zk_html/writing/ally/liminal/07.html

80 lines
3.7 KiB
HTML

<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Zk | 07</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/style.css" />
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width" />
<meta charset="utf-8" />
</head>
<body>
<main>
<header>
<h1>Zk | 07</h1>
</header>
<article class="content">
<hr />
<p>date: 2019-08-20
weight: 36</p>
<hr />
<p>Coming out to myself and JD was more gradual. A sea-change.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Maybe that&rsquo;s what those two years were between Matthew and Madison were.</p>
</blockquote>
<div class="verse">Nothing of him that doth fade,
but doth suffer a sea-change
into something rich and strange.</div>
<p>I suppose so. I explored around the edges of it. I touched it tentatively. I lived my life in widening circles.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Surely you mean narrowing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Okay, yes. It was too good a line to pass up, though. Shakespeare <em>and</em> Rilke in one go?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is nothing new under the sun.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ooh, and Ecclasiastes, you spoil me.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Treat, as they say, yourself. Carry on.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>There were little fits and starts between James and I. I remember laying on the couch &mdash; that awful, awful yellow couch &mdash; and him getting playful, and then some little movement of his touched a nerve and I started crying because of the way that brushed up against that me that wasn&rsquo;t in focus. It brought it to the forefront the fact that I didn&rsquo;t align with myself, that there was a lag in my proprioception, that I was falling behind myself.</p>
<p>Is there some word for ecstasy that doesn&rsquo;t imply it being positive? Something that captures the feeling of being outside oneself, beside oneself, behind oneself without implying the sense of greatness, of awe that goes along with spiritual <em>ekstasis</em>?</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Dissociation?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yeah.</p>
<p>That.</p>
<p>That little bit of panic-colored dissociation that I would later name dysphoria would come in waves. Sometimes it&rsquo;d be triggered, as it was then. Sometimes it would fade slowly into view and I&rsquo;d go on a tear making skirts and then it would fade back into the low background static of the anxiety that goes along with being a member of a minority identity group.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There <strong>was</strong> ecstasy, though. There was euphoria as well as dysphoria.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>The moment when my hair got long enough to put up in a ponytail.</p>
<p>The utter terror of shaving my legs for the first time, weird as it sounds. Outrageously stupid, and yet the feeling of <em>having</em> shaved legs was incredibly validating.</p>
<p>The first time I looked in the mirror and saw the trace of femininity.</p>
<p>The softening of skin.</p>
<p>The first &ldquo;she&rdquo; on the street.</p>
<p>The first &ldquo;ma&rsquo;am&rdquo; on the phone.</p>
<p>Hell, the first time dressing feminine.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What, back when you were nine? When you snuck into the spare room and tried on one of Julie&rsquo;s dresses?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Holy <em>shit</em> could you just <em>shut up</em>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Wow, touched a nerve, there.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We will talk about that later.</p>
</article>
<footer>
<p>Page generated on 2020-06-24</p>
</footer>
</main>
<script type="text/javascript">
document.querySelectorAll('.tag').forEach(tag => {
let text = tag.innerText;
tag.innerText = '';
tag.innerHTML = `<a href="/tags.html#${text}">${text}</a>`;
});
</script>
</body>
</html>