Moving Forward, Again

I feel better after taking a ride today.  Still, I am thinking about Janine and  something both my mother and Millie said yesterday:  "A lot of people have been dying lately."  They have never met each other, but they said, verbatim, the same thing.  That in itself is a little strange.


Then again, they're both, shall we say, a few years older than I am.  And my mother lives in Florida.  So I think that they're both going to see more people dying around them than I could expect to see.


And, yes, it is the very end of fall.  So some living things are supposed to die, or be in the process of dying, now.  


I guess that I could see those deaths as part of a cycle of change.  It's been going on since, well, there have been living beings and seasons.  I'd rather that no one else in my circle dies any time soon.  And that may well come to pass.  But change is unavoidable.  And I've known, ever since I started my transition, and have understood more fully since my surgery, that more is to come.  


Someone with whom I had to break off relations lamented, "Why can't things go back to the way they were before?"  Of course the person who said that is male:  Everyone who's ever said that to me, or whom I've known to say that, was of that gender.


That question, paradoxically, makes two seemingly contradictory traits make sense, and seem entirely congruent with each other.  On one hand, men are said, or expected, to be more decisive and to move headlong in important actions.  On the other, they have a harder time making and keeping emotional commitments.  When you believe that you can return your (or the) past, whether the way it actually was or the way you wish it had been--and perhaps even feel entitled to do so--it's easy easier to take risks about things, but harder to do the same for people.


Women have never been able to "own" the past in the same way as men.  Until recently, they had to relinquish their own names--and most still do--upon uniting with a man.  And while men have typically experienced changes that affected their circumstances (a job lost or gained, for example), women have undergone more changes that fundamentally affect the way they see the world.  For example, most women give, or are at least capable of giving, birth.  And our bodies are more easily traumatized through sexual and other forms of violence.


It seems that for women, the only choices have been to move forward, or to live in the present or the Eternal Present.  Many who settle into lives as Mrs. Man end up doing the latter.  That's not likely to happen to me.  But the present, whatever that means, is also not an option, for it is gone as soon as it happens.  That leaves only the future, and I am just starting to see it now.

Until We Meet Again: The Weight of This Day

Am I projecting onto the rest of the world?


It seemed that everywhere I looked, people were ready to hibernate.  Windy, chilly, overcast days will do that to people, and to other living beings.  


In the ladies' room at my main job, I saw Debra, who has a job of some sort in the administrative offices.  I don't mean to disparage her or her work; I simply forget what, exactly, what her title is or what she does.  Then again, she's not the only one I've so mistreated in my memory.


Anyway, she said she noticed the weariness, too.  "I think people are feeling the weight of the world," she suggested.  "You know, with the economy and all of the other things that are happening, people are stressed out."


I thought about it.  "Well," I mused, "now we know why the 1930's are referred to as 'The Great Depression.'"


She tapped her chin.  "I never thought about that before."


"I didn't, either, until now."


In addition to the weight of the world, everyone seemed to have his or her personal burdens to a greater degree than usual.  Again, I might be projecting:  Having just lost a friend, I feel the weight of time and the even heavier load of ephemerality.  


Today Josette, one of Janine's sisters--whom I never before met-- wrote an e-mail to me.  I had written my feelings and impressions of Janine, and sent them to Marie-Jeanne and Diana, who sent them to Josette.  She told me that she read my message to at the service held for Janine in Pere Lachaise and everyone, including her, was moved by it.  That surprises me; after all, I was just expressing my feeling for two mutual friends.  And I was worried about how they'd take it, as I wrote it in French.  


I am fluent, or at least competent, in the language.  However, there are still some nuances and subtleties that I haven't got down, and possibly never will.  But I wrote my memory of Janine in French because, for one, she was so quintessentially French, in the most exasperating and delightful ways.  Even more to the point, at least for me, is that in my mind she represents France itself, or at least my experience of it.  Plus, I owe a good part of the skill I have in the language to her.


