Where Are The Men?

We ended up with about a foot of snow. Out in the far reaches of Long Island, they had two, or even two and a half feet. Up and down the East Coast, from Virginia to Canada, people are digging out from this storm.

I am not a meteorologist, and I have practically no education of any sort in any area of science. But this storm seemed to be like a hurricane, except that the wind drove snow instead of rain--and, of course, that it was much colder than a hurricane.

The view from my bedroom window was that of a town molded in alabaster. It's lovely, and will remain so until the snow turns to slush the color of ashes.

More people were out and about yesterday were on the streets last night. What's interesting is that a seemingly large percentage of those people were in couples--heterosexual ones, mainly. That's what one normally expects to see on Saturday night, as there are clubs and bars along the commercial strip near me.

It seemed that the people who weren't in heterosexual pairings were instead mothers and daughters together. The daughters were teenagers or young adults; the mothers were around my age. That in itself is not so unusual: On the weekend before Christmas, mothers and daughters often go shopping together.

But what I found truly striking is the absence of middle-aged and elderly people, and men over 35 or so. There are a fair number of elderly people in this neighborhood, as there are in many parts of Queens. It seems that one can see just about all of them on a Sunday, as they're going to or coming from church, and possibly having lunch (They aren't the sort who "do brunch.") or dinner with friends or family members. As for the men: There seem to be fewer and fewer of them the longer I live here. If there are indeed fewer men in the prime of their lives than there were when I first moved into this area, I don't know why.

Of course, some people would argue that I contributed to that trend! ;-)

In a weird way, this reminds me of Park Slope the first year (1992) that I was living there. It seemed that there weren't any men of a certain age; there were only the very young or senior males. Occasionally I would see a thirtyish man with a woman, and possibly a child in a stroller. Those men often looked confused or resigned, as if they didn't know what they were supposed to be doing.

It may well be that they didn't know. At that time, a lot of professionals in the Wall Street-related industries had lost, or were losing, their jobs. Quite a few of them were living in "the Slope" at the time: In fact, they had much to do with turning the Slope into one of the city's more fashionable neighborhoods.

I recall stopping to use a Citibank (I called it "Shittybank.") ATM on Seventh Avenue. A fairly young woman stood at a table, exhorting people to sign her petition. I forget exactly what the petition was for; nonetheless, I'm pretty sure I signed it. Anyway, at the same time I was at her table, a man who was working in some skilled trade--I think he was an electrician--came up to the table. Then another man followed. We chatted: It turned out that both men and the woman at the table were unemployed. The second man was a Wall Street professional; the woman at the table was, it I recall correctly, an architect.

At the time, I was working on my MFA in poetry. I mentioned that to them; the woman found it really ironic that of four strangers who happened to just meet, the only one who was employed was a poet. I tried writing a poem about that, but, as you can imagine, such ironies don't work when you try to make them work.

Anyway...Something about what I saw today reminded me of those days in the 'Slope. I'm not a sociologist, so I couldn't tell you what may be causing it or what it may mean. For some time, I've heard and read that men are becoming superfluous, or at least nothing more than sperm donors. If that's true, then my transition was an even better idea than I thought it was!

Seriously...I feel that I've been seeing fewer and fewer men in these environs. As much as some of them exasperate me, I don't want to see them become superfluous or obsolete. That wouldn't be good for them--or the rest of us.

You Were Dreaming Of A White Christmas?

The higher the snowdrifts pile, the harder the wind drives the snow. At least, that's how it looks from my bedroom window.

A while ago, I was outside when the snow was beginning to fall. As I remained outside, the wind started to gust and the eddying flakes turned into cold, wet needles against any skin or other surface that wasn't covered.

Some of the stores closed early: something most people wouldn't expect on the last Saturday before Christmas. On the other hand, most people weren't outside unless they had to be, or unless they had gone out earlier in the day and had been out all day.

I stepped into a gift shop that I hadn't been into in a while. The Korean lady who owns it always says, "No see you for long time" when I step in. The truth is, you don't have to go into a place like that very often: In fact, you need to go in only when you want to buy something because she always has more or less the same stuff there: scarves, brooches, designer knock-off purses and tote bags, and other sorts of accessories. I mean, she gets new colors, patterns and designs, but the basic idea of what's in the store doesn't change much.

So why do I--or other people--go into such places to browse? I guess that in a store like that, even if you know what's there, the combination of colors and textures makes for an interesting, and even stimulating, sensory experience. That, as near as I can tell, is the essence of retailing. Then again, if I knew what "the essence of retailing" is, I'd be rich, wouldn't I?

The funny thing about "gift shops" is that people who go into them are more likely to buy things for themselves than for someone else. In my case, I'd say there's something like a 50-50 split: I'm as likely to buy for myself as for someone else. Or, as I did today, I'll buy something--in this case, a pashmina scarf with a particularly attractive pattern and combination of colors--and decide later whether I want to give or keep it. Someone once told me that's a sign of a good gift.

