Six Months: The Paradoxes of Coming Home

Exactly six months ago today, I had my surgery.

I'm thinking now of that conversation I had with Marilynne's daughter just after Christmas. We agreed that on one hand, it seems that the time has passed very quickly, but on the other, it seems like a very long time has passed. Somehow that paradox seems to relate to another: That we lived the vast majority of our lives pre-op-- and even pre-transition-- and now so much of my previous life is fading, or has already faded, into the background.

And there is yet another paradox: Knowing that there are things I did because I lived as a guy named Nick, yet realizing that while I was doing them, I was Justine. As an example, I had relationships with women who were attracted to that guy. Yet I know now that even though I was repressing myself, I was--at least in some way--just as much a woman as I am now. And that is exactly the reason I felt the need to make my transition and have my surgery.

Some day relatively soon, Marilynne's daughter will have lived the majority of her life post-op. Given my age, that day is not likely to come for me. Still, there are times when it feels like this part of my life is the longer and greater part--that, in fact, I feel somehow as if I have always been post-op, or at least the woman who entered new stages in her life with her transition and operation.

Spending time with Dwayne after work accented the feelings I've described. For me, that makes sense, as he is the very first person to whom I "came out." He has never called me anything but Justine or used any pronouns but female ones in reference to me. In other words, he knows about my previous life but never saw it. So, even though that part of my life was much longer than my current life, he knows only a summary of it, if you will, and it is the point that came before the starting point of my current life. You can say that, I suspect, about anyone who meets and develops a relationship with you in the middle of your biological life.

When Dwayne and I embraced upon meeting, I felt in some way as if I'd "come home." I told him that, and he said he felt the same way. Oddly, that's what I felt the first time I met him, which is the reason I was able to "come out" to him.

Then, I knew I'd come home but had practically no idea of what that meant. Now, I am learning about my surroundings, if you will, but everything I learn--whether it's about my body, or about the ways I experience what's outside my body or within my mind and soul--feels inevitable and organic, if not predictable.

What I'm learning makes complete sense even if it's not what I expected. And that's the reason I'm learning it. That can make time go very quickly and make the past seem even further in the past.

Leaving and Becoming, Again

Today is the twelfth day of Christmas. In some countries, it's celebrated as Christmas. In the church in which I was raised, this is called the day of the Epiphany.

Today I can't honestly say I've had any epiphanies. I guess we're not supposed to have them every day. I'm not sure I could handle that, anyway.

Around this time last year, I was teaching the same course I'm teaching now, during the winter intercession. It was a larger class, and it was in the evening. It was an odd time, really: I'd write or ride or do something else during the day--the afternoon, really--before going to class. The course I took--good mainly in the sense that it confirmed that taking more like it is not something I want to do--hadn't yet begun. What I had begun to do, however, was to count the number of days until my surgery.

It all seems oddly distant to me now. It feels a bit like looking at a fading black-and-white photo of myself and other people---family members, perhaps, or classmates--in poses, clothing or settings you can't recall as they're shown in the photo. If you're a child in such a photo, you seem more serene or simply cuter (or not as cute as) you recall yourself, or more precisely, the way you look in that photo.

It's like one of those memories you carry that somehow doesn't seem like one of yours, or a story that you've remembered, and possibly even told, in the way you heard it from someone else because you didn't yet have your own way of describing it to yourself.

That, by the way is, as near I can tell, the only way to gain knowledge or memories that are relevant to your own life: by describing, in your own way, your own experience to your own self. And that becomes possible when you are the subject and not the object of your own narrative.

Oh, no. I hope I don't sound like one of those dreadful texts I read in that course I took last year. If it does, I guess I had to start somewhere. Right?

I know this much: You become that subject only when you do. That is the only way to become, to learn: by doing.

And I guess there isn't a whole lot you can do with those memories frozen in amber...or sepia.

What Did I Teach Today?

During this Winter Recess at the college, I am teaching a business writing class. There are fourteen students. Two took other classes with me during the fall and another was in a class of mine two years ago. Then there's another student who, while he has never taken a class with me, seems as if he's one of my students. And I'm not the only faculty member who feels that way about him. Now, as he's about to embark on his final semester at the college, I'm actually teaching him.

So far I'm liking the class: It's small, the students seem receptive and the course will be an intense experience. I know that because I've taught winter session and short summer session courses. Each lasts about three and a half weeks, so every day is like a week of the regular semester.

Anyway...Today we were discussing some of the "do's and don't's" of writing a cover letter for a job application. Somehow the subject of whether to mention church memberships came up. I told students they should mention such things in a resume or cover letter only if they're relevant to the position or the organization. The same thing for organizations that have to do with race, ethnicity or politics: You don't mention them unless they have to do with the requirements of the job or organization. "And they're not allowed to ask about those things in an interview," I said.

