Let's Go, Already! KISS

Not much accomplished today. Oh well. I've still got another day of freedom left. On Wednesday, I have to go to a professional development workshop at the college. Then classes start next Monday.

I'm still torn between opening the windows during the next eleven months or barreling through those months on autopilot. Right now, I just want to get to the surgery already. The new job seems like an inconvenience, something that has to be endured. I already know a lot of faculty members--and the chair--in the English Department. But somehow I wish I didn't. I also wish I had a job in which I didn't have to spend so much time interacting with people. I'd like to be able simply to come and go. Why couldn't the provost have made me a paper-pusher? I could work by myself and not have to hear any more questions or comments about me or my life. I wouldn't have to be part of any duplicity or to live by any mendacity. All right, so I did that every day for 45 years. What's another year?, you ask. Just one more year of telling mellifluous (or as mellifluous as I can make them) lies. That's not much for him or anyone to ask of me, right? And, Malcolm, you only have to hear the "N" word one more time. Just one more time.

Of course Malcolm had it harder and faced it all with more courage than I ever could. So maybe I shouldn't liken my situation to his.

Right now I want only to be around people I know very, very well and trust completely. All the politicking, all the going along to get along (which usually doesn't lead to getting along anyway), all the aimless, mindless chatter is just a waste of emotional and mental energy. Most interactions with academicians, with the so-called intellectuals, are no more stimulating than listening to a Wall Street trader bark out an order. And even that's more enlightening than reading articles with titles like "The Otherness of the Other: Post-Structuralist Deconstruction of The Yellow Brick Wall."

Why couldn't I have reported to work on some job in which no one notices when I come or go? I could just ask HR for my leave time and come back after the surgery, with no one the wiser for it. As it stands, I'll go in on Wednesday and everyone will have something to say, or are afraid to ask directly, about my getting the full-time faculty position. And I really don't feel like talking about it with anybody. Nobody grills you that way when you have a desk job.

Not dwelling on the past has been a great help to me. Bruce says as much. At this time next year, do I want to be thinking much about this time? I think now of the chef who, when asked what he'd want to eat if he were going to die tomorrow, mentioned the foods he didn't like. "At least then I wouldn't be sad to go," he said.

That's sort of the way I feel. I don't want to look back wistfully. I want to move forward, to the next steps in the life I'm building. Nothing complicated, please.

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?

40 Turns 50

Forty days and forty nights...

Of course nearly everyone in the western (and much of the non-western) world thinks of the Bible and the Flood when you mention "forty days and forty nights."

Me, I think of that exquisitely sad song by Muddy Waters.

Forty days and forty nights
Since my baby left this town
Sunshinin' all day long
But the rain keep comin' down

I used to have a recording of that song. If someone from another planet were to ask me what "the blues" are (is?), I'd probably start with it. Between the piano work and Muddy Waters' voice, you can practically see the sky opening and hear a primal wail in the wind :

Keep rainin' all the time
But the river is runnin' dry
Lord help me it just ain't right
I love that girl with all-a my might

Ooh, baby. Rainin' all the time and the river runnin' dry: How much more despair can someone express? In "Forty Days," I believe Muddy Waters gave us a musical version of a concrete poem about loss and despair.

Fortunately for me, I'm not feeling that kind of despair. So maybe it means I won't be a great artist or original thinker. C'est la vie. I'm happy to be right now. And, oddly enough, I can better appreciate stuff like Muddy Waters' song when I'm the way I am now than when I'm in my own sadness or grief.

What is it about forty days, anyway? For me, today is the 40th day since I started this blog and my one-year countdown to my surgery. So the 40th day means I have 325 days to go. All of this occured to me just as I was about to start writing. Now I've forgotten what I had planned, or whether I had anything, to write about.

Forty days and forty nights turn into...forty years. Mom and I were talking about our recent milestone birthdays. She said that when she turned fifty--as I did last month--she didn't mind it, but all through that year she thought about Uncle Sonny, who died a few months after turning fifty. Other than that, she said, turning fifty was actually better than turning forty.


I would agree with her on that last point. When I turned forty, I was--paradoxically enough--much more anxious about my future than I am now. It's not that I've gotten rich or anything like that. And I didn't see a pretty picture in a crystal ball. In fact, I'd say that, if anything, it may be even more difficult for me to predict what the coming years will bring. There is the surgery, of course, if all goes according to plan. But other than that, I really don't know what else to expect.



At forty, on the other hand, I expected more or less the same as what had come before. I was probably in the best physical condition of my entire life; I had that sense of invincibility the young so often have. I did not imagine myself becoming older or less firm; if anything, I didn't expect to live long enough to see that. I was going to die, at whatever age, while pedalling up or barreling down a mountain on my bike, or in a current that was more powerful than my ability to swim it.

However, just before I turned forty, something else happened: I met Tammy. That would lead me, however unintentionally, to the journey I am now undertaking.

Not long ago, I told my mother that just about everything I did before making my transition was an act of desperation. Getting involved with Tammy may have been the most desperate act of all; near the end of our relationship, I committed the single most desperate action of my life. Somehow I knew, but would never admit, that there would be great changes in my life, and that there would be at least a period of pain and loss.

My relationship with Tammy was my very last attempt to hold on to the image I had of myself--which I conflated with my life--as a heterosexual man. Ironically enough, the first two years I spent with Tammy were the happiest--or at least the easiest--of my life before my transition.

I think it was Ortega y Gasset who said that there are three stages of a person's life. Up to the age of fifteen or so, one is essentially a child. From about fifteen until about forty or forty-five, one tries to construct a life according to the expectations of family, society and one's self. But, at forty or forty-five, one realizes that it's no longer possible to live in fantasies or fictions. At that point, of course, many people--especially men--have their mid-life crises. Some go downhill and die (or kill themselves) not long after; others redirect themselves.

So...I met Tammy at forty and started to live full-time as a woman at forty-five. Maybe it's not what Ortega y Gasset had in mind, but it does square pretty well with his timetable. At forty-three I saw that woman in Savoie who made me realize I couldn't take another step in this world as a man; at forty-four I started to take steps toward my current life. Those two years were, if not the most difficult, the most intense of my adult life.

The day I got back from that trip in which I saw that Savoyard woman, Tammy met me at JFK. I wasn't expecting it; she didn't expect to meet me but at the last moment found out she could take the day off after all. She really wanted to see me, she said.

We locked our arms around each other, my elbows jutting out at the most acute angles my body could create. Neither of us, it seemed, wanted to let go, not even as uniformed attendants tried to move us out of the lobby. I could not let go, not at that moment, not for as long as I could hold on...to her; to our apartment with four cats, seven bikes, dozens of kitchen utensils and appliances and I-couldn't-even-count-how-many books and very full closets; to the dinners we hosted and the nights out with friends--hers, mostly. Holding on...to a life that nobody, not even us, knew very much about. One in which she indulged, then tolerated my "cross dressing" and I said that I wanted no more--though no less--than that. No, I said, I will not move to Chelsea or get the surgery. Yes, I want to spend my life with you, whatever that means.

So what, exactly, happened at around the time I turned forty? You might say that I cranked up the level of mendacity precisely because I was beginning to realize just how mendacious I had been simply to live as I was from one day to the next. You might even say that it was that mendacity that led me, finally, to my realizations: I was on that bike trip in the Alps--the one in which I met the woman I mentioned--because Tammy had given it to me as a birthday present. Why, I asked her? She was working and attending law school, and that was my reward for "taking care" of her. It was all part of the life we were building together: That's what I said about being, in essence, her wife and that's what she said about her work.

