Stone Butch Blues

Whenever I read a book, I always have a pen and paper next to me. I always know that there'll be a few lines that will grab me and just won't let go, and since I'll never want to let them go either, I jot them down in their own little place, where they can offer me insight many years down the road, when I will have long forgotten the original context.

"But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That's what made me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize its melody through this constant refrain: 'Is that a boy or a girl?'"
--I don't know how many times in my life I've heard this. I hear it a lot even today. I used to feel a little awkward, and I'm sure my mother felt that same awkwardness, for I know that she had always been mistaken for a little boy as she was growing up, and I'm sure that it was way more difficult to handle the attitudes of others in her youth. Anyway, the feelings I get when I pass today are quite different, mostly because I'm consciously trying to do so and feel pleased with myself when it happens.

"I thought about my body a lot as I pressed against the resistance of cold iron. I enjoyed getting leaner and harder. Was that a goal the world had taught me? Probably...But as I watched myself clench my muscles while I pumped, I found the weight and shape of my own body that pleased me. I concentrated on my discipline and endurance. I tried, in the best way I knew how, to love myself."
--I work out almost every day. I love to be strong, and I love the way that my body looks. I love being able to see the results of my hard work. The gym is a microcosm of life, for you really do get out of it what you put into it, and sometimes the most painful or strenuous tasks end up making you better overall. You have to look past the present to see how things might be in the future. While I say these things, I'm perfectly aware that I'll never be as strong as a genetic male, and that's a little depressing to me. It doesn't seem fair.

"I will never be able to nestle my skin against the comfort of sameness."
--Yep. Never have, never will. If I weren't okay with it by now, I'd have a lot more problems to deal with than I do. But still, there were always a few things I held in common with the general population, and now that I'm finding that those few things may not exist anymore, I'm scared. I'm scared that things will be more difficult for me, and I'm scared of what my family will think. I don't want to lose them over something that they may not be able to handle. As I said above, my mother is one of the only adults I know that mostly understands who I am and how I've always been, but she is still a product of her generation in an extremely small, Catholic area, and the one time I tried to talk to her about some serious issues I'd been having in a certain area, her reaction frightened me. It stunned me, I should say. I was incapable of functioning for several days, and not having heard anything from her in that same amount of time, I panicked and called her. We resolved our conflict by pretending that I had never said anything--by pretending that I had never felt anything. I don't know if I can continue to pretend for much longer.
At the same time, I wonder if I have to make such a fuss about it anyway. I spoke with a man who is about the same age as my parents, and he has never had an open conversation with his father. They are still quite loving and accepting of him, though they never talk about it. Maybe that's how my life is going to have to be. Still, I don't know how I could handle that after being able to talk to my mother about absolutely everything for my entire life. I'm hoping that one of these days I can tell my older brother. Even though his opinions have been a little out there in the past, I'm sure that he'd understand and be willing to talk to me about it. My only fear on that note is that he won't be able to correspond with me about the subject because of his circumstances.
It's funny how I thought my life would get easier as I grew up and learned all about myself.
"Some people drag their hands through life like heavy weights; others speak with their hands."
--I had just told someone about the very intimate relationship that I have with my hands before I read this. I don't mean that to be perverted in any way, though I would probably intend that interpretation under normal circumstances. As a drummer, your hands define who you are. You can tell a lot about someone's drumming ability by watching his hands (and I use "his" here in the traditionally grammatical way of referring to any person at all). You can also tell a lot about how that person feels when he drums by watching more closely. Can you see a little hesitation? Sweat? Tension? Complete lack of anxiety? Passionate fluidity? As a drummer, you create with your hands. They are quite powerful, and you learn to respect that power over time, and you learn what your relationship to that power must be in order for you to succeed.

"I grew up believing the way things are now is the way they've always been, so why even bother trying to change the world? But just finding out that it was ever different, even if it was long ago, made me feel things could change again. Whether or not I live to see it."
--I feel like this statement defines social activism. We all fight our respective battles with the attitude that change will happen one day, and the greatest and most influential activists are those who are not concerned or content with immediate changes. They are in the fight to serve a larger purpose--to secure liberties not merely for themselves but for everyone. The greatest and most influential activists have made it so that we can't even see why it was necessary to have activists when we look at the movements through the lens of the present.


"It's a beauty one isn't born with, but must fight to construct at a great sacrifice."