Honestly, I was in that store to get out of the weather that was turning more frightful by the moment as much as I was there for sensorial stimulation or to do any actual shopping. And, because the owner knows me, or at least has seen me before and knows that I won't steal her wares or burn the store down, she lets me hang out there for as long as I like and doesn't pressure me to buy anything. That, of course, is exactly the reason why I buy something whenever I stop in, as I did this evening.

Then, it was back into the snowstorm that was on the verge of becoming a full-blown blizzard, if it hadn't already come to that point. Even the guys from The King of Falafel and Shawarma were calling it a day--but, at least, not before I could get my chicken and rice platter! From there, it's a very short walk, even in tonight's weather, to my place.

People take shelter in stores, or inside or under anything that will stand between them and the weather, in the hope--in contradiction to the evidence before their own eyes and ears--that the weather will improve, however slightly: that the rain or snow won't fall as hard or the wind will let up just long enough for them to go wherever they're going next. Except, of course, that the weather doesn't usually work that way.

Sometimes you have to go back out into the cold, into the night, even if no one else is there. At various times, I've delayed doing that, which meant, naturally, that when I finally did venture out, it seemed even more desolate than I thought it would be.

Some people argue that we always travel alone. In a sense, they're right, because whatever journey we take cannot be undertaken by someone else. Paradoxically, taking our own journey, and experiencing, at times, no one but ourselves, is exactly what we need in order to find the ones we need and want.

What I've learned is that it may be our fate to go into the cold and darkness, and the storms. But it is our job to get through it. That means, of course, that the storm is not permanent. The darkness and the cold needn't be, either.

Now, as to how I went from buying a scarf to a bunch of ruminations that may or may not have worth or meaning...you've got me!

When You Don't Have To Apologize For Yourself

So today I turned in my grades and went to the holiday reception for faculty and staff members. That I actually wanted to go to such a thing is, for me, a change. And once I got there I realized why I was looking forward to it.

I did indeed spend some time with colleagues and other staff members I hadn't seen in a while. It still amazes me, even at this late date, that someone can work a hundred feet away from you and you and that person can go for months without seeing each other. Some of that has to do with the nature of our work and the variations in our schedules. But, for some faculty and staff members, I think it also has to do with working for so long in a culture in which people remain in their offices or cubicles. I think some of the newer faculty and staff--I include myself--and some of the administration are trying to change that. However, it took a long time for that culture, which I noticed almost from my first day at the college, to develop. So it will change slowly.

Then again, in the words of one prof who started at the college last year: "We all seem to be doing more this year!" She's right on many levels. I know that all of my class sizes increased by 25 percent this year. So did most other classes. So someone who teaches four sections has, in essence, five. That's no small consideration when you're teaching a writing or a lab course. In my case, I'm reading 25 percent more papers than I did last year.

Well, I guess that, if nothing else, we can say we're equal in that regard. Plus, some of last year's newbies have been "recruited" to various committes and such. I was doing those things already, so I didn't have to weather that shock.

But catching up on friends and other colleagues wasn't the only reason I was happy to go to the reception. All right, I'll level with you: The food was really good. There were Indonesian-style chicken satays and spicy sauce for dipping them. They were a nice complement to the vegetable somosas, the spicy fried shrimp and, of course, rice. And there was some sort of spicy sliced beef, which was also very tasty. As for dessert: I got so involved in conversation that I missed out on the cheesecake. But the berry pie was nice.

Now that I've made you hungry, I'll tell you the best thing, or at least the most interesting--at least for me--about being at the reception. I could see how some people had changed in just a few months. One of last year's newbies had a baby since the last time I saw her; another got married. Others got grants.

And they all said I seemed "different" this year--"in a good way." Yes, every one of them said that! A couple of them knew that I've had my operation; they asked how it went. For the others, I just smiled--not without a little bit of mystery!--and thanked them. Finally, a Biology prof said, "You look so much better. It's not just your physical attractiveness, though. You just seem so calm. You're not apologizing for yourself."

She's definitely right about the last part. Even before she said that, I was noticing that I wasn't seeing myself as the "other", or mentally putting an asterisk next to my name or the box marked "F." Or, for that matter, putting an asterisk next to my job title. I am teaching; I am writing: Therefore, I belonged in that reception--and belong in the college--as much as anybody did or does. And I had every right to talk to that Biology prof, to the Director of Academic Advisement, to my colleagues and office staff in the department in which I teach, to the Dean I saw yesterday--just as anyone else has that right, and the right to talk to any man, woman or child with whom they want to talk, and who's willing to talk with them.

I'm just learning how not to apologize for myself. People have long told me that I need to do that. Better late than never, right?

Now I'm recalling a remark someone made some time ago. This person--someone who once called himself my friend--and I had gone to a memorial service on the night of Transgender Remembrance Day last year. Before the service began, I circulated throughout the church's reception area and talked to a few people. During the service, I was one of the many people who walked up to the altar and read a memorial to someone who was murdered over her gender identity. And, after the service, we stayed for a buffet dinner.

On our way home, this person said, "You know, I've never seen you so relaxed. It's the first time I've seen you and you weren't defensive. You let your guard down, and it was nice."

