Redemption Through Marriage?

Today I saw my cousin again.  He returned from Florida on Friday, where he visited my parents and one of his cousins.  And, my mother gave him a set of pots and pans, as well as a shawl and a bracelet, to bring to me. 


After we had lunch at the Bel Aire Diner (highly recommended!), he asked whether I'd want to take a ride to my  great-aunt's house.  There are two things he really likes to do:  talk and drive.  So, of course, he was completely in his element, and I saw something--not so much a "side" or "dimension" of him as much as his sometimes-contradictory values.


He asked me whether I could marry.  I said that now I could marry a man.  OK, it's not the first time anyone has asked me that.  Then he asked another question I've heard before:  "Do you think you will?"

After I said I probably won't be married, he expressed concern.  "I haven't ruled it out," I explained.  "But I really would have to meet the right person."


"But don't you worry that you'll grow old alone."


"People get married and have kids and still end up alone.  I've seen it."


"Yeah, but if you were to have a few kids, chances are that one of them, at least, will take care of you."


"Well, that's not the best bet to make.  It doesn't seem like a good reason to get married or have kids."


"It's not.  But you should think about marriage."


Now, I should mention that this cousin has religious beliefs that I don't share.  He doesn't quote the Bible directly; he does it second hand, as in, "a man isn't supposed to lie with a man."  Normally, I try to keep myself out of Bible (or religious) discussions:  Unless you totally agree with the other person /people, those discussions  don't turn out amicably.  But I did challenge him on one point:  He said the Bible also said a man shouldn't "change into" a woman.


I'll admit, I'm not a regular Bible reader.  But I don't recall any verse that said that.  


Anyway, I found it very interesting that even though he doesn't approve (because of his religion) of my "sex change," he's giving me the most traditional, even conservative, arguments for getting married to a man. He said that if I were to meet the right man, he would "take care of" me.  It's almost as if he were trying to "redeem" me through the sorts of marriage sanctioned by his church.

A Dream In Sunset Park

I am going to make the most audacious claim you'll hear for a while.

I am going to show you a photo of a dream:

Here's another photo of that same dream:

Believe it or not, the place in the photo looked more or less as you see it back around 1961.  Yes, it's a place I'd actually been to before today.  This is how I got there today:

OK, so now you know I'm not in some exotic foreign land.  To give you an idea of where I am, here's another shot.

Those of you who are familiar with Brooklyn, NY--or part of it, anyway--now know where I am.  It's Sunset Park, which is on a hill surrounded by the eponymous neighborhood. 

Save for the views, not many people would call it their "dream" park.  But it has become mine, through no choice of my own.

I don't make any great effort to remember my dreams.  Some of them just happen to stick with me, for whatever reasons.  But I know that I have had more than a few dreams in Sunset Park, or some place that looks very much like it.  

One of those dreams came during my first night in France.  That day, I took the boat from Dover to Calais.   After I'd gone through French customs, I went to a bar.  In those days, Calais was fairly gritty and, being a seaport town, full of sailors, dockworkers and such:  the very kinds of people who were in the bar.  

Every one of them was even more inebriated than I would become.  Given the sort of person I was then--at age twenty-one--that's saying quite a bit.  However, I'm not sure if the libations were lubricating their tongues and making them start conversations with me.  

I wasn't worried about them.  I was, however, worried about this:  The only word I understood of what they were saying was "miss-shyure."  Did I not work hard enough in my French classes?  Was I taught a dialect they didn't speak?  

Anyway, we all got laughs at each other's expense and I managed to ride to Boulogne-sur-mer.   It wasn't very far, but the town had a hostel listed in the Hosteling International guide.  It was clean and relatively quiet.  At least, it was quiet enough for me to fall asleep not long after I had supper.  Or maybe the alcohol had something to do with it--or the dream I would have in Sunset Park.

My grandmother was in that dream.  I spent a lot of time with her and my grandfather when my mother had to go to work. My grandparents lived not far from the park and, very early in my childhood, they used to take me to it.  In those days, it had a garden in the middle of it.  Of course, in my memory, it's one of the most beautiful gardens in the history or horticulture--or, at least, one of the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen.  So is the view I've shown, which--as I've said--is much like the view I have in my memory.  

The following day after my first dream in that park, I cycled into a town called Montreuil-sur-mer.  It's a few kilometres inland from the English Channel, but a few centuries ago, before its harbor silted up,  it was right on the coast and was a fairly major port.  It's the town in which Jean Valjean of Les Miserables becomes one of  les bourgeois and serves as mayor--and where Inspector Jalabert tracks him down.

