Life

I’m just sitting here at the Cafe. It’s about noon-ish. Morning coffee crowd has left and I’m just having a last cup before I clean up a bit. I’m sitting in my favorite black broom skirt, I love this skirt, as my friends Jenna, June and Sharon know.

I’m tearing up as I think about my Grandmother and reflecting on her life.

It’s sunset for her I’m realizing.

As some of you know my home is empty of some family members for whom the sun is rising, my daughters, and now my home is full of family members for whom the sun is setting, my Grandmother, recovering from her two heart attacks at age 91. It’s a bittersweet time of releasing. Releasing some for new life and others for death. It’s that simple

It didn’t really dawn on me where my Grandmother was in life until I saw her today in our kitchn. She was older and told me she wanted to go home. Of course, being the dutiful grand-daughter, I dropped everything and brought her home where she has lived for 70 years. The home her husband built for her, by hand, when he only had a single arm and they were in their early 20’s.

As I drove up to her home to drop her off I was finally able to understand better how her life must feel for her now. She has a few years, maybe, to live. There will only be so many days of tending her garden. So many days to say hi to her neighbors. Only so many days left to feel the soft grass under her feet or see the deer that compete with her for the earth’s produce.

She must be thinking of her little home, her brook, and her passed away husband I thought. She was smiling as I brought her home and she walked in. I was touched deeply realizing she was happy to be back in her home by her brook. She can’t stay there permanently. She is in some sense a visitor to her own place in our world. And, she still needs my help for life tasks for sure, but, for her, life is content in her home. I was jealous at some level frankly.

My Grandmother’s life in my home has been both blessing and frustration. We are blessed to help her and we are frustrated. Frustrated she will not take her meds on time, exercise or eat right. I find my heart torn between loving her and screaming she has to take care of herself or…sunset comes earlier than we all want.

Then I remember the word “dignity”…and I take a breath, smile my best Becki smile and hear her requests and supress my need to care for her. Her need to be her own person more important now. Even for a 91 year old woman, dignity is important.

I feel the warm summer breeze on my face and I take a breath realizing I’m not paying attention to a visitor who has stopped in to say “hi” this morning. I’ve been deep in my heart and writing. I smile, apologize, and say “Hi” and welcome her in. Good thing the coffee is extra good this morning

(Sunset Photo courtesy of MuffinMan photos, used under Creative Commons license)

Well it finally happened. No I didn’t win the Lottery or find the answer to where Waldo is. Nor did I invent a mascara that goes on with one stroke to create lashes instantly curled and thick as a kitten’s tail. Nope none of those.

But I did get invited to a wedding.

Ah weddings have to love them. Have you ever been to one?

The setting, the flowers, the dresses, the handsome groom, the pretty bride…the STRESS.

So my gal pal calls me and says, “hey, Becki, come to my wedding in Pennsylvania” and I said, “yeah sure, what species should I come as”.

She laughed; she knew what I meant.

“Well come as you”, she said, “I love you as you are, so come as you”.

And so that started the chain of events that led to my entering a fundamentalist church for the first time as me, hanging out with some cool people as me and getting my first drink bought for me. It was like spreading my wings and stepping from the nest and finding my wings worked.

who would know?

But first…the dress.

Scene I: The Dress
Once I was given the “all clear” to go to the wedding I became obsessed with what to wear. I mean, you don’t go to a wedding every day so you gotta wear something nice right? So I said, “heck with the budget, I’m going in style”. So I went to Chico’s, Lane Bryant (yeah I’m a thick chick), Dress Barn, Sears, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Models Resale, and found exactly…zippo. So I was pretty much in a panic. I started not my usual one hour ahead of time with that “deer in the headlights” look on my face showing up at Model’s Resale hoping my savior, Kimberly, would snap her fingers and make me gorgeous. Nope, I started 10 days ahead of time. That’s pretty good for me.

But the clock was ticking and I had……nuthin’.

So in desperation I called the bride to be (lucky girl!!)

“Can I wear black to your wedding” I asked, hope in my voice that a “yes” would give me some options I’d yet to consider at that point.

She paused and then said, “Black? Well I really would prefer if no one wore black to my wedding”.

My face dropped and panic instantly set in.

Not knowing what to do, I went in desperation to Walmart.

WALMART? They have fashion there? I had no idea. I was in a daze and sort of just wandered in there. But I was shocked to see they did indeed have something(s) for a woman like me. So I got the cutest black peasant skirt, a gold flecked maroon tunic and marched out. However, a good deal on some threads no more makes an outfit than a sow’s ear makes a purse.