Forty days, forty nights, forty years. We thought it would progress somewhat like that. Or so I led her to believe, or so she believed. Forty months...That's about how much time passed from our first meeting until that day at JFK. For the next forty weeks (I'm not making this up!), the illusion, fantasy or whatever you want to call it, came apart, piece by piece.

Tomorrow will mark the sixth anniversary of my moving out. The forty days that followed included getting a job, finding places to shop and eat and meeting people, some of whom would become friends or at least allies. Some met me as Nick, others as Justine. I was still working in my boy-drag with my boy-name. I would do that for--you guessed it!--another forty weeks.

After all that, turning fifty is a cinch. Am I right, Muddy Waters?

Talk to Me; Make Me Pretty

Today I took a break from electrolysis. Three days in a row...I didn't think I'd get through the first session. But I'm going for more next week.

So what did I do today besides my laundry, cleaning my apartment, surfing the web or feeling upset about that new teaching position that everyone else seems to think is so wonderful? I went for a haircut and facial. I figured I might not have time for them--or at least the facial, anyway--for a while.

I've been going to the same place for the past five years--Zoe's Beauty in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Until April, Toni had been cutting and coloring my hair. But she's left to pursue other interests: According to her mother (who looks a bit like Diane Keaton), she's going to Paris, where she's going to attend a school for theatrical make-up. I loved the work she did on me, but somehow I always had the sense she'd want to at least try other things.

So how did I find her, and the shop? One Sunday, a few weeks after Tammy and I split up and I moved into the neighborhood where I live now, I was riding my bike. Back then--six years ago--I was presenting as female a couple of times a week but was still a year away from living full-time as a woman. And it would be months before I'd begin to take hormones. Anyway, on that Sunday--rather hot, as I remember--I'd been out riding for a while in my bike-guy clothes and was sweaty and probably grungy. The neon sign and neo-Victorian/hippie chotchkes in the window streamed into view. I crossed the street to check it out.

I lingered over shelves full of nail colorings and eye make-up when a voice intoned, "Can I help you?"

I turned around. There was Toni, looking at me even more quizzically than she sounded.

"Make me as pretty as you are," I deadpanned.

Now, if you saw Toni and you saw me, you'd know that was quite the request! But she didn't back down or try to talk me out of the store. Instead, she asked, "Where would you like to start?"

The rest, as they say, is history. I proceeded from buying nail polish and lip gloss to facial creams and powders. She always seemed to know what would work for me: not only what would look good on me, but what my sensitive skin could handle. I don't know whether she'd ever worked with a transgender before she met me, but she even recommended some lotions for shaving.

Then, when she started cutting and coloring my hair, I learned about the mystique of the hairdresser. In those days before I'd begun to live full-time--before I was even "out" to any of my family or friends--she became a sort of second therapist to me. In fact, she was the first to encourage me to find a guy--at a time when I wondered whether I "passed" and before I realized just how horny guys actually are. (Was I like that?)

I don't recall having those kinds of conversations with a barber. Then again, that may have had more to do with me than the barbers.

To top everything off, Toni was only twenty years old when I first met her. Most barbers I'd seen were about three times that age.

Anna does just about as nice a job on my hair as Toni did. I like. And I like talking with her. Imagine crossing Rachael Ray with Rosie, without Rosie's anger. And, because Anna is a Brooklyn Italian-American, the roots of mine she touches aren't only in my hair! (Toni, who's half-Italian, grew up in Queens.) Still, I miss Toni. I guess we miss a lot of the "firsts" in our lives.

And then there's Ella, a slender Polish woman of my age who always refers to me as "my lady." I have had about half a dozen facials, so far, and I am convinced that even more important than the techniques or the products used are the person who's using them and the atmosphere she (or he) creates. I mean, except for those few minutes when she plucks my eyebrows (something I don't think I'll ever get down no matter how adept I become with brushes and powder-puffs), I am totally relaxed. Maybe that is the point of getting the treatment.

So let's see--Anna cut some of my hairs. Ella pulled a few hairs and scraped and washed away old skin and other things from my face. I guess, in some way, they're doing similar work to the electrologist. Or to my therapist and social worker. It's all about peeling something away to get to the essence of what I am. And--this is something that really would have suprised me earlier in my life--sometimes I actually like, no, love what I find. I think it's what people see when they tell me I look radiant or--ready for this?--pretty. And sometimes I really feel like I am.

Well, I guess everyone is, or can be made, attractive to someone. The key, I believe, is to be attractive to one's self. That's not as narcissitic as it sounds. It's really nothing more than a belief in one's self: having the same confidence that one has a rightful place in this world that one's mother (well, at least the mother one should have) has. I think that's what was expressed in one of my favorite sculptures: Rodin's Je suis belle.

Je suis belle. Thanks to everyone who helped me learn that.

Next week, I resume souffrance to be belle. It's worth it. ;-)

The New Job--Meet the Old Job

Today I was thinking about the job I'm about to start next week. To tell you the truth, I was feeling angry about it. For one thing, I was essentially told by the Provost of the college that I was going to take the job. I really and truly hate being dictated to--even when the thing that's being dictated to me may well be "good for me." Even my mother never said things like that when she tried to get me to eat spinach or lima beans or other such green things. Then again, she never had to persuade me to eat them.

Well, all right... I'm in a very different situation now. Yes, the vegetables are good for me. But I'm not always sure that teaching--or being in school in any way or form--is. Of all the things I've ever done, I feel that teaching is the least honest and that being in school is the surest sign that I've failed. You know what they say: "Those who can, do."

Which is exactly the reason why people who bemoan the fact that school "doesn't teach you how to think" are barking up the wrong tree. That's exactly what school, at any level, isn't supposed to do. People who can actually think never, ever become teachers. Or, if a teacher starts to think, he or she can't remain a teacher for very long unless he or she essentially lives a life of mendacity or simply numbs him or her self.

School--from pre-K to post-doc--is always about maintaining the status quo. All you have to do is watch the Olympics to see that. Most spectators, whether they're in the "Bird's Nest" or in front of a TV screen, are not celebrating the athletes for their artistic or technical perfection, or even (in some instances) their good looks. Rather, they are applauding the triumphs of their countrymen (and women). Where do people learn such mindless xenophobia and learn to call it patriotism? Nearly always, in school.

Some say that may be true in subjects like History, but I think that the curricula of the so-called objective sciences are just as skewed toward the status quo. Students are inculcated with just as many unverifiable ideas and beliefs in a physics class as they would be in a seminary. And, of course, everything a student experiences reinforces the gender binary system and lots of unconsciously held beliefs about the inferiority of one gender, race, nationality or whatever, to another. Not to mention the idea that if one is born into anything, he or she should stay in his or her "place.

The last fistfight I got into was with a graduate school classmate who expressed disbelief that I had any Italian heritage in me because, essentially, I'm too literate. I've had professors tell me that I could always go into construction or some such thing. And, I've had colleagues who were professors who pretended to be allies of mine and stabbed me in the back. Not to mention my supervisor on my last job.

How can I get in front of students with a straight face after some of the things I--and they--have been through at the hands of educators? Or knowing that most of the time that I have taught, I have simply mouthed other people's words?

Every time I've questioned the notion that I should teach, someone coos (as if talking to a baby), "But you do it soo well" Well, just because you can do something well, that doesn't mean you should do it. What if you were good at killing people--should you do that?

And, honestly, almost any time someone says I'm a good teacher and that's what I "should" do, it's a taunt. The person saying it is almost always someone who's doing something that pays much better than what I do, and wouldn't be caught dead or allow their kids to follow a career in teaching or scholarship.