Nothing quite that dramatic happened to me.  (After all, we're talking about life, not fiction, here!)  However, I did come to a garden in the town that overlooked the sea and gave me a clear view--even on that overcast day--of the coast from which I'd sailed the day before.  And the grayness of the day did nothing to dampen the vibrancy of the colors in that garden:  there were sunrises, sunsets and dusks, and all of the seasons, in it even thought the sky wasn't expressing any of them.  Perhaps the view of the sea had something to do with that.  

Now, remember that I was twenty-one years old when I say what I'm going to say next:  That was the first time I cried during that trip.   At least, it's the first time I recall crying.

That evening, I got to a town called Abbeville and called my grandmother.  Somehow I knew she sounded better than she actually was.   And, without my asking or prompting, she talked about that park, and that we used to go to it.  "You loved to go there."

"Yes, I did.  I always loved going there with you and grandpa." 

"It seems like only yesterday that we used to go there."

I didn't tell her I had indeed been there the night before.

Out Of The Closet This Summer

First one heat wave, then another.  Now I'm really glad that I had my surgery last, rather than this, year.

According to meteorologist, last summer was wetter than normal.  I didn't notice it, but when it wasn't raining, it never seemed to be terribly hot.  So, while I wasn't able to ride my bike or engage in any outdoor activity but walking, I was able to spend much time outdoors when it wasn't raining.  

If I were recovering this summer, I probably would be indoors more, and I'd probably read and write even more than I did.  

Now I'm thinking about how I used to suppress in my identity in the summer.  In cooler weather, I could cover myself more, and hide some of my more masculine features more readily.  You know which ones I mean!

Plus, it was more difficult to wear makeup, as I would sweat much of it off.

I think that keeping myself in the closet during the summer is one reason why I spent so much time cycling and, to a lesser degree, swimming and in other outdoor sports.  You might say I was channeling my anger over having to be someone I wasn't.  Ironically, my lycra shorts accented my most masculine features!

Now I don't even think about those things.  Today I slouched around in a ratty pair of shorts and a T-shirt, with no makeup.  And two men--one in a store and another who works as a doorman a block away--were flirting with me.  The storeowner was enraptured by---my French.  He's Lebanese.

But, seriously...It's nice to enjoy summer as I am now.  There are plenty of women walking around wearing less than I wore.  And many of them look better than I look.  And, yes, I am one of them...even in the middle of summer.

I'm so glad I had my surgery--last summer.

Another Year Home

One year ago today, I came home from my surgery.  One of the first things I noticed upon getting off the plane was the humidity.  After spending a week and a half with very little of it when I was away, I was amazed at just how much of it I and most other New Yorkers consider to be normal. 


That flight home was the first--and, so far, only--time I've flown first class.  It will probably be the only time.


So what's the difference between now and then?  Well, it seems that ever since I've gotten back, Charlie and Max simply can't get enough of me.  They're still treating me as if I just got back.  Both of them have always been very affectionate; they seem to have become even more so.  I always had a feeling they liked women better than men.  Hmm...I wonder what they would have thought of me before my transition.


If I felt as if a layer of skin had been stripped away a couple of months after I started taking hormones, I felt I shed another layer after my surgery.  So much affects me,and sometimes I feel as if I can look directly into people.  The nice thing about that is that the people I love, I now love even more.  But the other side of this is that I am less tolerant of bullshit than I used to be.  That accounts for some of my ranting about my job and about a particular person who's not in my life anymore.  


And somehow my perceptions about time--at least as it relates to my own life--have also changed.  As I've said, much of my recent past seems so distant now:  Things that happened two years ago could just as well have happned two centuries ago.  And the future seems so much more immediate.


What would the past year--not to mention my life--have been had I not had the surgery?

Anniversaries and Revolutions

Today is le quatorze juillet or le jour de Bastille.  I don't think I did anything revolutionary today.  I hadn't planned to.  Then again, what revolution is ever planned? 


 The word "revolution" comes from the word "volute," which is the spiral scroll on Doric columns.  "Volute" in turn comes from the Latin "voluta," which is the feminine of "volutus," the past participle of "volvere," which means "to roll."


So "revolution" means "turning again."  In other words, they happen as part of some cycle or another.  Nobody can plan that.


