The Woman Within

An affirming day yesterday.  I "thought" I was in my guy mode with my natural hair and no makeup and just a  collared shirt and Jeans.  I was up in the White Mountains of NH playing "tourist" at the Flume Gorge.  Along the walking trip, there was a point where one could diverge through a small jumble of rocks that made for a tight, dark, one way passage through to the other side.  A mother and young daughter saw me turn around and signal to J to try it, but alas, this was not her cup of tea.  On my way through, I used a pocket LED flashlight to light my way and then turned around to help the little girl, just ahead of her mother, to find her way through the cavernous rock jumble.  The mother thanked me and reassured her daughter by telling her to "follow the nice lady with the flashlight". The Flume Gorge and Walkway Later, while taking close-up pictures of butterflies that were alighting on a wooden safety railing to catch some rest and some ...

Sometimes we never fully appreciate the dysfunctionality of our families until we are much older.  By then, many years and decades of our lives have passed and we come to look back at our childhood with eyes anew, as if we were looking upon our lives as a different person than we were.  My very wise 17 year old nephew once said to me that we each live multiple lives over the course of our lifetime.  As we grow to learn about ourselves, we grow internally, both spiritually and intellectually.  Our desires, goals and perspectives evolve as we become ever more aware and self conscious of the lives we have lived, the lives around us we have touched or that have touched us in some way, and as we evolve within ourselves. In looking back on my own childhood, I can sense it all anew from the perspective of having lived through it and grown into a person who has become self-aware of her own identity and the world around her.  I can eerily look back upon my youth and trul...

Many times, people see us as they first came to know us.  An example of this happened today when I stopped in at my skincare aesthetician.  They first came to know me as male years ago when I first started going there for treatments.  I was known by my male name and the pronouns were always "he, Him, and His".  About a year ago I showed up in full on girl mode after announcing just prior that I was transgender.  There was no problem in pronoun switches to the feminine when I did show up in this manner and "She" and "Her" along with my name being used as Christen were the rule. Today, I showed up in what I like to call my "twilight zone" mode.  It's a gender neutral sort of mode in which I wear no makeup and usually don just a women's polo shirt in either blues, or blacks and a pair of casual, relatively neutral women's jeans.  Interestingly, when I arrived for my appointment the pronouns were "He" and "His" and m...

 I was looking back and reviewing the recent Laverne Cox cover on the upcoming issue of Time Magazine and in awe of this as a yet another marker of how far we have come in transgender issues within even the past year.  We are finding, as transgender individuals, increased visibility within the greater world from all that we are doing.... each and every one of us who proudly herald and proclaim our own sense of self.  The people we touch, whether it be one or one hundred thousand, makes little difference.... because together we ARE bringing light to where there was once only myth, fable and darkness.  I see Laverne Cox as one of a select few individuals who are as I would call as "keystones" in a gateway to understanding.  She, like many of the popular transgender role models today, fit easily into the "gender binary box".  This is to say that they fit with physical characteristics into either a very male or very female box.  Many of our transgen...

A couple of random incidents yesterday combined to really light up my day and reaffirm my faith in hope for the human race.  I will admit that it is often simply the very few individuals who conspire to make life an obstacle course of hurdles and whose actions shadow the majority of the good and the love which truly permeates the world at its core. I was in BJ's yesterday stocking my shopping cart with the necessities of life and, for the life of me, could not find the one last item I was looking for.... a case of Annie's Macaroni and Cheese.  I spied a woman busily stocking a shelf and assumed she was a store employee.  I approached and asked her if she knew where the Mac and Cheese was and she replied that she was simply a contract vendor and not a regular store employee.  I apologized for my assumption and we engaged in small talk for a few moments in the crowded store. I consigned myself to the fact that I would be one item short of my list when I headed to t...

I feel an ebb and a flow in transition, as if eddies, currents and rip-tides which oft seem to drag me out to open water far from shore seem to then wash me back in towards shore..... not the shore from which I entered the water to be sure, but a new and wondrous beach to find myself upon nonetheless. Although I oft long for the beach I commanded many years ago, I cannot deny the wonder, the beauty and the amazing experiences of the sands I now find myself upon and exploring anew. There is no celebratory stance nor would I consider this an enviable position. I simply find that I am,and I exist apparently, within this realm. It is a place "natural" to my being yet without personal attendance worthy of fanfare or celebration. It just is me. The "pink sunglasses", temporal as they were, are gone. The reality of this station in life is simply here and the decisions commensurate with how to move ahead, finding a path which serves to preserve the most ...

After an emotionally charged week for me spending time with my dad, it's nice to be back up north, to be able to open the blinds and see the mountains and the flowing river, to hear the song of birds and the.... joyful experience of seeing a skunk busily digging up our yard as we pulled into the driveway near midnight last night.  Yes, there was the incident at the restaurant the other day (earlier post) that had me feeling like I wanted to shrink into my seat, but there is so much more emotion and so many more memories that spring to life once again, like ghosts from the past, when I am down there.  I'll write about all of that some day, but it's too hard right now.  The story of growing up is not a happy one and I still harbor conflicted emotions of both love and of disgust.... but at least I know in my heart that I am doing the right thing for him. My dad saw me leave with J to head back up north.  I was back in my normal regalia and he encountered me as my tru...