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The sweetest desire

girlofspirit — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:21:01 +0000

French wine slides down my throat from my little metal water jug, as I remember, a few days and a lifetime before. He made love to me. Tears come now, thinking about it. How he touched me, and said such lovely things to me. He was a friend from long ago, who I hadn’t seen in years, and in this little house in this little neighborhood that I would visit when I was young, when I was male, when I was married, he made love to me. He touched me like a woman, talked to me like a woman, even though I know he had desired me as a man, and loved me as a man, he accepted me and loved me as a woman. And made me fall in love. It was short but a wonderful two days. We went to bed the first night in separate places on his floor, surrounded by his art. I woke sometime in the night, dizzy from the wine and food. I knew he wanted me, but hadn’t acted. And I woke, I woke in the night and wanted him. I wanted him so much and called out his name softly in the dark. Then again, a little louder, his name with my voice, and sending my energy to him, reaching out to him. My energy, my thoughts , my mind, my body even, as it would reach without leaving my place, to him. All saying, “I want you…”. So dark and quiet it was in that little living room in that little house, “I want you” my body said, and my voice said, something. He woke and talked mindlessly about nothing, and I went to him.

Lisa

Exposure

girlofspirit — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:46:51 +0000

It begins, I start to question whether I want to be a woman. After struggling with it for a while, I run to my makeup, put on my face, put on some jewelry and maybe a skirt and feel better. I had just had laser, and it took me a while to figure out, but I always get depressed afterward. The dark rough burnt hair starts to grow out and I look and feel much more like a man, I start to get sad and retreat into more masculine clothes and appearance, and it gets worse. Fortunately now I know, and throw off the jeans for a skirt, cover the ugly black with makeup, put on some jewelry and feel better. But sometimes i’m just not up to it. Just not up to dressing pretty. What’s the problem? Exposure. Sometimes I just don’t feel like being looked at. This was a huge realization for me. That’s it’s not about my gender, not about me, but about people looking at me. Sometimes I wan’t to be low profile. I do that a lot, walk and work in the shadows. But I take comfort in the fact that women have the same issue. What I’m experiencing, more than an issue of being transgender, is of what it’s like to be female. Men look at women, especially if they are dressed up at all. If You’re wearing a cute little skirt and have your hair down, or done up, and are wearing jewelry and makeup, men look at you. And they don’t just look, they stare, rudely and shamelessly, and you need to make a practice of ignoring them. I don’t think I realized how much time and energy I spend ignoring other people and blocking out their energy. You have to because it doesn’t matter because if you are dressed in anything but jeans and a mechanic’s jacket men will look at you. It doesn’t matter if you are drop dead gorgeous, or fat or skinny or ugly or old or transgender. Men will look and judge and sometimes comment on how you look and what they think about it. This is why women walk down the street looking straight ahead and ignoring all interaction. I never really understood this, “I’m a nice decent respectful person…” I thought, connect with me! But it didn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter to me now. I don’t see anyone. Friends come up to me at work or at some event and say, “oh, I saw you on the street…” . It’s a very different life. This I suspect is also why people wear black or get certain piercings or tattoos, yes it may fit their identity but it also says “Leave me alone!” I feel that. When you wear black, you are so much more protected.

Lisa

…ok not ALL men. But it feels like all men.

Cocktail Hour

girlofspirit — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:38:27 +0000

You know, a girl would like to be invited for a drink every once in a while. As it happens, I look very pretty today wearing my Parisian skirt with little pleates and pink silk blouse with flowers and ivy. My hair is a nice length and is looking good and my face is mostly clear of hair. Today wasn’t a particularly bad day, but I did go to the dentist which I don’t love. But I’m ok, I feel pretty good about myself today, not wearing ugly pants or a dark suit. And I would love to go out, just to have a drink with a friend, a little chit chat and understanding. A lover would be great, or an admirer, but a friend would do. A friend I didn’t have to ask. “Lisa, would you like to go for a drink”? I’m quite tired of walking this city alone. I was tired of it as a man, and now am over it completely. It’s different too, walking around, into a bar as a woman alone.

That is one of those things that I find most difficult about this city, the seperation between people, and most difficult about this job, that there is very little community. Very few people go out and do anything together.

They rush to their trains and go back to their lives.

Lisa

Inspiration and Gratitude

girlofspirit — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:23:55 +0000

I haven’t written in a while because I grew tired of detailing all the daily drama and activities of my life, and of saying many things over and over again, and on focusing on the difficulties and struggles of my journey.

What I want, is to write, yes, and teach, but to affect people in a positive way. Why I think many of my readers liked my work, and anyone’s work is because they can relate, and because drama and struggle and ridiculous chaos is funny, and it helps put our own chaos into perspective and lessen it somehow. But I realized that I’m not interested in being a satirist so much, that what is really most important to me is creating and manifesting positive movement in people’s lives and making a difference. And so I think I stopped writing about the drama of the journey, and about the same time, I created and started facilitating this little group in Queens NY called the Transgender Empowerment Group. I created this group and gave it the name I did because I had been to a number of Transgender support groups which, while they were helpful to me, and provided safe places for trans women to talk, they were predominantly focused on th issues and difficulties faced by transgender people, which are, admittedly, plenty. But I wanted trans women, and men, and those in between, to focus on the positive side of the transgender experience. So I start every group by asking everyone to share something that they saw, or did, or experienced that they felt was inspiring, and I close every session by asking everyone to share something they are grateful for.

These small acts have really brought positive energy, at least twice each month to us, and I personally am grateful for having them.

Best regards,

Lisa

Happenings

girlofspirit — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:42:03 +0000

So what has happened since May, the last time I posted regularly?