That's why nobody can plan on making any radical change one needs to make in one's life.   At least, I never could have planned on making the most important changes I had to make in my own life, or the ones that were made for me.


Three important changes--at least two of them revolutionary, at least in the context of my life--happened on this date.  At least they happened on this date in different years.  Can you imagine what I'd be like if they happened on the same date in the same year?


On this date in 2003, my name officially changed from Nick (Nicholas) to Justine.  I had filed for the change a little less than a month earlier; the court order was issued on the 14th.  On that date, I got the right to be known as Justine Valinotti a.k.a. Justine Nicholas.  I would use the latter name in writings that I published as well as in some other professional capacities.  Five years later, on the very same date, I would officially become Justine Nicholas Valinotti.


In 1986, on the fourteenth of July, I spent my first day clean and sober.  Actually, I had made three earlier tries of it; none of them lasted more than a week.  But twenty-four years ago today, I spent my first day of my adult life without alcohol or drugs and haven't gone back.


And on this date in 1980, I was discharged from the US Armed Forces.  Officially, I was a US Army Reservist.  In reality, I was an ROTC cadet at Rutgers who did some training exercises and got paid--not much, but paid nonetheless.  Actually, I had been set loose a couple of months earlier; the papers weren't signed and notarized until the 14th of July.  However, I wouldn't know that until much later, when I finally saw the papers.  Ironically enough, I was in France when the US Army cut its ties with me.


And, yes, it was an honorable discharge.  Basically, I kept myself out of trouble, which was about the best I could do.  I did not distinguish myself in any way as a soldier.  Then again, I didn't have any real opportunity to do that.  Then again, I'm not so sure I would have wanted such an opportunity.


So why was I discharged?  Well, a clerk discovered that I hadn't had a medical examination in more than two years.  On my records was a report of tendinitis and traumatic arthritis in my right knee.  The doctor (or medical assistant:  I'm not sure what he was) cranked my leg, heard a low noise, shook his head and sent me to the end of the line where a clerk rubber-stamped my papers.


Leave me to my own devices, and I start to ask the "what if?" questions.  In my case, I can answer the ones related to this anniversary.  The short answer is that if none of those things happened, I wouldn't be who or what I am today.  In fact, if I hadn't gotten clean and sober, I might not be at all today:  I probably would have died years ago.


Ditto if I'd remained in the Army and had been sent off to some exotic foreign place to meet interesting people and kill them.  If you are sent somewhere to kill--or if you go off to kill on your own volition--you run as much risk of being killed as you have of killing someone.  How do I know shit like this? I dunno; I just know.


And what if I hadn't changed my name?  Well, the real question is what if I hadn't done the other things that prompted my name change?  But it was certainly one of those milestones--along with my "coming out," my first day at work as Justine and my surgery--along the road to the life I have now as a woman named Justine.


Some people have told me that such a life is revolutionary.  The funny thing is that it feels anything but, and I didn't undertake it because I was trying to change the world.  I don't mean to compare myself to real revoulutionaries, but I don't think any of them ever set out to become such significant historical figures.  Rosa Parks just wanted a seat on the bus after a long day of work; Lech Walesa just wanted to be sure that he and his fellow workers could afford to feed their families and themselves after long days of work.  I don't think Ms. Parks ever envisioned herself as a founder of the Civil Rights Movement:  Given the place and time in which she grew up, I'm not sure she could even have imagined anything like the Civil Rights Movement.  Likewise, I don't think Mr. Walesa thought that he would start a movement that would help to bring down one of the most powerful empires in history.


Me?  I'm just happy that I was able to lead the life I've always wanted, even if I had to wait until fairly late in the middle part of my life to start living it.  So what can I say?  En bas...to what?  En vive.. Justine!  Hmm...Some might say it's grandiose.  But I think it has a rather nice ring to it.

Someone Else's Decision

Yesterday I was talking to a young man--a former student of  mine--who'd gotten a young woman pregnant.  I told him the sorts of things an older, and presumably wiser, person is supposed to say:  Having the baby, or not, is a serious decision, and whatever they do will have an effect on him, not to mention her.  I also advised him to get some really good counseling because, while he might make a good father, he still needs to work through some of the issues his own family left him.  

A part of me wanted to admonish him for getting the woman pregnant. But I knew that doing that would have been pointless.   I think that, on some level, he wanted to impregnate her, or some woman, because he's talked about having a child.  But he also knows that he doesn't have the sort of job or finances he wants; if he has the child, those won't improve for a while, and going for his master's degree, which he brought up the last time I talked with him, would be all but out of the question for a long time.