Oh well. One more year of it. Then the surgery, and whatever comes after it.

In Love

Last night I was with Dominick. Yes, he was there for me after I was having chin-hairs pulled out and zapped by two gorgeous blonde women. One of them was probably my age or older and looked a bit like Kim Novack. The other was much younger and Russian.

Hmm...Sounds like something advertised on the back pages of The Village Voice or The New York Press. Except that anyone who responds to those ads is probably paying a lot more for the privilege than I pay for my sessions.

It's one of those things Dominick likes to hear me talk about but would never want to experience himself. Not that he would have any use for it--unless, of course, he's absolutely sure he never wants to grow a beard or moustache. But even then....

Anyway, I went to his place after the electrolysis session. He showed me the kinds of reports that must be submitted for each of the kids in his class. Even in their rather soggy prose, those accounts are heartbreaking to read: kids who are old enough to be in school but still can't dress, feed or speak for themselves. I also couldn't help but to notice that the kids came from poorer neighborhoods and, I surmised, were members of "minority" groups.

Dominick mentioned that some of those kids also have asthma and other medical problems. He said that he's more and more convinced that most of the kids' problems are environmentally-induced. It was then that I realized why he has chosen to work with special ed kids: He grew up in an often-unstable home and some of the difficulties he's had may well be a result of what he comes from.

I admire him for having the courage to work through his difficulties yet retaining the gentleness those kids so need.

And it is that gentleness--which deepens as he's getting older--to which I respond. It may be the reason why, I realized last night, I really do love him, and he understands what that means.

I'll admit now that I had been proceeding with caution since I've known him. Some of that, I suppose, is just the natural reaction of someone of my age and experience. But I also realize now that over the past few years, I have learned a bit about loving someone in ways that transcend even forgiveness.

To tell you the truth, I was never in love with anyone with whom I "had a relationship." Those unions--or whatever I could or should call them--were nothing more than acts of desperation. I thought I was holding on for life; now I know that I was merely holding onto the life I knew at the time. It didn't matter, really, whether I was with a man or woman: Either way, I was acting as I though a man should. And I never was very good at it.

Then again, I wonder just how good I am now at being a friend, lover, daughter, or any of the other roles I've continued or taken on. Dominick tells me I'm a wonderful person. Mom and Dad say that we had a good visit. But when I talked to Mom this morning, she mentioned that she found a photo of me on a bike, back in the day, and I was "really skinny."

"Yes, I know I've gained weight."

"Mmm..."

"Did you notice it?"

"Welll...yeah. I'm not going to say you don't look good. But you could look better."

"I know."

I know...Being a good woman, friend, etc., isn't about my now not-inconsiderable weight. But still...Dominick always tells me I look great. He always does. At least, he always seems beautiful to me. I don't recall feeling that way about the others I've been with.

But the really wonderful thing about seeing Dominick last night is that, well, I realize that I do love him, without reservation or hesitation, and that--OK feminists, shoot me for this one--I can actually see myself as his wife. In other words, as his partner in life and as a nurturer--for him, as well as anyone we should bring into our circle. (We have talked about adopting a child.)

I guess that, all of the other tribulations aside, my relationships with Eva, Tammy and the others never could've worked because I knew I could never really be a boyfriend, much less a husband, no matter how much I tried. In other words, I couldn't love them completely as the person I am.

I still don't yet know what dimensions and limits, if any, there are to my love for Dominick. All I know is that I love him as I am, as a woman. Before I began my gender change, I could not do this, because I was not allowed to and because I couldn't and wouldn't allow myself.

Now I can, because I can love unabashedly, as a woman who is unabashedly herself. Last week, I came to realize that is how I love my mother and father now. And, maybe, just maybe, my relationship with Dominick will be that sort of love manifested in a partnership.

I hope. I allow myself to hope. I allow myself. And Mom. And Dad. And Dominick.

Pink Moon

It's a pink, pink, pink, pink mooon.........

Oh, I could listen to that song all day. That line seems so light and carefree--so uncharacteristic of Nick Drake--when you first hear it. It lifts and lilts, but the "p's" and "k's" synchronize with the low notes on his guitar, lending a psychic weight.

Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all.


Imagine putting Milan Kundera in the same room with Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pablo Neruda. They'd probably come up with the fictional equivalent of this song. All of them--and Nick--saw just how complex the light that becomes all things, and all people, actually is. It's rather like a dream, or at least some of the dreams I've had, in which the light flows into, and fills, rivers and oceans and takes the shapes of rooms from early in my life: ones to which I can return only in those dreams.

Nick (Drake, not the person I used to be) died at the age of 26. Yet, this is one of the most mature and sophisticated songs I have ever heard from anyone not named Bob Marley. It's the antithesis--or perhaps the inverse--of how people like me see the world when we're young and think we know better than everyone else.

At that time in my life, all I could think about was the heart of darkness inside every smile I saw, the hypocrisy that constituted "nice" people and the bones that became the dirt in which the flowers grew. I thought that I, like other people who saw the world this way, were the sensitive artists, the tortured souls or whatever else you wanted to call us. I made friends--or at least partners in self-torture--who shared this view, and sneered at all those people whose ambitions consisted of picket fences and such.

We were right--as far as our ideas went. Yes, I realize how much blood was spilled in la Place de la Concorde, but I now understand that reality has a dimension beyond and within this. What made all that blood possible? Human beings--ones who had gone wrong, perhaps, but human beings nonetheless. What was Randy Pausch before the cancer took hold of his body? A vibrant, healthy man. Much to his credit, he retained as much of those qualities as anybody could under his circumstances.

And when we realize that we may not be who we believed we were, what is there when we get past the disappointment? Well--this has been true for me, anyway, and hopefully for others--there's the knowledge that there is something greater, if more terrifying, than the realities we had constructed by believing in them.

That's one of the better answers I can give when someone--like my neighbor Angela--asks why I am undertaking my transformation. I realized that I am not merely my body, what other people--or organizations--said I was. For a long time, that was a horrible realization for me. I was someone in conflict with every way in which I had been defined, whether by schools, the government or even my friends and family. That is why I identified with Caliban of The Tempest more than any other character I'd come across in literature or any other art or medium. Yes, the one who tells Prospero, "You have taught me language/ And the profit on't is, I can curse."

I was more intelligent than almost anyone I knew. (Or so I thought.) I had some talents, and I had a body that could be made fit--and, to some eyes, even attractive--through all of the exercise I used to do. And what did it get me? Alienation and isolation. All the qualities that people complimented about me were the ones that caused those same people to completely misunderstand me and to treat me as someone I wasn't.

In other words, my pain belay their pleasure. And it never could be any other way, at least from my world-view.

But, later in the play, the monster Caliban gives us some of the most beautiful lines in the English language:

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises

Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices

That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming,

The clouds me methought would open, and show riches

Ready to drop on me, that when I waked,

I cried to dream again.

How did he get from "You have taught me language..." to that?

Wanna know what I think? Caliban's servitude makes Prospero's life possible. And Caliban's resentment, which is really the force of his deformity, does indeed make others seem, if only in contrast, more noble than they actually are. But even within Caliban there was a beauty, a force vitale, that--paradoxically--was the basis of his resentment and, simultaneously, the potential key to his freedom from his addiction to his own bile.

Someone who finds that light within his or her darkness may find it unbearable, at least at first. When your screen is a gray drizzle, the sun and a bright blue sea and sky can seem too intense, at least until they become your window. And that happens when you realize that light allowed you to see the grayness, the clouds, the darkness and the rain.