Funny he should say that. Even when we were having good times together, I often felt as if I had been on trial simply for being who I am. I didn't realize that until I spent some time away from him. And, I'm sure, he didn't realize, and probably still doesn't realize, what he was doing.

I started to feel that, for whatever reasons, he--again, like many other people I've met--felt that that I owed him some sort of justification for what I felt and thought, but that he was under no such obligation to me or anyone else. Lots of people act that way without realizing what they're doing. I mean, if you're a straight white cis male, nobody ever asks you to rationalize your preference for women or, for that matter, Dockers or your favorite beer. Trust me, I know that from experience.

Fortunately for me, these days I don't spend much time around people who think they're entitled to an explanation and defense of every detail of my life. Some want to understand more than they do; I'm happy to help in whatever ways I can. Still others genuinely want to offer support; I am always happy for that.

As for the ones who expect a rationale and defense from you simply for being: They do it in the guise of trying to "understand" you. But what they really want is for you to help them reinforce the status quo that affords them some sort of privilege you don't have. In other words, it is, at best, a form of patronizing--or simply to make them feel less guilty about feeling superior to you.

At least today I didn't have to defend myself against anybody like that. That's why I didn't have to apologize for myself. For that reason alone, it was a really good day for me.

Getting Into "The Holiday Spirit"

Today it finally felt like Christmas is coming. I hadn't been "in the spirit," not because I'm unhappy; rather, I have just been too busy to notice that the holidays are imminent. When you move on the day after Thanksgiving and all of your time from then onward is taken up with unpacking, trips to the hardware store, grading students' papers and having conferences with those students, it's hard to notice a lot of other things.

There wasn't an "Aha!" moment or anything in particular that made it seem like the holiday season. I think it had to do with being home and working at my own pace. I went to bed in the wee hours of this morning and woke up late. Then, after reading papers from a few of my stragglers, I started to calculate grades and do some other paperwork.

Then, early this evening, I went to Hanna and Her Sisters to get my nails done. The last time I did that was about a week or so before my move. So it's been close to a month. The old polish was gone, and my nails, which are naturally dry, were breaking off. I'm not finished with arranging things in this apartment,and I haven't hung any pictures. And, once the semester is over, I'm going to do some work on that old Raleigh three-speed I picked up. So why did I get my nails done tonight?

Well, tomorrow is the holiday reception at the college. This semester, I attended a couple of lectures and a couple of more readings. And I read three poems--including one of my own--at the Department's open house last month. But other than that, I've been fairly invisible to most of the college, save for my own students and some of my colleagues. That has mainly to do with my recovery: Even though the tissues are looking really good (Dr. Jennifer says I'm healing better than anyone else she's seen.), I still don't have nearly the physical energy or stamina I had before the surgery. It will be a while before I get that back. Certainly, I have more of them thatn I did at the beginning of the semester. But, it seems that every time my energy level increases a bit, something comes along--like this move--to take it up, and then some.

Although I'm not much of a political animal, I'm rather looking forward to the reception. It'll be, I hope, a chance to see a few people I haven't had much opportunity to see this semester. Plus, it'll be a celebration of sorts for me: the end of my first semester in my "new" life.

Lately I've noticed something strange: I don't have the need I once had to talk about my transition with people I see. And, I'm not that interested in talking about the operation: It's done, it went well, the experiences surrounding it were wonderful and now I'm here. There really isn't a whole lot more to say, if I'm going to say anything. Yet, as I don't have the need to talk about it, I feel emotions--and intensities thereof--that I've never before experienced. I really can't think of anything else to which I could attribute those feelings: Sometimes I'm positively giddy for no other apparent reason. As the semester has ended, instead of saying "I enjoyed your class," students are saying things like, "I felt such joy in your class," and "You really know how to talk to us!"

But, once again, I digress. The reception at the college is being held; it's the first holiday-specific event in which I'm participating. It was the reason I was getting my nails done, and looking forward to it made the holiday seem, for the first time, imminent. Plus, tonight was what I like to call "crystal cold." The air seemed to intensify, if not deepen, the hues of the sunset and to reflect, even more clearly than other kinds of air, the stars against the nighttime sky. The strings of lights wrapped around signposts and stretched across windows seemed brighter and more colorful, and the cold, crisp air also seemed to highlight people's faces: even the ones who were getting off the train after a day's work seemed more vivid, if not more florid, than at other times.

Finally, being in Hannah and Her Sister's nail salon, I remembered whence I've come. I've been going to that salon for a little more than two years, and now that I've had my operation and gone through other stages of my transition (I'd love to know how Hannah explained any of it to the nail finishers who don't speak, or speak very little, English!), being there, walking that stretch of Broadway, getting my supper, or just doing almost anything, seems normal even though (or because?) they're all part of this new chapter in my life.

Really, you can't get a better gift than that. And you can't give anything better than joy to another person. If that's not what "the holiday spirit" is about, I don't know what is.

On Gender and Etiquette

You'd think I'd have certain day-to-day situations figured out by now.

Today I was leaving the administrative wing (which we call "The West Wing") of the campus's main building and entering a hallway that leads to the classroom area. I had just opened the door when I saw the college President and the Dean of Arts and Sciences walking toward it.

