Halloween: Not In Costume

Happy Halloween!


It's odd for me to say that.  Halloween doesn't seem like one of those holidays on which you wish someone happiness, as you would on, say, Christmas or Hanukkah.  It's more of a day for just having fun, if your idea of fun consists of what people do on this day.


I'm not saying it's not fun, or that one should treat this as "just another day."  I enjoy, as much as anyone does, seeing kids--and adults--in costume, and I don't get annoyed, as I once did, over kids (or adults) yelling "Trick or Treat!" in my face.  


But I don't partake of the festivities.  Sometimes people who know that I'm trans  will assume that I'm going to the parade in some outrageous or clever costume.  The irony is that I marched (Can you march when you're dressed like a ballerina, as I once was?) down Sixth Avenue in the Village on several All Hallows' Eves--before my transition.


The first time I marched was my second Halloween after moving back to New York.  That was when I went as a ballerina:  I saw the tutu in the window of an old, pre-gentrification, Lower East Side store.  Surprisingly, it fit me well.  Perhaps even more surprisingly, that store had a pair of pink ballet slippers that fit me and matched the tutu. 


After marching, I went bar-hopping in the Village with a couple of marchers.  On Seventh Avenue, a couple of doors from the old Vanguard, I came face-to-face with a Rutgers classmate whom I hadn't seen since our graduation four years earlier, if I remember correctly.


Fortunately for me, he and his buddies were drinking at least as much as the marchers and I.  Even more fortunately, neither he nor his mates were violent drunks.  "Hey Nick," he howled mirthfully.  

"Uh-hello."


"Don't worry.  Tonight's about having fun," he yelled.  Then, he introduced me to his friends--about whom I cannot recall their names, or much else--and slurred, "Nick here, he's cool."  He wrapped his arm around my shoulder. "I know.  I love him like my son. I raised him!"


"And look how I turned out."


His friends laughed.  He squeezed me.  "You're great.  I admire you."


Until tonight, I hadn't thought about that night.  Twenty-six years have passed since then.  That's how many years I'd lived up to that night.  


I have no idea of where he is now, or what he'd think of me--or I of him--if we were to meet again.  All I know is that it would be the first time he'd be seeing me when I wasn't in costume.  


There are lots of people who only knew me in costume.  I'm not talking only about vestments, of course.  But Halloween celebrations are about them--about "dressing up," as some people say.


I like to wear nice clothes.  Some days I really try to look good.  But it all feels authentic to me, so I don't feel as if I'm "dressing up."  And I certainly am not putting on a costume, or have any desire to do so.  That is the reason why I don't celebrate Halloween as some other people do.  Perhaps some year I will join in the festivities.  But, right now, wearing a costume doesn't interest me: My own skin is just beginning to fit me.

Wearing The Mask

My first Halloween as a woman and what did I do? I went in drag.

All right. I know that joke's getting old, and I promise never to use it again on this blog--unless my age, blondness and absent-minded-professor-ness (What kind of word is that?) get the better of me and I forget this post.

Seriously, I didn't go out in boy-drag. Nor did I go trick-or-treating in a Michael Jackson mask or a Kate Gosselin wig. Those were two of the most popular getups this Halloween. And I didn't go as a witch, as appropriate as some of my students may think it would be!

Actually, I spent the day in a very out-of-season pair of bay blue shorts and a top striped in aqueous shades. They were handy and the day was a bit warmer than normal for this time of year. Besides, I had no engagement that called for appropriate attire.

In other words, I was feeling lazy today, at least about my appearance. So, I didn't wear makeup, either. I simply brushed my hair and put on some lipstick before I went out for a walk.

Now here's something for which I can blame my mother: Even when I'm as poorly dressed as I was today and when I'm not wearing makeup, I don't leave the house without putting on lipstick. About two years into living as a woman, I realized I'd developed that habit. When I told Mom about it, she gasped: "That's what I do, too!"

A pause. Then I quipped, "Like mother, like daughter, eh?"

Another pause. "It looks that way, doesn't it?," she mused.

"At least I have a great mother to be like."

"And you're a fine daughter. I still don't understand what you're doing--I'm trying to--but you're my child, you're good, and you deserve to be happy. And I've never seen you happier."

That, from exactly the person I could never fool with a mask or a wig.

Perhaps some day I will wear one again, for fun. But for now, it is a victory--in exactly the same sense that survival is victory--that I don't have to wear a wig or mask, at least not most of the time.

My previous life reminds me of what Paul Dunbar's narrator said:

We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!

"This debt to human guile." If that's not a definition of the masks and costumes I wore every day for more than 40 years, tell me what is.

I really hope that all the kids I saw tonight won't have to wear that sort of mask. Let them have fun with the ones they're wearing!