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.

Younger, Skinnier, Prettier

It finally stopped raining this afternoon. We'll see how long the good weather holds up.

I took a short bike ride to Forest Park, which is a few miles from my place, and through Dominick's neighborhood, except that he wasn't there.

It seemed that every female I saw was younger, skinnier and prettier than I am. The weird thing is that when I look at my face in my mirror--say, when I'm brushing my hair or applying makeup--I actually like what I see. Perhaps most people wouldn't say I'm beautiful, or even pretty. But I have been told that my face is "inviting" and that it expresses "tenderness" and "vulnerability."

Well...I certainly don't make any effort to be aloof or haughty. And I suppose I can empathise with a pretty fair number of people, some of whom would seem to have little in common with me. If I am exuding those qualities, I'm happy. And I know that people respond to happiness.

OK, so maybe I have Angelina Jolie's soul. But I wouldn't mind having her body.

So, instead of all of those young, skinny and pretty girls, all of you guys can have a dowdy, flabby middle-aged woman. You'd all make such a trade. Right? Of course you would. And you know why: If girls wanna have fun, all of you guys want a girl who's having fun.

Take it from me: When I was a young man, I dated women like the one I am now. OK, I'll clarify that. I've never dated a trans woman--at least, not to my knowledge. But I've dated a few women who were at least ten years older than I was. None were skinny, though none were fat. Two of them had nice legs; all of them had beautiful eyes. All except one were divorced and all of them raised kids, whether while or before I knew them.

Take it from someone who dated older women and is now the older woman: We're more fun. We're more interesting. We know how to do all kinds of things you haven't yet imagined. But we can teach you, if you're interested.

Here I am, bags and all. I invite you.

With or Without TV

Three weeks from today, I plan to board the flight that will take me from LaGuardia to Denver International. Then another to Colorado Springs, where I'll spend the night before I'm picked up by the hospital's escort service.

I'll be entering that plane at LaGuardia on my birthday: the 4th. Some people have told me that the 7th, the date of my surgery, will be my new birthday. I will return home on the 15th. The day before that is, of course, Bastille Day. But it's also the anniversary of my name change, my first day clean and sober and my discharge from the military.

Maybe I should just make the month of July my birthday. Or something.

Now I wonder if I might be making another new beginning. Yesterday, analogue TV signals in the US were turned off; now there are only digital signals. My TV set is not equipped to receive digital transmissions, and I didn't buy one of those converter boxes. Furthermore, I don't subscribe to cable or satellite TV, and don't plan to.

So...that means I can't watch TV. Will it affect my life?

At the moment, I'm rather enjoying the hissing swish of rainwater plumes kicked back by car tires nearly gliding on the drizzle-slickened street just outside my window. I wish it would stop drizzling, raining, pouring or otherwise precipitating (Is that a word?): It seems that's what kind of weather we've had for the past three or four months. The skies have been gray and the air's been so moist that I have difficulty pulling my front door shut so that I can lock it. Of course, that might also be a consequence of my diminished upper body strength: Do I blame the hormones or my relatively sedentary lifestyle?

But if we must have precipitation, it's nice to hear its echoes. And, Charlie and Max seem to be purring even louder and more deeply than they usually do. Perhaps their voices echo in the rain and mist; maybe it's just easier to hear them when there's no TV blaring.

But they seem even louder than they did on other nights when I didn't have the TV on. Something about this place just seems to have become quieter. I don't mind it. Being distracted is overrated; at least, it's not as good as being busy. And, when there are no distractions and the business of the day is done, then I will busy myself with living.

Last night, I told my brother Mike that one of the reasons I chose to teach a short course this month was to keep myself busy. "Are you having second thoughts about the surgery?," he wondered.

"No. I just don't want to be thinking about it during my every waking hour."

"Mmm.."

"Obsessing about anything isn't healthy."

"I guess you're right about that."

"Sure. Look at Dad."

"Yeah, that's all he does."

Not to pick on him, but I must also say that my father spends most of his days in front of the television set. For a few weeks, when he was in the deepest part of his depression, he wasn't even doing that. Imagine: Spending twelve hours a day with The O'Reilly Factor and Faux, I mean Fox, News actually is an improvement in his condition from what it was a couple of weeks ago. I can just see the ads now.

Now, of course I didn't watch those shows. In fact, if you don't count Law and Order, Cold Case and Prison Break, most people would say that my TV-watching habits were in middle-to high-brow territory: Healthy doeses of PBS programming interspersed with Sixty Minutes and other news-magazine programs, leavened by the occasional movie and sports event. No reality TV shows (Whose reality do they show?), no Desperate Housewives, no Entertainment Tonight. The only game show I watched was Jeopardy.

Of course, I didn't watch any of those programs faithfully. I wasn't always home when they aired, and I never could be bothered to tape them. I never felt any real sense of loss over missing an episode of any program.

As for cable and satellite TV: I've subscribed to them, only to find myself watching the same two or three channels (out of 500!) and to find the same programs repeated. I don't suspect the situation has changed much, so I have no wish to start a new subscription. Plus, some of the worst customer service in the world comes from cable and satellite TV companies.

I am free of all of that. I'm wondering how I'll feel about this decision when I'm recovering from my surgery. I do plan to read and write a lot. And, of course, when I get home, I'll be spending lots of time with Charlie and Max and, hopefully, with my human friends.

There was a time in my life when I lived without a television. For about two years after I returned from France, I moved a few times and lived mainly in single rooms. I would say that I was content not to have the tube, but I wasn't really content about anything. Mainly, not watching TV made me feel superior to other people and helped me to create a rationale for my alienation and anger. It was true that I wasn't participating in the deceptions and lies practiced and accepted by the ruling classes and, well, just about everybody else. But of course I was living in my own delusions about what it meant to be well-informed and -educated and, well, simply to be.

Now all I want is to create some serenity for myself and whoever happens to spend time with me.

Now raindrops are plonking against the roofs of parked cars. Charlie and Max are sleeping. Soon, I will be, too.

Homecoming?

Twenty-five more days until the surgery. Twenty-two until I leave for it. I teach English; I'm not supposed to be this good at counting!

I'm still thinking about that student's question: Who's homeless? And my response to it: What is a home?

Now I am at the desk in the house where I have lived for four years and on the block where I have lived for seven. This is probably the closest thing I've had to a home in a very, very long time--if indeed I ever had one.