I did something that I would have done even when I was at my surliest and most belligerent self, during my youth: I held the door open for her. Although a part of my mind said that I was doing it out of politeness and basic respect, if not obsequiousness, I also was looking at the President of the College as the President and, well, as a woman.

Now I'm wondering whether she sensed that. I held the door, but she waited for me to pass through--and the Dean waited because he was walking behind her. I continued to hold the door and she walked through as we exchanged greetings. The Dean followed her, but grabbed the door just as she was passing over the transom. And he waited for me to pass through.

Sometimes I don't think I'll ever be graceful in social situations. I know that a woman is not expected to hold a door open for another woman, but a man of the Dean's age and status--and from the culture in which he was born and raised--is not only expected to do so; he expects to hold the door.

Yet I reflexively hold doors open for people, regardless of gender, or at least try not to drop them in their faces. I was like that even when I was rebelling--or telling myself that I was rebelling--against what, I didn't know. And, yes, I extended such courtesies even when I was a nasty or depressed drunk. I guess it has to do something with upbringing: My mother always expected me and my brothers to behave well in public, and in the company of elders. The funny thing is that even when I was trying to get as far away from home--or at least being a kid--as I could, I was grateful for that, particularly when I was living in France. They, and Europeans generally, still value good manners and such.

But even if I have good manners, I have no social grace whatsoever. I know how to do what I've been trained from childhood to do, but I can't finesse a situation like the one I encountered today. Some people seem to handle situations like that one with elan and dignity that I've never seemed to have: Even if they do the "wrong" thing, it seems all right. But they usually end up doing the "right", or at least a graceful, thing.

The President was actually very gracious, as she has been to me in other encounters I've had with her. I could say the same for the Dean or that he was, at worst, punctilious. And, by the standards of this culture (and most others I'm familiar with), they have treated me like a lady. I've never discussed my history with either of them, but I'm sure they must know about it, even though they've never known me as anyone but Justine.

Still, even after a few years of living as a woman, I still haven't quite mastered female-to-female etiquette. (Then again, I haven't mastered etiquette, period.) I encounter situations like the one I had today with the President: I act out of what I see as basic courtesy and respect, but the woman to whom I extend it is not expecting it. Or, even stranger is when another woman treats me with something like male chivalry. I'm thinking now of times when women have given me their seats on buses and trains, or held doors open for me. Sometimes those women looked like they could've used the seat, or any kind of courtesy, even more than I could!

All I've been able to do in those situations is to smile and wish them a good day or good holiday. That seems to make people happy for the moment, even if I feel like I've stumbled.

Now I'm wondering if a stereotype might be true: that women are more socially graceful. That makes me wonder whether that grace is borne in the two X chromosomes, or whether cis women get it with their uteri when they're born.

All right...Now I'm getting myself into some real trouble, aren't I? All I can do, I guess, is to treat people as well as I know how to. Hopefully, those situations will work out until I figure out how to work them out.

The Telly's Got Reception. What Do I Do Now?

Now I've got a bit of a dilemma.

Six months ago, I stopped watching TV. On the day that all broadcasting switched from analog to digital, my TV set had no reception.

It wasn't that I was too stupid, lazy or broke to get a converter box. For one thing, I didn't like the idea of being forced into a new technology when my old one was working just fine. I'm not one of those people who wants to see every pore of whover's image is on the screen. Television has always been about artifice; in even the most "realistic" of shows, the actors wear makeup and perform in front of sets. Or, if they're on the street, that street very carefully chosen and blocked off.

Another reason why I didn't make the switch was that I though maybe it would be a good time to make a switch of my own: away from TV. Interestingly, the day of the Big Change (at least, in the world of telecommunications) came a little less than a month before my operation. So I knew that in the hospital, I would need to have other diversions. That wasn't a problem: I had a couple of books, a notebook, a laptop, my MP3 player--and, of course, my cell phone. Plus, between the time I was knocked out and the time I had to spend on treatments and such, I didn't have as much time for TV as I might've expected.

I also knew that the weeks I would spend at home after the surgery would be without the telly. Once I decided not to make the switch to digital TV, I actually looked forward to recovering without it.

Since then, I've turned on the set once: to watch a video tape. That's the only purpose my TV set serves now: as a screen for my VHS player, which I've watched once since the switch to digital. In fact, the only VHS tapes I now have are one of the Trinidad documentary and a few others from the community-access cable TV program I hosted for a few episodes. I've nevert looked at the latter tapes; somehow looking at them never seemed that important to me. In fact, I've been tempted to throw those tapes away.

And, today, I was even more tempted to get rid of my TV set. I slid it to pick it up and take it outside--the trash haulers are making their twice-weekly pickup tomorrow--when I saw a cable behind the cabinet. Just for the heck of it, I plugged that cable to my TV set and--voila--there was an image of a guy and a girl fighting.

I think it's a cable for some sort of outdoor antenna. After all, the only reception I got was for regular network programming on VHF network channels. It doesn't look like there's reception for cable TV.