Unless of course you accessorize…

ahhhh accessories…what would a girls life be without ‘em.

So in to see my friend Kimberly again. I showed her what I had.

She gave me her “thoughtful” look, hand on chin, mouth twitching. Then she said, looking at my threads hard trying to envision some visage of acceptability I might be able to attain.

“Well, everyone wears black at an afternoon wedding, I always do, you’ll be fine”. Then she pulled out a silk black shawl and gold earrings that were half moon shaped with small zirconia stones in them. My jaw dropped when I saw them. “Here, take these”, she said, “this will dress it up”.

Kimberly is the closest thing I have to a fairy God-Mother. I swear she has a wand in her handbag.

With the addition of a serpentine gold necklace she was right. I had an outfit that would blend into the wedding. For girls like me, blend is good. But I got way more than blended. Keep reading.

Scene II: Becki forgets how to drive
My friends who’ve braved a vehicle with me know that I am, at best, an average driver, and at worst a clear menace. My swerving to stay on a course of direction printed from Mapquest or Yahoo Maps is nothing short of a scene from some clown car derby.

So finishing work on a Friday I got my rump on the road and went to complete my shopping. First it was off to MAC for some refills, “oh your girlfriend will love these” the MAC person said to me as she handed me the items I’d chosen. I smiled my best Becki smile in boy mode, “Hey thanks, but these are for me I’m gonna love ‘em”. She looked at me, smiled, blinked twice and had a silly cartoon grin on her face like the one the coyote gets when the roadrunner drops an anvil on him, took my credit card and then wished me a good night.

So off I went 3 hours late but hey it’s only 6 hours to Pennsylvania and since I”m a night owl I figures that leaving at 10PM I’ll miss all the traffic AND I’ll get there by say 4AM, hit the hay get up at 10AM with two hours to get ready….

That was all well and good until four hours later, I looked up and realized I was in some part of NJ that was not on my map. I knew I was still in NJ due to the New Jersey State Police cars that seemed to be in abundance in this part of the state. But where? The fact my map was about 10 years old had nothing to do with it I’m sure.

So, not seeing anyone or anything in site, I made a u-turn and headed back to where I thought my last exit was supposed to be. I was, by some divine intervention, right.

So the girl pulls into in to her hotel at 10AM. 12 hours on the road. Hey I can do this on one hours sleep!

Scene III: The Wedding, The Drink, and The Girl who Learned to Fly
The wedding was beautiful. The bride was so beautiful I cried. The groom was so handsome I melted for my friend and thought, he’s such a catch, she’s so lucky. They look so beautiful together. My friend’s son was about as cute as can be. I would have taken him home in my pocketbook if I could have.

At the church a woman, sitting next to me, was choking up her lung. I mean she was HACKING. People were starring. So I got up to find some water for her. Figuring the kitchen was a good spot I sort of tiptoed in there.

A churchwoman halted me. “Why are you in here” she said to me suspiciously. “Well I need some water”, I said, confidently and hoping I didn’t get booted from the church, “a cup really, a woman sitting next to me is choking”.

“Oh, well just go the ladies room, we have some in there with cups”. She smiled at me. I smiled back. I felt normal. The woman got her water and was about as surprised someone had actually gotten her a glass of water as I had in being able to easily obtain one for her.

From there we headed over the reception with great mirth! Food was eaten, friends were made, smiles were smiled and pictures were taken. It was nice.

Then it happened.

I was at the bar and a man turned to me, smiled and said that I should try a Southern Comfort and Coke. He smiled again, then lingered looking into my eyes and said I’d really enjoy it. So I gave him my best Becki smile and said, “sure, that sounds like a great idea”. So he ordered one for me. Then he turned, taking his two cups to the table. One for him and one for his wife. The bartender smiled at me and poured me about the strongest and tastiest drink I’d ever had. Do bartenders do this for all the girls? The best part, the man who first saw me at the bar was looking over at me and smiled across the room at me as I showed him I had the drink and sipped it. Then he toasted me.

Then the girl learned to fly…

The blonde haired woman at my table said “Hey come catch the bouquet with me”. I said no, wiggled my wedding ring at her and mouthed to her, “I’m married”. And she smiled back at me, gave me a puzzled look and skipped off. I smiled too. I’d just learned to fly as me. It’s hard to put those feelings into words. Maybe it will never happen again - maybe I’ll go into the closet and cherish the day as one of those life highlights. But then again maybe I won’t. Maybe one day I’ll get to fly again.

