Clarity After The Tempest

Last night, after work, I went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to see a production of The Tempest by Shakespeare. It turned out to be exactly what I wanted, and needed.

From the first time I read the play--more years ago than I'll admit!--I used to identify with Caliban more than any other character I have encountered in literature. Sometimes I still do. After all, he is reviled simply for being: he is the deformed child of Sycorax, a witch long dead by the time Prospero arrives in exile. He is also the only non-spiritual native of the island.

Ron Cephas Jones, the actor who portrayed Caliban, was amazing: He conveyed so much of his character's anger, subversiveness--and humanity--through his eyes alone. With his performance, even someone who's never before read or seen the play could be convinced that "You have taught me language/And the profit on't is, I can curse" can come out of the same mouth as the one who, not much more than an hour later (The action in the play takes place in real time, in contrast to most of Shakespeare's other plays, in which the action can take place in several locations and time frames.) would give us the speech that begins with "Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not." To me, that speech is the single most beautiful piece of writing in the English language.

I used to identify with Caliban because I long felt like the "ugly duckling" of my family, school, and of just about any group, institution or situation of which I was a part. I was always under suspicion and therefore expected anyone who had any sort of authority, or simply any kind of approval that I didn't have, to abuse it--against me. Sometimes I still do.

Perhaps some of you will think that I am painting myself as a victim when I say that to get through any given day from the time I was about five until I was forty-five, I had to lie, connive or in some other way be untruthful to myself or deceitful to others. Some people would say that I'm living a lie now: They have said, and continue to say, things like "Just accept that you're a man and deal with it!" Well, that's exactly what I told myself for all of those years--that I am a man and would have to deal with it. Turned out that the first part of that statement wasn't true and that "dealing with" what is true involved doing things that have cost me relationships, not to mention material wealth.

Now, I am not going to get into some discourse in post-colonialism, mainly because I think a lot of the so-called postcolonialists , or people who fancy themselves as such, say some completely absurd and sometimes offensive things, which is a consequence of generating and disseminating arguments that have little, if anything, to do with the issues some postcolonialists suppose themselves and their arguments to be about. (Then again, one can say that for just about any other school of literary criticism or any other "ism.") However, while I am not entirely convinced that Shakespeare was writing a critique of colonialism, slavery or the oppression of women (Miranda, Prospero's daughter, is the only female character seen for any significant amount of time throughout the play.), I think that no one better understood human dynamics, particularly in relation to power and the way it is used and abused. Plus, I can't see how Shakespeare--who, though brilliant, was still a product of his place and time--could not be concerned with issues of revenge, forgiveness and redemption. They are the underlying powers of The Tempest, as they are of so many of his other plays. In fact, it now occurs to me that in that sense, Les Miserables--which, I believe, is still the best novel ever written--is a sort of great-great-great-niece or -nephew of The Tempest.

Anyway...A great thing about the production I saw was that it gave a clear sense that Prospero's relationship with Ariel was, in some ways, as exploitative as his relationship with Caliban. Of course, that was not something I could see when I was addled by the anger I used to feel so strongly that for a long time I could not understand the real source of my anger. Prospero released the "airy spirit" from a tree and keeps him in his debt with a promise to release him from it one day.

It's odd that last week, I was taking the "E" train home from work and saw it as a modern-day slave ship. It runs underground for its entire length and is usually full, which made me think of slaves chained to each other in the lowest levels of the ship. And everyone on that train was going to or coming from a job that was serving someone who had power--sometimes of life and death--over them. And they continue to go to and from those jobs, and submit to the rules and sometimes caprices of their employers out of a fear that they and/or those they love will not survive if they don't submit. Finally, some of them have some vague belief that if they work long and hard enough, and continue to "keep the faith," they and their loved ones will one day be free from worry and want. Their employers--or, more precisely, the culture they represent, if unwittingly--promulgates those beliefs. Anyone who questions, much less challenges, them won't be long for his or her job, and possibly this world.

But this is not to paint such people--or Ariel--as naive simpletons. Rather, they instinctively understand that rebellion and subversion are, by definition, the loneliest of enterprises. Also, sometimes people don't have any choice but to avail themselves to some "rescue" or another, none of which ever comes without some price or another.

I don't know whether it was the production I saw that caused me to finally understand what I've just described about Ariel and his relationship to Prospero. But that relationship was clearly and fully realized in that production. That alone made it worth seeing.