Still, I now find myself wondering whether to keep that TV set. I suspect at some point in the future, I might want to watch another movie or something. And I guess that guests might appreciate it.

But getting rid of the set is now even more of a temptation than it was at the beginning of the day. So is keeping it. Why, I don't know: I can't think of anything I really want to watch.

What do I do?

Wrinkles and Folds

Today I noticed every line in my face, and every ounce of flab on my body. Maybe it's because I'm tired. Or maybe I am old and fat. It seemed that everyone--even the old profs at the department meeting--had smooth faces and lean bodies. What's happening to me?

Am I buying into society's expectations about women? If I'm wrinkly and flabby, I won't get a date, much less my book published, even if I have the mind of Virginia Woolf or Marie Curie, or the soul of Gloria Steinem or Dorothy Day. At least, that's how things seem.

Yes, every one of those lines around the corners of my lips looks like a crack in a weathered tenement building. And the swelling around my left side has subsided, but is still there--what, almost three weeks after my mishap. The doctor said that all I can give it is time, and that the baths I've been taking for other reasons are the best thing I can do for it.

But when a prof who's been at the college since the day it opened and another who's my mother's age and survived a stroke three years ago look younger than I do--or seem to--what does that say about me?

Someone once told someone--I forget who--that she "earned" every one of her wrinkles. Nice thought, but I wish I hadn't done so much to merit them. It's like when you go through a difficult experience--like, say, not knowing where your next meal is coming from-- and someone tells you it's building your character. Yeah, OK, I always want to tell such a person. But I'm not ready to have such depth yet. It would be nice to have what other people have, just for once.

Like being, if not young, at least youthful. Or looking it. I mean, some of my best friends are old (or at least older) women. But I don't want all of my friends to be just like me! Well, maybe that isn't so bad, now that I've accepted that I'm turning into my mother--or that I already am like her, and have been like her for as long as I can remember, at least in some ways. That's not such a bad thing, really, when I consider who my mother is!

Then again...part of my healing is developing wrinkes...at least in that part of my body. It's funny, isn't it, that part of being a healthy woman means having wrinkles--or folds, anyway--in that at least that part of your body? Now there's something no man will ever understand!

Crafting From Empathy and Inevitability: James Wright

Today is James Wright's birthday.

It's somehow appropriate, almost cosmically so, that he was born as winter was descending on the steel mill town (Martins Ferry, Ohio) in which he grew up. Quite possibly no poet ever used the word "darkness" as much as he did in his early poems.

But the interesting thing about his poetry--at least from the poems in This Branch Will Not Break onwards--is that for all of the self-pity he expressed in some of them, his poems are almost never despairing. Sometimes they're angry; other times, they're sad. But at least every emotion he expresses in his poem is an emotion he came by honestly.

The reason for that is that he never, ever "dumbs down" his poems, at least not spiritually. Absent is the facile cynicism that could have come so easily to someone who had his experiences and had a career as an academic. Also absent is the hedonism disguised as spirituality that too often infects the works of the writers of the so-called Beat Generation.

One thing that irked me about guys like Orlovsky and Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg (and I say this as someone who studied under Ginsberg) is that they could rhapsodize about the holiness of the hands that crafted the latticework on the fire-escape on an East Village tenement without knowing who those hands belonged to, much less empathising with that person. That trait bothered me long before I could articulate it: While I admired some of the strange lyricism and the stances against authority expressed in some of their poems, something about many of them simply didn't seem authentic to me. Even as a teenager, I felt that way.

Wright--whose work I would discover when I was in my twenties--was the exact opposite. He couldn't keep a long poetic line running on anger and alienation (as Ginsberg did in Howl ) or with an elegaic rhythm (see Ginsberg's Kaddish). But his free-verse poems flowed, not seamlessly, but from a sense of inevitability (which is not always as smooth as one might expect) from something seen (rather than a "vision") to something else seen. Plus, Wright seemed to understand that an image is not just a picture rendered into words; it is something that has its power because it causes the reader (or viewer) to engage his or her imagination. That is why, even at his self-pitying worst, he is utterly transcendent. I almost hate to use that word; the quality I'm describing is almost beyond that.

Many of us in writing workshops tried to emulate his poems. Do I need to say that we failed? Anybody can assemble lines of words into something with a ragged edge and call it "free verse." But to have the kind of empathy Wright had for his subjects, and the respect he had for the music of the words he used, is something that nobody can imitate.

Anyway, I'll stop talking about him and leave you with a few of his poems.

A Blessing

Just off the Highway to Rochester, Minnesota
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.

Beginning

The moon drops one or two feathers into the field.

The dark wheat listens.

Be still.

Now.

There they are, the moons young, trying

Their wings.

Between trees, a slender woman lifts up the lovely shadow

Of her face, and now she steps into the air, now she is gone

Wholly, into the air.

I stand alone by an elder tree, I do not dare breathe

Or move.

I listen.

The wheat leans back toward its own darkness,

And I lean toward mine.

And now, here's one for all of you football fans:

AUTUMN BEGINS IN MARTINS FERRY, OHIO

In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.

