But Passing Through It

"Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say: I am not what I once was. And I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge: 'By the grace of God, I am what I am.'"

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Asked our new Director of Music to call me Ben. He was great about it. But as soon as I did it, it didn't feel quite right. I don't know. What do you do?

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I don't know what to do. I no longer make My Life do tricks. I leave the animal alone and, for now, it leaves me alone, too. I have nothing to say, nothing to do. Between My Life and me, a silence is coming. Together, we will not get through this. 

(Joe Wenderoth, from “My Life”)

This is where I am, I think, right now. Every possibility seems equally impossible. It isn’t even that it’s sad. It just sort of is what it is.

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Spare a thought for all of the trans guys and hipster parents who named themselves or their babies Atticus. 

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Poem: “The Land of Nod” (James Arthur)

Growing up, I barely knew the Bible, but read and reread the part when Cain drifted east or was drawn that way, into a place of desolation, the land of Nod, there to begin, with a wife

of unknown origin, another race of men, under the mark of God. As a boy, I thought Nod would be a place where the blue scillas would bloom gray, a country of the rack and screw, the serrated sword, where the very serving cups were bone. As a grown man, I’ve heard that Nod never was a nation—of Cain’s offspring, or anyone— but a mistranslation of “wander,” so Cain could go wherever, and be in Nod. Far more than in God, I believe in Cain, who destroyed his own brother, and therefore in any city could have his wish, and be alone.

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I don't like my apartment. It's stupid and cramped, and I feel like I hurried myself into getting ripped off. It feels less like a fort now and more like a place where one goes to disappear. Only I can't really disappear, because I have work and family. And now school, too. And anything else that I could put in it would be one more thing to be a weight. I don't think that it's worth furnishing. I don't have the energy to deal with it, anyway.

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I don't get it. I wake up aching, pass the day in a haze and fighting off sleep, return home exhausted, and can't focus on work at night. Now I'm still achy and vaguely nauseous. Is this what it's like to be depressed without sadness? Or is there something wrong with me?

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I'm beginning to wonder whether I may have concussed myself when I bruised my face. How hard would you need to hit yourself i order to sustain a concussion?

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My aunt, a nurse, was very involved in the care of and cheerleading for a little girl from her daughters’ school who had Leukemia, went into remission, and then recently relapsed. I didn’t know the child, A., who died the other night, but I’m thinking of her a lot today and can feel myself getting weepy.  (It didn’t help that “Abide With Me” shuffled onto Spotify just a bit ago.)

My aunt was with her the day she died. She said today that as she was tending to A., she told her: “If you see that light, sweetheart, you go for it, okay? We’re all going to be okay here. We’ll take care of your mom and dad and sisters. Just one thing: whenever I see mourning doves, I say to myself ‘That’s my Nanny and Pop letting me know they’re all right.’ So, do you think when you meet them, you might send some mourning doves for me, to let me know you’re okay, too?” 

Apparently, she woke up the next morning to three mourning doves in the empty bird feeder outside her kitchen window. I’m not normally moved by stories like that, but seeing how much it meant to my aunt... I don’t know.

I don’t know. Kids dying? I don’t understand. The world is cruel. 

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Real Question

Can OCD manifest itself as Gender Identity Disorder?

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Mom: Is your face bruised? What happened?

Me: Oh, yeah. I bumped my cheek into the corner of the bedside table.

Dad: (later, different conversation) Did you bruise your face? What'd you do? Self-flagellation?

Me: Uh, no. I bumped my cheek into the corner of the bedside table.

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Instead of writing the paper that’s due on Thursday, I spent yesterday and today going full-tilt Lady MacBeth on every inch of this apartment. Every article of fabric washed and dried and then bagged up in plastic. Insect desiccant poured where the couch used to be and brushed onto the bed frame and slats. Insect indicators under the feet of the bed. Floors vacuumed and mopped. 99% rubbing alcohol sprayed into every crack in the wall. Duct tape under the doors and around the baseboards. 

I’m not quite ready to unbag things or to put the bedclothes back on. I need to try to be ready soon, but. 

Please, God, let it be enough. 

I keep thinking that I see bugs running around or feel them on my skin. 

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Had a colossal meltdown. Called my brother, and the two of us got rid of the couch. The couch that almost certainly does not have bugs of any kind. So I feel like a huge loser and a failure, not to mention wasteful and childish. My whole body hurts. I feel so empty. And I still have to scrub every inch and crevice of that apartment.

[choirmas]

Hi! I was just wondering how you found out about St Peter's Cathedral Choir in Adelaide. We're not a very big famous choir and it was an amazing surprise me to find us on your blog!

Hi, Anon. Rare out-of-season response here that you may or may not see, but: 

I stumbled across St Peter’s, Adelaide on Youtube, I think, and was impressed by several things: the calibre of the Cathedral Choir first and foremost, but also the Cathedral’s commitment to equity that sees the boy and girl trebles sharing the front line— equal not only in dignity, but also in role. 

We so often hear that girl and boy choristers can’t or oughtn’t sing together—whether because ‘the mix ruins the treble sound’ or because ‘boys won’t want to sing with girls’—and St Peter’s Choir is a round rebuke to that often bafflingly vehement opposition.

Time was when I myself avoided cathedrals that had girl choristers; now, though, having read the research on them and heard the work they can do, girls’ presence alongside their fellow boy choristers delights my justice-seeking heart. Especially when the sound created is as tremendous as it is in Adelaide. Keep up your excellent work, and please send my best regards to your choir!

[sopaltenbass]

I am fully in favor of mixed trebles, but then again, I’m biased, because I spent four of my formative choral years as a girl treble at MCS…

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Have some mixed trebles: Helena Paish and Tom King, this year’s Radio 2 Choristers of the Year, singing a short program of treble duets on Radio 4.

I’m massively interested in the former, who has defied the tradition of girl Chorister of the Year winners by having a distinctly “treble-like” voice rather than a  “crossover-soprano” voice. This is partially because she’s only eleven or twelve but—more to the point of my research—I suspect that it has much to do with the fact that she is a pupil of Barry Rose, who is known for cultivating boys’ treble voices. Here’s Helena, currently under his tutelage, and here’s Paul Phoenix (now a tenor in the King’s Kingers), who was one of his star pupils in the late 70s/early 80s.  

Uncannily similar, yeah?

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And the dead will be commemorated and will struggle on with the living, and we are not going away. We won't die secret deaths anymore. The world only spins forward. We will be citizens. The time has come. Bye now. You are fabulous creatures, each and every one. And I bless you: More Life. The Great Work Begins.

(Tony Kushner, Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika)

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Everyone is trans.

Someone in my class.

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I get where you're coming from, but plenty of trans people don't have physical dysphoria.

Girl in my class.

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Please don’t tell me that “transethnic” or “transracial” is going to be a thing that’s taken seriously because of this white NAACP lady who’s been “living as Black” for years.