Extra ordinary Life

      Trans Toons by Bethanyangelstar.deviantart.com.

"If I were young again I'd pay attention to that little known dimension, a taste of endless time."
Chris Smither,


It was only a couple of months ago that I described my desire to experience more of the ordinary life of those most extraordinary creatures, women.  That was not followed up by weekly outings, but now i hope to do so in the new year.  I find myself in retirement, more and more dressed femme or androgynous.  But like an alcoholic who has been maintaining for a while with a steady diet of wine spritzers,  I am feeling a powerful thirst, and dare I say need to slap on a skirt, and head to the mall and shop!  Like a deranged participant observer I need to be among them in their natural habitat,  the dress shops, salons and tea rooms.  In the Xmas season, I did just that, and even tried on some outfits for New Year's Eve.  As expected, the malls were a welcoming world of friendliness, with family friendly restrooms, and transgender friendly fitting rooms.  And when made, as my unfeminine voice guaranteed everytime I opened my mouth, there was always a smile, and the occasional stare of some other shopper, whether cold or warm, was a matter of indifference to me now that i know that the ground will not come up to swallow me whole, and consign me to some tranny hell where the drag is ill fitting and the fabrics of the coarsest wool.
As I am more and more out, I increasingly confront my bi-gendered existence, wondering if such an existence represents a dissociation in my personality.  Like Eve (the all about one, not the one with a taste for  apples), do I represent two personalities, each barely on speaking terms.  My first impression was perhaps, but I need to think more on it.  I don't for instance fully represent my masculine side, the one with children and even gasp grandchildren, and ex-wives, and co-workers.  I speak here as Belinda, who is mostly unattached, and rather narcissistic at times.  But the few who know both sides of me, don't see much difference (Haha)  And perhaps they are right.
So another year evaporates and despite the usual apocalyptic nonsense, another stands poised to begin.  There won't be an infinite supply of them, i increasingly realize, and so they never have been more precious.  I hope only for a few extraordinary adventures this year.  And to become fully comfortable with my own skin, (and to moisturize it daily!)  My wishes are the same for you, unless you are a boy in which case you should have the adventures, but moisturizing is optional.

Superstorm

"Oh, love me tonight, for I may never see you again"  
  Bruce Springsteen  4th of July Asbury Park

I walked the beach last week, the north end of Brigantine Island, a beach that I love literally or is that litorally.  My first time since Sandy and a place to fully realize her power.   The storm itself passed right over my home. But being a distance from the ocean, well nestled near the back bay,   I didn't see Sandy in her full fury.  But this beach (and many places north of here) is where She made vacuum of our cherished illusions of permanence.  The beach has changed.  Twice as large at low tide , and I imagine twice as small at high tide.  The line between the thick underbrush of dune grass, cockles, goldenrod, thorny vines and the beach erased, The marshes are sand covered, and the beaches are denuded.   And with that, things once hidden are revealed.  There is a familiar piece of the beach with some pilings which are obviously the ruins of a dock.  Now as the picture above shows,  other more elaborate structures long sleeping under the sand are revealed.  And of course one island further north, long beach island.  Structures that once stood in daylight, are shorn, and what remains buried beneath sand.
In a night, what was is no more, and what was no more is.   And we are surprised, aghast at the gentle billows turned savage, and so much of what we called ours, swept away by an indifferent hand.  What once moved is stilled, and all is movement that we thought stillness.   Still we makes our plans, and build our castles, forgetting that they will be toppled, and we will be stilled,.  Everything we do, everyplace we go, everyone we love, everything we are will disappear.  And so those forgotten ruins, provide a kind of solace, the forgotten will return.  Either that or embrace the oblivion.
Officially, I do the latter, well read in the Upanishads.  And yet as it approaches, I furiously exercise body and mind, assembling bucket lists, and arranging play dates.  There is little to be gained by denying what is evident from the first blink in the morning to the final blink at night.  I work assiduously on the castle.  Here is the room where I study sanskrit, and here is the room where I struggle to understand algebra and physics... (Has that sand just become too dry to bolster those walls?)  And of course the top floor is completely given over to walk in closets, and make up tables, and perhaps a few too many mirrors.  Gotta get that castle done!  So I can get a nice look from a high tower at approaching seas.

You Say You Want a Resolution?

"He not busy being born is busy dying"

It's All Right Ma by Bob Dylan

The obvious interpretation of this scripture is that unless you continue to grow you will decay. A more subtle interpretation has lately been troubling me, that there are two conditions becoming and unbecoming. For most of us, we put a lot of chips on the square "being". This would be unfortunate, if nothing really is, and it is all becoming and unbecoming.