All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home.
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying for love.

Therefore,
Their sons grow suicidally beautiful
At the beginning of October,
And gallop terribly against each other's bodies.

Passing Jewish

Late this afternoon, I took a walk that extended to well after dark. That's not hard to do at this time of year, just a few days before the Winter Solistice.

My walk, which began with no particular plan or direction, took me to the northern end of my neighborhood, where a Con Ed power station is the only thing between the rowhouse-lined side streets and the almost metallic waters of Long Island Sound, near the point where it meets the East River.

I stayed on the side of the street with the rowhouses, many of which were garlanded with strings of lights. Reindeer and sleighs made from chicken wire, around which spiralled more strings of those lights, stood guard at some of those houses. Most of the people who live there are second- or third-generation Greek-Americans or Southeastern European immigrants who, by whatever means, scraped together the down payments. Some of them have more than one generation of family living in them.

The one exception was a house on the bay side of the avenue, a few blocks past the power station and a row of other industrial buildings. It's just around the corner from the old Steinway piano works and looks as if it has been holding out the same way for the past fifty years or so.

In each of the second-floor windows was a Magden David made from blue, white and silver lights. And, in one of the ground-floor windows stood a lit figurine of what appeared to be a cantor.

For a nanosecond, I thought of knocking on the door. They were most likely the only Jewish family in that neighborhood, and they were displaying their identity on...well, if not their sleeves, at least in their portals to the rest of the world.

It made me think of what it is like to "come out." Or, more precisely, I found myself reflecting on what it means to have one's identity known, how that comes about and what the consequences might be.

Now, being a Jew in Queens, or anywhere in New York, hasn't been so unusual in about, oh, 15o years or so. To be sure, there are anti-Semites here, and the part of Queens in which I was walking has never exactly been known as a bastion of Judaism. Still, I don't think very many people who know them give it much of a thought.

Then I realized why: Among all of those highly-, sometimes gaudily-decorated houses, I saw very few people. They were walking their dogs and they probably lived those houses. But as soon as their dogs do whatever they need to do, they go back into their houses.

Maybe what I saw isn't typical of that part of the neighborhood. Still, I couldn't help but to wonder how much people were getting out and interacting. If they weren't, that might well be the reason why that Jewish family could display their faith so publicly during their holiday: Perhaps nobody was there to see it. Or they just didn't notice.

If that's the case, then I'm struck by how much that parallels what many trans people think of as "passing" and what many of us want in our lives in our "new" gender: for others not to notice. So we get dressed in a nice outfit and put on our makeup--so we won't be noticed.

Of course, it's odd to talk about that in my blog. Then again, most of the people I see--and will most likely never see again--have no idea about me or my history and, if they got a glimpse of me, will not give me a second glance. That is normal; that is what I experience most of the time. And, honestly, I wouldn't want it any other way.

I guess it's a variant on an old fantasy of mine (which I still sometimes indulge in): that lots of people would read my writing, but only a few would recognize me on the street and even fewer would give me a second glance.

Well, I guess the second part of that fantasy has come true. To most people--if they catch sight of me--I'm just another middle-aged woman passing by and passing through. Not that I'm complaining about that.

Now, to get that book published...

Into--Or From--The Cold

The past couple of days have been windy. Yesterday, before I went to work, I heard the clatter of something brittle toppling and breaking. Turned out to be one of my landlady's planters on her porch.

And it has turned markedly colder. The weather had been mild, if rather gray, through much of the fall. Cold as it was today, the sun shone.

Why am I talking about the weather, again? Well, these days are reminding me of when I first began to take hormones. I took my very first dose on Christmas Eve; about a month or so later, I started to feel some of the effects. Among them were my increased sensitivity to cold. It seemed that around the end of January or the beginning of February, the winds grew stiffer and the air grew colder than anything I could recall from previous years. As a matter of fact, around that time, one of the most intense blizzards this city has ever experienced dumped nearly two feet of snow, as I recall. I don't know whether the weather actually turned significantly colder at that time. But it certainly seemed that way.

Other people have assured me that it has indeed been much colder during the past couple of days: They're feeling it, too. Still, I can remember when I would venture out on a day like this in not much more than a long-sleeved cycling jersey and a vest. Sometimes I even wore shorts. When I went out today, I was wearing my English duffle coat with the toggle buttons and a long scarf. It was warm enough, even though I wore a faux twinset that isn't as heavy as it looks underneath my coat. I felt a little bit cold around my thighs and knees: I wore a wide flared skirt that fell to my calves and boots that came up to about two inches above the skirt's hemline. But I didn't wear heavy tights; I wore a regular pair of dark gray pantyhose. What was I thinking?

Then again, I often find that whether I feel cold, hot or something in between is not always a function of how much or what I'm wearing. If I were an astrologer, I'd say that, as a Cancerian, I am affected by the phases of the moon and the tides on the sea. I probably am; I probably would be even if I lived in Nebraska. Barbara Kingsolver wrote about something like that in "High Tide In Tucson." Her daughter had some sort of amphibious animal, as I recall, in a terrarium. Even though they were about a thousand miles from the ocean, that animal--I forget what--was sleeping and sleeping according to the rise and fall of the tides.

