A short story I wrote from Idhaz’s Too Emotional: Rebirth Edition writing
I am a moth. Some say I am dull looking, unintelligent, and fragile. I know I am much more than what meets your mortal eye. I am eternal. At my worst, I am drawn to a flame that does nothing but distract me, leading me to a mindless escapade of dissonance from my higher self. At my best, I fly in the dark of the night, traveling to visit my flower, a deep blue hydrangea. I am my most free self in the dark- far away from distracting flames. My grey and dusty purple wings share a dance with the blue petals.
The wind carries the pollen and life starts its circle. I don’t need a flame to see the golden sparks of pollen fly above our heads. They swirl and twinkle and form shapes like they are constellations in the night sky. Someone sneezes in the distance, carrying the seedlings to plant elsewhere across the forest. My blue hydrangea lets me rest on one of his green leaves. He tells me “thank you for helping me fly even while I’m rooted in the soil”. “The pleasure is all mine” I reply, my antennae gentle touch my flower’s petals. “May I drink from you”? He says, “I thought you would never ask”. I take in a sip. It tastes like stardust caught in a honeycomb-ancient but timeless.
Blue Hydrangea lets me take a nap on his green leaf. He tells me stories of plants that came before him and the lessons they have learned from my past ancestors of moths. As I drift off, my flower whispers to me, “We really were made from the same stuff you know”? “Yeah”? I answer. “Absolutely” he replies. “What is soil to carbon, to stardust, to honey, to pollen, to exoskeleton, to flesh and bone”. It’s all a circle telling us the same story in different fonts and colors. I wake up from my nap, kiss him goodnight, and flutter back to the old cabin just a mile away. I dream of the next dance I get to create with Blue Hydrangea
I’m not sure how to do this. How to write about a year that has so freshly ended. I feel like I’m waking up from a dream. My eyes open to a foggy room-I wash the dust from my eyes, eat a few bites of breakfast.
That wasn’t so bad!
March 3rd 2020, I bring my two dear friends Ava and Alexa to my endocrinologist’s office. I am red in the face and dizzy from a kiss goodbye to parties that I didn’t know I was saying goodbye to.
It’s slow and fast. It’s deep and shallow. It’s soft and hard. It’s Hairy and bald. It’s Thinner and thicker. All of these spinning oppositions fighting each other until they slowly streamline into a peaceful shape. Like something divine choreographed them on a grand stage.
Each week of me injecting oily synthetic lab-made testosterone into my stomach- I learn a new lesson.
These are the three that ring the loudest:
1.) Comparing yourself to others (including the old lives you have lived) is the first step in playing a game you can never win
2.) Play in the slow times
3.) Nourish the difficult parts
I have learned to finally give myself permission to feel grace. I have learned to not find comfort in my anxieties- it’s simply unsustainable and I plan on living a big, long life.
I have made many deep connections and friendships in the past year that have helped me in transition. One of these friends is Ryan Chard Smith. Ryan reached out to me on Instagram at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. We became good friends and decided to collaborate on a project called Ryan Meets Ryan. I consider it an honor to transition at the same time as the rest of the world. It started with facetime photo shoots and then finally meeting in person in San Francisco. These photos are precious to me:
There is so much I want to say here. There is so much I need to write. I’m not done, and I likely won’t be done for a long time. But isn’t that the fun part? The doing? The making?
Cheers to one miraculous year of giving birth to myself. Cheers to a world that stays curious about what comes next in this chapter of human life. Cheers to making. Now let’s have a tea party!
30 years ago today, Lou Sullivan passed away due to complications with AIDS. Thank you for what you did with your 39 short years of life. Thank you for guiding my spirit without me even fully knowing. You called to me so many times and I’m so glad I listened. You told me to go to the same spot you sat to write in, in Golden Gate Park-your shirt unbuttoned exposing your newly scared chest to be kissed by the sun. You guided me to go to the same location where you sold your first published book-From Female To Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland. Thank you for writing about another gay trans man in San Francisco. Because of you, I can get top surgery and still be a gay man. Because of you, I can walk in shoes that fit me. Your footprints embedded a pathway for me and so many other gay transgender men-especially in the Bay Area. I love you Lou, rest easy.