Now I am recalling the day a couple of months ago, during spring break, when Dominick and I went to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. Afterward, we stopped by the house on Dahill Road where I lived from the time I was eight until I turned thirteen. From there, we went to El Viejo Yayo, a restaurant around the corner from the Bergen Street apartment in which I lived for seven years before I moved in with Tammy.

Perhaps the house on Dahill Road was a home for me at one time. I had no choice but to be there, and Mom and Dad had no choice but to have me there. It wasn't bad, really: If anything, having a bedroom with a window that opened out to the length and expanse of Brooklyn, all the way to the Verrazano Bridge, probably helped to develop my imagination, or at least my mind as I know it, whatever it is.

My brothers and I walked four blocks to school every morning. We'd walk those same blocks home at lunchtime, and back to school after lunch. Then, depending on how much energy or homework we had--or whether or not we were facing punishments--we looped or bolted back to the house after the last school bell rang. A couple of hours later, we'd eat supper with us; Dad would also be at the table, unless he was working overtime. He almost never spoke at the table; we didn't say much, either. Still, we did have a sort of bond at that table.

Did that make that house or my family a home? Probably. Then again, Eva and I used to eat dinner together just about every night, but I hardly think of us now as a real couple, any more than I think of the place in which I lived as a home. We ate at the same table; sometimes, we worked in the same kitchen on preparing the same meal. But now I recall that we never shared those experiences. We were more like people who happened to land in the same place for a period of time, much like the farmhouse in the no-man's land between the Allied and Axis lines in which Adam spent a winter with local peasants, the local Nazi constables and resistance fighters. They were all inside that house for one reason: to survive the brutual and seemingly endless winter that gripped the Vosges that year. Once spring broke, they all parted ways and never heard from, or about, each other again.

Adam once told me that no matter how much clothing he wore, no matter how big and intense the flames in the fireplace, no matter how much tea or soup they sipped or gulped, he and the other men in that house were cold. And hungry. Those were really the things he and they were trying to escape; you can cope with an odious political ideology, he said. We do not die from darkness; we die from cold. I would not know until many years later that Federico Garcia-Lorca wrote that; later yet, I would begin to understand what he meant.

Survival is not about defeating the forces of darkness; it's about coming in from the cold. As near as I can tell, it's the purpose of having and entering a home.

What do you do when your own body is not a home? That's what I was thinking when I nearly burst into tears in front of the class. If they were to ask me, I'd've told them it's the reason why I undertook my transition and why I'm about to undergo the surgery.

No matter what I did with and for other males--or what they did with and for with them--I never felt their gender was my home. I always knew I didn't belong there; the more intimately and intensely I understood that, the more desperately I tried to fit into it. And, as you probably know, my efforts failed miserably, and at times I failed pathetically.

I sense that the female gender is a home for me. At least, since I've started to live in it, I haven't felt that insatiable, gnawing emotional hunger and the endless spiritual cold I experienced for so much of my life.

Would my students have understood any of that? Does Dominick? Do you, Dear Reader? Can anyone?

Oh, that was quaint as all hell: Dear Reader. But what the hell.

I really feel I've been on my way home. But I'm not sure of which is more difficult: Remaining in a place in which has never been home, returning to a home in which you've always lived, or coming to one for the first time, having never seen it but knowing full well that it's where you've always belonged.

No Choice But From the Heart

It's funny how when you don't think you're doing anything particularly well, you get praise. Or thanks.

I'm having fun teaching the class I have now. Night classes in the summer attract committed, dedicated students. And they're adults: I don't have to tell them to come to class on time and such. They're working all day, but they somehow manage to come to class and do the work.

With students like that, I don't have to work terribly hard. I'm still busy, yes. But I don't feel as if I'm trying to make a bridge out of Jell-O, as I sometimes feel when I'm teaching the students who are in school because their parents want them there or because they don't know what else to do.

The class I have now is particularly nice. It's the "Understanding Literature" class everyone in the college, no mattter his or her major, has to take. Every night I have taught it, students came up to me after class to tell me how much they like it. "I took the course during the regular semester with another prof," said one student who explained that she had to withdraw from all of her courses for medical reasons. "But this class is nothing like it." Then, she caught herself: "I mean that in a good way!"

Another student praised my "sincerity" and "genuineness." What I didn't tell that students is that I really don't have any choice but to be so.

Today we read Tess Gallagher's poem The Hug. (http://people.tribe.net/41f12efe-2fed-45eb-bdd5-be0632930532/blog/ced17030-4493-4e6d-ae5c-35ba79519cbc) In it, the speaker hugs an apparently homeless man as her lover watches. That itself was interesting and controversial, but the poem's irony or mystery, depending on how you look at it, is heightened in the last line: "When I try to find some place to go back to."

One student (a young man named Ariel!) could not take his eyes off that line. He made one of the more astute observations I've heard, which he expressed in a question that, coming from someone else in another context, could have been rhetorical: "Who's homeless in this poem?"

"The speaker, maybe," replied Vejai, a Guyanese woman about my own age.

I was ready to burst into tears over that one. A few students noticed; one even commented on it. "Yes, it is a powerful line," I intoned. Or, I should say, weaseled. It was one of those true--almost to the point of being trite--statements I have learned to utter to get myself out of an emotional "close call."

Now, I've always liked the poem. But I never quite thought of it the way Ariel and Vejai seemed to suggest. But, there it was: a woman who quite possibly endangered, if not destroyed, the relationship with her lover with that so-tender hug with a possibly-homeless stranger. Could it mean that "the speaker was about to lose what she knew and felt comfortable with," as Ange, another student put it? Or, perhaps, that she never had a home.

That opened up a can of worms. We got into a discussion of what it meant to be "homeless." I explained something I realized at that moment: "After this class, most of us will return to the places where we eat, sleep, raise our children, watch TV, read or simply relax. But that doesn't mean we're going home."

A few students nodded. A few others seemed baffled. Yet others gazed at me as if I were somehow Promethean, bringing some basic and absolutely necessary truth to them.

And they seemed to want more. "Some of you come from other countries. Perhaps you were at home there. You might be at home here, you might not. There are people who never learn the language of their new country, who never adapt in any other way. "

"That's so true," one student exclaimed.