But most of all, I don't think he's ready to commit.  Part of me wants to say, "Typical guy!" But I also know that browbeating him into a commitment wouldn't do him, the woman, the baby or anyone else any good.  I have never believed the conventional wisdom that having a child "steadies" a man and makes him realize that it's time to "settle down."  I've seen too many men in whom the exact opposite happened:  They equated committing themselves to, if not marrying, the mother of the child and the expectation that they will help to raise, or at least support that child, as the proverbial "ball and chain."  They became even more reckless than they were before the birth of the child, or they simply spent most of the money they made on themselves.  

Now, lest you think I'm man-bashing, remember my history.  Yes, I have felt the same kind of fear and revulsion so many young men feel at the prospect of giving up their "freedom."  Interestingly, those feelings are not at all incongruous with wanting to have a child:  Many men see, in child's play, the very kind of freedom they want to keep.  I've heard more than one man say that he didn't like being married but he loved having kids.

I think the young man in question also wants kids more than he wants marriage--or a woman, for that matter.  Having been on his side of the fence, so to speak, I can see his point of view.  I could also understand his dilemma in one other way:  I've also gotten a young woman pregnant.  In fact, I did that twice.  One time my family knew about:  I was in my early twenties, if I remember correctly, and the young woman and I had talked about marriage.  But I knew, even before the tests were positive, that I was not suited to be a husband or father--for a variety of reasons.  Most of those reasons are still valid, at least for me.  

So the young woman had the abortion.  Our relationship didn't last very long after that.  Even then, I wasn't surprised, any more than I was the first time I got a young woman pregnant.  No one in my family  knows about it--unless they are reading this.  I was in high school and working a part-time job so that I could save money for college.   I usually gave my mother the money, who deposited it for me.  So of course she noticed when I wasn't giving her money. 

I don't remember what excuse I gave.  Whatever it was, it was better,or at least easier to tell, than the truth.  

I don't know who, if anyone, else that young man has told about his situation.  Whether or not he's told anyone, I can understand why.  Still, I firmly advised him to at least talk to a counselor.  

As I write about that encounter with him, it seems even stranger than it did when it was unfolding.  Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I was giving him advice based on my experience, but not necessarily my own life. 

Getting Used to Me

The other night, I was talking to an uncle of mine.  Actually, he's the last surviving uncle I have.  And he happens to be my godfather.

I haven't seen him in about a dozen years or so.  So, of course, he has not seen me since I began my transition, much less since my surgery. He's only heard about those things, from me and probably from other members of my family.  

Once during our conversation, he referred to me by my old name.  And, when my aunt called him for something or another, he told her, "Wait until I get off the phone with him."  He apologized; I told him not to worry and not to apologize ever again. "If I saw more of you, I could get used to it," he explained.

I understand what he means, but it seems so odd to me now that anyone would have to "get used to" the fact that I'm a woman named Justine.  I have always known myself to be female, and about a year or so into my current life, I stopped thinking of my old name in connection with myself in my past.  In other words, I would think about the day Justine, not Nick, split up with Tammy or about the bike tours Justine took in France.

What's ironic is that I think now of how much my uncle must have changed since the last time I saw him.  He sounds about the same over the phone, but I don't expect that he would look as he did twelve years ago.  Also, I wonder what he can and can't do as he did back in those days.  He's had some illnesses and was injured in a car crash.  I don't think those experiences have changed his core being, but I'm sure that they've made him different in ways I couldn't detect over the phone.

I wonder whether I might have to "get used" to him.

Typical Guy (or Girl)

Today I was talking with a friend of mine.  Let's call her Nell.  Last week, I saw her with her sister, whom I'll call Dolores.  I couldn't help but to notice that Dolores was not a happy camper.  Actually, she's looked that way the past few times I've seen her, going back a few months.  I gently reminded her that she has my phone number and e-mail address, and offered any help she wants.  She thanked me, but I knew that she probably won't take up my offer.


For some time, I've had the sense that Dolores' husband was cheating on her.  I had no specific evidence or reason for my belief:  It was just something I felt strongly.  Perhaps if I were a different sort of woman, I might have said something about that to her.  But a few of my experiences have left me with a strong aversion to getting tangled up in other people's relationship woes.  What good would have come of telling her, anyway?