It's still important to see the storm, or any other inclemency. But they're easier to see, and more bearable, by the light. Unhappiness never goes away; the joy--the force of love--within makes it possible to negotiate and navigate the turbulence of discord.

By the same token, I cannot--and have no wish to--destroy that person I was complicit with others in creating in order to placate them. (At least I thought that's what I was doing for them.) But all along, the person I really am kept him going long enough so that I could reach, and seize, the power within him. She is the one writing these words, which, I hope, may mean something to you.

The pink moon is here and on its way.

Home Again

Charlie and Max can't get enough of me.

That's how it's seemed since I got home last night. I don't mind; in fact, I never mind when they want to give or get affection. If I did, why would they be the fourth and fifth cats I've had in my life?

Why, indeed, should we choose anyone to accompany us through our lives? Sure, some people are useful; others are necessary. But the ones we bring in to our circle; the ones we enfold in our arms: what other reason is there?

Then there are the ones we must have: the ones we have whether or not we want them. And, finally, there are the ones we simply can't not have, and who can't not have us.

I guess family falls into the last category. For some people, it's the worst sort of bondage there is. I know at least a few people who left their parents or other family members over things they did in the name of "love." But for others, including me, there is no choice but we choose it anyway. At least, I now realize, that's how I feel about my parents. And I suspect they feel the same way about me.

We all agreed that the week went well. I just talked to my brother Mike, and he says that's how Mom and Dad described my visit to them. There were a couple of awkward moments, but I felt that this trip affirmed the love--however complicated it may be at times--that we have for each other. I'm sure that, at times, they probably wish I could've continued to live as I had been. That's how they knew me for 45 years: someone who wasn't quite a normal guy, who possibly wasn't straight, but was their son.

But they did not distance themselves from me. When we went out to eat, when we went shopping, walking and to a movie, we were at each others' side. They called me by the name my mother would have given me if I had been born--at least if I'd appeared to be--a girl. She did not have that opportunity; instead, I took it. I'm happy about it; I think she--and he--are happy at least for the fact that I'm happy, if nothing else.

And they know that I am grateful for that. In fact, there is nothing I have ever experienced for which I am more grateful. It made the visit possible; it is the reason why they've offered to accompany me to the hospital when I have my surgery.

They have never been the most demonstrative people in the world, and I doubt that they ever will be. But I think they realize that I love them unabashedly because--well, because that's the only way I can love them. Because I am now unabashedly myself. And they know that. Mom has said as much.

Although the week I spent with her and Dad was fulfillilng, I cried as I was packing to go home. This is only the second time in my life I can recall feeling sad upon leaving. When I was younger, I--like most young people--wanted to get away. And I did. I forged a life seperate from them: one that they neither could have imagined for themselves nor chosen for me. It was the best I could do for myself; still--at least for me, anyway--it was a step in the "right" direction because it took me away from their walls and led me to things that opened wider than their windows. But sometimes I'd feel sad about it, for the same reasons I felt so the other night: that they should have had the opportunities to visit and live in the places I've seen and inhabited and get the sort of education and have the other choices I've had in my life.

One of those choices was to pursue what I need for my own happiness and fulfillment. Some might think that's a selfish, egotistical pursuit. What that means, of course, is that those people wish they had the opportunities and whatever else it takes to live a life of their choosing, on their terms.

Sometimes, though, choosing is one of the hardest things to do--especially when you have no choice but to make the choice. Mom and Dad are discovering this, I think, as they cope with pain and other physical diminishment--and the depression and anger that they feel as a result of it, and of all those things . They--especially Dad--are coming to terms with the aftermath of various trials they've had in their lives. They are doing so as they turn 70. I thought it took a lot of work for me to unravel--as I turned 34-- the feelings and other unconscious manifestations of the sexual abuse I experienced as a child. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for them--especially Dad-- to deal with the detritus left by the storm of childhood traumas.

I've had the opportunity and resources to reclaim myself from those who would and could have taken my life--literally as well as metaphorically--from me. I wish Mom and Dad had that chance earlier in their lives. What that means, of course, is that I sometimes wish that earlier in my life I had made the choices I'm making now. And I wish I could've given myself the choices that Mom and Dad are helping to make possible now.

Oh well. I hope I get to see them again soon--certainly before the operation. Mom and I were talking about that today.

Leaving for the Rest of My Life

Tomorrow I'll be headed back to New York. As you can imagine, I have very mixed feelings about this.

On one hand, I want to get back to the things that are familiar to me now, including my cats. On the other hand, I feel as though I am just getting to know my parents, just a teensy weensy little bit.

Then again, these past few years have been about getting to know myself. And during the next eleven months, I may learn things I can't even imagine now.

And I have learned things that I never could have imagined before. For one thing, I never realized how sand on one stretch of beach could differ so much from sand on another stretch only a few miles away.

Furthermore, I even entertained the thought of moving here. I was thinking mainly of my parents and their advancing age and declining health. I didn't want to move in with them; they both agreed that none of us could live with other people again. And my father pointed out that the adult children of friends and neighbors came here, thinking that they could make it. "But you'll never make anywhere near the kind of money you make now," he said. To which my mother added, "And it costs a lot more to live here than you think."

Still, she said, "Your father's been better since you've been here." Hmm...I didn't know I could have that kind of effect on anybody--especially my father. I can't think of a single thing I've done that he's approved of.

All right, so that last part is an exaggeration. But it certainly felt like the truth for much of my life.

Right now I wish I could spend some more time here. There seems to be so much, still, to catch up on, whether or not the words or the emotional context exists for doing so. For one thing, this has been my first visit here in nearly five years. And it's the first time I've seen them since we spent an afternoon together in New Jersey three years ago.


Of course, they have aged. But that is not the only reason why they look different to me. Actually, lots of people and things look different. I remember seeing Elizabeth for the first time in ten, maybe fifteen, years. She hadn't aged a day, or so it seemed, since I met her during my sophomore year of undergraduate school. I remember feeling, in a way I couldn't explain, that her apparent lack of change was the reason why she was, in some way, oddly unfamiliar to me.

I guess I'm starting to feel something like that about my parents. My father has always liked to hover over me to make sure I'm getting packed in a timely way, or even to see that I'm doing things that I know better than he how to do. He's always done that--to me, to my mother, to my brothers. Yet I have had to learn that about him all over again.

It seems that I have had to re-learn almost my entire life over the past few years. Even with those things I have done best--reading, writing, teaching and cycling--I feel as if I've had to start over. So sometimes I can't hide my physical clumsiness or social ineptitude.

So what does all that have to do with the prospect of going home? Well, I've seen how much they've accepted me as their daughter and, at the same time, echoed words and behaviors from times past. It's funny: They have habits that I don't expect them to change, but they have learned new ways of seeing me. Or, simply, learning to see me as I've seen myself. Somehow it makes sense, but I'm not sure of why. Will I have the opportunity to learn why?

I want to learn why those rides along the ocean--I took another the other day--mean so much more to me now, and why I enjoyed them so much more. And I want to learn why the bright colors of this place no longer seem alien to me.

Maybe that all seems a little obsessive or fey. But I get the sense that time is running out. It's not just that yesterday marked both 11 months until my surgery and one of those round-number birthdays for my mother. (I won't say which; I'll say only that Dad reached the same milestone in April.) I feel that there's so much I need to learn, and that I'm really going to need it. For one thing, I sense that the time until my surgery--during which I wanted to make as few changes as possible--will include change that I can't anticipate now. And, yeah, it's a little scary.

I guess leaving really means, somehow, starting those next eleven months: the rest of my life as I know it now.

The Woman Becomes a Daughter?

