The Good Things

Miz Ruby notes that I don’t write much about good things here.

She’s right, of course.  I write about the things that are emotionally impactful, or the things that I think about, and often that means the good things aren’t visible.

It’s good, for example, that I got two long phone calls from people who love and care about me tonight. 

TBB talked about an SCC where she was in the background, holding court, and we talked about how mothers and grandmothers have to take care of each other when the kids and grandkids are doing their own thing and forgetting history.

Out into community, TBB thinks is the solution for me, and coming home from SCC, to her that means the trans community.

Out into the community, Miz Ruby thinks is the solution for me, and having found connection at the local food back over the last five years, to her that means volunteering.

Miz Ruby wants me to know that while the things I talk about here are trans-flavoured, they echo in her life, common human challenges, though maybe with another level of difficulty.

I know that, I do.  It’s all about being human.  There is nothing in being trans that isn’t essentially about being human.

They care, they do.  Miz Ruby read my blog about my birthday, and as soon as a major internet retailer could do it, I found a package of Kiki & Herb Will Die For You and Antony & The Johnsons on my doorstep.  A night of high volume though the new clearance Wal-Mart headset, and I felt the power, which I shared with her via e-mail.

They both believe that I have something to share, something valuable.   I don’t doubt that, but I do doubt I can do my caretaking role and a rebirth role at the same time.  Miz Ruby says I should just stay in Toronto and ask for the amnesty my Canadian citzenship should entitle me to.  TBB thought I should start taking hormones, but settled for having me write her book, if I can take dictation while she drives.

The best part of the calls, though?   Both of them laughed.  I so much miss using my full voice, not just the freeze dried bits I can put in this blog, using my full voice and helping people find the laughter.

My lifemyth is simple: I believe that I am too hip for the room, that people won’t get it, won’t get me.  But when I have an engaged audience who is open to laughter, well, it feels like I am actually touching them with my funny little scalpel. It’s easy for the funny bits to vanish on the blog, but where my voice can dance a bit, well, that makes it all feel better.

There are good things in my life.  The new Diana Krall album is blissful, and after her drunk pal argued with us about what to do for our parents, my sister had another awareness of what I do.  I write things like the notes on audience and fel good about that, even if it’s hard to explain the joy of writing well, which always means thinking well.

I’m OK, really I am.  But I don’t know how to convey when and how I feel pain without being a bit dramatic and potent, even if that overwhelms the other content here.  Can I make change and stay in context?  I don’t know how.  But I do know how to take care of myself in little ways that count, even if they don’t pop out, aren’t worth writing about, or address the dual issues of my “emotional sunburn” and the way out of the holes I am dug into (change for Miz Ruby) the way out of the holes into which I am dug.

I know I get gifts, and I try to treasure them, to take full flavour and power from them.  They are good things, very good things.

And Miz Ruby and TBB, I thank you so much for all the good things you bring me.

Amen.