What a rollercoaster this shelter-in-place, social distancing ride has been! It only stands to reason in this three-ring-American Circus, all the sideshows notwithstanding, Covid-19 is the great-white-knuckler, the tilt-a-whirl, the crazy spinning cages of the Rock-O-Plane, the “Cages” in the vernacular, and we are all unwitting riders.
It’s a bumpy, scary ride for many reasons. Dare I count them? Headline: Massive Ego Seeks to Manipulate World and Flails. Lies, lies, lies, and oh yeah, incompetence. The spinners of alternate facts, conspiratorial realities, obfuscate the truth through their smokescreen bullshit, and that has lead to far too many unnecessary deaths. The lack of any semblance of Federal coordination, the dearth of any voice calling for a unified response to the greatest civil threat in our lifetimes, is lost and the Son-in-law, scrubbed and shiny from his sinecure, smiling for the cameras, and painting the administration’s failures as success. That is some magic brush, man.
Let’s face it, this is amateur hour at the Bijou, smoke stealing beneath the door of a backroom, greasy from the prurient fingers of the sausage makers, lustily pulling on their levers of power.
So, it’s no wonder, and it makes complete sense to be a bit, well, unsteady? a bit anxious? a little uncertain? somewhat inconstant? And I am serious. These swings of mood take me by surprise, and then I remember, oh yeah, we are in crazy town…
And, like the wolves circling the timorous hart, these moods strike at our most vulnerable parts, which for me is my emerging identity. I fall into doubt and self recrimination, dissatisfaction with this skin I am living in. Honey, I will never be “petit.” At almost six-one, I am best when I see myself as fit, athletic, built for action!
At the worst, I look in the mirror and I can’t see Kay, only the hard wrought outlines from a life playing for the other team. This is the dysphoria, folks; yes, step right up! And I walk right into it: nothing looks good, nothing fits right! Damn it!
On my run/walk this morning, it occurred to me as I was cooling down and walking to my car, that I was feeling what women have felt for centuries: the uneasy tension between who we are and what we feel we need to be, to be seen, to be desired, to be cared for.
Now, though, I remember myself, and I know that self-love must be first for other love to follow. Waking up this morning, I heard my silent voice, growing distant as I ascended from the dreaming black, tell me: “It’s only depth; don’t be chicken”. Yup. And now I get it. The struggle with our image of ourselves comes when we look away from our internal self and perseverate on the external, which will always have limitations.
At times we give in to those limitations–believe in the unforgiving outlines of our most orphaned features. Possibility closing down, circumscribing our sense of self only in the boundaries of our own reflection.
I want to reflect. I want to live in. I want to live up.
There are times, too, when we overspill our vitality so effusive we let go of what is manifest to turn our ears and hearts to the drumming of our soul, the uncanny rhythm that flows through us, its rising and ebbing tide. Either way, surviving the rollercoaster is giving in to the wild ride. Buckle up, and let go. Stay with your knowledge of your most sacred self.
And, for goodness sakes, try and have some fun.
Kay out.
Transgender Transcendentalism 