Well, today Nell confirmed everything I'd suspected.  Dolores' husband indeed cheated on her.  In addition to his regular job, he's a D.J. "on the side."  For a man of his temperament, the DJ's microphone is a bit like the key to the distillery for an alcoholic. 


In any gathering of any size, there's bound to be the sort of woman who preys on weak-willed men.  That, apparently, is what happened.  She probably flattered and pretended to empathise with him.  Perhaps his new paramour saw him as "henpecked."  If she did, she would have been at least partly right:    As much as I like Dolores, I am very happy that I've never had to live with her!   Still, he had no right to yield to whatever temptations the other woman offered.  Call me Puritanical if you like.


The cynic in me snorted, to myself, "Typical!"  More specifically, I sneered, "Typical guy!"  


But later I asked myself, "What is a 'typical' guy?  Do they all cheat on their wives?"   For a long time, I believed that every male was a potential philanderer and worse.    Now I realize that the truth is a bit more complicated than that, to say the least.  The funny thing is that I was less willing to acknowledge that when I was living as a man than I am now.  Dolores soon-to-be-ex is no more representative of the male race than I was.  


That is not to say, of course, that all men are wonderful and supportive.  But it also makes no more sense for me to hate them simply for being men than it would for me to blindly trust all of them, given some of my experiences.


But, even after the experiences of  my previous life, I still can't tell you what a "typical" guy--or girl--is.

Another Day After: Bumping Into A Former Student

One year and one day after my surgery...All right, I'll stop counting, at least on this blog.  Still, it's hard not to think about the first anniversary of my surgery, which passed yesterday.


Tonight I was riding my bike home from my class.  I was in Jackson Heights, about two and a half miles from my place, when someone called out, "Hello, Professor!"


I recognized the voice, which I hadn't heard in a couple of years.  It belonged to Navendra, who'd been a student of mine.  He did well, and he was one of those students who always seemed happy to see me.  And the feeling has always been mutual.


He's working on his master's degree in accounting in Queens College.  He took a class with me on the recommendation of his friend Sajid, who took three and sent me a "Happy Birthday" e-mail.  Now Sajid is at the Harvard School of Public Policy.  He and Navendra are both the kinds of people who could do anything they set out to do.   I have written letters of reference for both of them and do the same for either of them.  


It's funny that yesterday I was reflecting on how I have changed, and am changing, since my surgery.  But seeing Navendra again, I felt that in some way I hadn't changed at all--and I felt good about it.  Somehow, neither he nor Sajid seemed consigned to my past, as some people with whom I was living, working and simply spending time with not much more than a year ago now seem--not to mention those who decided, for whatever reasons, they wanted no part of me after I  started my transition.


Perhaps my perception of Navendra and Sajid has to do with the fact that they're progressing with their lives. Of course, it hasn't always been a steady progression:  About a year after he graduated (three years ago), Sajid was having a tough time:  Something hadn't worked out as he'd hoped, and he had to re-evaluate some choices he'd made.  But I always have had confidence in him, and I think he knew that.  I'm sure other people did, too. Sometimes I think he was worried that he was letting us down.  Actually, I don't feel let down by anyone who's progressing in whatever way he or she needs to--even if that means taking a step back and re-thinking something.  


And, when I see someone growing and changing, I do not have a stagnant image of him or her.  On the other hand, some people are still in the same places, spiritually and even physically, as they were when I first met them.  I realized that about one former friend of mine, with whom I reunited (albeit briefly) after a long absence.  We were having exactly the same conversations as we'd had when we were college undergraduates--or, more precisely, I was listening to the same monologue as I was listening to back in those days.  I was simply hearing it again in a cafe on the other side of the world.  (It sounds like a dystopian version of Casablanca, if such a thing is possible.)  After that, I was really glad I've never gone to a reunion of any school I ever attended.


I remember telling Marci, only half-jokingly, that I want to be her when I grow up.  I'm starting to think that what you become when you grow up isn't as important as simply growing up--or just growing, period, and surrounding yourself with people who are.

My Birthday As Myself

I am one year old today!


To be exact, I had my surgery one year ago today.  The time has passed much more quickly than I ever imagined it would.  Somehow that always seems to happen after important events in my life--or, at any rate, events that are important to me.