On some level--a selfish and solipsistic one, perhaps--I wonder whether I am going to "lose" France and Paris now that I've lost Janine.  I expect to go back some day, but of course it won't be the same.


Here is what I wrote:

Janine en fait le hereusement pour beaucoup des gens, incluis moi.  Elle en portait une force vitale de vie, et elle etait toujours genereuse.  Ma vie est meilleur apres j'en fait la conaissance de Nine.

Aujour d'hui, je suis tres desolee.  Et je veux faire une consolation pour tu, pour vous, pour tout les amis et famille de Janine.

Je n'en puis oublier la journee a Brighton Beach avec Nine, Marie Jeanne, Diana et Michelle.  C'etait une jour de hereusement pour moi.  Ma vie en fait changer, et Janine m'aider comprend beaucoup des choses.

J'espere reconnaitre (ou connaitre) bientot.  Jusqu'a cet temps, je veux faire assistance pour vous, si vous desirez.

Here's a rough translation:


{Janine brought much happiness to many people, including me.  She was a life force and was always generous.  My life is better for having met Nine. ("Nine" is her nickname, it's pronounced like "Nina.")


Today I am sorrowful.  And I want to console you, and all of Janine's family and friends.


I will not forget the day Nine, Marie Jeanne, Diana, Michele and I went to Brighton Beach. It was a very happy day for me.  My life was changing, and Janine was helping me to understand many things.


I hope that we will meet, or meet again.  Until then, I want to help you in any way I can.}


Josette says that she's planning to come here with Marie-Jeanne and Michele, possibly in the summer, and that she wants to meet me.  

A Wish At The End

Right now I want to be in Paris.  But not for all of the usual reasons.  Well, all right, I want to pedal along the quais and around the Notre Dame and Sainte Chapelle to the Pont Neuf, and over to the Place des Vosges.  And, of course, to spend time in la Musee Rodin.  And la Musee Picasso.


But I really want to be there for Janine's sisters and friends.  Of course they don't need me.  But we've been exchanging e-mails, and one of her sisters said that she valued reading the things I said about her--especially that my e-mail contained words like genereuse and phrases like une force vitale.  She was especially happy to see that toutes dites comme ca:  People who have never met each other--that would be me and some friends she knew a lot longer than she knew me--were describing her in exactly the same ways, and had the same sorts of wonderful memories of her company and her cooking.


I wish we could have seen more of each other toward the end.  But she went from hospital to nursing home, and some days she barely had the energy to get dressed.  I know there wasn't much I could have done about that. But I wish that I could have spent more time with her in my new life, especially after she took my transition with an attitude that bordered on nonchalance.


Then again, I think she always knew me as Justine, long before I started to go by that name.  We had "girls' nights out" even before the "M's" changed to "F's" on all of my documents.  And she knew, even before I did, that she--to paraphrase Bruce--had befriended a human being, not a gender.  You really can't ask more than that of anybody, which means that you are all you can, or have to, offer or give.  


So, I have no regrets about our relationship, save for the fact that I didn't get to spend more face-to-face time with her toward the end.  I guess everyone who loves and is loved wishes for that. 

Jay and Janine

Perhaps it's not a coincidence--at least for me, anyway--that Janine died during the workshop I co-led at the Graduate Center on Friday.  


Jay Toole co-led that workship with me.  She was really the first person to whom I "came out", when she was an intake counselor at Center Care.  She was also the first friend I made in the LGBT community in what was, in essence, my new life.  Actually, I sometimes think that my new life started with my "coming out," with her.  


Janine had absolutely nothing in common with Jay save for a determination that can border on, or become, stubborness.  Not much could get between either of them and anything they wanted to accomplish.  But, in her own way, Janine had a role in my entering the life I am now living.  