This morning I got to say "hello" to my mother's friend, Lee. She'd come to pick up Mom so they could visit the family of a friend who suddenly died the other day.

I was happy to meet her: Mom has talked a lot about her. She seemed every bit as friendly as Mom depicted her. And, even though our encounter was brief, I felt as if, for the first time in my life, a member of my family introduced me to someone and I felt like a peer.

Perhaps that was natural considering that I am middle-aged and Lee, like my mother, is in very, very late middle age. And Lee has a very warm and radiant smile.

But there was something else. Maybe it's simply that it's been so long since I met a friend of a family member: In fact, I don't think I have had such an introduction since I was under the legal age for just about everything. When you're a kid and you meet you parent's friends, no matter how well you get along, there is a generational and experiential divide. And, whenever I met my father's or brothers' male friends, I always felt that, no matter how much I may have liked them, I had almost nothing in common with them.

Now, to be fair, Mom did tell me that a relative of Lee's is transgendered and her daughter is gay. And Mom had told her about me in advance. However, I didn't feel pity or any special, contrived effort to show that she had nothing against who I am. (In other words, she's not like some of the white liberals I've met.) Rather, I felt as if she were talking to the adult daughter of one of her best friends. Which, of course, is what I am.

As she and Lee were leaving, Mom said that Dad wanted to take me to the Beall's outlet store. Dad said he wanted "something to do," besides, he had an errand or two to run. I thought it was an odd thing for him to offer me, but I did not protest. I simply gave him a mock-warning: You're going to take me clothes shopping? Do you know what you're getting yourself into?

He was remarkably patient. A couple of times he even brought over things he thought I might like: two--a pair of black velour and plaid tweed pants--I actually bought.

We must have spent close to two hours in that store. I bought two other pairs of dress pants, three skirts, two tops, a cardigan and two shirt sets--all name brands. All for $73.00, tax included.

And Dad was very gracious about helping me carry things. I joked, Did you realize what you were getting yourself into when you went shopping with me? To which he replied, I did; no problem.

What really made me happy about our shopping trip is that I got to talk with him a good bit more than we normally talk. I have been concerned about him: His health is worsening and, as a result, his mood has been darkening. Which means that I'm also concerned for my mother because she has to bear the brunt of his gloom. I don't know whether I can be any kind of example to him (or anybody). But I tried to help him understand that he has treated me well as I have made changes that must have been difficult for him accept; I understand how difficult that must have been. Now, I want him to take such good care of himself so he'll be around for me, my mother and everyone else.

He actually seemed to like hearing all of that from me. Maybe it's because I let him do most of the talking, and he expressed anxieties as he had never expressed, really, anything else before. I think he also senses that I am not going to give up on him, as I have at other times in my life.

It just may be that he and Mom are seeing their son-who-turned-into-a-female turning slowly into their daughter. They have offered to accompany me when I culminate that a very important part of that process next year.

Odd, isn't it? I've always thought that women were someone's daughter before they became women. Now, of course, my experience is different from that of most women (not to mention most men!) But, I wonder: Could there be other women--however they became women--who became daughters in ways similar to the way I have?

Another Journey

Turns out that Mom hadn't gone to church after all. She'd gone to the store, and after she got back, she and Dad and I had blueberry pancakes and sausages.


I ate more than I planned, but it turned out to be a good thing: I went for a bike ride immediately afterward.


Some might call that trip a sentimental journey. Others might think I'm living my own version of Au recherche de temps perdus. One problem with that analogy, of course, is that I ate blueberry pancakes, not madeleines. While those little butter-cookies are nice, I still prefer the pancakes--maybe because, well, Mom made them, just as Proust's mother made those madeleines.


Probably the best literary analogy I can make to yesterday's ride comes from the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet: Things I Didn't Know I Loved.


I had indeed forgotten how much I love the riding over the long, arching bridge from SR 100, over the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, to the Coastal Road in Flagler Beach. Turn left, and you can go to Marineland and almost to St. Augustine. Turn right, and you ride along ocean that's about the same color as this typeface, down to Ormond by the Sea and Daytona Beach.


In a way, it's reminiscent of the ride I used to take when I was living with, or visiting, my parents when they lived in New Jersey: over the long (at least in my memory) drawbridge from Highlands to the narrow strip of land between the Shrewsbury River and the Atlantic, from the southern end of Sandy Hook down through Sea Bright, Belmar, Elberon and into Long Branch. If I felt so inclined, I could continue to Asbury Park.


On both of these rides, to your left there's nothing but a few thousand miles of ocean between you and Portugal (from Jersey) or Morocco (from Florida). And, if you time either of them right, you can ride into the wind and let it blow you back home.


The differences, of course , are in the color of the ocean (darker and more grayish-blue off New Jersey) and how much hotter the ride from the Flagler Beach bridge was than almost any ride from the Sandy Hook-Highlands bridge. At least, for most of the ride down, I had a breeze off the ocean, which cooled me off a bit.


For yesterday's ride, I used a bike Dad borrowed from a neighbor who'd bought it for his wife. Even when I pulled the seat out as far from the frame as it could be raised, the bike was too small for me. It is an old Ross 3-speed with a coaster brake--you know, the kind that you back-pedal. I hadn't ridden a bike with such a setup in longer than I can remember: probably my childhood. So, imagine my surprise when I shifted back on the seat and backpedalled slightly!


It's actually not a bad bike, if basic. But it probably wasn't intended for someone like me riding as far as I rode it yesterday: about 60 miles in total.


Most important, though, is what the ride meant to me. I know I've ridden harder and longer, and in much more difficult conditions. However, I can't remember the last time a ride made me feel somehow more complete, as yesterday's ride did.


The last time I was here, nearly five years ago, I rode to near Marineland--a much shorter (and possibly easier) distance that seemed like an eternity. It was the day I "came out" to Mom and Dad; he suggested I go for a ride because he and my mother needed time to "take it in"--meaning, the news I'd just given them.


Even though I knew that at the end of that ride, I'd come back to this house, I had no idea of what would follow. Although, realistically, I didn't expect them to pack my bag and leave it outside their door, that possiblity was in my mind. I just wanted to see what would happen next; I can't think of another time when riding my bike--just being on it!--was so agonizing.


But this time I had nothing to do but ride and come back for dinner. And we'd talk and watch TV afterward. Just like old times, more or less. Of course, we are all different now: we have all aged and, well, you know about me. And I'm not in the kind of shape I used to be in.

Still, I love that ride, just as I always loved that Jersey ride. Those rides have helped me to think, to feel, and more often than not, simply to survive. So have those dinners--yesterday, it was Mom's lasgana, which I hadn't eaten in years. Even though she used ground turkey sausage rather than the chopped meat she used in the old days, I wouldn't have wanted anything else.

However, the best thing of all may have been that I wasn't running from anything or anyone. Hence, no loneliness or alienation. On a narrow, shoulderless stretch of I-1A (the road along the ocean), cars steered around me and drivers didn't curse or honk their horns. In fact, one even yelled, "Go, girl!" And, when I stopped to get something to drink, use a bathroom, and to hang out at the Daytona Boardwalk, people greeted me with "good morning..." or, later, "Good afternoon, ma'am." Teenaged boys held doors open for me. One man at the CVS store in Ormond asked about what I was doing and wanted to be sure I was not having problems.

What else would a courtly Southerner do for a middle-aged woman wearing a straw hat and riding a bicycle in the midday heat?

I don't remember who told me--probably long ago--that the world would become a more welcoming place when I began to accept myself and live as that person. What that person didn't mention is that even if I were slow and my moves were inelegant because I'd gotten flabbier, a journey would be more satisfying because, while I may not have known its purpose--if indeed there was one--when I began, I would have every reason to do it.