Some of that, of course, has to do with the fact that we're older after each event, as we are after any sort of passage of time.  The more time spend on this planet, the more quickly the time ahead moves by us.  It's simple arithmetic:  One year is a smaller portion of a 50-year-old's life than of a child who is only five.  But I also think that because major events, for many of us, mark stages of our lives, those events widen the distance between ourselves and our past and bring us closer to our futures.  I think that happens whether the event is a graduation, marriage, divorce, death of a loved one, birth of an offspring, beginning or ending a career, or any number of other things with that can change a person's circumstances.


I also believe my perception of time is shaped, in part, by the knowledge that unless I live longer than 99.9999 percent (or thereabouts) of all people, I will have lived more time as a male than as a female.  That is to say, I will have spent more years as Nick--in the sense that families, friends, co-workers and others knew him, the law defined him and I projected him--than as Justine.  Even though I feel freedom and confidence that I never felt before my changes, I am very acutely aware that I have only a limited amount of time, at least in life as I know it, as the person I have always been in mind and spirit.


What I've just described, I realized for the first time as I was describing it.  I wonder whether other transsexuals feel anything like it.  If they do, it might explain why some change everything, or at least everything they can change, in their lives after their transitions and surgeries.  Some move to new cities, or to or away from cities generally.  A few move to other countries; still others change jobs and careers, whether or not by choice.  Many also get divorced; at least I don't have to worry about that!  Others marry or remarry, or take up with new partners.  


Nearly all--at least the ones I know--re-evaluate something or another in their lives.  It makes sense; after all, that is what each of us has to do at the moment we face the truth about ourselves and begin to think about what we will do about it.  Along with that, of course, we have to re-evaluate our notions about sexuality and gender--our own, and that of others--and some of us have to examine our attitudes toward those whose gender identity or sexuality resembles whatever we were denying in ourselves.  In my case, it meant examining the homo- and trans-phobia I absorbed (sometimes transmitted to me unwittingly)  and cultivated out of sheer desperation.


As you can imagine, you really do find out who your friends--and, equally important, your allies--are.  It also fine-tunes your bullshit detector.   There are some people, particularly in English and other humanities departments, who want you as another token for their collection--butch Filipina bisexual: check; one-armed Native American with learning disability: check;  tranny, check.  Perhaps I should be more understanding and indulgent than I am, but sometimes I really do get tired of listening to people who try to simply must show how much they really do understand and empathise with me after taking a workshop about what I live every day. 


On the other hand, what I've experienced makes the friendships and other relationships that have endured--and the new ones I've made--all the more meaningful and pleasurable.  Even more important, though, is that I am learning to find pleasure in my own company and--now I'm going to say something I never expected to say!--beauty in who and what I am, and what I've become.  Some of that has to do with having a body that more closely reflects the person I always have been.  But it also has to do with the fact that I have had to develop, and draw upon, wells of strength, knowledge, wisdom and beauty I never knew I had, much less that I could develop.  Some people gave me all sorts of reasons--no, I take that back, they tried to intimidate me with their fears about--why I should not undertake the transition I've made, and why it would never work or why it is wrong.  And, when I was in the Morning After House in the days after my surgery, I was among other people who endured such experiences and won similar kinds of wisdom.  For that matter, such a person performed my surgery!


Anyway...One year has passed since my surgery.  It is a year--already!--and it is only a year.  I am a year old, and a year older--and older but a year:  a year past and a year in coming.  And, I hope, another and another and more to come.

Etiquette: Will I Ever Get It Right?

Even though I lived as a woman for more than five years before I had my surgery, sometimes I don't think I'll ever understand etiquette--as it applies to either or both sexes.


I still reflexively hold doors and give up my seat when I see a woman who's pregnant, seems older or is simply burdened in some way that I'm not.   And, to me, it makes all the more sense to give my seat to an elderly or pregnant woman on a day as hot as today was.


Granted, the air conditioning was working perfectly on the train I rode to work--though, I must say, it somehow made me even more conscious of just how hot it was today.  And somehow it made me feel even more compelled to give up my seat to a pregnant woman who was standing a few feet away from me.


When I got up and gestured for her to sit, she looked baffled.  Now, I never have been and never will be pregnant, but I would imagine that at a very late stage of the pregnancy--which is where, chronologically, that woman seemed to be--I would probably want any available seat.


Now, I know that, at least in this culture, women aren't expected to offer their seats or hold doors open for other women.  But, I guess that because I was inculcated so deeply and at such an early age with  the expectation that I would offer what seem, to me, to be normal courtesies, I revert to such behavior.  Plus, it just seems like common sense that I could help, in whatever small way, someone who is having  a slightly tougher time than I'm having. 