It was an occasion to celebrate! Two of my closest friends were each celebrating unique occasion to each of their lives. I was elated for them both, and since I love being with any of my friends, the celebratory activities were put into play: Meet at one friends home downtown, clink glasses with said friends with champagne, decadently dine on caviar, then off to a nice local restaurant, arm in arm, skirts aflair, for a splendid time.

So me being the one who generally takes the longest, (you have friends like that I’m sure, be kind to them, they are slow but have big hearts), I thought I’d wait just a bit longer and instead of shaving for the occasion I’d use…

Nair.

“It’s the hair; the hair is ALWAYS the problem with us.” Those words, spoken by one of the aforementioned friends portended only doom - little did I know.

So, examining my body, which vaguely resembles a Beluga whale, I thought, “hey skip the shavin’, I’m Nairin’, I’ll feel better I’m sure”. And so on it went.

Have you ever used Nair? Have you ever smelled it? The bottle is pretty. The smell is like something from a glue factory. It just smells like it’s bad for you, that it could hurt badly you if misused. More on that point; keep reading.

And the consistency. Never a gloppier substance has come from the beauty labs of America. On my bod it went, pink color harshly contrasting with my pasty white Irish skin. One false move by any of my limbs never mind my torso and *splat* some would whip onto the wall, the shower curtain or the floor. Then try and clean it! One move to clean leads to a veritable landslide of the gooey substance as it travels down your body. Your only option to while the time away while Nair does it’s dirty business?

Wait.

Wait and just breath the heavy fumes of that permeate your skin, your walls, your cat (should your cat be unlucky enough to be in the bathroom with you during this drama).

So one little factoid on the directions says DO NOT leave on your body beyond the specified time. Despite Nair smelling like the insides of buildings where you bring hobbled horses for a sort of last rights, I thought, “how can this be right I mean, I’m a genetic male, thick skin and all. I may be transgender but hey, this stuff can’t be THAT bad really can it? I’ll leave it on for 3x the time so I’m good and de-haired. I’m sure I’ll feel better.”

“It’s the hair; the hair is ALWAYS the problem with us”. My friends words echoed in my mind. Especially AFTER I took the Nair off.

One little side effect of leaving it on too long is simply that your skin burns. Mine was tingling all over by the time I took it off. You’d think I would have determined I was having a problem when that sensation appeared! Off the Nair went and I’ll be damned if my skin wasn’t RED and growing red bumps and a damn RASH. That’s right readers, the femme fatale, the adopted soccer mom of the trans-community was finding herself turning into a red pimpled, red rashed, Beluga sized MESS. Oh, rubbing my skin with a towel to try desperately to remove this only aggravated my situation.

Needless to say my wearing that low cut cute tank top and my pearls while celebrating was not going to work! Too bad it hadn’t been Winter, I look fetching in a turtle neck.

Moral of story? Those directions on Nair really ARE there for a good reason!
Bonus Moral? Never use an epilator on your face! It’s only for your arms or legs!

(photo of razor courtesy of John Wardell (Netinho’s) Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

Being trangender opens up all kinds of opportunities for comedic relief if you relax a bit and just say, “I’m sure I must be insane”. My most recent adventure was one of my most potentially embarrassing while being one that provided the best laughs. Hopefully you’ll be entertained.

First off I’m always “en femme” - I’m always Rebecca and genetically there doesn’t appear to be a whole lot I can do about it aside from a brain transplant. Even then who knows who’s brain I’d get? Teddy Roosevelt? Jeffrey Dallmer? Moe Fine? Groucho Marks? Best to stick with the cortex problems I have than get some other brain with it’s own baggage.

But I dont’ always present as a woman as I’m not “full time” yet, as we say in the community. But hey I prefer to present as “me” as we like to say in the community so when the chance came, I grabbed it thinking, “hey I’ll just change back in the parking garage, no biggie”. I would have been better off changing in a phone booth.

First of all, as most women know, changing clothes in a car is a challenge in itself. How do you get your jeans on when you have a skirt on? Well under the skirt silly then slip the skirt off. Ahhh of course! So here I am in my car, air conditioning on thank goodness, squiggling into my jeans under a perfectly fun skirt that I love that I am hoping desperately I don’t wrinkle, snag, or tear. Mission accomplished there. But the odd gyrations of my portly body in the car would have made a distant on looker wonder if the car I was in was on an earthquake fault: first one leg up against the steering wheel then YANK the jeans up then pull the skirt down then move a hip in the other direction to fit in a bit more. Imagine cramming a sausage full of the sausagy material that makes it so good but doing it by hand. You probably can imagine how I looked. Car swaying, my jeans getting caught over my backside, yanking them up. Good time had by all. Thank goodness there were no spectators - yet.