A few jaws slackened. I could tell that one woman had been asked about such things during an interview; the others came from other countries where laws against such questioning don't exist. I turned to one student, a Bengali woman, and said, "You don't want to announce that you're Muslim unless you're applying for a job in a mosque."

"A lot of people assume that I'm one," responded a male Hindu student from India. Then I talked a bit about some of the things that happened in the days just after 9/11/01, when people were harassed and beaten because someone thought they were Muslim or Middle Eastern. That happened to a taxi driver just three blocks from where I was living at the time: A group of men surrounded his cab when he stopped for a traffic light, pulled him out of the car, and beat him on the pavement. As it turned out, the driver was a Filipino Catholic, if I remember correctly.

"So there's really prejudice out there," commented one student, who works in the college's day care center.

"Yes," I said.

"What do you think, prof?" a young man wondered.

"I know it exists because I've experienced it firsthand."

I could hear that same man breathing. Everyone in the class stared at me. I figured that at least half of that class knew my story, so I told them about the time I went to an old supervisor of mine, who had become the department chair in another college, to ask about working there. It was just before the beginning of the semester, and the department was hiring adjuncts to teach a few newly-opened sections.

When that department chair was a coordinator at the college in which I used to teach, I had nothing but excellent reviews and he praised my work and professionalism. However, when I saw him again, about a year after I'd started living full-time as a woman, he somehow recalled that "there were problems" with me. He said I was "erratic" and that there had been complaints about me.

"Well, I never heard about them then. Why are you bringing them up now? And, as coordinator, you wouldn't have dealt with them."

"And your reviews were very inconsistent."

"Who told you that?"

"I can't talk about that."

When I finished telling the story, I could feel the eyes upon me. Then, one of the students I had last semester said, "Well, at least we have you here."

For a moment, I couldn't say anything. Then, after the student who works in the day care center gave me a "thumbs-up," I implored the students to remember, if nothing else, that trying to "fit in" or imitate those who have power does not work if you do not have the privilege they have. "All you can do is to be your absolute best self, whatever that is. Know what you are, and be the best of that you can be."

Don't ask me where that came from, much less whether it was the right thing to tell them. But, really, it was all I could say. I'm not sure what, if anything, I taught the students in that exchange. But it was all I could offer before we got on to the business of the rest of the day's class session.

What Is The Wind Bringing To Life?

So far, this probably hasn't been the coldest winter we've had in these parts. But people seem to think, and sometimes it feels as if, it has been. The cold has been accompanied by wind or wetness. The last couple of days it's been the wind; before that we had snow.

What has that meant? That I haven't been riding and everyone's been bundled up. You can see why people get depressed: They're closed off from each other, literally and figuratively. One is less likely to be seen by, much less have contact with, someone else. (The fact that there's less daylight at this time of year doesn't lift some people's moods, either.) On the other hand, they're also less likely, for exactly the same reasons to commit violence on each other. Then again, some people are more likely to commit violence on themselves.

Anyway...All of the wind that's blown this way makes me think of a Navajo creation story. It begins something like this:

It was the wind that gave them life. It is the wind that comes out of our mouths now that gives us life. When this ceases to blow, we die. In the skin at the tips of our fingers, we see the the train of the wind; it shows us where the wind blew when our ancestors were created.

This story goes on to say that in the autumn, four beings appeared: White body, Blue body, Black body and a Yellow body. They told the people they would return in twelve days. In preparation for the gods' return, on the twelfth day, the people washed themselves thoroughly. The women dried their skin with yellow cornmeal; the men with white cornmeal.

(It seems that cornmeal has a similar role in Navajo and other Native American cultures to what rice plays in many Asian cultures.)

Soon the people heard the shouts of the approaching gods. Blue Body and Black Body each carried a buckskin; White Body carried two ears of corn, one white and the other yellow.

The gods laid one skin on the ground, with its head facing the west. Over it they placed the two ears of corn, with their tips facing the east. Atop the ears of corn, they spread another buckskin, with its head to the east. Under the white ear of corn, they slid a white eagle's feather; under the yellow ear, a feather from a yellow eagle.

Then the gods told the people to stand back and allow the wind to enter between the buckskins. White wind blew in from the east and yellow wind came from the west. As the wind blew, eight gods called the Mirage People walked around the assembled objects four times. As the gods walked, the feathers, whose tips stuck out from the buckskins, were seen to move.

When the Mirage People finished their walk, the upper buckskin was removed. The ears of corn were gone; in their place lay a man and a woman. The white ear of corn had become a man; the yellow ear, a woman. They were the First Man and the First Woman.

