I Could Never Love you Back

A close friend’s aunt just passed away. I could tell by the way she talked about her, that she was someone very special. The funeral was this weekend.

Today, I went for a walk in the woods. Along the way I crossed a few fields, sat next to a salt marsh, crossed a small waterfall, and observed in amazement a large tree recently felled by a beaver, now leading into a river.  My walk, which started under a cloudy and misty fall sky, followed a path of rectangular blazes, recently screwed into the trunks of

pines, oaks, and aspens; first yellow, then red, a short loop of blue, white, and back to yellow again. The trails are new, just a few years old, and you can get lost pretty quick if you loose sight of the markings, like I did a year ago. After an hour into my walk, and becoming totally immersed in my surroundings, I think to myself, this is where, when that time comes, I’d like to rest for eternity, on a soft bed of yellow pine needles, with the sound of a brook cascading over glacial stones and chickadees singing and dancing from tree to tree.

Like a Heartbeat

Staring at the institutional blue walls in the emergency room, I wondered why they're so drab and lifeless.  Suddenly the room was full of people wearing colorful tops and warm concerned faces. They seemed practiced at not looking alarmed, but their actions weren’t casual, especially their eyes that wandered with regularity to the monitor above my exposed left shoulder. The voice of a nurse comforted me as she asked questions,  "It’s going to be okay Gia, do you have any drugs on board, cocaine, marijuana?" "No, " I answered.  "How about alcohol?"   I replied, "yah, vodka and wine," as the nurse standing to my right drew blood from my arm.  Fortunately my roommate was home last Sunday night, and while she was in bed fighting a horrible cold, she still drove me to the hospital.   

Just Another Day

Overlooking the Mad River Valley from the porch of a home my family had rented for the second year in a row, I sat on a slightly uncomfortable metal chair stealing a few minutes of peace and quiet away from the commotion of young children playing electronic games indoors, oblivious to the green grass, blue skies, and spectacular views that awaited, just a few feet away.  How far could I see from the replica white farmhouse? It was perched on the side of a mountain, encircled by a mote of Hydrangeas and guarded by a solitary blue spruce, which also doubled as an apartment complex for numerous species of birds.  I was unsure, so I did a little research.  The distance to the horizon from an elevated position can be calculated by taking the square root of two times the radius of the earth plus the elevation.  If the elevation from the GPS in my sister’s gray Chevy Suburban that just past 200,000 miles on her trip to Vermont is accurate, the distance to the horizon, including my height, is approximately 105 miles, that’s not taking into consideration atmospheric refraction and other obstacles like trees and mountains.

Stardust

Nearly 20 years ago I turned by back on organized religion, and any belief I once had in fate or God faded with my youth. Recently I attended my aunt’s wedding and that was my first time in a church in several years, and definitely my first as transgender woman.  While I was excited to share in her special day, I had my some own apprehensions.  But it felt reassuring to be included in the event, and it was a chance for me to show my aunt how much she has meant to me.  It was also an excuse to buy a new dress. 

Cosmic

I was about four miles into a hot and humid run and my asthma was making each step and breath seem like a major accomplishment.  It was the first full day of summer and I felt it.  In the distance I noticed a young girl with a bright yellow top riding a bicycle towards me on the opposite side of the road along Goose Rocks Beach.  As she approached, it appeared she was riding erratically, as if she this was her first time without training wheels.  Her sun drenched salty shoulder length wavy blonde hair tousled from side to side. As our paths were about to cross, it suddenly dawned on me that she wasn’t riding a bike at all;

Gone Again is Summer

On the final morning of our final day at the Millay Colony for the Arts, our group of eight writers were meeting one last time. We gathered in a circle, like we did every morning all week, sitting at the dinning table to read our stories and solicit feedback. As the conversation turned to the business side of writing, I lost interest. Leaning against the frame of the screen door with a glass of water in my hand I drank in the lush views across fields of June grass and violet wild flowers. The colony sits on acres of land that border Edna St. Vincent Millay's former house and gardens. While I should have been paying closer attention to the discussion, my back and mind were tired, and my thoughts started to wander like I had done every afternoon for hours until dinner. During my adventures, I hiked through fields and woods, walked and jogged along dirt paths, and slipped, on more than one occasion, into very cold streams.

Waiting for Tomorrow

Amid the anguish and tears for the dead and cries for reform after a recent building collapse of a garment factory in Bangladesh that killed over a thousand innocent workers, emerged a faint plea for help.  Miraculously a woman’s voice was heard during the salvage of the structure, rescue had ended days earlier.  She had been buried for 17 days under the heavy concrete rubble, surviving on bits of food she found in pockets and bags on the bodies of her dead coworkers that surrounded her for weeks.  An astonished workman detected a voice calling, “save me, save me.”

The Kids are Alright part 4.

My story continues at sea... 

The joy of starting my journey to becoming a woman was beyond any emotion I had ever felt.  After taking my first dose of estrogen I walked to the ocean and stood ankle deep in the cold water.  I could see my bright coral colored toenails clearly through the sun-filled sea.  The water felt refreshing and I decided, despite the cool temperature, to walk out even deeper until I was almost submerged under the waves. But, I was still wearing my wig and worried it might fall off.  I imagined someone coming across a floating pile of hair and being terrified at the site of a middle-aged bald man-like person in a bikini, so I decided not to go under completely.