Removing my bra was no less an act in contorsionism. First unhook said bra then slither your arm out the arm hole then bring it back at an impossible angle so that the arm can actually fit out of the bra strap and then WHISK the bra deftly from your shirt. TA DA. Breasts freed from their imprisonment.

So far so good - piece o’ cake.

Then there’s the makeup. Ahhh the spackle. Some days it might just as well be that. A friend and I had talked earlier about this apparent obstacle, “makeup shmakeup; quick wipe down with a handy makeup removing wipe and be on your way”. On my way indeed! That’s when the spectators came by. As the first man walked past, I figured he wouldn’t notice as I was frantically scrubbing my face. I was right, he was oblivious. A second gentleman saw me from the corner of his eye, then looked away. No doubt he’d seen someone like me scrubbing their face in public before; nothing like a good face scrubbing in public to freshen one up, I’m sure he thought, and on his way he went, nothing unusual here. It was the third couple that got me.

Walking past my car, two women walked up to their oversized white SUV (the kind that could tow a small home) that happened to tower over my little car right next to theirs. As they got in I saw them out of the corner of my eye noticing that the person in the car next to them (that would be me) was doing a good impersonation of someone trying to scrub their face with steel wool. Curiosity got the best of them and they had to look for a bit! Fortunately they did not walk UP to the car and gawk at me through the window, faces pressed firmly to the glass to get every detail. Instead they just kept their distance, no doubt hoping that something worse wasn’t happneing in the car next to them, like my skin catching fire due to the friction I was creating from the scrub of the “gentle” cloth. They eventually left and so did I. Unscathed, save for a bit of embarrassment though clearly having provided the afternoons entainment.

My little life lesson from this? Just relax and be myself, there’s probably not a whole lot I can do about it anyway!

(Phone booth pic used from BenoitNewton’s Photos, under Creative Commons License)

“You run like a girl” often implies that the person running (be they girl or boy) runs a little less then optimally shall we say. Such a term would never be implied to such amazing athletes as Joan Benoit, Grete Waitz, Paula Radcliffe, Svetlana Masterkova, or Rita Jeptoo. Of course if you ran like any of the women I just listed you’d want to run like a girl!

But what if you had a chance to run as a boy and then as a girl? Does gender matter in athletics for performance? Without going into the science behind it one woman knows both, as Runner’s World wrote in this excellent article on Janet’s Furman’s life, her transition, and her being an athlete:

Ever wonder how much faster (or slower) you’d run if you were the opposite sex? Janet Furman Bowman may be the only runner in America who knows.

You can read Janet’s incredible story at this Runner’s World article by clicking to it HERE.

(picture courtesy of M_M_Mnemonic and used under Creative Commons License)

My daughter had a teen sleepover last night. Imagine first a party with 10 or so teens then 4 of them sleeping over. Imagine food and soda everywhere, bodies strewn about. They are at a fun stage, they are slowly emerging adult women, gaining responsibility while keeping one foot (begrudglingly) in childhood. Both terror and pleasure, it is a stage that causes parents extreme shock at times while giving us glimpses of the children they were.

“So what brings up this topic up Becki” you might ask? Well, this whole fact dawned on me when my 16 year old said “Hey my friends and I are going to the park, I’ll bring my cellphone.” She’s practically an adult! I told her, “Yep, see ya later have fun”. No kiss, no hug goodbye I went on with my work, she went out the door. Life is good. No big deal.

But as she walked out I thought about Molly Bish and Gwen Araujo. I thought about other teens who said, “Hey I’m going to the park” or “I’m heading out with friends” then didn’t come back - ever. So I guess, with tears in my eyes, I just write this as an open reminder that we need to hug them when they are unhuggable and nurture them when they are unnuturable. It’s mostly safe “out there”, but not entirely so.

So yesterday was my first electolysis appointment. My friend, Angela, had been badgering me for a year to go with her to The Elecrolysis Institute and I, in typical fashion, had been saying, “yeah well eventually”. Eventually is Becki-speak for “I’m interested, but have no clue as to why I’d even want to do that, how I’d do that even though I know I probably should do that”.

The Institute, located in Tewksbury, MA, is disarmilingly small. I half expected something like a building from Harvard, I mean afterall, with a name like Institute…well it wasn’t quite like that on the outisde. But it was more than that on the inside. First a bit though about my complete lack of directional ability. I don’t have an internal compass, or if I do, it needs it’s battery fixed or a major overhaul. I’ve gotten lost in the best places: my home town trying to find the grocery store, with explicit directions to locations right out on the street, to offices within the building I work in. You name it, I get lost in it. So it was no surprise I got lost coming here. Ah well, late as usual.