It was the wind that gave them life, and it is the wind that comes out of our mouths now that gives us life. When this ceases to blow, we die.

I love the story. What makes it even more interesting, at least to me, is that in Navajo culture an implicit understanding that the wind, the life-giving force, is a kind of primordial mother: a creatrix, if you will. So that which gives us life, according to Navajo tradition, is female, and the Great Spirit, which is male, is the witness to the creation.

Hmm...It's just a little ironic, to me, that we've had the most prolonged stretch of windy weather I can recall at the beginning of my first winter in my life as a woman. I won't claim any cause and effect: I'm not that narcissitic!

I wonder, though, what the Navajos would make of the weather we're having. Could it be that a creative, chaotic, tumultuous and powerful time is beginning now? Or am I just seeing the world through the mirrors and prisms of my own life at this moment?

Gender Cleansing?

There is a laundromat along a street that dead-ends at the street on which I live. There are also two others within two blocks of my apartment, but I have been using the first one I mentioned. Of the three, it's the smallest, and the least expensive. The proprietor keeps it clean and the machines seem to be in good working order, so I've seen no reason not to use it.

But today, as I washed my clothes, I realized something about it: I've used it four times since and passed it a bunch of other times since I've moved here, and every time, I've seen only women using it. And it's not women of any particular age group, or racial, ethnic or socio-economic background that I see there. All of the patrons come from "the 51 percent minority."

At the laundromat down the street from my old place, the majority of the people washing clothes were female. But I saw a fair number of males there. And it wasn't just young guys, the seemingly-unemployed or senior citizens: There were boys and men of all ages and backgrounds; they came from the public housing projects as well as the modern condos, and every kind of dwelling in between.

And, in other laundromats I've used in other communities, I noticed that a significant portion, if not a majority, of the ones washing their clothes were male. Often they were students or travelers, as well as denizens of the environments and backgrounds I've mentioned.

However, I have yet to see a male patron in the laundromat I now frequent. Interestingly enough, the proprietor of the place is a rather young (and not-half-bad looking) man who, I must say, has been very nice and helpful to me.

I wonder if that particular laundromat normally has an exclusively or predominantly female clientèle. There do seem to be more women living in the blocks near my apartment than there were in the immediate environs of the place where I used to live. What's more, there seem to be women of all age groups here, whereas most of the women I saw around my old place were around my age, or even a bit older.

On any weekday, you can see lots of women going to and coming from work and shopping the strip of stores near my apartment. Part of the reason why so many women--many of whom are apparently single--live here is that it's closer to the subways and other transportation, and there's nearly constant activity along the shopping corridor and the streets adjacent to it. Thus, many of us who have to come home after dark (or, in a few cases, go to work before dawn) feel safer in doing so. When I lived in my old place, if I came home after the last bus cruised Broadway (around 11 pm), I'd have to walk about a mile or take a bus that let me off about a quarter-mile away from my old apartment. Part of that quarter-mile was often deserted, as it is an industrial area where the small factories and garages close around 6 pm.

Still, I can't help but to wonder why the laundromat I've been using seems to have as female a clientèle as my nail salon or hair dresser.

Going (Bike) Shopping With My Cousin

Today I spent much of the day helping my long-lost cousin buy a bike.

OK, I know that was hyperbolic-- but only slightly. I did indeed go bike-shopping with him. And, until a few months ago, he was long-lost, sort of. Well, actually, I knew he was alive and more or less where he was. Still, I managed not to see him for forty years--until late August, just before the semester started.

It wasn't by design that I didn't see him for all of those years--unless, of course, you believe that some power higher than yourself willed it so. I am not saying that there was no Grand Design behind our separation; I simply don't know that there was such a plan.

In any event, finding a bike that he liked turned out to be surprisingly easy. I know more than most other people know about bikes; still, it's been a while since I've guided anyone, through his initiation or re-initiation into the world of bicycling. And I didn't want to do what I would have done back in the day, when I was working in bike shops.

Back in my boy-racer days, I would have found it vaguely distasteful to help someone who knew almost nothing about bikes. Worse still would have been helping such a potential customer purchase a basic, entry-level machine: something I never, ever would ride myself. I also would have tried to get such a customer to spend more money than he or she had earmarked for his or her new steed.

But, of course, Gene is my cousin--or, more precisely my mother's cousin. Some of my relations aren't happy with some things I've done, but I have never tried to hurt or cheat them. Plus, I want him to be happy with his bike, which has meant listening to what he wanted rather than what I think he should have.

And what did I hear from him? Comfort, comfort and comfort, in that order. After that, he talked about taking short rides on weekends and building up to longer daily rides as the days grow longer and warmer. Finally, he wanted a bike that would ride well in a number of different conditions.