And I now realize that, whatever scars and resentments we have had in common, I have finally become, at least in one way, fundamentally different from Caliban--or, for that matter, Ariel: Now that I have freed myself, at least in a spiritual and psychic sense, I want to do what I can to help others--or, more precisely, help them to develop their means--to break from whatever's enslaving them. I also hope that they'll understand that life is, among other things, an unending process of liberating one's self. Whether we are liberated through pardons, forgiveness, redemption or our own enterprise, there is always another box to emerge from. And for each one there is a different way out.

Now, if I could only do it all as perceptively, and in such beautiful and precise language as Shakespeare rendered it all!

Pouting, Scowling and Glowering, Then and Now

On Mondays and Wednesdays, I'm teaching two sections of the intro to literature in the class that every student in the college is required to take. I enjoy teaching that course because most of the students are majoring in something other than English. For me, that's stimulating because their perspectives are often much more interesting to hear than those of literary scholars. Then, of course, there are those students who sit and pout because they're forced to take the class. I have one such student in my first class. I can almost hear her thinking, "When will I ever need any of this stuff?"

Today she asked that question, more or less. I was explaining what made Shakespeare's "Let not to the marriage of true minds" a sonnet. Another student asked, "Does it have something to do with iambic pentameter?"

"What's iambic pentameter?," yet another student wondered.

I started to explain it, and I tried to relate the concept to beats in music or the ways we stress and accent our everyday speech. The pouting, glowering student raised her hand.

"I don't get it."

"All right. I'll try it again." And I did. And she still didn't understand, she said. So I tried explaining it another way--I can't remember what I said--when I noticed something odd: She seemed, under her scowl, somehow hurt and confused. Again, I asked whether my explanation made sense.

"Why did I get a C on my paper?," she wondered. Her rather belligerent tone turned into one of bewilderment. I promised to discuss it with her after class. When I did, I realized that she was panicking: She had never received such a low grade on an assignment. Later, I talked with a prof she had last semester, who confirmed that she was an "A" student.

I guess the reason why I'm thinking about her is, to use one of the most hackneyed cliches of all, I saw myself in her. I remember the frowns and scowls I used to wear because I was scared--though, I'm sure, about very different things from what my student was experiencing. But I remember how people used to try to get me to smile, and Elizabeth used to call me The Scowling Man, as if it were the name of a species or a work of Leonardo da Vinci's had he been reincarnated as Edvard Munch.

Funny I should mention that. In my later class, I was talking, in the context of one of our discussions about one of the poems, about an experience of mine. Out of the blue, Maria, who transferred into that class from another, asked, "Do you have any photos of yourself from that time?"

"Well, if I showed them to you, you'd want extra credit." The rest of the class laughed. But, for whatever reasons, that young woman really wants to see old photos of me.

I've neither looked at nor shown those photos in quite a while. I haven't had the urge to show them to anyone: I'm over shocking people and, frankly, myself. And now when I think of myself when I was living as Nick, I feel an odd combination of sympathy and distance. It seems that it's precisely the vividness of my memories of some of my past experiences that makes them as distant from me as the moon.

Plus, I don't want to look at my former glowering visage. I don't have that smoldering scowl or sexy pout that some models have. What I had then was a look of raw, deforming rage. When I showed those photos to people, their descriptions all included the word "anger" at least twice. So did that pouting, glowering student's former professor--and the office manager of my department, who encountered her just before I left for the day.

That office manager has also seen the photos.

Plenty of Fluids

I'm a bit under the weather. Actually, I have been for a couple of days. I've had a cold that, I hope, won't turn into something worse. So I've made a pot of chicken soup and am living on that and tortillas with salsa. Now, I don't think anyone has ever recommended the latter as a cold remedy, but I figure whole-grain corn (unsalted) and hot peppers can't hurt.

At least the chicken soup counts as part of the "plenty of fluids" prescription my doctor gave me. I can remember when "drink plenty of fluids" meant "party hard." If that's what "drink plenty of fluids" meant, then "carb loading" must have been a code phrase for "drinking beer."

As you might expect, I slept late today. I won't have a chance to do that through the week, or the coming semester. I've been teaching a winter break class that begins early in the morning; I will be doing the same next semsester. But I won't be teaching late-night classes, as I have been for the past few semesters.

I think this cold may have been the result of the re-adjustment my body is making to my new schedule, as well as to the sub-freezing temperatures and high winds. I guess I shouldn't complain: After all, I have been healthy through my surgery, recovery and what has followed. I've experienced nothing more than the fatigue as well as the loss of strength that follows major surgeries. I had been warned about those results of surgery, so I am not complaining. And I have experienced no pain in the parts of my body on which I'd been operated, or anywhere else--not even in my mind.