So the actual procedure wasn’t as painful as I thought it might be. We tried a bunch of places on my face: The less sensitive cheek area (that was actually more sensitive), the more sensitive upper lip area (that was actually less sensitive). We pretty much stuck with the Thermlysis approach, though at one point we tried FLASH Thermlysis. We tried different areas. It was okay. The reddness wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Though I worry about being ready for work and being ready to do what I need to do. I think I was more worried about the zealous joy the electrolygist had in zapping my face and plucking the dead hair follilcles from it. Truth be told, aside from the clear sadistic enjoyment they had working on me, they were about the nicest people I’d ever met. They were very welcoming, and as they put it, “we don’t care who ya are, as long as you’ve hair we can zap from your face”. I had fun (you read that right, fun at an electrolygist’s office).

To learn more about electrolysis, (and all hair removal methods) you can checkout the amazing Hair Facts consumer watchdog site by clicking here also, TransGender Care has a nice write up describing electrolygy at this link here.

(pic of person being electrocuted from I’m Fantastic Photos, used under Creative Commons License)

I know it’s been awhile since any content has thrown up (literally) onto the plates of the lovely patrons of Beck’s Cafe. But there’s a reason besides “oh we forgot to pay our bill and had no access”. Nay nay, fair reader. This excuse is far more serious. I was in the hospital. It appears my parting gift after my last trip to Toronto was to receive the very ugly and potentially fatal bacteria, streptococcus, whilst traveling for work. The little ugly quite literally started in my foot and, in a few hours, had infected my leg and most of my lymphatic system. I was in a bad way continuing to get badder until a few kind souls stepped in and hauled me to the hospital where they quickly diagnosed my malady and just as quickly decided I was staying for as long as it took to get my little bod out of the clutches of the streptococcus bacteria invasion. The first step in the treatment process is direct application of anti-biotics via IV, coupled with sleep and elevating the affected limb. I’m not sure I really want to know the the next treatment step as I think it involves surgeons. One came to visit my whilst I was in the hospital, measuring me up, so to speak.

Hope you all have been well - it’s nice to be back - oh and Happy Spring

Well I’ve been away from blogging for a bit (no kidding Becki!) but it’s for a good reason, it was to attend this year’s annual First Event. Generally speaking, First Event, put on by TCNE, a local gender advocacy group here in Boston, is the first gender event of the year (hence the name). It was a particularly important point in my life this year as I actually physically went outside dressed and presenting as who I am, in my correct gender, as a woman. Having Gender Identify Disorder (GID), that is, being a transgendered person, is a very niggling issue for many of us. It’s something you wrestle with constantly trying to figure out what is wrong with you. Sometimes, you deal with it in unfortunate ways, through alcohol, drug addiction or other addictive behavior patterns to dull it; sometimes you just give up and commit suicide (we have too many of those, they make us all very sad). But the only real way to deal with it successfully is to accept it, look at your options, and take your options one step at at time.

The point of First Event though is to bring together the various groups
in the transgender community to talk about a variety of issues and have
some fun Afterall, that’s an important part of being a whole person! I think the seminars with the most impact to me were the ones on marriage (how to keep one intact) and on employment discrimination and how to deal with that. I’ll post more on both later since both were outstanding.

Oh one of the highlights for me was meeting this person here. Who would know she would not only be the worlds most bestest undiscovered beat reporter, but just a genuinely nice person. No doubt she kicked butt on the pool tables in the after hours!

Over at the totally fabulous and informative blog, Multidimensional Me, Koan Bremner posted a bit of a challenge to everyone to find their "mantra".   My initial thought was the well known mantra used in yoga meditation -  "Ommm" - but I’m far too fidgety to sit around in the lotus position repeating that (hence my short lived past involvement with yoga).  But what she really meant was a sort of one-line personal philosophy.  A summation of what you want your life to be characterized by in 2006.

I thought this was a smashing idea (in Boston we’d say that’s a wicked cool idea, but smashing is more in keeping here with my post).  SO what’s mine?

It is,  "Just be yourself".  That’s really it for 2006, I just want to be myself.  That takes a great deal more work than you’d think on the surface, (as I’m slooowly learning), but, for me in 2006, that’s actually a very good goal.

You can read how Koan threw the gauntlet down on personal mantra’s at this link here.