And what did he end up with? A Bianchi Cortina, with a bunch of accessories. His choice of bike (He test-rode it and two others.) didn't surprise me; in fact, it was the first bike in the shop that I noticed when he talked about his wishes and preferences. What surprised me, however, was how much he spent on accessories for the bike. I thought they were all good choices for him, given how he intends to ride. I guess I was surprised because I didn't prod him into buying anything: he knew he wanted a rack for the rear, a trunk bag for the top and fenders, and he realized that it couldn't hurt to have lights in case he starts a ride late in the afternoon and continues into the evening.

I probably wouldn't have bought the bike he bought, but only because it's not a bike that suits my style of riding and, well, because I really don't need and can't afford another bike right now. However, the Cortina is, I believe, a very good example of the sort of bike it is: a basic hybrid, which is really what will suit Gene.

He bought the bike at Spokesman Cycles, which is sort-of-near where I used to live. I had planned to take him on the grand tour of bike shops, but I think he didn't want to drive into Manhattan, where we would have gone to Bicycle Habitat. Plus, I figured that Spokesman had, for the small shop that it is, a decent selection of the kinds of bikes that might interest Louis, and its location is convenient for him. And the owner is a friendly acquaintance.

Afterward, we went to Los Portales, a Mexican restaurant in Astoria, where we had a soups that cost almost as much as our entrees. We were happy with both. After that, we had some pastry and coffee in a cafe across the street, where we stayed until closing. We talked about a lot of things, as you might imagine. After all, this is the third time we've seen each other after that forty-year absence.

Now, I know that this experience of helping Louis choose a bike was entirely different than any other experience I've had in guiding anyone else through the process. For one thing, I was doing so as a "civilian," albeit one armed with the knowledge of a former bike-shop employee and relationships with the proprietor of the shop. Also, I was helping a relation of mine who, I believe, may be turning into a friend. (He's been honest with, and sweet to, me.)

But I think the most important difference is that I listened to him more than I had in previous encounters with people buying bikes. Some of that may have had to do with the fact that he's a relation. However, I think it also had to do with the fact that I've developed a more encompassing, democratic view of cycling and cyclists. Once, years ago, I told someone she should "lose weight and get in shape" before she started to ride a bike; now I am happy to see people mount their saddles, even if those seats are not the ones I would ride and the people mounting them aren't shaped the way I and my old riding buddies were when we were in our best shape.

I can't help to wonder, though, whether my attitude also had something to do with my change in gender manifestation. I've heard and read various notions that women are better listeners and more practical thinkers than men are. Perhaps some of us become so, though, I believe, by necessity rather than because of our innate differences from men.

Maybe it just has to do with the fact that even though I'm not the athlete I once was, I'm much happier with myself. People, including students, have told me that they respond to that in me: I'm starting to notice that they do, and perhaps Louis is, too. That makes for more pleasant and productive interactions. Most important, I think that happy people feel, ironically enough, less need to change other people. At least, I know that I don't have to turn Louis into a wannabe racer to enjoy his company.

Reflections At The Beginning of The Year

Most new years have begun with a day that seemed eerily quiet to me. This New Year's Day has been no exception. The weather was neither unusually cold nor mild for this time of year, and it did not begin to rain until well into the evening. And, when I ventured out this afternoon, there were few people on the streets. And those I saw were uncommonly serene; I exchanged wishes for a happy new year with several of them, all of whom are strangers.

I guess everyone else was sleeping off a hangover, watching football, cooking or eating.

Later in the afternoon, I became one of the latter category, going once again to--you guessed it!--Millie's house. Her younger daughter, who will turn one of those round-number ages (I won't say which one!) in a couple of months, seemed happier than I've seen her in a while. And her other daughter, who came with her two kids, also was in an uncommonly good mood. And John, Millie's husband was exhibiting his usual (and sometimes wonderfully charming) combination of thoughtfulness to his guests and cluelessness about some of our conversations. It's not that he's stupid--far from it. It's just that there are some things he really knows nothing about. In that sense, I guess he's no different from the rest of us.

Also present was Catherine, whom I like very much. She and Millie are childhood friends who, somehow or another, have managed to live no more than a neighborhood or two apart from each other through more than half a century.

Sometimes I find myself envying that: Even before I began my gender transition, I had to uproot myself a couple of times. I have not been in contact with anyone I knew during elementary or junior high school for thirty years or so; I am in tenuous, sporadic contact with a few people I knew in high school and in college via Facebook and other online means. However, I have a hard time of keeping such relationships up. Or, more precisely, I am a bit reluctant to commit to them, as I know that each of us has changed during the decades we haven't seen each other.

