But people--including my doctor as well as a waiter (whom I'd never before met) in the Turkish restaurant where I had lunch--told me I looked "really nice." Actually, I'm noticing the flab just now. But I actually was feeling pretty good about the way I looked. I wore a boat-necked purple blouse under a long navy cardigan and an A-line skirt in a houndstooth pattern of blue and gray. Hal, the dreadlocked mechanic at Bicycle Habitat, half-jokingly said that my outfit matched my Mercian perfectly.

It was the first time I'd seen him since a few weeks before my surgery. He says he's just bought a house in the neighborhood where he grew up. But nobody he knew in those days is there now, he says.

I know that neighborhood. It's right next to the one where I grew up--and Prospect Park, where I rode almost every day for years.

How many more days until I can ride it again? Eight, if all goes well. But I wonder how far I'll go. Well, I guess no one has to worry that I'll run away from home on my bike. As if I were going to do that at this point in my life, anyway!

Who Knew It Would Come To This?

OK, so what did I do on a wonderfully gorgeous Sunday that wasn't too hot?

You guessed it: I went for a bike ride: To Nyack and back, again.

One good sign is that I actually felt better, physically as well as emotionally, at the end of the ride than at the beginning. My legs actually ached early in the ride, as I was pedalling through the Upper East Side, Yorkville and Harlem to the bridge than when I was coming back, some fifty miles later. By then, I felt something I haven't felt in a long time: my bike disappearing under me. That happens when you're in good shape and you have a bike that's well-fitted and well-suited to you. At this point, I'd still have to give much more credit to my Mercian than to my training, or lack thereof. Kudos to the folks at Mercian Cycles in England who built the bike and to Hal of Bicycle Habitat who measured me and really listened when I described what I wanted in the bike!

Plus, as tired as I was at the beginning of my ride, I was in good spirits. The crepes I made for myself turned out well. Charlie and Max were being even friendlier than ususal. And Mom and Dad were very encouraging when I talked to them. Yes, even Dad, even after I nagged him. And Mom, being Mom. I described some of the anxiety I'm feeling about the job I'm about to start. "You'll be fine," she insisted. "You've come to this point. It'll all work out."

Now, my mother never, ever says things like that unless she means them--and knows what she's talking about. She knew I would stay sober. She knew, at various times in my life, that I'd find my way, whatever that means.

One good sign, according to her: My conversations with Dad are getting longer. It used to be that I'd spend half an hour on the phone with her and half a minute, if that, with him. This time he picked up the phone and I talked to him for twenty minutes--a record!--before spending the rest of an hour with her. That ended only because they were going out.

Mom and I had a good laugh, though. I mentioned that I'd asked Dad what he's been doing and how much he's been getting out of the house--and exhorting him to do even more, even when he's bored. Anything can get boring, I reminded him. But sometimes boredom is just a sign that you're dealing with something else. That's better--certainly for him--than wallowing in his Lazy Boy recliner and thumbing buttons on the remote control.

"He didn't know he would end up with a nagging daughter, did he?"

"To go with his nagging wife and everyone else who nags him!" she deadpanned. Both of us broke out into titters, which turned to laughs when my hormones kicked in.

Ah, yes. All those times we don't know what we're getting or what we're getting into. Like Mom learning that her daughter is named Justine (the name she would have given me if the "F" were checked off on my birth certificate). Or Dad taking me shopping. They survived and, I suspect, know that they still don't always know what they're getting themselves into. Even after fifty years of marriage. And their "son" coming out as their daughter. There may be no more secrets--or at least not very many more--but there are still surprises and mysteries.

Speaking of secrets: As we were talking about my new job and what it could mean, I confessed that when I was younger, I wasn't planning my future--not even when I was in college. Sometimes I'd say that I was thinking about law school or teaching or getting a job with a magazine, but those were half-baked notions, at best. The only constant was that I wanted to write; teaching or graduate school weren't even on my radar.

The truth was, I said, was that I simply didn't want to think about the future. I didn't think I'd make it there and, if I did, I knew that I didn't want the things anyone else wanted for me, whether it had to do with jobs, marriage or anything else. I didn't want the responsibility, I admitted, but I also felt I wouldn't be any good at being a professional and white collar worker with a wife and kids in a house in the suburbs.

The funny thing is that now I can sort of see myself as a professional of a sort, and that I can integrate writing into that life. And I may very well become a wife. I'd like that, really. Dominick says I'm a nurturing person and I actually like the role. Will I end up in that house in the suburbs? Who knows...especially with the so-called mortgage crisis.

Who knew that it would come to this? Not that I'm complaining. I knew I didn't want to be a husband or father, even as I was making some attempt to be the former. But I never knew that I'd actually get to live this life, the one I always wanted.

Who knew?