As one of my favorite poets Alok Menon says, “Who made you believe you’re not free? Did you look yourself in the mirror and call yourself ugly? Did you invite hatred over to spend the night? I’m trying to do the rebellious act of loving myself in a world that hates me. Or rather, I’m trying to do the rebellious act of admitting that sometimes I am the world that hates me. That I have been and will be both the most transphobic person I know and the best ally I have. Because I come in pieces. I am the things that I love and the things that I hate. I am the world i am running from and the world I am fleeing toward.”
This has been my year of rebirth after several death years. Being partnered with my wife who suffered a traumatic loss, a botched top surgery, and endless grief submerged me underwater in 2022 and 2023. I didn’t know when I would come up for air and be myself again.
While underwater, I prayed and practiced. I had little control over when the waters would part. I moved my legs and arms, and rested when tired. Faith visited. Faith departed. Something other than grief felt very far away.
Six months ago I started a 2-year Fitzmaurice Voicework teacher training that has helped me tremor and release old trauma and reconnect to pleasure. It has helped my voice become more resonant and full. As I go deeper in my own body, I see which stories I am ready to let go of: sexual shame; pain and contraction around gender; not enoughness.
My body that has felt alien to myself for so long is healing and growing strong after my 2nd top surgery four months ago. I am not the old me, but something new, transforming.
A couple months ago, I made the choice to write in first person a character who scares me. I had avoided her for years and lost her thread in my ancestral historical fiction book. Embodying her and giving her voice has helped wake up my own pleasure body and heal shame. Here’s an excerpt from her first chapter:
“I never wanted to be good. I ignored mother’s commands to stay at the shore and slithered into the water instead. Waves surged below me and flung me–half fish, half bird. I surrendered control to the churning ocean currents long past the sun’s departure below the horizon. I only returned after mother called me, her voice growing sharp and hot. Your heart beats too close to your skin, she warned.”
What stories does your body want to let go? What new narratives do you want to tell?
As we begin 2024, I feel grateful. Grateful to be coming up for air, to be breathing, to be singing, to be giving voice to new dreams and possibilities for myself and the world. Grateful for you in my life, for community, for safety.
As we enter 2024, I wish you a year of inspiration, where we cross from war and genocide to collective peace in our hearts and an actual ceasefire in Gaza, Darfur, Ukraine. Musicians Without Borders forms relationships in troubled regions around the world, to bring hope, comfort, and healing to diverse populations. The Palestine Children’s Relief Fund is another great organization to support.
I am wishing you ease wherever you are on your journey– submerged underwater, bobbing up and down on roiling waves, or flying through the air, the spray of surf under your wings.
As Alok says, I come in pieces.
May we all be free,
Phoenix