I know it's very difficult to relate to someone who, in essence, is a different person from the one you knew when you and that person weren't present for each others' changes. I learned that when I tried to resume a friendship with Elizabeth after we hadn't seen each other for a decade or more: Even if Nick hadn't become Justine, it might not have been possible to be friends. On the other hand, Bruce and I have been in nearly constant contact for close to thirty years; we have seen each other go through crises and triumphs. I can only imagine what Millie and Catherine have experienced in all of the time they've known each other!

Yet, as we shared chips and salsa, antipasti, baked ziti with sausage, salad, roast pork, rice with peas and corn, I realized that I, too, have a friendship with a history with Millie, with John--with their family, in fact, and Catherine. I've known them for about seven and a half years: not as long as they've known each other, but, in essence for my entire life as I now know it. All of them, except for Catherine, met me during the last days I was living at least part of my life as a male. None of them ever mention that, even though I never asked them not to.

Plus, in my very earliest days of living full-time, I watched Millie's grandkids--who were then nine and six years old--when she had to go somewhere, and John and their daughters were at work. Now the grandkids are fifteen and twelve years old.

Now I'll admit that I have a self-indulgent, self-reflexive reason for talking about them and the friendships that have developed between us: In thinking about what I've experienced, I realize how far I've come, if I do say so myself. When I say "how far I've come," I am talking about what I've left behind me--whether by choice or other means--as well as what I've gained or simply come into.

Of course I have left various relationships; others have fallen by the wayside. That, I suppose happens in everyone's lives. In addition, I have abandoned--whether by choice or otherwise--various material possessions and a place I had, not only in a larger world, but in the lives of various people who were in my life.

What have I gained? Relationships, possessions and a place in the world and in certain people's lives. Naturally, the ones I've gained are, for the most part, very different from the ones I've left behind. And the people who've remained with me have changed in various ways, while remaining true to themselves.

And what have I come into? The pleasures gleaned from what I've gained, and a sense of my self that I never could have anticipated, much less pursued or seized, prior to my transition.

I must admit, what I've gained and come into have some ironic--and some purely and simply funny--consequences at times. (Yes, Ed McGon, God does have a wicked sense of humor!) To wit: Catherine, Millie and Stephanie, her elder daughter, were talking about something and somehow the subject of menopause came up. (The grandkids were, at that moment, in the living room and too engrossed in their video games to hear us.) They were talking about how a woman knows it's coming on (hot flashes, etc.) and I said, "Well, first, you miss your period."

Not one of them blinked. And one of them--Millie, I think--said, "Yeah, and after that you start having the other symptoms."

And the conversation continued as if nobody had said anything unusual or out of line. I wasn't trying to impress anyone or "fit in;" I merely stated, with confidence, a fact and was part of a women's conversation. John, who sat at the other end of the table from me, gave me a brief but knowing smile.

If that, and the rest of the time I spent with him and everyone else is a harbinger of what this year will be like, things ought to be good, or at least interesting--ironically, by becoming routine. At least I know I'm starting this year in the life in which I belong.

A Poem: The End Of What Never Was

OK. So I said my previous post would probably be my last. The operative word was "probably."

Anyway...I thought this might be a good time to share a poem I wrote in September. In one of my entries that month, I mentioned that I was working on this poem. I'm still not sure that it's done. Jean Valentine, a wonderful poet and one of my teachers, once said that we never finish a poem, we only abandon it.

Well, if that's the case, I'll abandon it to you, dear reader:

The End Of What Never Was

I never could have been the boy

Who climbed trees and played football

While you waited for my letters of acceptance.

I only could have been that student

Who struggled with extra science classes

For a higher score on the SAT math

After I got the Academy's letter of rejection.

Even they knew I couldn't be that son

Like the one in the photo: the one

whose father stood proud, whose mother

Pinned stars and bars to his dress grays.

No, I never could have been a soldier

And I never could have been a sailor.

That young girl standing on the bridge

Exchanging vows under crossed swords

She could not have known she would never be

My wife, the mother of your grandchildren.

I never could have given her anything except

Your name, and a name that was never mine.

After that, I could only lie to her again.

No, I never could have been her man

I never could have even been her ally

Or on anyone's side, not even as a spy.

She will never see me; she has never seen this day

The way you never could have foreseen today.

None of us ever could have known

I never could have been your son.

My First New Year's Eve

So...This will probably be my last post of the year. It's a little sad to write this: This, the most momentous of my life so far, is ending. Then again, I'm about to start my first full year in my new life.

Tomorrow I am going to Millie's house, again. She seems to think the first day rather than the first second of the new year is more important--to the extent that she thinks of such things. In that sense, she's rather like me.