Last night I attended a small t-girl discussion group. I have participated in these discussions for years now, at a Lady friend who is a strong supporter of the transgendered community, and so most of the participants on this particular night were friends, with a few new faces. One topic was, what was the mistake in your life that you learned the most from. And the number one answer is... drum roll..... my (first , second, ... ) marriage. I would concur, having learned that hiding my "hobbies" doesn't make them or the issues that go with them go away.

Another question was .. "What is the big regret in your life?" With this group, not surprisingly the answer was not being born a girl, or not stepping out sooner, or not doing something about those pesky male parts when i was young. Again I would concur, at least regarding stepping out. I mean let's face it: The yound me would just look so much better in a red minidress than i do. But that leads me back to the premise. You cannot be something.. only become or unbecome something. And so to ask what do you regret not becoming.. as if you would somehow be that now.. is incorrect. The question is always the same... what do you want to become... so start to become it, before everything we call you has "un-become".

So for me there is the last new year's resolution I will ever make;

To live this year as if it is my last, and if it ain't .. well then try it again. Repeat as necessary.

And that means one thing..the operation!

That's right I am finally going to get my ears pierced! and i might even get my hair colored.. (une poquito)

Because, I refuse to regret not having become a physicist, I am becoming one, ..and so.. my gender model in the realm of becoming / unbecoming.. is the harmonic oscillation.. (no sluts.. not the harmonic osculation ) better known as hopelessly gender confused.

or as i prefer Hermaphrodite.

Unbecoming male .. becoming female... unbecoming female... becoming male.. ... Now that when occuring in the absence of friction is eternal.

"Shive ShaktyA yukto yadi bhavati saktah prabhavitum....

tintinnabulation

Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! Edgar Allen Poe

I haven't had a cigarette in six years, quitting with holiday bronchitis. Generally healthy since, but now I have been sick with respiratory infection for 7 weeks. And after 30+ years of smoking cigarettes, living through my father's tribulations with the wages of this particular vice, I felt a few times a sort of terror, and at least once I verged on an anxiety attack. Luckily my history of mental health is such that I recognized the condition, so I didn't march off to the ER.

Some seek the consolation of philosophy, but it is thin gruel. I prefer the consolations of religion, which for me is meditation, and the reaching out for the divine that I find there.

I wasn't terrified by death so much as by life; the invalid's life. How much of my life is frocking around with younger friends, making up for lost time, creating Belinda. How much of Belinda is dependent upon Eros. After all Belinda arose out of sexual fantasies and sexual desires. But when you are sick enough, there are no desires, only the desire to be well.

For me, throughout my life there have been intrusions, or manifestations. Events subject to interpretation. A sea aged plastic ornament red hearts connected by an arrow found on the beach on Mother's Day, a few years ago... and going way back... insects droning doom doom doom on a hot summer night and falling confused into conversation with my homosexual neighbor (married with kids, so quite a surprise) but that is a whole other story.

So with renewed religion, studying Goddess, Laksmii, Tripura Sundari, Devi... She of many names and modes of worship, there is sometimes, connection. There are the constants, ocean, birds, winds, the constituents of nature, or MAyA. Kinds of a feeling that it is all pretty good, pretty right. In fact I just wrote on the topic just a couple of monthes ago. Butterflies.

So in my battle with depression sleeping poorly ,waking early, I heard something, and I really couldn't place it. Finally I decided that it was sleigh bells... though we are short of snow and sleighs here in New Jersey this time of year. But later that morning, I was reading the Saundarya Lahari... the Flood of Beauty. Reading verse seven,

Kvanat kajci dama .. from the sound of Her belled and garlanded waist...

purostAd AstAm nah. ..... may she be in front of us...

Not all divinities are outfitted with girdles with bells, and I had certainly forgotten this detail, the Goddess manifest in a sound.

Synchronicities. Divine Coincidences. Some of us seem to need them, and blessedly we receive them. Anugraha... Grace. Small miracles which suggest rather than compel. I am never quite sure what to make of them, and not sure that I make of them what I should, which may be the same thing.

Definitely feeling much better now. Going out Saturday Night... returning to old habits, good and bad. Yet it is hard to deny that everything that you hold onto, clear thought,... Belinda.... goes.. and for me the terror wasn't the going, so much as being left behind... the shut-in. But that is for another time.

Nama Laksmii... Nama KAli