Why? If not to learn about the things I never knew I loved, then to admit that I loved those things.

The Silence

Mom has gone to church. She does that every Sunday morning. I know Dad is awake because I hear him coughing. It's that nagging, hacking kind of cough one usually hears from smokers. But Dad has never smoked.

The almost vacuous, though not deafening, quiet of this house used to be familiar to me--back when I used to come here more often. Now it is disquieting as the hissing of sprinklers on a New Jersey lawn once was to me, even before Joni Mitchell mentioned it in one of her songs.

I woke up just as the garage door opened and Mom backed the car out of it. Dad hadn't started coughing yet. I sauntered into the kitchen and over to the glass door that seperates it from the patio. I glanced at the canal that seperates Mom and Dad's lawn from someone else's. Like most canals I've seen in this country, it's barely more than a ditch and I have a hard time seeing how anything could've been navigated up or down it. Maybe it was wider or deeper at one time.

An alligator has lived there. Mom and Dad have told me about him. (They always refer to it as male. I wouldn't want to get close enough to know!). However, I have never seen him. Not that I don't believe Mom or Dad. I just want to see him, just once. Why, I don't know. I guess I could really say I've been to Florida if I've seen him.

Not that I've ever had any great desire to come to Florida. Before I left, when I told people I was going to Florida, they all had images of Miami or Tampa Bay or Key West, just as when I told people I was going to France, they had visions of the Eiffel Tower. I did indeed go to la Tour Eiffel, and have, in fact, spent more time in Paris than I have in any city besides New York. But I also pedalled through the countryside, all over that nation. On the other hand, what I've seen of Florida consists of this town (Palm Coast) and its environs, Miami Beach (where Eva's mother and siblings lived) and Jacksonville (when Mike Spinnato, the family friend who molested me, was living there). And I've been to St. Augustine and Epcot Center.

I just heard the garage door opening again. That means Mom has come back from church. It also means we'll have breakfast soon. I don't hear Dad coughing. Both of them certainly are aging. Of course one expects that. But even the last time I saw them, three years ago, I could say, perhaps, that they were in late middle age. Now I can no more think that than I can say I'm young, even though I feel rather youthful and people tell me I look younger than I am.

But this silence: There is no other like it. It seems that Mom and Dad took it with them when they moved from New Jersey to Florida: I recall this silence, like a linen haze, from the Sunday mornings of the weekends I spent every couple of months or so at their house in Middletown, where we moved when I was about twelve. The aroma of pancakes and sausages or bacon would waft through that curtain; sometimes, it would wake me, for I used to sleep later on those Sunday mornings than I would at home.

Today I woke up just before 7:00, mainly because of the cup of tea I had before going to bed. That is later than I usually get up on weekdays, but definitely earlier than I wake up when I have nowhere in particular to go.

Dad is coughing again. I hear the bedroom door opening: Is Dad getting up or is Mom going in?

Visiting Mom and Dad

I'm taking a break from packing for the trip I'm about to take tomorrow.

I'm anxious, in every sense of the word, about it: I am eager yet nervous, for this may be the second-most important trip of my life.

OK, I'll stop building up drama. Where am I going and what am I going to do, you ask?

To the first part of the question, the answer is "Florida." I have been there many times; so, one would think, I shouldn't feel as much anticipation and anxiety as I feel now.

However, answering the first part of the question will begin to explain what I'm feeling. I'm going to see my parents. Again, that seemingly routine encounter shouldn't make me nervous.

Except that it won't be so routine this time. I talk to them every week, sometimes even more often than that. But this is the first time I'll be seeing them in the flesh in three years. And, this will be my visit with them, on their turf, since I began my transition. During my last visit, five years ago, I "came out" to them.

Although we've remained in regular contact, and they--especially my mother--have been helpful and supportive--it might've been easier for them if they had seen me more often, and for longer periods of time. My mother says as much. Back when they were living in New Jersey and I was in New York, sometimes I'd see them every month. Rarely would more than a couple of months pass without our getting together.

But now, things are different. Of course, that would have been the case no matter what: It's hard to visit so often when they're about 1000 miles away. Even so, I used to see them at Christmastime and maybe one other time--usually during spring break or at the end of the school year--during the year.

I'd spend a few days, sometimes a week--as I will on this trip--with them. My last trip there was a long weekend in the middle of November. The last time I spent a whole week there was probably about seven or eight years ago, maybe longer.

It's not that I dread spending so much time with them. Rather, I'm a bit nervous because, not having spent so much time with them in so long, I wonder what it will be like. Will they feel uncomfortable with me? Will they find that my worst qualities haven't changed? Or...

Well, they wanted me to come down. Mom said she and Dad were talking about it right before I asked about taking trip down there. I think they want to spend some time with me now--to reacquaint, you might say. They have volunteered to accompany me to my surgery, so maybe they want to see what they're getting themselves into. I know that I'd like to spend some time with them before the surgery (and after, of course.) After all, they'll be with me for a week when I'm in the hospital. Then I'm going to spend two weeks with them as I recover from the surgery. I don't think we've spent that much time together since I moved out.

On one hand, I feel confident: After all, they want me to come down and to accompany me to my surgery. On the other hand...Well, what's on the other hand? I guess that's what's making me anxious--not knowing. Maybe they'll think I've gotten fat or am not as pretty or feminine as they, or most any parents, would like a daughter to be. Or that, at age 50, I should've accomplished more.

Maybe they'll think those things. They've thought worse things before, I'm sure. Yet here I am, getting ready to get on a plane to see them, and anticipating their company during my surgery.

And I'll be there for Mom's birthday. I won't tell you how old she's going to be!

Zap that Beard!

It's hard for me to believe now that I had a beard, on and off, for about twenty years. Just as there are people in my life now who have known me only as Justine, there were people in my previous life who never saw my face: only the reddish hair that grew from it.

It's probably been seven or eight years since I last allowed my facial hair to grow. Until the other day, that is: I had to refrain from shaving until this evening. And it was an odd sensation to feel fuzz on my face, and to feel that itch I hadn't felt in so long: I felt as if my cheeks and chin had turned into nests for mosquitoes.

Do mosquitoes have nests? Don't ask me: I may be an etymologist of sorts, but I ain't no entomologist!

It didn't feel good, but I'm not sure that any of the few people I saw today noticed--except for the ones I saw tonight. I could hardly see my fuzz unless I held my face only a few inches from the mirror.

So why did I have to turn my face into a blonde Chia-Pet? It was for the people I saw tonight. Three young women, specifically.

No, I haven't gone back to the boy's life. And my "date" with those young women didn't involve drinks (which I don't do), dancing or...well, you know. (I promised to be faithful to Dominick, after all!) Hey, we were in Forest Hills, not Soho or Tribeca.

What was I doing with the young women? The answer is what they were doing to me.

This evening, those women gave me my very first electrolysis treatment. Actually, two of them did the work, and one looked on. They are all students at a school of electrolysis on Metropolitan Avenue. One of them, Tanya, is a southerner with a voice of slowly melted vanilla fudge that conveys her warmth and empathy. I just hope no one abuses those qualities in her: She is a reflexive nurturer, and men and women can find their own ways to take advantage of her. On the other hand, being a very intelligent and attractive young woman, she will attract enough people to her that she'll find at least a few good ones.

She is just the sort of person you want yanking hairs out of your face and zapping the roots with an electrically charged needle (I hear Wall Streeters pay good money for this sort of thing! ;-) ), especially if you're having it done for the first time. She's very encouraging: I could easily imagine her as a physical therapist or a counselor of some sort.