It seems that almost everyone is happy to see this year end. At least, the people I've heard talking about the topic have expressed such a feeling. At the same time, they seem more hopeful than optimistic about the coming year. In other words, they're hopeful in the same way as someone who comes to New York after his life has fallen apart in Nebraska. That, by the way, is the story of someone I talked with a few nights ago. Maybe I'll tell more about him later.

Anyway...They say that hope springs eternal. Maybe that's why people ring out the old and ring in the new year. Some--not all of them young--have visions of the wonders that the new year can bring. I'm thinking now of what Eva-Genevieve said in the wake of Mike Penner/Christine Daniels' suicide: Many people enter gender transitions with the idea that living full time in their "new" gender will be like a permanent drag ball. They think of the sense of release they feel when dressing up and going out, or the sexual thrill they get out of "kicking up their heels" and expect that the adrenaline rush they get from playing their roles will continue 24/7/365.

In a similar vein, on this night, many people are thinking only of the things they expect or hope to be better in the coming year. The mass media are full of that sort of thing: The economy is going to turn a corner, etc, etc. Of course, one should have hope. But if you've had some difficulty or another for years or even decades, is it rational to expect that problem to change, much less disappear, by turning a page in a calendar?

Back to transitioning: There are probably more things that don't change, at least in the circumstances of one's life, than there are things that change as a result of starting the process of becoming true to one's self. You still have to pay whatever bills you were paying before. In fact, they will probably be bigger and there will be more of them. You still have the same tensions over work, workplaces and living situations, which may be exacerbated by undertaking a transition. And, I've discovered, though the form of some of your relationships may change, the real attitudes of the people with whom you're in those relationships don't shift--at least, most of them don't. The ones who decide they want nothing more to do with you are really acting on attitudes and prejudices they had before you "came out" to them. The ones who change their attitudes either loved you or simply had open minds before you shared your "secret" with them.

The difference is that you may not have known these things about the people in question before you decided you could no longer live in as the person they believed you to be. The truth is, you didn't have to know them. That is part of what having privilege means: You don't have to know at least some of the truth about others. That also defines what privilege I still have. As an example, I know people who lived on the streets at one time or another in their lives. I admire them for having survived and becoming advocates, going to school or doing other positive things with their lives. But, at the same time, I can't even begin to imagine the realities of the lives they lived when their only shelter was whatever place they hadn't been chased away from and the only way they could make a home for themselves was to curl up in a fetal position, as if they were recreating their mother's wombs.

All right...I'll get off the soapbox. I'll tell you another way in which I have privilege. Happily, I acquired it during the course of my transition and surgery. You see, I didn't get a sexual thrill out of putting on female clothes or an adrenaline rush out of going public in a dress. To tell you the truth, I was scared to death when I first did those things. And I was for a long time afterward. Furthermore, I felt completely out of place the one time I went to a "drag" bar: I am a woman, not a cross dresser. The other patrons--most of them, anyway--went back to their lives as boyfriends and husbands and fathers, as horse trainers and construction supervisors and mechanical engineers. I had no such option of "going back."

That was eight New Year's Eves ago.

Today I made it to the appointment with Anna I rescheduled from last week. I had my hair cut a bit and had it treated to so that it's softer than it was. Other women were getting their hair done; two were also being made up by one of the stylists at Zoe's Beauty. I was there for the same reasons as other women; I simply felt normal there. And that is how I felt when I walked the strip of Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint and tried on shoes and clothes I didn't buy: It wasn't a thrill or a rush; it was simply life as I was meant to live it.

And, yes, I had a late lunch/early dinner at The Happy End. I began today's repast the way I've begun every meal I've had there: with their white borscht. This time, I had the grilled kielbasa with onions. The menu said that the kielbasa was "locally made;" it certainly tasted better than any other I've had. And today's meal is probably the only one I've ever had that included two servings of mashed potatoes. Plus, the sides were interesting and tasty: red cabbage, sauerkraut and a salad made of sliced carrots. I noticed once again that the proprietress, who's about my age, was friendlier toward me than to her fellow Poles. She's seen me before, and remembered me, but I'm sure most of those Polish patrons were repeat customers as well.

She was also friendly to two male hipsters who were eating at the counter. Oh my goddess--I hope that's not the end of the restaurant, or the neighborhood!

Then again, should I begrudge a couple of hipsters their privilege? I wished them a Happy New Year on the way out; they wished me the same.

And I hope you have a great New Year, too!

Lives Begin And End With The Old And New Years

Today, over lunch, Bruce pointed out, "This will be your first year in your new life."

As he's been in my life for longer than any other friend I have, it was especially gratifying to hear from him. And Charlie, the proprietor of Bicycle Habitat (where I bought my two Mercians as well as a bunch of parts and accessories) said the same thing, almost verbatim, when I stopped in his shop.

