Pilgrimage
Today I was rereading, for the millionth time, Paul Monette’s Last Watch of the Night. The book is a collection of his essays written in the last few years of his life, before AIDS got the better of him in February, 1995. The essays are placed in the order in which he wrote them; as time passes, as he senses his time drawing near, so does the urgency of his writing, drawing nearer to the surface and ever more insistent. Paul is my favorite writer, and this my favorite book.
I was reading the third essay in the book, “My Priests,” as I’d recently suggested it to a friend of mine in the clergy. I wanted to have it fresh in my mind for when she and I talk next. But, as is usually the case with Paul, I came to his words with one expectation and left them with something quite different. This time, triggered by just two sentences, I found myself vividly remembering, almost reliving the moment I took my first shot of testosterone, and all the madness leading up to it. Just these two sentences – a question and Paul’s answer – meant for an entirely different topic, left me crying openly and suddenly in a coffee shop on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I realized I’d never written any of this down, the events leading up to taking my first shot, and so here I am, with this story to tell more than 18 months after it all unfolded.
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I first told my parents that I wanted to transition around Thanksgiving, 2009. Our first conversations were chaotic and hurtful, every single one ending in either tears or yelling or both. I received my prescription for hormones later in December, with plans to start T on New Year’s Day, sucker for symbolism that I am. But Christmas came and I went home to spend difficult time with my family, hoping to mend fences first. WASPs that we are, confrontation was put off until my last night in town. Hours and hours this fight lasted, once it finally started. I kept believing that if I just explained enough, said enough words, they would suddenly understand. But the fix to my hurt was the cause of theirs, and nothing I said was going to change that. They, on the other hand, kept offering the most hurtful things that have yet been said to me in my life; they repeated that they’d be neglecting their parental obligations if they didn’t say these things, if they didn’t do everything possible to stop me from “doing this.”
What are we supposed to tell people?
You’re asking us to live a lie.
You’re choosing to spend the rest of your life deceiving people. Perfecting the art of deception.
You’ll never be a man.
How can you live with what you’re doing to us? To our family?
Even now, I can still hear them saying these things to me, and all the other things that would be said over the next months.
And so I left, my relationships a million times worse than when I’d arrived. I got on a plane to Minneapolis to spend New Year’s with Angela and Andrew, but instead of starting T, I cried and cried. I mourned, just as my parents must have been. They’d left me with an impossible choice – myself, or my family. One at the cost of the other. Of course I knew that I had to choose myself; after a lifetime of choosing everything except myself, I had only bits and pieces put together to resemble some version of a whole me, and I needed more than such a falsehood. Besides, the fights were only happening because I’d already made the choice. And so I cried because I felt as though I’d just lost my family, that this pursuit of authenticity was finally, finally happening but with the condition of doing it alone. I cried because I felt as though I’d just left home for the last time.
I didn’t start hormones that day. Or the next. The idea of taking that first shot was no longer a happy one. It no longer carried the magic, heartbeat-altering excitement. What had once been the most tangible, about-to-happen gasp of fresh, sweet, cold air was now painful and grief-filled. A couple weeks went by, and school started again. My friend and I even had an “It’s a Boy!” party to celebrate that we were both about to begin hormones, even though I very much had no idea when I would. I suppose I was waiting out of respect for my parents. Hoping that they would see (someday) that I was just as hurt by Christmas as they’d been by me – that they mattered to me, and that I was affected by their pain. I suppose I was waiting because I didn’t know how to tell them I wasn’t.
My roommates and I decided to take a last minute trip to New York City over MLK weekend, the extra day off school giving us a cushion for travel. I’d only been there once before, when I was 16, a girl, and tripping over myself on my way out of the closet. I was Christian at the time, thinking about seminary, promising myself I’d wait until marriage (to a boy!) to have sex. I was, in fact, dating a boy, despite a growing attraction to a girl in my school who would later be my first girlfriend. I had long hair. In short, I was, literally, an entirely different person the last time I’d been to New York. Getting to see the city through a new person’s eyes was, I think, exactly what I needed. A new city. New sights. New thoughts, new surroundings, even just for a few days. And this time, there were a few places I was burning to visit.
Logan at Stonewall, 16 Jan 2010
I dragged the group to Stonewall almost right away, telling the roommates the story along the way of how butches and queens of color were the ones to start the revolution, and not by throwing a fucking parade. We turned the corner on to Christopher Street, and were closer than we thought we’d been, because all of a sudden there it was. Neon lettering lighting up the street, even in the middle of the day, and surrounded by posters of upcoming balls and parties. We went inside and played a round of pool. I bought everyone a drink to celebrate just being there. I remember thinking it was surprisingly small, and unassuming, with only a few posters in the whole place making reference to the bar’s place in queer history. We were the only ones there, save for the old butch bartender, clearly amused at my excitement.
Angel Bethesda, Central Park
The next day we went to see the Angel Bethesda in Central Park. It’s a central image in Angels in America, a play and movie that is as close to me as Paul’s writings. I’ve written here before about how Angels has shaped my queer life, reminding me of my past, connecting me to myself and my community, helping me think about change and impermanence. The show closes with a scene at the foot of the statue, with Prior telling the audience directly, “We won’t die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come.” We went toward the end of the day and got a bit turned around in the park. It was January and the sun was setting quickly; we finally got there, but with just a few minutes of daylight left. I called an old friend from college that I hadn’t spoken to in a long time, but he’d introduced me to Angels all that time ago. We talked for a minute and I sent him a picture. I did my best to take it all in. All the change that had happened since the first time I’d watched Angels, all the newness of myself and all the hurt in my life right then. I walked up the same stairs that make the last image of the film, leaving the park and then leaving New York the next day.
When we got back to Michigan, I decided to finally take that first shot. With Angela and Andrew on video chat – Andrew helping me fumble through the mechanics for the first time, Angela holding my hand, so to speak – it was somewhat close to my original plan to start hormones while with them on New Year’s. I took the shot, and the moment passed quietly. No fireworks. Nothing magic. Just some more tears, and the only word that made any sense: bittersweet. And that was that. I’d started hormones, at long last. I didn’t tell my parents until two months later, and even then I didn’t tell them when I’d started, only that I had.
And now more than a year and a half has passed. My parents are I are better, though they still struggle with many, many parts of my life. I took another shot yesterday morning, and the routine of it all makes this Christmas/New York story seem so ineffably distant. Until Paul.
So what is a pilgrimage anyway? I suppose it has to do with the baggage you carry and the baggage you manage to shed.
I went to New York to get away. To spend time with a chosen family that saw me and loved me for myself, without pretense or conditions. I went to Stonewall to visit my political origins, and I went to Bethesda to visit my spiritual ones. And I went to shed the baggage I’d been carrying for so many years. To find and finally give myself permission to become this more authentic self.
And now, remembering that pilgrimage, I’m coming to realize that I’m still on one. Every day. Working through the baggage I carry, deciding what to shed and what to keep. Still pursuing myself, and still working toward what’s better. What’s next. The world is spinning forward, and I’m right there with it – one pilgrim among many.