But if you wanted to see real bewilderment, that came later, on my way to class:  After entering a stairway, I held the door to it open for a young man who'd been walking a few yards behind me from the time we got off the train.  I just don't think it's cool to drop a door in someone's face.  But, I think that young man wasn't accustomed to having a door held open for him by anyone, much less some middle-aged woman!

Birthdays

The other day I mailed a birthday card to Marilynne's daughter.  She and I underwent our surgeries on the same day last year.  

If that day is our birthday, then I'm only about five hours older than she is.  Hmm...That sounds like the makings of some sort of science fiction story.   If any of you want to take the idea and run with it, be my guest:  I seriously doubt that I'll ever write science fiction.  I just don't think it's in me.


Anyway, in one sense, we were both born that day. If that's the case, how long was our gestation period?  Was it the time we had been living as female?  Our entire lives?


But today is what most people--as well as the laws of just about every jurisdiction in this world--would define as my birthday.  It is the date on which I came, a whole bunch of years ago, from my mother's body into this world.  I probably will always celebrate this date as my birthday, partly out of habit and, well, because it's the biggest national holiday of the country in which I was born and have spent most of my life.  It's a bit like being born on Bastille Day in France or Christmas in any country that celebrates it.  


The only times I wasn't in this country on the Fourth,  I was in France.  Three times I was in Paris; the other time I was in a town called Auch in the southwest.  Unless you've been there or know something about French history, you've probably never heard of it.  I ended up there on my birthday ten years ago in the middle of a bicycle tour I took through the Pyrenees.   It's a lovely place, and if you should go there, you should certainly go to la Cathedrale Sainte-Marie.  It may very well have the best acoustics of any place of worship in the world.  It certainly has one of the best organs and choirs.    The singers were rehearsing that day.  I got into a conversation with a sweet-faced alto-soprano who was about twenty years older than I was.   Even before she talked, I could sense her enthusiasm and passion for that cathedral and for her music.  


When she asked where I came from, I said, "Les Etats-Unis."


"Eh...Votre jour d'independence."


"Oui.  Et mon anniversaire."


Her already bright eyes perked up.  "Voulez-vous une chanson speciale?"  With a smile, I nodded, and she and the choir gave a little impromptu concert for an audience of an American cycling solo in France on his birthday and his country's day of independence.


Whatever my birthday is, I believe I have an interesting heritage.  And I feel honored to share at least something with Marilynne's daughter.

Upcoming Anniversaries

One year ago today, I was making my final preparations to go to Trinidad.  I would leave the following day, which was Independence Day--and my birthday.


As I recall, I was making trips to the drugstore and supermarket so I would have at least some of what I needed when I got home.  I didn't expect to be in any physical condition to shop or do other errands; even if I were, I thought, I might not be in the mood.


It's funny how last-minute logistical preparations take on such importance when you're about to embark on a life-changing journey.  If I recall correctly, the narrator of Sophie's Choice--a movie I hated, by the way, in spite of Meryl Streep's presence and the fact that it was based on a very good book--was getting ready to go off and fight in World War II.  He enlisted in the Navy, but he was underweight.  So, he said, he spent the days before he had to return to the recruitment station engaged in eating bananas and masturbating.


Of course, there was a practical reason for eating the bananas.  So it would make sense to recall that.  But why did he recall masturbating?  In the face of a war one is going to fight, that would seem to be one of the most banal detail of all.


Now I remember that the surgery was four days away, and I was making my final preparations to go to it.  And now I am preparing for two birthdays, if you will:  my natal one, and the anniversary of my surgery.  I wonder if I will dread or look forward to subsequent anniversaries of my surgery as I and other people do to our birthdays.  

Cameos

In the past two days, I've experienced two very interesting "cameos," if you will, with two very different people.  Although they have practically nothing in common, the time I spent with was satisfying for much the same reasons.


The other day, I sold a rug I've had rolled up and propped in the corner of my foyer.  I sold it for the same reason I sold another rug I had:  I've kept them stored away because my allergist recommended that I not have any carpets or drapes, as I am allergic to dust mites.  


Well, I tell myself, at least I'm not allergic to my cats or chocolate!


The young woman who bought the rug has been living in Flushing for a few months.  She's from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, but she has lived in Istanbul, California and a couple of other places.   At age seventeen, she left home and now she's twenty-five.  Now she speaks five languages and has done every kind of work from landscaping to tutoring.  And she spent time with Americorps, which is like a domestic version of the Peace Corps.


