Catalyzing my Gender Expansion (For Syl)

Two people walking through the woods, away from the camera

Expansion’s Catalyst (for Syl)

I don’t remember our first meeting. Nothing you used to wear has taken root in my mind. It was the way you held your heart out in front of you, ready to share. 

You had long brown hair and eyes that seemed to look deeper into me than I knew possible. I kept noticing you. My attention pulling in your direction like an ocean current. We weren’t quite in the same place. You were a work-scholar, taking classes, paying to be tucked into the California coast for a month. I was an employee. But we’d both chosen this place where ocean waves battered rocky shores and phone booths and a drive into town was the way we stayed connected to the outside world. A place where silence was easier to reach. Where nature invited you in and asked you to stay a while. 

I remember when you started questioning your gender. A hushed conversation next to a rowdy game of volleyball by the lodge. I walked with your through your confusion and it called to me, but I didn’t know why then.When you shaved half your head on the front lawn for all to see and everyone called you brave. 

You didn’t understand quite why. 

There were so many women who came up to you and said you looked amazing, wanted to do what you did but were too scared. They didn’t understand. 

This was not a choice. This was your breakthrough. 

For me, it was a catalyst. 

There were some things that still didn’t feel safe. Like the fact that I’d only ever had sex with a cis man who knew nothing and cared for nothing but his own body. Later, in a quiet tea room you told me that you wish you’d known. You would have shown me what it feels like to be cradled in the arms of someone who cares about your body, your soul, and your pleasure, instead of someone who takes without seeing you. 

My love, you were the one who made me realize that gender is not a requirement. It’s not something you can never change. It’s not something that lives inside of you and can never come out. 

The word woman only fit when I felt a little bit seen. The spaces that were built for only women held me as safe until I realized I was something more. Something unwanted by some, misunderstood by others, and assumed a woman by most. Raised as women we were trained to hold each other in different ways. From birth we’ve been told what we are good for. Nurturing. Looking beautiful. Supporting others in getting shit done.

I’ve been all of these things and I’ve been none of them. These days, it depends on the way the light catches on dew drops in the mornings. If I stay one thing long enough, I start to shrivel and die from the inside out. I didn’t know that before you. 

What if we are none of these, even when we hold womanhood in our hands. What if the system we live in measures us as unworthy and unwanted, or worse, useless, because we expand beyond its restraints. 

But I nurture the soil I pot my plants in. I nurture this body that I am stuck with. I nurture the animals that keep me company, the love that fills my home, the partner who tastes like sunshine and cherries. 

No husband. No children. No status or wealth. No career or fame. Is it enough?  

I nurture my hearts. All the hearts that have grown inside of others because I left a piece of me behind. Like a worm, who can split in two and become two, my heart can split and grow. Even a sliver can blossom if you hold it carefully enough.  

My heart has been missing pieces, but it’s grown them back. That doesn’t mean there aren’t scars. I know the place where my heart can fracture so that you take a piece of me with you. 

You have a family now, on the other side of the world. You have children and a partner and a smile that goes for days. And I am so proud of all the ways you have become you. 

If it weren’t for you, I might have stumbled through years not knowing myself. Although I’ve sliced myself open on thorns and roots, I know how to heal. I learned a little bit from you and a lot from Fox. I know that we all hold so much inside ourselves, the duality of having a soul that cannot be trimmed to fit the space that the world wants us to. I hope I get to meet the ones you love some day, the one’s who’s heart pieces have fused with my own and become something more powerful than I could ever imagine. 

Thank you for coming into my life. 

Thank you for leaving in the way you needed to. 

Thank you for still being you out there. 

I can feel the tug of my heart when I think of you. 

Maybe you can feel it too. 

Comfort (a poem)

CW: traumatic injury, recovery

There is a spot in my body that remembers

the breaking, that is scared 

of the healing

that is sure 

it could happen again

Worse

at any moment

any time at all

and it’s true

Yes

there is the possibility

We could fall tomorrow. Die.