She could advise people like me who are complete wimps about pain and who are about to undergo the procedure for the first time. For the uninitiated: If you've ever tweezed your eyebrows, remember what it felt like the first time you did it. Now, imagine a spot is still throbbing, and someone dabbed it with a needle that injected a mixture of rubbing alcohol and lemon juice for a fraction of a second.

Certainly, it's not the worst pain anyone can experience. But I have no idea of what that feels like, so all I have are experiences like my first electrolysis. And, I'm sure, I'll get used to it: I will probably go back every week until I have my surgery.

You see, Barry, who's in charge, explained that it's better to do the procedure gradually. Most people who have scarring either had the procedure done too quickly or with the machine at too high a setting. And, if not done gradually, the chance of hair regrowing is greater.

And, before a facial procedure, you have to allow the hair to grow for at least two days beforehand. So, for the next year, I get to be a guy again, sort of, for two days a week.

Hmm... Maybe it won't itch after I let the lawn grow a few times. Still, I look forward to not needing a shave again because, well, now I have even bigger things to look forward to.

Ghost Town

Last night I had a dream that, when I woke up, I could've sworn I had before. In it, I walked down a street--I don't know where it was; it looked like it could've been in any number of places I've known. Anyway, this street led to a bridge, or at least a bridge was in sight. Which was strange, because it was transparent, almost to the point of being invisible. Yet it was as clear as the light of that day: fair, but not excellent: not gray and overcast, but not bright and refulgent, either. And there were no shadows.

I realized why--at least, according to the logic (if you will) of that dream--this was so: All of the houses along that street were shadows. Not literally, but they could just as well have been: No light glowed or blazed from inside any of them. In fact, there didn't seem to be anybody--at least nobody I knew, or knew of-- in any of them. That was strange because the houses all seemed to be in rather good shape, if not fancy. Yet they weren't austere: They didn't appear to ever have been elegant enough for that.

So were these houses abandoned? Soon to be abandoned? Should I go inside one of them, I asked myself. Someone heard me, or my thoughts: I'm not sure I voiced them. Anyway, a woman--who appeared to be constructed of vertical lines even though she was shorter than me--appeared, the way people just seem to come out of nowhere when you walk down a street. I just knew I'd seen her somewhere before--at least in the world of that dream.

Anyway, this woman, who was probably a few years older than me, said this: "You don't need any of those places now. Don't let them leave you."

Now, one of the reasons why I don't normally spend a lot of time thinking about my dreams--those few I remember--is that I can drive myself crazy by asking myself, "What the hell does that mean?"

As for the dream--I had the same one, more or less, years ago--long before my gender transition: long before lots of things. And the woman in that dream--yes, she was in it. But I could swear I've seen her in my waking life. I don't remember thinking that after I had the dream the first time.

As best as I can tell, that woman is the one I saw that day in St. Jean de Maurienne: the woman who, although we never spoke and our eyes never met, caused me to realize that I couldn't take another step in this world as a man.

But wait: The first time I had the dream was about ten years before I saw that woman. And, I'm assuming, she's French--or, more precisely, Savoyard. Maybe she speaks English. But unaccented, the way she spoke in the dream?

I assure you that I have taken no mind-altering drugs, and drunk no alcohol, in more than twenty years!

I don't know, or at least remember, what might have brought on the dream the first time, or to what in my life it might have been connected. I vaguely remember writing a really bad poem about it. But as to what it might have been "about"--you've got me.

On the other hand, it makes some kind of sense that I had the dream last night. After all, for the past few years, I have had to leave some things behind me, including lifestyles and careers other people wanted for me, and the lives of other people I tried to live, which included all sorts of thoughts, emotions and wishes that weren't my own. Yes, there has been loss; I am sure there is more to come: Otherwise, how could change ever happen?

And what did I abandon, or at least lose? A life with Tammy: We had been planning on that before the transition; or more exactly, I was going along with what she was planning. And two friends and one brother cut off contact with me. I was expecting to lose relationships with somebody, but not those friends or that brother.

Those were relations I had in an otherwise fairly solitary life. I've left that behind, too--mostly by choice. I finally admitted to myself that sort of life wasn't so enlightening or rewarding: Maybe for some other kind of person, it might be--but not me.

Yes, I have made new friends, and relationships with other people who've been in my life have changed in gratifying ways. And I'm about to start a new job as a faculty member at the college. Most important, I am actually starting to enjoy being with myself, which is the reason I enjoy other people.

But I did indeed abandon the possiblity of ever becoming--well, whatever it was I would've become if I'd spent the rest of my life with Tammy or some other person who wanted the kind of relationship he or she, or someone he or she knew, had with someone else, whether of the same or another gender. And whatever I might've become if I'd contunued to pedal everywhere, for hours on hours every day, and went to the gym before or after. And what I might be now if I'd continued to take long trips in faraway places, alone. And remained skinny.

Oh well. Then there is the ghost town, like the one (metaphorically) I saw yesterday at the college when I went to talk to the department chair about my new job and schedule. Almost everyone else gone, including the ones I'd love to see again as well as the ones I wouln't miss. Another year passed; another season winding down; yet another year--my last, in what I don't know--to come. And, perhaps, to be abandoned one day. After all, isn't that what we do when we move on and leave any part of our lives behind us? When we look back, all we can see is a ghost town.

Back In The Day...

Today I did a bike ride I used to do just about every weekend. But today was the first time I'd done it in about two, and possibly three years: from my place to Nyack, in Rockland County, and back.


You get yourself to the George Washington Bridge. Time was when I lived about half a mile from it, on Fairview Avenue in Manhattan. So I could practically roll out of bed and ride across. Now I live about ten miles or so from the span, in Queens. But it feels longer than that, not because it's difficult, but for the labyrinthine routes I must take to get to it. No matter which way I go, there are backtracking and detours, as streets lead to cul-de-sacs or turn back on themselves. Or they suddenly turn into one-ways or end abruptly. Then, of course, there's always the decision as to whether to go around or through Central Park. If you decide to transverse the Park, you won't have to deal with car traffic, but you will have to contend with rollerbladers and runners with power strollers skateboarders--all of whom, it seems, are listening to music through earphones. Then, of course, there are tourists who are snapping photos or simply looking up and away at the wonderful skyline views, but are totally oblivious to anyone moving faster than they are. Not to criticize them: I have been such a tourist in the places from which most of those people come.



Anyway...Today I didn't ride through the Park. Instead, I pedalled up First Avenue to 111th Street. Above 79th Street or so, there's usually not much traffic on a Saturday, and today was no exception. Stores come and go, but the vibe of it never seems to change: Youth and proximity to power, or at least wealth. Of course, they have to have money to live there, but compared to the denizens of Madison and Park Avenues--less than half a mile away--they're paupers. So, while it appears to be more casual than the Upper East Side's so-called Gold Coast, there's also a kind of self-consciousness that one doesn't find amongst the townhouses up the hill. Although people around Park and Madison in the 60's, 70's and 80's are usually well, or at least expensively, dressed and coiffed, it seems as if they don't have to think about it. Perhaps they don't have to impress anybody because, well, nobody there can be impressed. Not so for the residents of First Avenue.


But I digress. (So what else is new?, you ask.) Anyway, at 111th, I turned left and transversed the Island, at least to Frederick Douglass Boulevard: one of the central thoroughfares of Harlem. I know that it's changing, but it's still strange, at least for me, to see young white people unloading their cars and rented U-Hauls at those townhouses. It's not that I fear for them: even when its reputation was at its very worst, I never had any fear when I walked or pedalled through Harlem. For one thing, I always thought its rep was very exaggerated: There were crime and other problems, and there still are. But other places, including the neighborhood in which I lived, had them, too. Most of the people in Harlem--yes, I did get to talk to quite a few--were just trying to make it through the day. So was I. Frankly, a lot of them were doing a better job of it than I was.