"And then there are some people who never have any homes but the wombs from which they came." Students' jaws dropped. I wasn't trying to impress them; I was simply expressing a truth that, I realized at that moment, was as much a part of me as my DNA.

In other words, I was giving them something completely from my heart because I could not give from any other place. Because I had no other place from which to give. Because what I could say could only come from my heart. I couldn't have intellectualized it or been glib no matter how much I tried or if I wanted to. Of course, I had no such desire and I had no other means of expressing what that poem, and their reaction to it, meant to me other than the words I used, inelegant as they were and as inarticulate as I was.

They had to have known I was talking about myself. They always seem to know--or at least some student or another figures it out. It's happened when I've talked about Nora in A Doll's House and Caliban in The Tempest; it happened in the hip-hop class last semester when I was comparing The Last Poets' Niggaz Are Scared of Revolution to John Skelton's The Tunning of Eleanor Rumming. And when I or anyone else mentioned Bob Marley's Redemption Song.

Out of place, out of time, out of country, out of body. And, in my case, out of gender. Some of my students may have homes now in this country, or will find them here. Some may have that place to which they can always return, where they will always be taken back, with their families and friends. I realize now that I have that place in the words I write, read and teach, and in my female spirit. Soon, I hope, my body will give my spirit a way to be at home in the universe--or, better yet, be the home for my spirit. And I hope the sheltering and nurturing are mutual.

Then again, can it be any other way--especially if none of my words or actions can come from anywhere but my heart?

Sidestepping Obsession

I've been keeping busy in an attempt to think as little as possible about my upcoming surgery. Yet today it seemed that everything I did or encountered reminded me of it.

Then again, it seems that everyone who knows I'm scheduled for the surgery expects me to think about it all the time. What's really odd, though, is that in spite of my efforts not to think about it, I don't mind when one of my colleagues or friends asks, or simply wants to talk with me, about it. They've all been encouraging; some, like Celeste, have practically been cheerleading.

Could it be that my efforts not to think about the surgery actually have to do with the kind of encouragement I've been getting? Right now, I'm realizing this: Thinking about the surgery on my own, I could very easily turn obsessive, which would lead to all sorts of things. Would I become a Tranny-zilla? (It doesn't have quite the same ring as "Bridezilla," don't you think?) However, I don't see how one could become obsessive over or becuae of the support one receives from others.

Some might tell me that the fact not every one of my waking thoughts concerns the surgery is the very reason why I can be receptive to the advice, support or pure-and-simple kind words I've been receiving, even from people whom I don't know that well.

I still wish my mother were going with me. Originally, my father had planned to accompany us; now I wonder whether how long he will stay out of his chair and the hospital. He insists that his condition has nothing to do with my transition; my mother concurs. I offered not to do the operation if it would make him happy. He wouldn't hear of it: "You've come so far. You're happy. And none of it will change me." In fact, after he said that, I find myself wondering whether he would actually regress if I were to back away from the operation and revert to living as a man.

I plan to do the operation: I not only want it, I owe it to myself. Now I find myself thinking again of Nora in A Doll's House. In the play's final scene, she tells her husband Torvald that if she doesn't fulfill her "sacred" duties to herself, she cannot be of any use to anyone else. Perhaps Dad realizes that; I'm sure Mom does.

As for living as a man: I'm not sure I could do that now, even if I wanted to. And why would I want to? So I can pee while standing up? That stopped being fun when I couldn't hit targets anymore. And, if you're going to do anything against a wall, you can be so much more creative--and have more fun--with a spray can or a magic marker. Besides, urine has DNA in it, or so I would think. So if some law enforcement agents had nothing better to do, they could trace it and come after you.

All right. You didn't come to this blog to read about peeing. You came to read about Pi Ying, the famous Chinese mathematician. I know what you're thinking: If he was so famous, why didn't I hear about him until now? Well, if it makes you feel any better, I'll have you know that I didn't know anything about him, either, until I started writing about him.

On that note, I'm going to bed. Now I wonder whether I'll dream about the operation.

Allegro

So tired right now. Kind of giddy, but tired nonetheless.

This giddiness started yesterday, during my bike ride. Part of it came from simply being in the saddle on a perfect late Spring/early summer day.

The fact that the surgery is now less than a month away in more than enough reason to cheer for me. "Believe me, the time is going to go faster the closer you get to the 7th," advised Robin, Dr. Bowers' office manager. I hope so.

My current euphoria started yesterday with the knowledge that my surgery is one month away. In the afternoon, I went for a bike ride down Cross-Bay Boulevard through Howard Beach and across two bridges to the Rockaway Peninsula. There, I pedalled about five miles of boardwalk and a few blocks worth of local streets to the Atlantic Beach Bridge. Then, I zigged and zagged within sight of the ocean from Long Island's South Shore to Point Lookout. It was late in the afternoon, on a Sunday, so the park at Point Lookout would be either full or deserted. The other day, it was the latter: I had the rock formation--and my "chair" in it--all to myself.

Even a flat tire didn't dampen my mood. It got me home a bit later than I'd planned, but that wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.

Along the way, I stopped for pizza in Howard Beach--probably the best neighborhood in New York these days for the universal food. There, you have a choice between New Park Pizza, which is really old-school with its ultra-thin crust pies, and half-dozen others, including Dino's--where I stopped--all within about three or four blocks. Dino's is my second-favorite, but I stopped there mainly because it's on the same side of Cross Bay I was riding, and because I wanted a slice of their eggplant pizza.

Anyway, I was eating at one of the sidewalk tables right in front of Dino's when a one-legged man hopped out of his car. I am sure that he's accustomed to opening doors and such for himself, but I stopped eating for the moment to open the door for me. He insisted he was OK; I insisted it was OK.

A couple of seconds after I grabbed it, a man who came out of another store stepped over to me and grabbed the door. "Are you going in, miss?"

"Oh, no thank you. I'm fine." He intended to hold the door for me, as well as the one-legged man. In his universe, or at least his presence, a woman does not hold a door for a man, no matter how much more physically able she is.

Maybe I was born in the wrong decade: I will never, ever understand some aspects of etiquette. I certainly don't mean to criticize the man who insisted on holding the door: He was brought up that way and, I would guess, naturally sweet and considerate. And, well, why would I want him to un-learn his behaviors?