Like her daughter's "pet," I have the lunar and littoral cycle within me. That is probably the reason why I have always been drawn to the sea, and why I would live by its rhythms even if I were far away from it.

At least, I think I have the moon's and the ocean's clock programmed into my body's mechanisms, if not my DNA. It's the most plausible explanation I can find for the sensations I have, which sometimes seem out of sync with, or at least independent of, external stimuli.

But today actually was cold. I can tell you that much.

The War President And His Peace Prize

So we have a President who, in accepting a Nobel Peace Prize, talks about a "just war" that just happens to be the one to which he committed thousands of new troops.

I know I'm not the only one who sees the "disconnect." Even the producers of Faux, I mean Fox, News could see it, even if only because it gave them another way to pick at Obama. "War President Accepts Peace Prize." That's what emblazoned the screens of those who watched their so-called news program. I saw it in a diner in which I'd stopped on my way to work.

He said something to the effect that sometimes you have to make war in order to get peace. Well, there may be silver lining to his making a statement like that: At least I will never, ever have to explain 1984 again. My students can now see it happening before their eyes.

Let's see: You have to make war to make peace. You have to get fat to get skinny. You have to kill in order to give birth. You have to become poor to get rich. You have to ignore in order to learn. Hmm...This is an interesting line of logic, to say the least. Could repression be expression? Maybe Dr. Joyce Brothers (When was the last time you thought about her?) was right, in a way, after all! Maybe Obama should hire her as an advisor.

One more step of that kind of logic, and we come to this conclusion: You have to support repressive thugs in order to bring about democracy. You have to colonize in order to liberate. And, finally, you have to fail at invading a country like Afghanistan--as the Ottomans, British and Russians did--and have your empire fall as a result, in order to secure your place as one of the great powers in the history of nations.

All right. Obama may be ignorant of history. In that regard, he's not alone among Presidents. Nor does the fact that his speech was full of Newspeak make him terribly different from other rulers we've had. But there is one thing that sets him apart from even George W, who was easily the worst President of my lifetime: At least Bush the Younger had an exit strategy, however flawed, for the American invasion of Iraq. On the other hand, Obama is saying that we'll be out of Afghanistan within 18 months, but he's sending in more troops. Say what?

One other area in which he has out-Bushed Bush is in his declaration that people can be held indefinitely and without charge or trial, not only on the suspicion that they've committed crimes (Bush's decision), but just in case they may commit a crime.

The truth of the matter is that we can almost never predict whether or not someone will commit a crime. The most seemingly law-abiding citizen might find him or her self in dire circumstances; at that point, he or she may or may not "cross the line." And, there are plenty of people who would like to see the US destroyed but will not take any action to make it happen.

So, Obama is not only a "war president;" he is more of a foe of civil liberties than Bush the Younger, or any other President of my lifetime, could have dreamed of being.

And for that, he gets a Nobel Peace Prize? No wonder some people don't believe in God!

Si Questo Un'Uomo...If This Is A Man, I Understand

A comic--I forget which one--said that he made people laugh to make himself laugh, and that both he and they needed it because he and they were on the verge of tears. Or something like that.

An experience I had today illustrates what he meant. A student--probably about forty or so years old--asked to see me after class.

I didn't see her last week. That was certainly out of character for her. I wasn't going to ask her whereabouts during the past week; I was happy that she'd come to class. She submitted her paper and started our conversation with a rather sad joke. (Is that an oxymoron?) "My husband thinks he's Tiger Woods," she said, with a forced, desperate smile.

A few people have made jokes about him, but not so many as when other male celebrities got caught with their pants down, if you will. People seemed more shocked to learn of his extramarital affair than they were to learn about the sexual misbehavior of other famous male athletes. (I can't recall hearing of a female athlete in a sex scandal!) I think that people felt a loss of innocence--if not for themselves, then for their children, to whom they held up Tiger as a role model)--over learning that he allegedly had multiple affairs.

Even with those feelings of disappointment, some people still made jokes, or snide comments, about him. You can do that when someone you don't know personally gets into that sort of trouble. It allows some people to feel superior, at least for a moment, to someone who has the sort of life they envy because they don't understand it.

On the other hand, my student seemed to be feeling no envy at all for Tiger Woods, his wife, his mistress(es) or anyone else. She was in too much pain for that. All she wanted was to turn back the calendar a few weeks. It's what I like to call "the wish for September 10th."

She found out her husband has been having multiple affairs for some time now. She learned of this after losing her job. So she got two things that are on everyone's holiday wish list, right?

Somehow, I think that it's not learning about her husband's dalliances that hurt her most. Rather, it was the realization of what she did and sacrificed for him. She came to this country and worked so that she could sponsor him to come here. Then she bore his kids, continued to work and, after coming home from work, cooked, cleaned, helped her kids with homework and other things that needed doing, went to meetings with her kids' teachers and such. She also told me that even though her husband has a good job, she pays the rent on their place. And she's expected to use the remains of her check to provide the kids with whatever they need.