On the penultimate day of this year, it's difficult not to think about the upcoming year--or the one that's passing, or the ones that have passed. In some small but odd and interesting ways, they all intersected today.

I've known Charlie and Hal, his ace mechanic for only a couple of years less than I've known Bruce. I used to work for American Youth Hostels, when it was located on Spring Street: just around the corner from their shop on Lafayette Street.

Today, when I went into Habitat, I saw Esta, Charlie's wife, for the first time in about twenty years. She concurred with my perception of time: Our last meeting was shortly after the elder of her two sons was born, and he's twenty-three years old now, if I'm not mistaken.

Of course, the last time she saw me, I was essentially a different person. She said as much. Actually, she said that she doesn't recall me, as I was then, so well. I didn't mind that, actually. But then she also said that even though she couldn't recall my male incarnation that well, something was "familiar" about me when she saw me today.

She's not the first person to say that upon seeing me again after a long absence. I didn't ask what she meant. It might have been my speech, my body language or any number of other things.

I've encounters with people I hadn't seen in some time and even though I couldn't very well visualize the way those people were in earlier times, they were also "familiar" in some way.

I don't know what she was picking up on. But I know that I tend to remember people by something more essential, if I do remember them. It could be some glimpse I had into their characters, or even their souls.

Getting a glimpse of somebody's soul, however, isn't always as wonderful as it sounds. Indeed, nothing can be more terrifying sometimes--especially, it almost goes without saying, when you see darkness there but have no language for expressing it or any other means of defending against, or fighting, it. That is what sometimes happens to children.

And it happened to me more than a few times as I was growing up. Perhaps the most extreme example came with a longtime family friend. Something about him had always given me the creeps; I knew, for reasons that I could not explain, that neither I nor any other member of my family was safe around him.

Tonight my mother explained at least part of that man's dark essence: "He was manipulative. That's something you had to understand if you were going to spend any time around him." Yes, that was something I felt when I was a very young child, even though that word wasn't yet in my vocabulary, much as the language of self-help books and pop psychology wasn't part of most people's everyday parlance at that time.

He always managed to get people to do things that were not in the interests in their well-being. That's how he was on a good day. On a bad day, he'd wreck something in your life without your seeing (at least not immediately) his hand in it. Then he would offer his hand to help.

By now, you might have guessed what he did to me. Yes, he sexually forced himself on me. I'm still not exactly sure of when was the first or last time he did it. I know that the first incidence of his forcing himself on me that I would recall--when I was thirty-four years old--took place when I was about nine years old. Though it was his first sexual exploitation of me that I would recall, I know it wasn't the first or last I experienced with him.

When he "finished with" me that day, he made me swear I wouldn't tell anyone. I kept that promise for about twenty-five years. The truth was, for many years afterward, I wouldn't have known what to say, or how to say it, even if I didn't have any fear of what he "might do to" me.

So why am I mentioning him now? Well, I was talking to Mom a little while ago, and she told me she found out, the other day, that he died in February. She learned of this from someone else he manipulated and took advantage of, though in very different ways from the way he abused me.

In one sense, I am more fortunate than that person who gave my mother the news: I haven't seen the man in more than thirty years; he was in her life until near the end of his.

So how do I feel about his death? Well--as terrible as this is to say--not a whole lot. Not having seen him in so long, I am past hating, and even fearing, him. Whatever rage I felt over what he did to the child I was is gone now: That child, by necessity, has become me. He cannot harm that child again, just as he cannot harm me now, or anyone else who came into contact with him.

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that he didn't improve the life of anyone he met. In fact, I'd say he wrecked a few lives and derailed a few more. But, at least now he can no longer hurt anyone.

I can't say I feel relief or an urge to sing, "Ding dong, the witch is dead," or anything like that. All I know is that another chapter of my past is done, on this penultimate day of the year that started in one life and ended in another.

My Bikes And My Cats, As I'm Healing On The Coldest Day Of The Year

You've heard the old joke: "It's so cold the politicians have their hands in their own pockets." Perhaps we could update it by substituting "hedge fund managers" for "politicians." Anyway, that's how cold it felt today. As the weather forecasters promised, it was indeed about 25 degrees colder (on the Farenheit scale) and the wind blew about 25 MPH harder than what we experienced yesterday.

Sometimes I think cats know when it's cold outside even if the houses in which they're living are warm. It's as if felines have internal almanacs and thermometers. At least, all of the cats I've had seem to have been that way: They've curled up with me more at times like this than during more temperate days. It's no surprise, then, that Charlie is curled up on my left side and Max is on my right.