I was wearing a light brown pair of camper-style shorts and a T-shirt in a shade of green that might be described in a catalogue as "willow." And I wasn't wearing any makeup. Not so long ago, hearing a man call me "miss" when so attired would have been enough to keep me happy for the rest of the day, or even the rest of the week. I was pleased, but it was about as notable as Liz Taylor or Larry King marrying again.

What made me happy after the encounter with the one-legged man and the door-holder was the realization of just how privileged I am right now. I wish my mother were accompanying me, as she'd planned to do. But the fact that I can get the surgery, that it was Sunday afternoon and I could ride my bike and stop for pizza, that I could pedal along the ocean, made me feel very fortunate. The one-legged man has certainly learned how to cope, and from what I could intuit, seems to be leading a happy and fulfilling life. But, tell me: Who ever loses a limb voluntarily? I, on the other hand, now have the option of changing my body so that it more closely manifests my spirit. It may be late in coming, but coming it is--quickly and, it seems, gayly.

Down to the Last Month

My surgery is scheduled for exactly one month--yes, thirty days--from today.

My final month as...what? A man? I haven't thought of myself that way in a long time. Almost nobody seems to think of me that way anymore. I've been living as a woman, but I am not yet one--at least in the eyes of the Federal government, as well as a lot of other people.

So it's my last month as...what?

I'm thinking now of the time I was given this assignment: To write as if I had one hour left to live.

Marc Crawford, who had some brief fame when he won awards while covering the Civil Rights marches and urban riots of the 1960's, gave the assignment to me and some fellow students in a class he taught. One of my classmates recommended him; the first time I saw him, I wondered what in the world I was getting myself into. So did a lot of other students: After he gave that assignment on the first day of class, about half of them never came back. Of course, that was how Marc wanted it: Those of us who remained were committed (Well, one or two may have ended up in asyla, but I never heard of it!) or at least stubborn. As for me, I knew I wanted to take the class--and to prove Marc, who didn't think I'd return for the second class session, wrong.

I think he never expected to get tenure at Rutgers, so he taught and started and edited a literary magazine his way. At times, I've been tempted to teach his way. But I don't think I could pull it off, and if I did, I'm sure I wouldn't be re-hired--or hired anyplace else.

Sometimes I try to write the way he did, or at least the way he wanted us to write. If Hemingway weren't so testosterone-besotted, he might've written like Marc. And if Marc hadn't been so, well, besotted for so much of his life, he might have lived longer and written more. Or would he?

I, too, spent a large portion of my life besotted. And drugged. And trying to hold in the storm of my gender identity conflict--which may have been caused by a hormonal imbalance. I did not write about any of those things in my "One Hour Left to Live" story. However, it may have been the first time that I so much as intimated that I had feelings for men, and feelings for women that were very different from those experienced by most heterosexual men.

Those feelings were, of course, why I drank so much. That was my mother's first question when I "came out" to her many years later. My conflict was a major cause of my drinking, which I accepted as part of the course of becoming a writer like Marc--or, even better, Dostoevski. Honestly, I never liked Dostoevski so much as a writer--I still don't--as I liked the idea of him: the raging depressed alcoholic jabbing his quill into an inkwell and stabbing his plume against the blank white sheet in the darkness of a Russian winter. To me, that was to Romanticism as Romeo and Juliet was to love stories. I mean, how can you beat Dostoevski as a solitary alienated figure in opposition to--What? The very Russian upper classes who were his potential audience, mainly because at the time they were the only ones in their country who could read?--as a Romantic archetype? Drinking, gambling, womanizing (Does anyone ever manize?): those were the hallmarks of the writer bearing the existential burden of life. Someone like me, in other words.

Well, I got the drinking down. I was never much of a gambler. And I was a bisexual serial monogamist, although hardly what anyone would call a woman- or man-izer. But at least the drinking drowned my sorrows until they learned how to swim. Actually, they knew how to swim all along: They just bobbed under the surface of the water and held their breaths until the tide receded. And, in my infinite writerly wisdom, I figured that if whatever amount I wasn't drinking wasn't enough to drown them, then I had to hit them with a storm surge. No one who gets caught in it survives, right?

As you know, I found my way into Twelve-Step programs and a few self-help workshops. However, even after I got rid of the booze and drugs, and no matter what else I did, I still felt an isolated, misunderstood figure, albeit one who doesn't have the talents of someone like Dostoevski--or Marc.

And now, here I am, starting my "last" month. The difference is, I know I can't do this month in the same ways other people have done it, just as I can't have the same therapeutical or surgical experiences--much less events--as other trans women, not to mention other women--or men. Whatever comes, in spite of all the advice of gotten, I'm still entering a new and (at least for me) unchartered region.

At least I'm not alienated, depressed--or drinking or using illicit drugs.

Meeting During the Last and First Days

Yesterday I mailed cashier's checks for my balances with Dr. Bowers and the hospital in which she practices, Mount San Rafael. After what I did the day before! I hope I don't have any other mishaps between now and my surgery date.

After sending off those checks, I picked up two twenty-pound bags of Iams Light cat food. I have been buying one bag every two months or so since I moved into this neighborhood almost seven years ago. Al, the balding and tatooed proprietor, looks like someone you would expect to see fishing for marlins off Key West. But he's always been sweet and helpful, and commented on my buying two bags: "Stocking up for tough times?"

"I hope not."

"These'll last you a while."

"I know. I'm going to be away for awhile, and I want to make sure my cat-sitter has enough food on hand."

"Where are you going?"

"Colorado."

"Really? What are you going to do there?"

I don't know whether he expected me to say "mountain bike," "hike," "smoke herbs" or something else. But he met me as Nick, so I figured the truth was safe with him: "I'm getting my operation."

He paused, and looked at me. "You mean, you haven't had it yet?"

"Oh, no. I've been living as I am in preparation for it."

He looked at me again. "Wow! You must be really happy. You look it. Congratulations!"

"Thank you. "

He carried the bags to the door and asked how I was going home. "I was going to take a cab or car service." He then hailed a gray Lincoln Town Car driven by a man from India.

"Good luck."

"Thank you."

People who met me at the very end of my life as Nick have been some of the most interesting people of all to observe. Millie is one of them; so are most of the other people I know in this neighborhood. Millie has been about as good a friend as anybody could be to me; the man who owns the pet store is another. And I met another, whom I hadn't seen in a couple of years, today.

