In beginning the chore of writing another book I located and dug out a bundle of notes on sermons which I’d made over the last 10 years or so. I found this particular one, which is not a “sermon” note it’s something of a freeverse poem. It’s dated 5/27/07.

I have only a hint of why
I’ve been set upon this road.
I didn’t choose this path
With a prior purpose on my mind.
I’m just here and I’m not alone.
I am sure of what I want to find.
I am not sure of what is there to find.
I’ve been this way before with others.
This road has had one hill so far,
And a chuck hole to repair.
The map is old and sometimes hard to read.
The curves are there to see,
But the hills and valleys, the rocks and holes,
the damage left by those who
Passed this way before can take its toll.

What is it about this existence that makes knowledge of the future such an all consuming and yet futile quest? I know that it’s a completely useless waste of my time, mental and emotional energy and yet I constantly find myself in a state of profound distress over not knowing what the future holds in one area or another of my life. If the oft repeated definition of insanity as repeating a behavior over and over, each time expecting a different result is correct, then I should be locked away and left to my silliness and worry.
In “Dear Mom and Dad” I refer to a saying about worry several times. “Worry is only the interest you pay on trouble before you have it.” Well duh … physician heal thy self. When God created all of this existence He deliberately omitted the ability to see into the future and in its place He gave us a tool to help us with our inability to know the future. That tool is faith. So where is my faith? It’s not as though the quality and application of faith has not been a major issue in my life, now is it? Faith, trust, confidence, assurance; all these words have basically the same meaning, and they have been written on the whiteboard next to my desk for ages and still I find myself engaged in the “silliness” of repeated worry and fret over the morrow.
When I think about it, I have to admit that worry is another word for fear; that worry is a state of fearing what “might”, “just maybe” will happen, an hour from now, a day from now, a week, a month, even a decade from now. And once again I come back to faith, trust, confidence, assurance and for me a lack thereof. The application of all these terms in my life has required the acknowledgement of a simple fact; every forward action requires “risk.” I don’t think I will ever forget a moment, early in my sobriety, when that word reached out and accused me.
It was in an early morning AA meeting and I was still half asleep listening to the voice of a fellow recovering drunk, when I heard him say that real life required … “risk”. For a time after that I experimented with risk taking. But what I was doing in reality was gambling on an outcome. I had lots of hope for the outcome but not a shred of faith. In fact, the exercise of “faith” wasn’t even an active part of my life and it wasn’t going to be until I learned to risk. Risk requires courage, and courage is impossible without faith. My favorite example of faith is in a scene in the 1979 motion picture, “Apocalypse Now “, when the character of Col. Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall is walking about in the mayhem of battle totally unconcerned for his own safety. In the narration of Martin Sheen’s character, Capt. Willard, Willard says of Kilgore, (and I paraphrase) “He just knew he wasn’t going to die.” He just knew that his future didn’t include death, not then, not there, not now. That’s the quality of faith I want.
For me, my faith does not suffer when it comes to the big things, like “will I go to heaven when I die?” My faith suffers in the little inconsequential crap that comes along every day. Will I have enough money to cover rent, expenses, food … etc. I have no idea why either, because I always seem to have enough; just enough usually but always enough. Will I ever learn that “worry is indeed, only the interest I pay on trouble before I have it? … if I ever have it, which I usually don’t.”
One thing I do have faith in is this; I’m living the life God intended for me all along and that He has never asked more of me than He’s given me strength and ability to handle. I must admit that there are times when I wish He would lower His opinion of my abilities just a smidgen. As for seeing into the future in lieu of faith, when I look back on what has been and the pain of some past inevitable events, I’m glad that I couldn’t see them coming. Life would have been unbearable. In those cases, ignorance was indeed blissful. Will “Dear Mom and Dad” be rated a success? My faith in that is that it will be; one way or another.
What do you think?