I guess I'm really lucky if I can feel as good as I've felt through as much change as I've experienced. When you experience a sea-change, the tides can hit you with greater force than you'd anticipated, and the results can be surprising, to put it mildly. That, of course, is one of the premises of Shakespeare's The Tempest, where the expression "sea-change" was first used. (It and A Doll's House are my two favorite plays.)

I guess if a cold is the worst physical problem I've had (apart from being struck by that door: something from which I seem to have recovered), I have no reason to complain.

I'll just prepare myself for tomorrow and get some rest, as per doctor's orders. And, yes, I'm drinking plenty of fluids.

Stories: The Assumption and Woodstock

Today is the Feast of the Assumption. Having gone to Catholic school, I should know what's celebrated on this date.

As it turns out, the Assumption refers to the Virgin Mary's physical ascencion into Heaven at the end of her life. Some churches teach, and people believe, that Mary never passed through death; she entered Heaven body and soul. But others believe that she died and, three days later, she was resurrected and assumed into Heaven. This is seen as an homage or precursor to the death and ascenscion of Jesus or as a preview of the Final Judgment, when all of the dead will be resurrected and, along with the living, judged.

I must say that the Final Judgment seems immensely unfair to whoever may be living at the time it happens. After all, the sins and misdeeds of the long-dead will be forgotten by that time, or the memories of them will not be fresh. Then again, I recall what Shakespeare's Antony said upon the death of Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." So maybe it all evens out...

The odd thing is that there is no actual record of Mary's death, and people at the time did not know what happened to her. She was one of those people you see one day, and the next she's gone. Her assumption was essentially an apocryphal tale, a legend: Nowhere in the Scriptures does it specifically talk about Mary's fate. However, Pope Pius XII (who helped Nazis escape to South America) defined the Assumption as dogma for the Roman Catholic Church, and cited several scriptural verses as evidence of her corporeal and spiritual ascent. Sceptics have used those very same verses to discredit the notion of the Assumption.

Today's feast is actually a national holiday in several countries--including France, where laicite has been the official policy for more than a century. (I recall trying to cash a traveler's check once on la fete; no bank or exchange was open anywhere!) When I was in Catholic school, we were expected to attend mass on that date. I don't recall how or whether such a policy was enforced, as school was out for the summer.

Being the sort of kid I was, I wondered what people would look like when they were resurrected. Did those who lost limbs regain them? Or what about people who went blind or deaf: Would they be able to see and hear?

Now, if I believed in the story of the assumption, you know what I, as a post-surgery transgender woman, would ask!

Today, as it happens, is also the 40th anniversary of the first day of Woodstock. Now, I rather doubt that anyone consciously chose to start the world's most mythologized musical festival on the Feast of the Assumption.

So, other than for their coincidence, why should I talk about the Assumption and Woodstock in the same entry--one in a blog about my life as a transgender woman, no less?

Well...let's see...Half a million people went to the Woodstock festival. The youngest people who were there (save for the babies conceived during that heady time) are well into middle age, or even older. Some are already dead; in not too many years, others will die off in almost as rapid succession as World War II veterans are dying now. One day--most likely not in my lifetime--there won't be anyone left who was there, and there will be few people who could remember that time.

That means that Woodstock will become an event that will survive because of the stories told--in whatever ways--about it. Of course, we have film and video footage of David Crosby confessing to the crowd that he was scared shitless, as he and Stills, Nash and Young were performing together publicly only for the second time. We have the sounds and images of performers as diverse as Jimi Hendrix, Melanie Safka, Joe Cocker and Elvis and pictures of long-haired young people, their tattered clothes soaked from rain that soaked but did not cancel the second day of performances, chanting, hugging, and smoking.

For people who weren't yet born in the middle of August, 1969, those images and the music of those performances are Woodstock. And those young people--and anyone else who wasn't there (including yours truly, who was, let's say, just a bit younger than most of the people who was there)--reconstruct, in their minds, something they call "Woodstock." Even though the name of that music festival has become a kind of shorthand for "peace, love, dope and music." or "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll," no two people have exactly the same story about it in their minds.

Now, as for the Assumption--if it indeed happened--there hasn't been anyone who was alive at that time, much less saw the event, for about two thousand years. And, of course, there aren't any written, much less audio or cinematic, records of the event. Even if someone had been there and written an account, or if video were available (Young people have a hard time imagining a world without cell phones, which was, of course, the world of Woodstock!), records would have been made from the point of view of whoever was recording it. You remember what Cicero said: Victor Imperatus, or the winners write the histories. When you consider that, even in the most powerful nations, the majority of people up to about 150 years ago couldn't read or write their names, any and all record-keeping, much less the stories told about events, were skewed toward a rather small segment of the population.

