island time

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endemic is one of my favourite words, due in large part to my encounters with island species. the 2’-0” tall key deer on big pine key, roving in groups rummaging through residential trash and also exiting and entering the piney wetlands at the paved roads. the channel island fox, a cub “as small as a squirrel!” a stranger said quietly as we watched. this fox cub was spotted beneath a picnic table also sniffing around for human food, we surprised each other at one point and it ran into a bush of grapes….. lastly the hawaiian monk seal that plopped for a morning nap on the shore at the edge of my rented lanai two years ago in maui. it changed positions a few times and then fell into a deep rest, eyes closed, waves lapping onto its tail. i do not take my little 8 year old cat for granted, the way i get to observe her like wildlife even though she is domesticated. we were out of treats the last few weeks, i just restocked and discovered she has a special meow reserved for the greenies. on the return ferry from santa cruz island i spoke with a fresh high school grad who I snorkeled scorpion cove with that morning - they are off to study marine biology in monterey. we shared our favourite birds (black crowned night heron, roseate spoonbill) and sightings of the day (bat ray, sheep crab). how exciting to be young, or to be slightly older, to have such careful attention and reverence. this is what the islands, the prairies, the canyons (and the scrub, the swamp, the hammock.. i could go on…) give me.

i got maybe 45 minutes of silence in nature on the island this weekend. no other humans in sight. i treasured it. i have no idea how long it’s been since i’ve found that kind of peace. the sweet smells of the coastal plants too - i have savoured this particular reprieve driving about malibu and santa barbara this summer. i remember my friend megan saying long ago there is a point in the LA summer where the sidewalk smells like dog piss. i brush my fingers on the sagebrush, the potted black sage, the mexican marigold leaves to get a break.

sensory rest is elusive in the big city. so nice in a wetsuit, gazing at the pink kelp shifting with the tide, the lilac algae feathering the rocks. I recently spent a saturday with cell phone off, reading a whole book and listening to cd’s my neighbour was getting rid of years ago. sonic youth first then some acapella laurie anderson-style singing that had no label ( i still haven’t looked it up because i am relearning that it is nice to not know everything). i skipped around to my fav tracks on side a and side b of the white album, played chutes too narrow twice. i probably got that album for christmas in 2004. the shins made me feel like an adult at age 12. i guess a lot more things than that made me feel like an adult at age 12.

“i am on my island” i said via text this weekend after an inquiry about my immediate family drama that is being publicly aired on mark zuckerberg’s internet. rudderless and wandering, avoiding danger, that is my american dream. i am also on the threshold of the top chop. Monday 8-10:30 AM PST i will be in surgery .. say a prayer for me, be quiet with the sky, light a candle, whatever it may be. i’ve been coming out to people while asking for help. i’ve been declining to disclose the nature of my upcoming surgery to my coworkers because i don’t want negative attention or questions. i still seek to control what others think about me. i spoke to my dear ruth out in berlin at 6:40 am driving to work this morning and said maybe it takes decisive actions that affirm my working hypotheses for me to feel more integrated. maybe it will be easier to feel whole next week, but maybe i will always feel split because i do feel that I have to lie to my folks to have any kind of relationship with them. eternal condemnation awaits my honesty. it’s giving disney’s MULAN. to be split, to pretend, to be masking, to be dishonest, to be scared, to not know how to use words when speaking about the ephemeral (god, gender), to be resistant to piecing together the words.

the words i do like and the words i do rely on are from Susan Stryker’s into Lou Sullivan’s selected diaries We Both Laughed in Pleasure:

« Sullivan, I would go so far as to say, offers essentially the same insight into being trans as that offered by the psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan. Lacan considered transsexuality to represent what he called a sinthome: a uniquely personal, idiosyncratic manner of braiding together the psychical registers of the Imaginary (the inner realm of images and the identifications we attach to them), the Symbolic (the social realm of language and representation), and the Real (that which is, whether one wishes it to be or not). For Lacan, “I” is the symptom -- or in Old French, the sinthome, which Lacan turns into a pun to suggest that our symptomatic subjectivities are a “synthesis” that becomes our “home” -- of a successful attempt to weave those three rings of reality together into a stable pattern and thereby to become a non-psychotic subject. This, for Lacan, is what it means to be a person. The transgender subject is a kind of person who, for Lacan (and, I would argue for Lou Sullivan) similarly succeeds at the task of becoming a viable, non-psychotic subject by entwining the Imaginary, Symbolic and Real -- but with a twist. Because our Imaginary identifications are different from what the Symbolic says our bodies are supposed to mean, we trans folks bring our identities into alignment with the Real by (re)writing them into our flesh; in doing so we come to appear to others as what might be called an “interpretation of our own happiness” that makes our living feel worthwhile. »

here is my try: the moment of departure was at age 10 standing in the sand outside my portable fifth grade classroom. the competitive cheerleading season had just ended and my mom told me I had to start wearing a bra. the chest dysphoria was constant in puberty as i starved and then overate. i began stealing my dad’s oversized clothes. i read trans memoirs in my 20s and felt an ache but didn’t know how to make sense of it. “cis but i’ve always wanted my breasts removed, sober but not an alcoholic” etc. i’ve been talking about gender discomfort for years w/r/t my experiences as a “woman.” instead of the capital t traumas incurred trying to perform what other people (men, mom) want, i now dwell instead in the choiceful routines of my gender performance, what they show me: both/and, wanting to be a part of but never able to hang with the boys without being someone’s girlfriend or having people come onto me, leaning into my masculinity for protection, deflection, power. my persistent desire to nurture others, a desire to coalesce a self, a life without limitation. i want to stop there for today, or rather, that is as far as I have gotten without gender affirming medical care. relief will reveal more. I know this to be true.

to be formed and shaped by place and experience and spirit are all the mysteries of biology: the river is with us, the sea is all about us.¹ grateful for all forms of communion: the water’s edge, the schools of fish, perching at the edge of the ferry, the cliffside, writing here, using the telephone. tis sustenance for the journey.

1. T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets: The Dry Salvages