Anyway...If you ride north (uptown) through Harlem, Hamilton Heights, Sugar Hill and Washington Heights, you're riding up an incline, all the way to the Bridge (and beyond, if you don't go to the Bridge). Most of the way, this climb is very gradual: just enough for you to notice, especially after three miles or so.


And I noticed it because I haven't ridden it in some time and because, well, I'm getting older. And the estrogen has taken hold, as the doctor said it would. You lose muscle strength and possibly stamina. All right: I want it all. I want to ride like a girl but with the strength I had as a guy. That'll come about about the same time as medical science offers real, working ovaries for transgender women. Not to say those events will be related: They'll come at about the same time. Why, I don't know.



Time was when I pedalled up this incline almost every day, when I was working on 53rd and Lex and living on Fairview. I didn't even have to think about it: Half an hour after I'd slung my leg over my bike, I was home, and none the worse for the ride. Of course, I was also twenty-plus years younger than I am now. And I was full of testosterone and anger. About the latter, just ask Bruce or anyone who knew me back then.



That was before Eva. Before Tammy. Before the women in between them, and the women and men who preceded them. Before I'd dealt with my alcohol and other substance abuse problems and the molestations I endured as a child--not to mention my gender identity issues. Before lots of things--including births and deaths.


As my first ride to Nyack was. I can't give you the exact date, but I guess it was during that first spring or second summer after I returned to New York. That would be 1984. It was a good bit longer than today's ride, since I was doing it for the first time, and because of my navigational skills, about which I like to tell people I'm a direct decendent of Columbus and inherited his sense of direction.


On the Jersey side of the Bridge, you turn left. On your left are the office buildings and houses of Fort Lee, which, were it not for its views of the Big Apple, would be one of the most charm-free cities in the country. On your right, beyond a stone wall and a berm, is the Palisades Parkway. You follow this road for about two miles to its end, take a left, then the next right to Route 9W.



On any weekend day when the weather's decent, hundreds, if not thousands, of cyclists ride up and down this road. Again, you're riding up a slight incline for a few miles. If you're riding early in the afternoon, as I was, most of the cyclists you see will be on the opposite side of the road, riding toward the bridge.


I've ridden this route alone, with friends, with two different cycling clubs and with people I met on the road and never saw again. None of those people, except Bruce, are in my life now.



I glanced at the cyclists coming in the opposite direction. As far as I know, none of my old riding partners were among them. Then again, I wasn't looking for them. A few smiled and nodded their hands in my direction.


As I looked at them, I couldn't help but to notice how much they looked alike. Sure, they were of various ages, colors and shapes. Most of them were male; the few females I saw accompanied male riders. But that wasn't the reason for their sameness.



I thought back to how I used to own a dozen or so cycling jerseys and half a dozen or eight pairs of cycling shorts--all of them made of lycra. The shorts were almost always black, but the jerseys sported all sorts of graphics and colors. Some of them were replicas of jerseys worn by cyclists in the Tour de France and other major races. Tammy--another past companion on this ride-- used to say that wearing cycle clothing was one of the few opportunities men had to be peacocks.



But even with all of those colors, the cyclists all seemed to be in uniform. Then I understood why I recently got rid of my last jerseys and now have only one pair of cycling shorts left. Yes, bike clothes are lightweight, wick moisture and, I guess, make you more aerodynamic. But I took some long rides when I was young and "didn't know any better" in regular clothes--as I did today. Today, my only concessions to cycling regalia were practical: my helmet (If you have a brain that's worth protecting, you need one.), gloves and shoes. And I'm even thinking of getting rid of my click-in pedals, which require cleated shoes, for platform pedals and toeclips like the ones I rode for I-don't-know-how-many years, so I can wear sneakers, loafers or whatever else I want to wear.


If any of those riders notice, I might lose face. Oh well. Barbara and Sue, with whom I sometimes ride, couldn't care less. More important, I couldn't, either. But back in the day--not so long ago, really--I would've.


And, after you've pedalled up 9W--past the suburban sprawl, the mansions, the rock ledges and patches of woods and Columbia University's geological station where you cross back into New York State--you descend the steepest hill (which you have to climb if you come back this way) of the ride. Not long past the bottom, I like to turn off on the road for Tallman Mountain State Park, twisting between the wooded areas and some rather charmingly bucolic houses--to the side of a small stream or a canal that's fallen into disuse: I'm not sure of which. Then you pass through one of those strips of boutiques and cafes that's too cute to be truly charming but will do just fine for a mindless Sunday brunch. And on past houses that look more gingerbread or Victorian or Alice-in-Wonderland than they really are: Somehow I imagine the people in them were once hippies, or pretended to be, and now that they make money, they want to keep the artifacts and gestures of whimsicality. A lot of them had "Vote for Obama" signs on their lawns; a few Ron Paul postings remained. I don't recall seeing any for McCain.

The last time I did this ride, I hadn't heard of Obama. I knew a little about Ron Paul, and McCain didn't impress me any more than he does now.

And on, past a wedding party floating out of a church next to the Hudson River, underneath the Tappan Zee Bridge, and up two small hills that can be difficult only because you make sharp turns--and you may have to stop for traffic--before you start the climb. Then, finally, the main street of Nyack and every cyclist's (at least in this area) favorite cafe: the Runcible Spoon.

Back when I used to drink coffee, they made some of the best French roast you could get without taking the next flight to Charles de Gaulle or Antoine Saint Exupery. And they made a flaky cinnamon pastry laced with cinnamon and sugar that I loved. But they were out of that and, as appetizing as the terrine of three mousses and the cupcakes looked, I thought they might've been a bit much. So I had only a large iced green tea.

Because it was just past three when I got there, there weren't as many cyclists as I remember from rides past. But even though I'd met none of them before, they were familiar: They came in those familiar racing uniforms on the latest carbon-fiber bikes in the flashiest graphics you can imagine. The wannabe racers. I used to be one of them. Actually, I did race, but I kept up the facade for nearly two decades after I stopped.

Again, all were male--except for a tall blonde woman who accompanied her boyfriend or husband. They rode the only steel frames besides mine. But theirs weren't Mercians: they were rather generic TIG-welded bikes with well-known names on them. But no matter: They rode in each other's company, seemingly without any intention to impress anyone but each other.

One guy--a black man about ten years younger than me--looked kinda sorta familiar. I wondered whether he recognized me. He seemed not to look my way. If he hadn't seen me coming in, he probably didn't notice me at all. Nor did his friend. I used to gain entry into groupings like theirs--some, anyway--by the way I used to dress back in the day on rides like these. I didn't want to join in their conversation--such as it was--but I wondered whether that one guy was someone I used to ride with. If he wasn't noticing me because I wasn't wearing bike clothes, he reminded me of people with whom I used to work: They couldn't see--or hear--anyone who wasn't wearing the same kinds of business suits as they were. And I wasn't working in the fashion world!

I'd bet that next year, those guys won't be riding the bikes they have now--indeed, if they are still riding. Nor would anyone there, except for the couple--and me. Anyone who buys a high-quality chrome-molybdenum steel frame these days--especially someone who has one custom-made, as I did with my Mercian--is buying for the long term. As long as I don't crash it, I may well be riding my Merc for the rest of my life.

And I'll be riding it on my own time, for my own reasons. Not like I did back in the day.