Just as I was starting to live full-time as Justine, Janine came to town with Marie-Jeanne and Michelle.  They, Diana and I went to Brighton Beach--on a collective whim-- on a bright, breezy late August day.  The night before, they saw me for the first time as Justine when we went, with Diana's husband, to a performance of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo.  She later confessed, "That night, as we were waiting for you, I said to Janine, 'I hope she's pretty.'  And she said, 'Ne t'inquietes pas, ella sera ca.'  And you were, even more than I expected!"


Now, coming from someone who looks as she does and hangs around with women who are at least equally attractive (In my next life, I'm going to have Marie-Jeanne's legs!), that was very generous!


Anyway, we took the train to the beach and, as it turned out, they were all wearing bathing suits under their clothes.  I wasn't:  I didn't even own a women's bathing suit.  Michelle just happened to have a one-piece suit that, with more than a little stretching, fit me. The only problem was that we weren't in France, I reminded them, so there was no way I could change clothes on the beach.  


What followed was a bit of inventiveness that only women could come up with.  They'd brought a blanket with them and surrounded me with it.  They stood, holding it, as I pulled down my long Indian print skirt, pulled off my jewel-neck T-shirt and bra, and pulled on the bathing suit.  For the rest of that afternoon, I was one of a bunch of middle-aged women who were having fun.


Afterward, we went shopping along Brighton Beach Avenue, underneath the elevated train, where many of the stores have signs only in Russian.  It was my first time there as Justine, and men were noticing us.  Janine and Marie-Jeanne pointed out that the men were looking at me.  "Oh no," I thought, "They know about me!"  But, as I would learn on later trips there, I am often taken for a Russian or East European woman.  That was confirmed when one came up to me and asked me if "the beautiful Russian lady"--meaning me--wanted "to have a good time."


Some would argue that it wasn't a real "girl's outing," because none of them were jealous of me.  At least, they didn't seem to be.  Later, Diana would say, "You go, girl"  And Janine gave me one of the best hugs I ever got.


Now she's gone.  I suppose that means I am, whether I want to or not, entering another stage in my life.  I also had that feeling after that workshop I co-led with Jay.  Somehow I believe that my role in the LGBT community (if I indeed had a discernible one) is changing, and so is my relationship to the female world.  Soon I'm going to find out how, I think.

Coping

Janine's going to be cremated on Wednesday.  Of course I'm going to send cards to her other friends and family.  But I wish I could be there with them.


Although everyone has to die sooner or later, I can't help but to wonder:  Why her?  Why now?  After all, she's not even a decade older than I am. And she probably made more people happier than I ever will.


Someone once told me that life is the only response to death.  I guess that means that losing one friend means that I should make a new one.  It also means, I believe, that my life is changing, and will continue to change, in ways that I could not have foreseen.  Strange, though, that this is so hard to accept when there are people who are no longer in my life because they decided they didn't want to be after they learned about my changes.




She accepted; others have, too; I will find yet another.  Or so I hope.  I mean, I have some good friends now.  But it never hurts to have another, does it?  

R.I.P. Janine

 I should have known that something was even worse than it seemed.  I was in what is possibly my least favorite place in this city: the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  But I knew that wasn't the only reason why I was feeling so sad, angry and ready to bolt from my chair on the panel.  Every time the panel's moderator asked a question, I had to ask her to repeat it.  Now, they weren't the best thought-out, much less the best-written, questions I've ever heard.  And they certainly weren't personal, at least not for me. Still, I shouldn't have been blocking them as I was--or feeling as resentful as I was of the other panel members, or the audience, such as it was.


And, as much as I dislike being empaneled (like a sheet of wood nailed to a wall?) , I knew even at that moment that it also wasn't a reason why I should have felt so agitated and unwilling to talk.  When the moderator asked whether I wanted to say anything else, I very emphatically replied, "No!"


Actually, the group I facilitated yesterday, and about which I was asked to speak, didn't go well.  People were bickering over their definitions of "queer" and related terms:  exactly the sort of scenario I was trying to avoid.  And someone walked in halfway through it and, in a very confrontational mode, proffered his notions about what it means to be trans, gay or a cross-dresser.  Now I'm disgusted with myself for making it seem as if the group went better than it did when the moderator asked about it.