Lorna is a very funny--in a New York Jewish way--curly-haired administrator and part-time instructor at LaGuardia Community College. I worked there for three years--the first as Nick. I know I met her during those last days as a boy because she ran the college's English as a Second Language (ESL) Center, and anyone who teaches English, as I did, in a college like LaGuardia, where the majority of the students are ESL, deals with the ESL office or program.

When I saw Lorna again today, we caught up on what we've been doing: She got married; I got my current position at my current college. She talked about some of my former colleagues, some of whom I'd like to see again. And I mentioned my upcoming surgery.

She actually looked surprised. That surprised me, because I literally made my transition right before her eyes, and those of the colleagues she mentioned. Since I talked to practically all of my colleagues, and many of my students, about my change, they knew that I hadn't yet had my surgery, for I hadn't taken hormones or lived as a woman long enough to be approved for the procedure--not to mention that I didn't have the money.

Maybe she just assumed that I had the surgery during the time I didn't see her. But what I found even more surprising is that neither of us talked about those days. It's as if she never knew me any other way but how I am now. And that may have been the reason why I didn't feel nostalgia or bitterness when I walked up and down the corridors at LaGuardia.

So what was I doing there?, you ask. Well, a dance recital was held there today to commemorate the 100th birthday of the Queensboro (a.k.a. 59th Street) Bridge. Yes, it's the bridge in Simon and Garfunkel's song, and it's steps away from the college. Anyway, the majority of the program consisted of dances choreographed by Michio Taminaka, a neighbor and friend whom I met through Millie. She insists that we call her Tami.

The think I like so much about Tami's dances is that they are expressions of the spirit that inspires movement rather than bodily movements made to express some idea or another. If I remember correctly, Rodin once said that he was expressing reves au pierre--dreams of stone. Likewise, Tami seems to bring to life dreams in movement. Although it is very emotional and reflects a certain kind of romanticism, it is not of the sort that borders on--or tilts into--ephemerality and sentimentality that one finds in the works of someone like Balanchine.

And so her choice of dancers is something Balanchine would never have dared. He once said, in essence, that he wanted his ballerinas to be like the core of an apple: the whiter and thinner, the better. On the other hand, Tami casts people of just about every skin tone and body type you can imagine. In fact, my favorite of her dancers is someone who I believe is Latina and rather diminutive and even a bit stocky, though not a porker. The way she expresses her spirit reminds me of those rather husky-voiced jazz chanteuses whose singing can give you more of an education in love, loss and human nature than any PhD program or seminary ever could. What they were doing, of course, was channeling their own sometimes-harrowing lives. I suspect the dancer I'm talking about has survived a few things herself.

Tami and I have talked about collaborating on a dance: She wants me to write because she likes my work and that being a transgender woman has given me a particular kind of insight to what we plan to base our work on. That's as much as I'm going to say about it for now.

Tami didn't know me as Nick. In fact, she says she didn't even know that I ever lived as male until I mentioned that part of my life. "I simply cannot imagine you that way!," she claimed.

Other people have said that, too. One of them is a student who's in the class I'm teaching now. She was also in the composition class I taught last spring. That is where I first met her. I would guess that she's in her mid to late 30's and I know that she comes from one of the Caribbean islands, has kids, works as a paraprofessional in an elementary school and is active in her church. She is one of the best students I've had so far; she says I am the best prof. Someone who's such a good student doesn't need to say things like that! ;-)

This was her reaction when she learned that I am transgendered: "God made you, too. You are equal to everyone else he created, so I cannot and will not judge you."

Turns out that some of the students in the class I'm teaching this month are there because she told them about me. And she wants to take another class with me. Of course I'd be happy to work with her again.

The other night, she stayed for a couple of minutes after class to talk about the assignment I'd returned. Then we started to talk about other things, when her cell phone signalled. "That's my husband. He's picking me up."

"Good man!"

"I've told him all about you."

"He's not worried?"

"He worries about everything."

"Did you tell him you're talking to a female prof?"

"Then he'll accuse me of being a lesbian," she intoned with a conspiratorial wink.

"Who to better understand what a woman wants?" We giggled as she walked out the door.

I was not expecting that exchange, especially not from her. Even more unexpected, for me, was the ease of her banter. Looks like I have to give up another stereotype: this one about religious people.

Now, the kinds of people I've been meeting in my last days, so to speak, have me wondering what kinds of relationships I'll have with the people I meet for the first time after my surgery.

The Doctor's Not Getting Paid Today

Today I went to the bank so I could buy a cashier's check for the remainder of my surgery cost. Well, I was feeling excited, and my heart skipped a beat (To my doctor: I am speaking figuratively!) as I walked up to the counter and told the teller, a nice young man, that I wanted to pay for the check from my savings account. "I can't remember the account number."

"Do you have your ATM card and an ID?"

"Yes, I do." I scooped into my handbag: cellphone, keys, cosmetics bag, work ID--but no wallet.

I shook the bag. Still no luck. Then I probed my tote bag, in which I was carrying a book, an umbrella and a folder full of my students' papers. Still no luck.

"Uh...Let me check one more time." Another shake of the bags. Still no wallet. I looked up at him, sheepishly.

"Miss, Do you have your ID?"

"I left it home." I could feel my face growing flush. "At least, I hope I did." Even though I knew, or was almost entirely certain, that I had indeed forgotten my wallet--something I don't recall having done, at least not in a long time--I still panicked. The young teller could see it.

"It's OK, Miss. Just come back whenever you're ready."

Three other tellers were working alongside him. It seemed that they all saw, or at least heard, our exchange. I felt as if the eyes of everyone in that bank, everyone along the Steinway Street strip; everyone, everywhere was watching me.

But the teller's tone was not mocking or condescending. Actually, his voice was soothingly sympathetic. Maybe he took pity on me. If he did, what did he see? A middle-aged or older woman slipping into senility or dementia? Or just a basic dumb blonde?

Of course, I had no choice but to return home, where I indeed had left my wallet. But by that time, it was too late to return to the bank: I had to go to work. So, I guess I will return to the bank tomorrow. Maybe I'll have the same teller. Then again, the others will probably be there.

I hope I don't forget my wallet, or do something equally ditzy, when I'm leaving for my surgery!

On My Way

The record-keeping department at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center sent my EKG to Dr. Bowers--finally! Jamie, who has worked at C-L for some time, took over that department and he was able to overcome the fact that someone lost--again!--the release form I signed more than a month ago, on the day I had the EKG and my HIV test.