I tried, for a moment, to imagine her in college--not just the one in which I teach, or any in which I've taught, but any college at all.  I couldn't.  Well, maybe I could have imagined her in college during the late '60's or early '70's, but not just any college.  Even so, the thought of her on a campus taxed my imagination.


Maybe she'll go one day.  If she does, I'm sure she'll know why and what she's doing there.  I never brought up the idea:  It just didn't enter into the conversation, except for once--when she brought it up.  However, a part of me hopes that she doesn't go.


These days, when I talk to almost anyone I encounter from the academic world, I find myself disappointed, if not frustrated or sad.   Maybe I'm getting old and cranky and less tolerant of claptrap.  I'm realizing, I think, how few truly educated people I met among those who have been anointed by some institution or another, or by their peers or themselves, as intellectuals and authorities on something or another.  


You will never see so many insecure and pretentious people as you will among university faculty, or those students who aspire to be one of them.  English departments are the worst of all; next might be sociology or education departments.  In those departments, you find exactly the sorts of people who've spent their entire lives in school so they wouldn't have to actually learn anything--not about the world, or other people--or, most of all, about themselves.


The young woman--Larissa--said, "I simply couldn't imagine going to college at that age.  It never made any sense to me:  A kid who's  been in school all his life is told, 'OK, pick what you want to do for the rest of your life and study it.' What eighteen-year-old knows enough to make that choice?  And who wants his parents or anyone else to decide for him?"


Thank you, Larissa.  I want to say something like that to the parents (or whoever's in charge of) at least half of the freshmen I've ever taught, and a good number of upperclassmen.  I'm against the draft and the military, but sometimes I think they might actually do some new high school graduates more good than going to school, at least for the time being.  Or they might be better off by simply to going and working somewhere, whether in a store or as an apprentice to a carpenter or beautician or whatever.   Maybe the young person will find him or herself in the work.  Then again, he or she might become bored or frustrated. But I think that young person will learn lessons about work and him or her self.  College would then become a much more relevant and interesting experience for those who choose it.


And, really, that's the only way I can see escaping from the worst thing schooling does to young people:  It keeps them in a state of suspended adolescence in which they learn little more than how to obtain more schooling.  If that isn't the antithesis of learning from experience and learning how to think, I don't know what is.  That is because to remain in school, at any level, you have to do what you're told when you're told in the way you're told.  And you get approval--which, as often as not, translates into higher grades--by showing some kind of enthusiasm as you choke off your thought centers.


On the other hand, I don't think there is any way to learn anything save through experience.  You learn by doing; there is no other way.  Larissa has done quite a bit, which is why she understands so much--and, most of all, has confidence in herself.  That's the first thing some teachers and professors would try to destroy.  Have you ever noticed that so many educators talk so condescendingly, not only to their students, but to almost anyone who isn't an educator of some sort.  Education administrators are the worst offenders.  If you're a parent and tried to explain to an assistant principal that you simply can't take time off from work to meet with him or her, you know what I mean.


Larissa has escaped everything I've described.   My cousin has escaped from other things, I think.  He apologizes to me for his "lack" of "education" even though I insist that he has no reason to defer to me.  

We went out to dinner last night.   Back in August, I saw him for the first time since I was ten years old.  He'd heard about my transition and surgery, and the people who weren't talking to me because of them, and offered to be a friend.  He hasn't tried to "study" me or, thankfully, tried to fit me into some gender-studies category.   


I am happy that we've reunited after the decades we've been apart.  And he's been very kind to me.  But last night, I started to believe that he wanted my friendship as much as he wanted to give me his.  I don't mind that at all.  As we talked, he described some rejections he has experienced from people who were related, or simply close, to him.  While he lost those relationships for entirely different reasons than I've lost mine, I do understand, at least somewhat, how he feels about them.  So, while he may not need me (which is also fine), I realized that, perhaps, he felt that I have something to offer him besides our familial (if peripherally so) relationship.


And, as with Larissa, it's nice to have a conversation with him because I can sense real efforts at, rather than mere gestures of, thought and feeling.  It's really nice not to listen to received opinions conveyed through rehearsed lines--or simply to feel smugness practically  oozing out of someone who's never met the kinds of people he or she is talking about.  


Oh well.  Two nice encounters in two days.  I am fortunate indeed.