So I had a dismal experience on a beautiful day.  But that wasn't the worst of it: I felt an all-pervading sense of gloom.


Now I know what may have caused those feelings.  After getting home tonight, I opened an e-mail to find out that my friend Janine had passed.  


I stayed with her for part of my most recent trip to France, six years ago.  I knew then that something wasn't right with her, though I couldn't tell--and she wouldn't tell me--what.  To be fair, she may not yet have known.  But, knowing her, she might not have told anyone even if she had known.


Not long afterward, she was in the hospital, where she would spend much of her time until she ended up in a nursing home last year.  She was feeling pain; a tumor was found and things went downhill from there.  Two years later, she came here, with Marie-Jeanne, and they, Diana, her husband Don and I made the rounds of art galleries and a trip to the Guggenheim.  Janine nearly kept up with us in spite of using a walker and the fact that we were actually following her demand not to slow down for her.  


Probably the best description I could come up with for her was "life force." She was exactly that:  I, and others, felt more full of life itself  when we were around Janine than at just about any other time.  I don't think I've ever met anyone who had her passion for living, and for life, as she did.  Even if she never picked up a camera, pencils or paintbrush, she could not have been anything but an artist:  She simply couldn't not be creative.  


According to Diana, who relayed the news, Janine died "peacefully and without pain."  Of course I'm skeptical whenever anyone  speaks of how someone else felt when dying.  That's not to say I doubt Diana.  I just find it at least ironic that someone can die peacefully after, as Diana put it, "a long and painful saga."  And that a peaceful death can be painful for the survivors.


Janine, je te manquerai!

Losses, Actual and Possible

Yesterday and today felt more autumnal than spring-like.  This is amazing, when you consider that we had summery weather only a week ago.  It's supposed to be chilly--at least for this time of year--for the rest of the week.  


I'm tired, again.  After my classes, I had two long meetings and then students wanted help with one thing and another. And I would have spent even longer than  I did at work--As it was, I was there for nearly another five hours after my obligations for the day ended!--had I not simply decided that I needed to leave.  For that, it looks like I'm going to be subjected to a furlough.  So I'm supposed to take a unilateral 20 percent pay cut for doing the same work.  And my bills won't decrease by 20 percent.


On top of that, I found out why I haven't heard from Janine and Marie-Jeanne for a long time.  They are two friends of mine in Paris.  When they came to New York in the summer of 2003, they, our friend Diana and I took a lunch and shopping trip to Brighton Beach.  It was my first "girls' day out" and, as Diana said tonight, none of them knew what to expect:  I had "come out" to them over the phone and by e-mail, but they had only seen me as Nick, not as Justine.  Diana, recalling that day, said, "I said to myself, 'I hope she's pretty.'  Then, when I heard you were having your surgery, I said, 'I hope she doesn't become prettier than me."


"Don't worry.  You're safe," I deadpanned.


"I'm not so sure about that."


"Well, I'll never be upset with you for being better-looking than I am.  You're a wonderful person."  I could almost see her blush over the phone.


That banter was just an interlude in a litany of bad news.  Janine's has gotten much worse since the last time I talked to her or Diana.  Janine had a tumor which grew malignant.  Then she had a stroke back in the fall.  She had to move from her apartment to a hospital to a nursing home.  Of course, she's angry:  She is one of the most independent and creative people I've ever known.  Now she can't even go outside by herself and can't always remember people.  


"It must be so hard on her," I said.

 Diana agreed.  "But," she added, " it's really hard on her sister and the people around her.  It's hard to see her that way."

"It hurts just to think of her that way," I lamented.  "Whenver I saw her, I felt as if I were in the presence of life itself."  


"All we can do is hope.  But things don't look good."


Still, we hope.  Maybe, just maybe, we tell ourselves.