Now all I have to do is pay the balance I have left with Dr. Bowers. And, hopefully, there won't be any more snafus. I wish only that someone was going with me: Today Mom told me she and Dad definitely won't. I knew that, but she finally admitted it. I can't blame her: Four days after being released from the hospital, Dad is behaving exactly as he did before: He's sitting in his chair with a blanket over his head. Who knows what will happen next?

Some of you might say it's not my job, but I feel that somehow I can say or give something to him that will help him to climb out of the abyss into which he's been sinking. Two metaphors come to mind for what he seems to be experiencing: meltdown and cancer.

I actually told him that his depression is a bit like the latter: I think he is correct in believing that it's within him and that he can't do anything about it. (One doctor told him, as I suspected, that's it's biochemical and possibly hereditary.) But, he can keep it in remission, so to speak, and live with it. Just as there are no "magic bullet cures"--or cures of any other kind--for cancer (at least not yet), there's nothing that will destroy the black hole within him that's feeding on everything else that's in his mind. But he can stop it, freeze it, or otherwise render it powerless, at least for some time--long enough for him to be the good husband and father he laments not having been.

For a long time, I thought I was a naturally depressive person. After all, of the first 44 years of my life, I was depressed for at least 35 of them, by my reckoning. Even when I was doing well and behaving with some sort of relative social grace, I thought there was a kind of tornado within me that imploded and sucked in potential relationships and accomplishments. I thought about suicide all the time--every day from almost the very earliest part of my childhood until I started taking the steps toward my transition. But, I believe, the reason I never did it was that I felt that vacuum, that black hole in me was so powerful that not even my own death could fill it. I mean, if everything and everyone else I destroyed, whether actively or through neglect, couldn't sate that voracious whirlpool of obsidian quicksand, how could anything about my own life or death quell it?

But, thank goddess, that left me when I started my transition and became a memory--though a still-vivid one. So, perhaps, I didn't suffer from true clinical depression, or at least the kind my father seems to have.

Still, I feel as if I have some role in helping my father recover--and in helping my mother weather all of this--but I'm not sure that I'm playing it. I'm drawing upon my own experiences, but am I conveying to him any wisdomI have gained from them, if indeed there is any to be had, much less any that applies to him.

Maybe I'm being grandiose. Perhaps I am just replaying the guilt I felt for so long--and sometimes still feel--over Cori's suicide. I think she knew, deep down, that I felt what she did--or the closest approximation to it that anyone she knew felt--yet I could not acknowledge it to myself, and wouldn't have even if I could have.

I can't help it. I'm getting to live the sort of life I've wanted, and I want to see others do the same, whatever they happen to envision for themselves. I guess the difference is that my father has never envisioned a life for himself--or so it seems. I don't think he could even tell you what his "dream life" would be, aside from living in California and having a red '57 Chevy. (I once promised him that if I ever became fabulously wealthy, I'd buy him one. That promise still holds.) Maybe he doesn't even dream of those things anymore.

As for Mom, well, I think the extent of her wishes right now is for Dad to get better and to be a loving husband, and to see more of her children and grandchildren. She really never wanted that much in the way of material possessions: She always wanted to have an attractive and comfortable house, but she was never interested in status. I think I have inherited those qualities from her.

But, really, as strong a person as she is, she wants a man who is there for her. Like me, she cries sometimes when she's tired. I think all she ever really wanted was for Dad to be the shoulder she could cry on and the arms that would hold her. And, yes, I inherited that from her, too. Neither of us cares much about looks, although I admit that Dominick is cute and I take some pride in being with a man who's so physically attractive. But it's not his looks that attract me, it's the way he looks at me, and the way I can look at him.

Mom is a much better human being than I could ever hope to be if I were to live ten lifetimes. So why can't she have what, basically, simply came my way? I did nothing to earn or deserve it. But I've got it, and I ain't lettin' go. I'm on my way.

Hearing My "Secret"

The other day, I was returning home from a bike ride. It wasn't a long ride--about 30 miles or so--but through most of it, a rather stiff wind rushed at me head-on or at my side. It seemed that I never had the wind at my back. And I was riding my fixed-gear bike, so I couldn't shift into an easier gear.

On a fixed-gear bike, which is what racers ride on enclosed tracks, if the wheels move, so do the pedals. So the bike doesn't move unless you pedal it, and it doesn't allow you to coast. I chose to ride that bike because I had intended to ride a flat route to and along the ocean, from Rockaway Beach to Coney Island.

By the time I got to Coney Island, I was toast. And it was very late in the afternoon. So I decided to get on the subway to come home.

The "F" train is probably the most direct way back to my place. But I like to take the "D," which winds and curves along an old stretch of elevated track along New Utrecht Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bensonhurst and Borough Park. That is where I lived until I was about thirteen years old, when my family moved to New Jersey.

That line offers some of the most sweeping views of the Verrazano Narrows and Bridge, as well as of the solid and, oddly enough, charming brick row houses in two of the last blue-collar New York neighborhoods.

Also: Underneath the elevated tracks near the Bay Parkway station, one of the most famous movie scenes was filmed: the chase in The French Connection. I'm not normally a fan of that sort of thing, but because it was done so well--and the movie was so good--and, well, let's face it, I have pride in my roots--I enjoyed that scene.

Anyway...The D train was re-routed due to track work. The change wasn't announced until the doors were closed and the train was about to pull out of the station. So, instead of those vistas I mentioned, I was treated to panoramae of weather-stained concrete walls along the stretches of track between the dilapidated stations of the N line, where the D was re-routed. There is one neat feature about that line, though: It runs below ground level, but under an open sky.

Then the D train returned to its normal route after crossing the Manhattan Bridge to Grand Street in Manhattan's Chinatown. Ironically enough,a few minutes and three stations later, I would transfer to the actual N train at the 34th Street-Herald Square Station.

Somewhere along the way to Queens, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone I sometimes see on the street. Actually, she called out to me: I sat at the end of one of the long benches near the rear of the subway car with my bike propped by a railing and my right hand, and she stood near the other end of the car, which had filled up by that time, with a friend.



Since we live only a block from each other, we disembarked at the same station: Broadway in Astoria. From there, it's about a ten-minute walk back to my place. Along the way, Lucy and I talked and she commented on how she hadn't seen much of me lately. I commented that I was busy with work and other things. Then we talked about things that are to come in our lives.



