Magic And Mundane

I trust the magic in my transgender expression.   I know that it comes from somewhere deep and centred inside of me.

What I don’t trust is the mundane in my transgender expression.  I don’t trust going to negotiate with the mechanic, working outside the house, whatever.

It’s not a challenge for me to do the big stuff as a transwoman.  It’s a challenge for me to do the small stuff as a transwoman.  It’s a challenge to show my frayed edges, a challenge for me to feel like I am just blending in, a challenge for me to have to do the small and social.

There is a reason so many transwomen have tells, from bad wigs to growls, because making sure people know we are not trying to lie about who we are makes us feel safer.   I never lie when I am doing the big stuff, but doing the small stuff, just working as a woman in the world?   It still feels scary.

I know why I wear my vestments to do my big work.  Why  should I wear them just to do the crap stuff?

I can figure out the answer, of course.

• The way you do anything is the way you everything.
• Magic happens at any moment, often when it is least expected.
• Authenticity is authenticity, and it can unbind both your heart and the heart of those who experience you.
• Context switching always has a cost, a loss of inertia, focus and power.
• To show boundaries as illusions, showing the boundary between magic and mundane as illusion is important.
• Protecting others from being disquieted by you is protecting them from the requirement of growth.
• Having to hold onto unneeded behaviours and habits weighs you down, makes you more clumsy and less graceful.
• Being open to surprise is being open to life.  Hiding your light under a bushel is not honouring your creator.
• Once the barrier is broken, beauty can rise to fill the newly opened space.
• The more you show your heart in the world the more you can attract those who can touch it.
• My choices make more sense as a woman, and being seen as a woman affirms those choices.
• Following your bliss isn’t just about following your constrained bliss.
• It’s my world, too.

My self-denial has always been based around work.   I will do the work, the work to take care of my parents, the work to support transgender people, and so on.

But that constructed boundary between work and self is inherently limiting, as TBB has been starting to say to me.   It limits me in many ways, from exploring my interests, to being ready for opportunities to always carrying a shadow of self-doubt.   To be visible in the neighbourhood, at family gatherings, at the store and so on is to merge work and life in a way that should, at least theoretically, be empowering.

It also seems terrifying, but then again the gal who bagged my bread today at the supermarket is also a transwoman, if my eyes and ears didn’t fail me.   The world is changing.

It appears that my life needs to become my work and my work needs to become my life, virtually seamless.    But I have grown to love seams, curtains, hidey holes, basements.  I still want people to come and find me in my space, rather than always having to be on.  As an introvert, I love my alone time, my offstage moments.  They are when I feel safe and productive.

I do my magic in the shadows.  In the sunlight, I keep my head down some, letting the mundane be mundane.

The return of the gift, though, requires that hazy boundary between the everyday and the potent, between the mundane and the magic, to be erased.

Integration is empowerment.   Integration means I don’t have to stay hidden and eat to fill when magic seems beyond me, something not for today but for some other time.

Shit.