I went out briefly today. When I came back, I caught a glance of myself in the mirror. My face was even redder than it would have been if I'd spent the day out in the sun! Fortunately, I didn't have to deal with the pain and other after-effects of a sunburn.

Oddly enough, I started to think about bike riding. I haven't done any since Thanksgiving. I didn't want to ride today, but I was thinking that I'd like to get on my bike again soon. That big, ugly bruise and the swelling are all but gone now, and so is the pain from that mishap I had the day before Thanksgiving. On each of the rides I took last month, I adjusted the saddle position a little bit. I suspect that I'll have to ride some more before I find the "right" position for me. Before the surgery, that's what I had to do any time I got a new bike. (Well, OK, my "new" bikes weren't always new. Nor is the old Raleigh three-speed I bought last month.) Now I have a new body--or part of my body is new, sort of, anyway.

Filigree has suggested that I would want to ride in a more upright position. Actually, the three-speed is designed to be ridden in a more upright position than either of my Mercians. But I don't intend to ride it for long distances, which I can't imagine doing in a completely upright position. I doubt that I'll swap my road bike handlebars for cruisers, but I may experiment with the position of them. The nice thing about road bars is that they offer a variety of hand positions, so you can go "aero" for speed or when you're pedaling into the wind and slide upward a bit more when the going is a little easier, or when you want to go easier.

I don't think I'll be riding to work when I start teaching my winter session class next week. But I hope that some time early in the spring semester, I'll be able to do that. I was getting tired of having to ride the trains and buses. I haven't had to do any of that in a week. But next week, I'll be on the subway once again. Actually, I will take the train tomorrow, when I meet Bruce for lunch.

At least I don't feel bad about that, in a way: The day will start off cold and end with rain and/or snow, according to the forecasts. Time was when I would have biked in such conditions. But the times, they are a-chaingin', as Bob Dylan sang. And I'm sure they will by the next time I get on a bike.

From The First Meeting To Lunch Next Week

Dwayne and I had planned on having lunch tomorrow. Alas, he cancelled. He'd suffered from double pneumonia last month and his partner is forbidding him from going out tomorrow, when it's expected to be about 25 degrees colder than today.

I was very much looking forward to our lunch date. We've rescheduled for next week.

So why am I talking about him and our lunch date? Well, he is one of the people who has made possible the life I'm now leading.

Around the time Tammy and I broke up, I made an appointment with the counseling services at the LGBT Community Center of New York. I'd previously been to two other therapists for other reasons, but I still didn't know where to begin or how to get over the fear I had in looking for someone else who might've been able to help me.

The day I went to the Center was the sort of summer day on which an air-conditioned welder's mask would have been most welcome. The truth is that I would've entered just about any place that would have gotten me out of that heat and glaring light, even for a little while. But it wasn't just the heat and glare from which I wanted shelter; I wanted a truce with, if not a resolution to, the conflict that had me ready to explode or implode--I wasn't sure of which.

Well, I got to the Center. Miraculously, the young woman working at the counseling services' reception desk said that, yes, someone could see me, even though I didn't have an appointment.

I'll give you three guesses as to who saw me.

Yes, Dwayne was my intake counselor. I don't know how long I talked with him, but by the time we finished, I felt as if I'd just read him War and Peace at the speed of light. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I'd told somebody everything. And, more important, I felt as if I'd told someone the truth about myself for the first time in my life.

Up to that day, I had never met him. When I went to the Center's counseling services, I had absolutely no idea of whom I would meet or what would result. However, I was never more certain as to what I was doing, and why I was doing it, than I was when I went to the Center that day.

I think Dwayne sensed all of that. Best of all, he empathised, and not only because he has lived outside of what our culture, or almost any other, expects from one gender or another. He usually describes himself as a "butch," but has told me that he would've liked to have taken testosterone and undergone the surgeries. He couldn't do those things, he said, for medical as well as financial reasons.

Later, I realized that I wouldn't have had to say a word to him and he would have understood exactly why I was in his office. I could have shown up in army fatigues and a crew-cut and he would have known why I was there. So it's no wonder that in revealing that first, most basic, fact about myself, I not only felt relief: I felt that some things were finally starting to make sense. Example: I knew that I had to stop drinking and taking drugs. But I didn't know why it wasn't all I needed to do, much less what my next step--never mind my long-term goal--had to be.

I had that conversation with him about a year before I began to live full-time as a woman or "came out" to anyone in my family. Perhaps I could have had that conversation with someone else. But as fate or luck or karma or whatever would have it, I had that conversation with Dwayne. And he was exactly whom I needed at that moment.

So I have Dwayne to thank. (Others would blame him.) We'll have lunch next week; I'll always have that day we met.