The thing that upset me the most was learning how members of her family were holding his affair against her. She must have done something to displease him, or simply to lose his interest, they tell her. She wasn't paying enough attention to him, they say.

She has her own take on the situation: "People change when they come to this country. My friends warned me about that." Plus, "he's a man."

Yes, he is a man. I have never met him, but I know exactly what she means and am in complete agreement with her. And I can also empathise with her in her rage and hurt, as someone who has been cheated on.

However, I cannot hate the man, and not only because I don't know him. At one time, I would have hated him, for essentially the same reasons I could hate almost any man. First, and most important, they were what I was forced to be: male and masculine. And they were, in some way or another, complicit in enforcing that code by which I was compelled to live. Needless to say, having been molested as a child--by men--had something to do with my hatred as well.

Another reason why I could hate just about any man was that it was a way of borrowing other people's--specifically, women's--anger. That, of course, gave rationale and fuel to the anger I already carried. The only means by which I knew how to live was by that rage I felt simply for having to be in this world. And, somehow, I felt that feeding off women's anger was a way of channeling their energy through me. I imagined that in some way it brought me closer to other women.

Now, of course, that seems patently absurd, at least to me. Even more important for me, though, has been realizing that I can empathise with the man, too. While I do not condone their cheating or other sexual misconduct, I can understand why men like her husband do those things, and why they still believe they love their wives and girlfriends even while they're in the process of betraying them.

Later in the day, I told another professor about my conversation with that student, and how I felt. "Well, that's exactly the reason why that student came to you,' " the prof said. "She wasn't looking for a man-basher. She just wants what she had, or thought she had."

Of course, I can't give my student what she had before. But, at least--according to that other prof, anyway--I gave her my understanding of her, and her situation. Maybe she understands her husband a little better, too.

The odd thing is that I wasn't trying to accomplish anything in particular. She needed to talk to someone; I was there and I understand both sides and can empathise with her.

During any sort of transition or other change, things happen that you weren't expecting; you change in ways you never could have imagined. I hope my student understands this, too.

Fine But Tired

The papers are piling up. The days are getting shorter. And the weather forecast is for combinations of rain, sleet and snow until ntil tomorrow afternoon. This can only mean the end of the semester and the beginning of winter are coming. So is Christmas. And I haven't done a thing about it. Oh, no!: A male pattern of mine won't change, at least not this year: Most likely, I'll shop and mail my cards at the last minute. At least I'm not doing that out of procrastination: I have so little time and my body is still catching up to my surgery. Everything feels fine, but I'm tired.

Five Months Passed; What They Don't Know About My Past

Five months already! That's how long it's been since my surgery.

I haven't had a chance to meet my new neighbors yet. Some of them have probably seen me walking around the nearby segment of Broadway, where I do much of my shopping. Many of the store and restaurant owners, and the workers at the nail salon--not to mention the guys at The King of Falafel and Schwarma.

Something occured to me about the people I haven't yet met: They don't know about my past. Neither does my landlady. As far as she knows, I've never been anything but a woman. I got a kick out of hearing her tell her son that she rented the apartment to "una dama sympatica--ella es una profesora." They're from Spain--near Barcelona, to be exact--and have, so far, been friendly and helpful.

And they don't know about my past. And I have no compulsion to tell them. I also have no reason to tell anyone else I might meet, unless that person wanted me to bear his or her children. I suppose I could simply say that I can't have children. For one thing, I'm old enough that such an explanation would be plausible. For another, it is simply the truth.

Millie and John have known me for seven years; they knew me as a man only for the first year. They never refer to me as anything but a woman--not among themselves or to anyone else to whom they might mention me. That is what they tell me, and I have every reason to believe them. In fact, it was Millie who told me, about a year ago, that I have no reason to tell anyone about my former identity. "You are a woman," she asserted.

The relationship I have with them probably is most like the ones I could form now. Bruce knew me as a male for more than twenty years before I made the "switch;" between us, it's been a non-issue except when he asks about how various aspects of my transition and current life have gone, or are going.

And then there are people who know me as a trans person because they met me during my transition or I met them among other trans people--in everything from the support groups to the advocacy events in which I've participated.

But now I have an opportunity to meet people who don't know about that aspect of my life. And I know I could form new relationships on that basis--after all, there have been people who were surprised to find out that I was a trans woman. On one hand, I want that. But on another, I want to maintain my ties to other trans people and our supporters and allies--and, of course, the people I met in Trinidad.

So I could end up living in two worlds after all. But at least it wouldn't be like the time I spent straddling the worlds of gender identity, as I did when I was going to work as a guy named Nick and socializing (and being something of an activist) as a gal named Justine. Now, at least, if I were to be known only as a middle-aged woman to some people and as a woman with an unconventional (for a woman, anyway) past, shall we say, to some other people, I don't have the same fear of being found out by one of those groups as I did when I did my boy/girl split. And, well, if someone who didn't know about my past were to find out about it, I won't deny or whitewash it. I don't want to form new relationships based on something I'm not, at least not anymore, but I'm not going to hide, or hide from, it.