Wilderness, No Festival.

When I look in the mirror, my gray beard lengthening, my teeth giving signals of soon giving out, my age showing around my eyes, I am reminded of the hermits of old, the ones who went into the wilderness as part of their relationship with their god.

Halloween is coming,  Halloween is a milepost for transpeople, though not always a milepost of celebration.  It may be a milepost of denial, of indulgence, of nostalgia — ah, that boy in fifth grade who got to dress as a ballerina — of experimentation, of response, of so many things.  As a celebration of alter-selves, it is potent for us, even if we choose to stay away from it, because it’s filled with amateurs, because we are real and it is false, or because we can’t be that exposed.

But from the wilderness, Halloween is slipping beyond me this year, even that one brief moment society accepts being out in the light and playing with expressing something than the normative.  I miss the planning, the preparations and the bit of hope that Halloween brings.

It is true, of course, that the notion that the Halloween festival will bring what I need has never been proven true, and even in the best case scenario, it would probably not prove true this year.  What I want from other people isn’t simple,  clear & narrowly defined, and that means that I probably won’t get it.

Still, the wilderness is the wilderness, and even with a good notebook, it is still the wildreness.

All I can hold is that my mother in the sky knows what I need, and will eventually chooose to bring me in from the cold.

But until them, it’s only Hermits for Halloween, you know?

Home Dreaming

I woke up from this dream where I had found a community that was trans-supportive and moved there, happy to be somewhere positive.

I started going around town and people would tell me what I needed to to do, what I needed to change to be happy.  All this advice was about fitting in, getting more surgery, being more like everyone else.

I eventually traced all this back to a mental health practice in town where a group of women MSWs were selling this pap, and met the man at the center of it.

He tried to convince me I was wrong, but when I was strong, steadfast and smart, he started to seethe, still smiling.

I got back to my new place and found my belongings packed up, as I was being evicted.   The trannies thought it was a good thing, too, zombies all.

I just read a post about a transperson who was around medicos and disclosed and found them to be supportive.  Maybe that’s where this is from, that mixed with my life-myth, that I am just too hip for the room.

Maybe that therapist who offered me a lobotomy for the same HMO visit fee I was paying was right.  Right, in that he knew that I couldn’t really trade awareness for community.