I have bumped into Lucy from time to time for the past several years. She is pretty and has a warm, contagious smile. And, in every encounter that I can recall--including the one I am describing--we parted with a hug and a kiss. Being the emotional person that I am, I very much enjoy that.



When we've talked, it's been more about how we felt than what we were doing or had done. More than one person has said that is more or less typical of conversations between women. It's more of a conveyance of emotion rather than a report of actions or happenings. So, while we knew a bit about each other, we didn't know the details of each other's lives.



Until the other day, that is. You might say that I "came out" to her: I mentioned that I am about to have my surgery. Although she knew that I've never been a typical woman--much less a typical man--that revelation surprised her. Although she never knew me when I was still living as Nick, she said that, because of some of the people she's met, she "thought" I was undergoing a gender transition: She could see it in the softening of my facial features and that I've grown something like breasts. But, in all of the time we've known each other, neither of us said a word about my change. It just happened that way.


After we parted, with an even heartier embrace than usual, I felt both relieved and a little sad. There was something almost innocent about our not having talked about my transition or upcoming surgery, but at the same time, I was happy to know that I could share my "secret" with her.



Today she sent me an e-mail in which she thanked me for being "open" about myself. I am glad she appreciates that, but all I really did was to share something true about myself. To me, she's really the one who's being "open."



Not that I'm complaining! :-)

The Last Course And Sleep

So...This was the first day of the summer session--and of the final course I'll be teaching before my surgery.

It's called "Understanding Literature," and everyone in the college, regardless of his or her major, must take it some time after completing English composition. Of the twenty-one students who came to class, four were in my composition class in the spring semester, and one came from one of my fall semester classes. One is among the best students I've had, but I'm happy to see all of them.

This is the first time I'm teaching the course in three years. Perhaps it will be a come-down after the Hip-hop class I taught in the spring. But Understanding Literature, a.k.a. English 200, was my favorite general-education course to teach. I have a pretty fair amount of freedom in what I can do; the only stipulations are that I use the textbook/anthology that the department has mandated and give a final exam, which I create and grade. Of course, nobody expects us to cover all of the works of literature that are in the book. So I tend to emphasize poetry, since that is what I enjoy most.

I'm really glad to be teaching the course. For one thing, I'll make a little more money. But, perhaps even more important for me, it keeps me engaged with people and my mind occupied for at least part of the day. As you can imagine, I've been thinking about my upcoming surgery about as much as I used to think about sex when I was full of testosterone. Sex, food, sex, poetry, sex, bicycling, sex, what's she wearing?, sex, wish I could wear it, sex, sleep...

I've been told that I actually thought about sex less than the average male. Now that's a scary thought. I don't think about as sex as much as I did. Actually, I like that: It's nice to think about other things. Like the surgery. And my parents' health. And....

Before I began to take hormones, I read--and heard from my doctor--that they might decrease my sex drive. (Transmen who take "T" get hornier, from what I've heard.) Then again, sex drive tends to decrease at about the age at which I started my transition anyway. So, I feel even more certain that I haven't made a sacrifice, at least in that department, to live the life I want.

Of course a perfect lady is not supposed to have a huge sex drive. At least, she shouldn't seem to have one. For me that's great: If I want to be a slut at heart, it's a perfect cover. That wouldn't be such a change for me, really: Being an altar boy and a good student allowed me to get away with a pretty fair amount of mischief, albeit of the more subtle varieties.

What's that old Yiddish saying?: A lady on the streets, a nafkeh (sp?) between the sheets. Or something like that. I guess I'd rather be that than a nafkeh on the streets and a lady between the sheets.

For a few weeks after the surgery, I won't have any choice, really, but to be a lady between the sheets, and--however ungracefully--on the streets. It's a bit difficult to do otherwise when you're healing.

It really must be late if I started talking about my class and ended up where I just left off. So I'll go to bed now. To sleep, perchance to dream: Now there's something the anaesthesiologist could say to me as my passage begins. But I can't let him/her do that. Putting people to sleep while quoting Shakespeare: That's my job. Just don't tell anyone I try not to do that in my classrooms. I mean, put people to sleep.

G'night, all.

Sensing That I'll Soon Be Leaving (for my surgery)

So...One month and one week until my surgery. Two units of time that aren't hard to fathom: How many things in our lives are done weekly or monthly? Some of us get paid on one of those schedules or the other; most of us pay bills by the latter schedule. And, well, let's say that even after my surgery, there is one thing I still won't be able to do that other women do--involuntarily--every month.

After a bike ride to and along the ocean, from the Rockaways to Coney Island, I came home and made myself dinner. After eating, I sat in my over-stuffed chair and watched Cold Case. Before I could lose myself in the details of the story, Charlie climbed onto the chair, and me. Then he curled himself upright against my torso and propped his head on my shoulders. He wriggled, trying to find the perfect position; upon finding it, he closed his eyes and purred deeply. It was better than any vibra-massage chair; soon I found myself dozing off.

He's normally a very friendly cat, but lately I notice that when he climbs onto me, he doesn't want to let go. I don't mind that; in fact, I enjoy it. I would have let him rest on me all night if I didn't have to get up from that chair.

I wonder whether he senses the imminence of my operation. Maybe he thinks I'm going to leave him for a long time or, perhaps, that I won't come back. I will actually be away for about a week and a half and, well, I hope it's not longer than that. Surgical techniques have improved so that I don't expect it to be a major risk, though I still worry about being under anaesthesia.

Whatever's going on, I hope he's not signalling danger or trouble for me--or advancing age and declining health for him. Something in me said, "Maybe he's trying to tell me his days are numbered. "

Whatever it is, he's welcome to climb on me--as long as I'm not wearing a black wool skirt, of course!

And yes, Max, you have the same rights and privileges: All kitties are equal in my house!

Off to sleep again, to the sound and feel of purring.

A Journey and a Language

A quiet day today. I slept until almost 1:00 this afternoon; I can't remember the last time I did that when I wasn't jet-lagged. And I'm starting to feel sleepy again. I don't think I'm coming down with anything, and I don't think I'm falling into the kind of depression my father has experienced--or any depression at all.