Anyway, even if there were record the Assumption, who would have written or painted them? And, as for Woodstock, most of the attendees as well as the performers came from some degree or another of privilege. The poor kids were working to pay for school or support themselves or their families--or were slogging through the jungles of Vietnam.

And so all we have of either event are stories--told by people who come from narrow segments of society.

And if you are reading this, you are reading the story of someone who, though not born to privilege and not living in luxuries, has had at least other good fortune that enabled her transition to the life she had envisioned for herself. I mean, I'm not exactly a salt miner or a field hand. I have some education, such as it is, which has allowed me to acquire, if not a lot of material prosperity, at least some choices in my life that my parents and lots of other people haven't had.

I mean, let's face it: In order to undergo GRS, you have to have a certain level of literacy and education in order to find, much less use, the relevant information. And you need the time and means to acquire it. Finally, you have to come up with a way to pay for the surgery and other expenses related to your change, and to be able to take time off from making a living so that you can recover from your surgery. As it happens, as a college instructor, I have that time off.

So...the Assumption and Woodstock are stories rather than events for most people. And so am I, dear reader (oh, how quaint!): If you are reading this, you know me by the stories I'm telling you about myself and the world around me. Now, I have never been anything but honest. But my point-of-view is not all-encompassing, as is the point of view of anyone else. And, of course, one day, I'll be gone, and so will anyone who knew me now or at any other time in my life.

So I know stories about the Assumption and Woodstock. And if you've been reading my blog, you know a few about me. If you know me, you know others. In the end, whatever believe in and whom we love (which are really all that matters in life, as far as I can tell), all we have are those stories

Tranny Serendipity

Is there such a thing as Tranny Serendipity?

If there is, I expereinced it today.

Getting dressed for work...I'd just pulled a jewel-necked top over my teenaged-girl breasts and middle-aged woman's body. Its hue--a cross between magenta and fuschia--brought out the violet zags and shapes in a jigsaw-printed tiered ruffle skirt that was a kaleidoscope in purple, coral, brown and a sort of dove-gray color. I've worn it before and gotten compliments on it. I was deciding what to wear over the top.

A knock at my door. The landlady: She said she'd bought a shirt that didn't really fit her, but it was too late to return it. Would I like to try it on? Certainly.

I don't know whether she'd intended to wear it as a regular shirt, but it fit me perfectly as an overshirt. Its purple crinkled silk-like fabric brought the outfit together! And, it changed my mind about the shoes I would wear: Instead of my gold faux-lizard wedge sandals, I slid my feet into my purple peep-toe bowtie pumps--and perfectly balanced the shirt my landlady had just given me.

On my way to work, I went for a badly-needed manicure. (My nails were starting to look like driftwood.) I chose a shade of mauve that had a tint of lilac. Two strangers, as well as two of my students, complimented me. And my landlady said, "Wow! When you get dressed, you look better than I do."

Some landlady, huh? First she completes my outfit. Then she makes me blush. And she didn't even raise my rent. Hmm....

She has two young sons. Did she want a daughter? Is that why she was dressing me up? Well, I must say, she does have taste.

Today I really wanted to look good--or at least as good as I can look. In class, we were talking about gender in relation to some of the poetry and stories we've been reading. Teaching that class has been a very emotional experience for me, and it seems that every night, at least one of the students strikes some nerve of mine with a comment about one or another of the readings.

Tonight I wrote the words "Male," "Female," "Masculine," "Feminine," "Boy," "Girl," "Man" and "Woman" on the blackboard, and asked students to spend a few minutes writing about what those words evoke for them. Some of the responses were what I expected: "masculine" and the other male words evoked strength and dominance; the ones about femininity evoked emotion and nurturing.

One student, Angie, said that to her, "woman" made her think of expectations, roles, sacrifice and submission. And, "asking for permission," she added.

On the other hand, men are allowed to feel a certain confidence that allows them simply to proceed, she said. An example of this can be found in Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 (the one that begins with, Let not to the marriage of true minds). According to Angie, only a man could have written the poem's final couplet: If this be error and upon me proved/I have never writ, nor no man ever loved.

As great a poet as he is, those lines proved that he was still thinking like a man, Angie said.

One thing that makes all of this so interesting to me, aside from my own life experiences and interest in poetry, is the exchange she and I last week. Yes, she's the one who winked conspiratorially as she said that if her husband, who was waiting for her, found out she was hanging out with me, he'd accuse her of being a lesbian.