I have moved. That’s the biggest thing. I moved. had originally planned on moving in April or May and moved in middle of one of New York’s worst heat waves in recent history. I searched for months, high and low, all over NYC, looking that little bit of peace before I finally realized that I needed to get OUT. That I just couldn’t live int he city anymore. I couldn’t ride the subway anymore, be in the crowds anymore, in the noise, in the chaos, in the grime. So I left. I moved to this charming little 4 family house, in this charming little town on the Hudson River. My home is almost as I want it to be, a woman’s home. Beautiful Persian and Armenian rugs, a soft red velvet chaise, lace curtains, candles and my piano (electric) in the living room, pots and pans, nice knives and pretty bowls in the kitchen, my big sleigh bed with cute stuffed friends and a soft down comforter in the bedroom. Home. A place for me at long last. To cook and sleep and read and make love and play my music. The street is quiet outside and the breeze blows the curtains.

And I bought a car. I had no car because I was living in the city where you don’t wan’t a car and before that I was travelling around overseas. And I love it! I love my beautiful black SAAB sedan with pink bling license plate holder and cute little pink butterfly on the side window.

Lisa

Water and structure

girlofspirit — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:39:54 +0000

Being a woman is complicated. Much more so than being a man which in fact is not very complicated at all, unless you make it complicated. Being a man is rather like a river. Rivers vary of course, some move quickly, some slowly, some are narrow, others wide, some have many kinks and turns, others run straight mile after mile after mile. But they all have two sides and they all continue to move forward, pushing on endlessly from their beginning to their end. A woman on the other hand is more like an ocean. Do I need to describe that? And being an ocean when all your life you’ve been a river can be quite a feat and quite strange.

Lisa

Emotions and vulnerability

girlofspirit — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:38:44 +0000

So many opportunities that I did not take to improve the world. So many opportunities to make someone elses life a little better through a kind word or action, or frankly even withholding saying or doing something that was hurtful to someone because it made me feel powerful or took the attention off my own insecurities or whatever. There were a lot of those moments, a sea of them. What happened to me?

I always wanted to be gentle and kind and pretty and nurturing and all that. But caring about others made me ashamed. Why, I’m not exactly sure, but I do know I was extraordinarily ashamed to be who I wanted to be, do what I wanted and feel and care about things that touched me. Emotions were not to be felt, not by men. And aside from the external world, being sensitive and open makes it very difficult to live in a world which is not always kind. I’ve found that out. But what I know now, I didn’t know then, the cost of not feeling those emotions, of holding them in. The cost in internalized suffering, the cost in lost friends and relationships, the cost of a life unlived, the cost of not sharing with the world, the best of who I am.

Lisa

Ups and downs

girlofspirit — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:19:53 +0000

Wow, chocolate really does work! A few short moments ago I was crazy and emotional and sad and on the verge. A few short moments and half bar of Lindt Dark Chocolate with Sea Salt later and all is good, well pretty good anyway. Actually great! Except that I know it won’t last forever.

Oh my goodness children, how long it’s been and how much has happened. My emotions are OUT OF CONTROL. Is that a good thing? I sort of let them loose after all. Well in fact have been working and working and working on feeling more and being in touch with them more and opening myself up more. And it has worked believe me. On the other hand I have become a being much more on the roller coaster of my emotions

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh.

and so on. Ah, I suppose that’s what chocolate is for, and um wine and vodka. No coffee though, I have given up coffee. For almost three months now, no coffee and I drink tea but tea just isn’t the same, on the other hand it doesn’t ground me like coffee either allowing me to be much more girly which is great.

Love

Lisa

Little Firsts

girlofspirit — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 19:22:01 +0000

I wore makeup to work today

I wore my little loafers to and from the office

I wore my tall boots to work

I wore my tall boots around inside the office

I wore my tall boots over my pants

I wore earrings that dangle a little from my ears

I let myself be more girly…

Today

All the little firsts. A thousand of them, all very significant to me. Not quite exactly important enough though, to run to the computer every time and write about them. They all constituted small expansions of my constantly expanding persona. Being a little more out and a little more visible.

I am more out in 2010 than I was in 2009. That year still had the feeling of wearing ”clothes I could get away with”. Get away with? And be what? A man, or androgynous person? To be able to maintain some respect, as though being a girl, a woman, a female identified person was not respectable. Even as I struggled to be a woman, I was careful. I am much less so in 2010. And I’m more tired. Tired of trying to balance and not interested in it. I have work to do, things to do, a city to live in. I’m too tired sometimes to front. So many people know about me now that I just want to get on with my life.

Those women who ride that edge for year after year after year, and I know so many of them. Where do they get the energy to do that? I have no idea.

Lisa

Love affair

girlofspirit — Mon, 17 May 2010 20:54:07 +0000

Every day I learn a little more about her.

She likes to ride her bicycle, and loves her new basket on the front. She loves to ride into town, have coffee and shop at the thrift store for scarves or dresses or household trinkets or whatever the universe has provided. She loves the feeling of her legs, freshly waxed and the look of her nails freshly done. She laughs and giggles for no apparent reason.

She loves cloudy cool days and moonlit nights and wild wind, breezy sheer curtains that blow softly and candles. She loves long skirts and dresses that flow and sway as she moves and scarves that blow in the breeze.

She loves to cook with her girlfriends, and sometimes, occasionally by herself. She loves incense and moody music and musicals and children’s stories and believing in magic.

She loves being told she’s pretty. Or smart or helpful or nice or strong or intuitive. But especially pretty. Her heart breaks and weeps and soars with joy, easily. Much more easily than anyone might imagine.

Every day I learn a little more about her. I am amazed, a little more every day at this woman. Every day I fall in love a little more.

Lisa