I didn't do anything earth-shaking: Took a skirt to the dry-cleaner, mailed a package and shopped in the weekly farmer's market on Roosevelt Island. I was rather surprised that they were still there when I arrived: they normally run out of most of their produce fairly early in the afternoon. They still had some mushrooms: the best I've found in this area. However, they'd run out of cherries. Victor, one of the men who runs it, expressed the disappointment I was feeling. However, he offered some consolation: Although the cherries were at least as good as they were last week, they're still not locally-grown: Those won't come in for another couple of weeks, at least. Still, I was a bit disappointed: Cherries are one fruit I very much look forward to finding and eating late every spring and early every summer. In January, there are cherries and other fruits from South America. They're perfectly good, just not as fresh as the domestic produce.

So, today was a warm, sunny day on which I didn't go for a bike ride. (Well, I rode to the dry cleaner and the market, but that doesn't count.) At one time that would have infuriated me; woe would betide whoever asked me to spend such a day with him or her rather than in the saddle. What woe would betide them? They'd have to put up with me, in the kind of mood into which I'd sink.

Yesterday, through the graduation ceremony and the reception that followed, this image played through my mind: That I had been looking at a map that showed roads that led to the ocean, and I was nearing the end of one of those roads. I have been on more than a few trips in which the destination was the sea, including one in which I landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport and my only itinerary was to ride my bike to the ocean. After about a week and a half of pedalling through some lovely countryside and stopping in various chateaux, musees and pretty towns and provincial capitals--and a bend in the Garonne river, where it begins to open itself toward the sea--I arrived at the duned shores near Bordeaux.

I remember that particular bend, not only because it's a lovely place, but also for an older couple I met there. They had to be one of the most contented pairs I've ever encountred. I imagined that they had been living near that bend all of their lives, mainly because I could not imagine them in any other place. Why? I had arrived late in the afternoon or early in the evening, depending on how you keep (or spend) time. We talked a little; they were fascinated that someone from the other side of the ocean would come to their part of the world to ride a bicycle. And said etrangere could speak French reasonably well! If I recall correctly, they spoke no language other than their own. And, really, it was all they would need: what they knew about that place really couldn't have been described in any other way.

As we talked, the man nudged me: Voir! Voir! He pointed to the water: What looked like an oceanic tide rushed toward the bank where we stood. Deux fois chaque jour, his wife explained: Twice a day, the tide comes in to their bend in the river, about 20 miles inland from the sea.

That's the sort of thing the tour books don't mention. And it's one of those things you can only find on a journey to the ocean, precisely because there is no way to predict that you will find such a thing.

I don't know why I was thinking about all of that during the graduation and reception. I guess those new graduates were arriving at the ocean, a seemingly infinite and chimeric expanse stretching before them: one that is familiar yet almost never understood in its own voice, which can only be understood, much less mastered, through intimate experience with it. Schooling has given students the means for making maps and boats, if you will. But, as necessary as they are, they are the phrases that allow approach and entry; really learning about the sea requires living with it.

You might be say I am also describing my own situation, as my surgery date nears. I know why I am undergoing the surgery and I have visions of what I want my life to be like afterward. However, I also know that there's so much before me that I don't and can't know; I think I might be speaking, in effect, a different language once I get there.

When you understand something in its own language, you change. I wonder how I will change.

Graduations

Today: College commencement. Some of the graduates were students of mine, whether during the semester that just ended or in earlier ones. After the ceremony and the reception that followed, I went to my office to take care of a few things. To tell you the truth, I didn't want to leave: Somehow this day's events were some of the clearest signals that this part of my life will soon end. What I always wanted is near enough that I can practically taste it, but I think that today I realized, at least to some degree, what I've learned and what I've gained (besides weight) during the nearly six years that I've been living as Justine.

Two students--one whom I hadn't seen in more than a year--gave me two of the warmest embraces I've ever received from people who were not relatives or intimate friends. They both said they've read entries on this blog. I didn't ask--but now I'd love to know--how they found out about it.

Sharon took three classes with me. Before that, she took a workshop I taught on the test everyone in the college has to pass in order to continue into her or his junior year. She recommended me to quite a few of the students who've taken my classes since I first met her. I don't think I've ever seen a more committed student: She managed to keep up with her studies even as she was working, raising two kids and giving birth to another. And she moved during the middle of the second course she took with me.

Actually, she graduated last year. But she came to today's ceremony because friends of hers were receiving their degrees. I don't think those friends could do anything but go to school and graduate as long as Sharon is in their lives: I've seen very few people who can motivate people the way she does. I know I was a better teacher when she was in the classroom.

I probably will see her again after the surgery, and I may see her before it. However, I saw many other students--and a few faculty and staff members--whom I won't see again , at least before my surgery and the Fall semester. They all seemed to know about my impending surgery and were offering me words of encouragement. A few even said I've "inspired" them. To what, they didn't say, mainly because I didn't ask. I never knew I could have such an efffect on anybody!

Another of those students is Tiffany. She took my hip-hop class; before that, she took Writing for Business with me. Talk about two different kinds of courses! Two of her friends, whom I'd never met before, accompanied her. "We've heard all about you!," they both exclaimed.

"Whatever Tiffany says..."

"Is the truth," she replied to me.

Tiffany, like Sharon, is a student I anticipate seeing, or hearing from, again. At least, I hope so. Another similarity between them, as you may have guessed, is their commitment to their studies.

And there is another similarity...aside from being African-American women of roughly the same age: They inspired me. There were days I simply did not want to go to the college; once I was in the classroom, however, I remembered why I was there.

It has at least partly to do with the satisfaction I get from helping people like Sharon and Tiffany to achieve their goals and to think beyond whatever boundaries they may not have even known they had. (I think most, if not all, people have such boundaries. Sometimes I think my life has been a process of discovering them, and at least sometimes, breaking them.) The funny thing is that they were helping me to learn the same thing for myself. That may be reason why, in teaching that hip-hop class, I was--at least for the time I was in that class--not conscious of any of the labels anyone may have affixed to me: "white," "transgendered," (or other, less polite, terms), "middle-aged," or even "professor." Sure, I made jokes about them, but I feel that it is a way of working beyond those boundaries.

In other words, I feel that, thanks to people like Sharon and Tiffany, I've learned that I can actually live and work by my spirit, my essence, rather than by mere expectations.

Is that what my real change--my "graduation," if you will--is?

After seeing them, I got to spend the evening with Dominick. Talk about change for the better!