Here's a conversation I'd love to have with her: How does she reconcile her religious beliefs with views that are even more feminist than those of a lot of women who call themselves feminists? And, I'd like to hear more about something she mentioned to me: She's trying to keep her daughter, who's in her early adolescence, away from cosmetic formulae and procedures. When her daughter was about to shave her legs, Angie talked her out of it--for the time being, anyway. Angie herself doesn't wear make-up--not that she needs to. I wonder how her husband feels about that, and how she reconciles it with the notion of being submissive to the man's wishes.

Is there some sort of intellectual serendipity that brings you, when you least expect them, the answers to vexing questions ?

Like this: Charlie's licking my arm. Should I stop writing this and play with him? OK, that's not so vexing. I know what I'm going to do. And I don't know what will turn up next. Will it come at an opportune moment?

A little serendipity of any kind is a good and helpful thing. I think the fact that I am about to have my surgery is the result of a whole series of bigger and smaller serendipities.

You Should See Yourself Giddy With Shakespeare and Ice-T

I haven't studied biology in more than thirty years. I'll be the first to admit that I don't remember much, and what little I do recall is probably hopelessly out of date. So, take this next statement for whatever it's worth, coming from me: The human body does not convert estrogen into ecstasty, with a lower- or an upper-case "e."

Or does it?

I think I'm experiencing a 48-hour case of what I now call the "girlie giddies." As I was about to start taking hormones, the doctor said I would become more emotional and have mood swings. As if I didn't already! I don't recall the doctor being more specific. What I do know is that I've had some crying jags as well as the girlie giddies.

What has it been about these last two days? I'm not doing anything special, and everything's working out and people want more of it. I was sorry to see the end of yesterday's session of the class I'm taking. I felt like I was watching the credits at the end of a film and I didn't want to get out of my seat. And I felt that way today, too, at the end of the hip-hop class I'm teaching. The time just flew; even the students said they couldn't believe it was over. "We have next week, and ten more," I reminded them.

"Can't wait," one chimed.

"I've never seen a prof on such a roll," another declared.

Actually, they were on a roll. It seemed as if the connection between Shakespeare's Sonnet 30 and Ice-T's Power was the most obvious thing in the world, although, to my knowledge, no one made it before me.

Here's The Bard's sonnet:


When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.


Well, one thing this sonnet proves (at least to me) is that anything Robert Browning did, Shakespeare was doing, more sagely and more elegantly--0r at least in a more intimate way-- two centuries before him. I mean, if you wanted a four-word summary of this poem (if that could do it justice), "Love Among The Ruins" would be a good one. For the first twelve lines, the speaker of the poems is talking about his losses. But, in the tradition of the Shakespearean sonnet, there is a "turn" before the penultimate line. And what do those last two lines say? Well, when I remember you, at least I have something to hold on to. Or something like that.

And the language. Oh, the language! "Then I can grieve at grievances foregone/And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er/The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan/Which I new paid as if not paid before." Just listen to those sounds: the "g" consonances in the first of those lines, the assonance (Yes, he had a real nice assonance!) of "o" sounds in the following lines and the coup de grace of "the fore-bemoaned moan" and "paid as if not paid before." Those "fore"s call out to each other; so do the "moans" which also resonate with the (rhyme of) "foregone" and "woe to woe tell o'er."

Then, just as we think all is lost, we hear that final couplet. In nearly other poet's hands, the "friend/end" would have seemed mundane, or even banal. But here, as the conventional or "weak" rhyme, it actually brings closure and a sort of affirmation. And, as one of my students noted, the "s" sounds in the final line are reassuring, too. Why is that, I wondered. The best answer I have for that is that they are refractions, not reflections, of those "s" sounds in the poems first line. "Sessions of sweet silent thought" is a quieting rather than a quiet sound; it's almost repressive. On the other hand, "All losses are restored and sorrows end" has a more reassuring, if not empowering, sound to it, which comes for the price of all those sad and melancholy sounds in the middle of the poem.

And what of Ice-T's song? Here's a link to the lyrics:

http://www.metrolyrics.com/power-lyrics-ice-t.html

That song is practically an inversion of Shakespeare's sonnet: Through most of it, Ice-T raps about having the trappings of power. But after the "turn"--at "Power starts with 'p'..."--the singer realizes he doesn't have real power after all, at least not in this society.

It was such a joy to see students discovering for themselves what I've just described. It made me even more giddy. One of the students, who took the Intro to Literature class with me four years ago, exclaimed, "You're just lit up! You should see yourself." To which I replied, "No, you should see yourself."

Yes, you really should see yourself.