Although I know, that 

sounds easier than another day of

the shakes

with no visible threat

the tears

when everything is perfectly great

the emptiness 

when everything is probably still possible

sometimes it feels like you are 

on those stairs, broken bones and 

missing a shoe; paralyzing

pain in your legs; cries for help swallowed by fire 

doors and the roar of the freeway. no 

but remember?

you rescued you

you dragged yourself 

down stairs, 

across the room, 

out the door,

you buzzed your apartment

where your partner was already halfway out the door.

balancing yourself against a wall, 

body screaming with fire and wrong

you comforted the dog

no matter how long ago it happened,

now it is time

to comfort 

you

Reasons Why I Don't Write... (Writer's block isn't one of them!)

Top 20 Reasons Why I Don’t Write

• I don’t think I have anything to say

• It feels scary to sit down

• I feel overwhelmed by all the things I don’t remember about writing

• I don’t have the energy to refresh my brain on the details of the story I’m working on

• I’m not working on the “right” thing

• It’s going to take way more energy than I have to make anything good

• I’m not going to get anything “useful” done

• My brain space is being taken up by my mental illness

• I don’t have any ideas

• I’m not inspired

• I’m annoyed

• I’m nervous it’ll never be done

• I’m nervous that when it is done it won’t be any good

• I’m nervous that even after I spend months writing and editing it it still won’t be done OR any good

• I’m scared I’m not good enough

• I’m scared I’ll never get the external validation I want (hello… traditional novel publishing?)

• I’m scared that because my voice is sometimes quiet, that it isn’t worth sharing, it isn’t worth listening to

• There’s something I need to write that feels too hard to uncover or work through

• Everything sounds boring or silly or unimaginative (aka nothing is good enough)

• My brain is stuck on a different experience that I need to process before I can write

Note: I did not list not having time, writers block, or hating writing as any of the reasons…

For a while I truly did not believe in the idea of writer's block that is often depicted in the movies, sitting down in front of a page day after day only to produce nothing at all. I believed that there was always something the writer needed to write and if they turned and faced that, and walked into it, then they would become unblocked. It was something in their creativity refusing to be ignored any longer and literally blocking the creative flow. 

Sometimes that thing was fear, self doubt, an old wound, a pattern we’re stuck in, a hope that won’t stop itching. Oftentimes it’s no where near what I want to be writing about. In fact, when I want to be working on something but just can’t seem to make it happen, it tells me that I need to pause and see what is asking to be written. What do I need to be writing about?

I won’t say that I wholeheartedly 100% endorse this belief anymore. But I am not 100% on anything anymore, there’s so much gray in the world and exceptions to every rule. But I do believe that writer's block is everything in my list up there. It is every reason I convince myself to stay away from the page, from the stories, from the projects. It’s the fear and self doubt that are so commonplace to me that I don’t even notice they are there until I’ve spent the entire day mindlessly watching the Great British Bake Off and scrolling my phone trying desperately to gather enough motivation to get up and write my book but by that time I am way too tired and emotionally drained to do much of anything except crawl into bed. 

Writer's block has less power when we truly show up and honor ourselves and our experiences, when we make friends with the parts of us that are scared, that have survived, that have kept us alive up till this point. The most authentic, creative version of ourselves can be our friend. They can be the rowdiest, weirdest, queerest kid around. And you get to care for that part of yourself, so that together, you can make some pretty amazing and wild art that only you could ever make. 

That voice of yours? 

It deserves to be heard

Because someone else out there needs to hear what you have to say

It’s time to learn to use it

If you are struggling with sitting down to write, I recommend sitting down with a journal and asking yourself these questions.

Try not to judge anything that comes up, just make a note of it. 

What are some of the reasons you don’t write? What are some of the reasons you tell yourself not to create? 

Is there anything asking to be written? What might it be? 

What will happen if you write it? (Like give me worst case scenario here)

How can you send a little compassion and empathy to the part of you that is scared to write?

If you’re looking for more ways to make space for your creativity, empower your voice, and tell your most authentic stories, join me in my latest Queerator Academy Class

Rooted Writing 101

In Rooted Writing 101 we will use ritual to walk into our deepest parts of ourselves, tell the stories that are most important to our unique experience, and then walk back out again. Everyone has a well of creativity within them, Rooted Writing will help you build a sustainable path you can always access.

You can even have the first module completely free.

Thanks so much fellow Queerators. Keep heart. We’ve got this.

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