Being trans-gendered, trans-sexual, dual-gendered or even a cross-dresser is an extremely visible expression of a soul. In my case, it truly is about the expression of a separate and distinct spirit, and the story involves a mostly self-guided journey of self- and other-discovery. A big part of that journey has of course involved exposure to and involvement in the gay/lesbian world. That involvement has led to some interesting discoveries about the importance of invisibility; the importance of being able to blend into everyday society. I begin the Afterword of Dear Mom and Dad, with this very subject.
Yes, there are those of us who are fortunate enough to pass to all but the most astute observer. But, for most of us a mere glance is enough to draw unpleasant scrutiny at best and painfully obvious expression of disapproval at worst. Most unfortunate is the fact that the visible discomfort is not limited to the straight community. That leaves some in the trans- community to wonder if gay and lesbian acceptance is genuine or a matter of certain political expediencies for the sake of numbers.
Personally, I find far more comfort in the company lesbians than I do in the company of most gay men. Let’s face it a large number of women in the lesbian community are, to all intents and purposes, merely reverse images of MtF (Male to Female) trans-people and thus the female part of a dual-gendered person such as myself. I frequently sense the same disapproving scrutiny from gay men that I sense in the straight community. I also find gay men far less likely to want to be seen with me in public than lesbian women, although I do sense it in lesbians at times.
I asked myself at one time, why was that? The fact is that G, L & B are mostly internal expressions. Most in those segments of our society are able to go about their day to day business without any undue, uncomfortable scrutiny unless they choose to make their sexuality a very visible issue. If the average gay man and most lesbians are spotted standing on a street corner, the fact that they are gay is totally unnoticeable. We in the T world on the other hand are quite visible and therefore quite un-acceptable to much of this world and that includes a substantial segment of the gay community. This was extremely obvious a few years ago when Congressman Barney Franks refused to include us in his, then pending, congressional legislation. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to his excuse. It didn’t make much difference. Being excluded from the club is after-all … being excluded from the club.
I for one am grateful for the pioneering done by the gay and lesbian community but I am also, as you now know, keenly aware of the differences in G, L, and B and T and D-G. May we always bear in mind that one size seldom does fit all.

I’m in Prescott for the weekend, courtesy of my friend/employer and his lady. It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced the atmosphere of a town which is inhabited, for the most part, by people who actually want to live where they live. In many cases they accept the reality that monitary compensation might not be so great, but they are willing to accept that circumstance in order to live in a community where it’s possible to walk down the street, see, greet and chat with people you know.
I’m sitting in the Raven Cafe where it seems that hardly anyone here, except me of course, doesn’t know at least one other person here for Saturday morning coffee and friendly chat. It makes me want to at least consider moving here one day. Maybe … one day!

The first reviews are in and I am in a mixed state of humble joy and mild relief. Admittedly the number of reviews is not many and they are from somewhat biased sources, but in one case Dear Mom & Dad was read in 2 days and in another just 1 day which I’m told was from eagerness to know the whole story and not from a desire to get the misery overwith. The one most important review was from Mom, of course. Her comment was that she both cried and laughed. So, I await further reviews with at least a little less apprehension.

The task ahead of me now is to deal with the marketing issues and at the same time proceed with writing the follow-up book which has been started but placed on hold when Dear Mom & Dad went to the publisher.

A speaking engagement is in the works for the Los Angeles area and is tenatively scheduled for late October. More info will be forthcoming as that is available.

I’m finding that now the baby has been birthed I am frequently intellectually blank. At times the words to a song from the ’60’s (I think) “If that’s all there is my friend, then let’s keep dancing …” come to mind. But, then when I actually sit down and begin the process of sharing the thoughts on my mind that the sitting down and beginning part was the most difficult. Once the process is begun the words just seem to appear of their own volition and at times that results in prose that is entirely too wordy. That is what editing is all about I suppose. I can only recall one time when the editing process actually resulted in an expanded work. In the case of Dear Mom and Dad, the original text would have resulted in a 700 page monster and not the more manageable 270 page finished product. I am aiming to be more precise in the original manuscript of my next book and hopefully that will require far less editing. In the meantime I’m looking forward to more comments from you.

To tell the truth, six years of writing, editing; writing some more, editing some more and then beginning some parts all over from scratch was easy compared to what I now find myself faced with. Afterall, I was writing about self and had only my own expectations to deal with. Now that the six year effort is a published work I find that my expectations are suddenly infused with the expectations of others. At times that is entirely too much like a job and not the retirement activity I had always envisioned. Somewhere along the line I failed to consider the importance of modern communication devices and programs in letting the world know that my masterpiece was available to them and furthermore that it contained information, which naturally, I considered very important, need-to-know knowledge about the phenomenon of which I am part of.

The very last few pages of “Dear Mom and Dad” are the “Afterword.” This blog will, by the very nature of my mission in writing, be an extension of the “Afterword”, but an extension that I hope will become a forum for others to express their thoughts and experiences of being trapped, not in the wrong body, but in a body that is inhabited by two distinctly different spirits; one male and one female. It took years for me to come to that conclusion and I didn’t arrive there by virtue of my own research.

I arrived at the conclusion with the help of other people and Abba (that’s God to the unchurched). If anyone reading this blog is offended by my confessions of faith that is unfortunate. But, although certain “persons” delivered insights and/or clues to the answers I was seeking, I am convinced that Abba was responsible for putting pieces of my life’s puzzle in place. I was like a child who has embarked on the task of assembling an adult’s jigsaw puzzle and finds that some pieces just don’t seem to fit. I figuratively stomped my feet and whined about not being able to put all the pieces into place. Then some adult would come along and place one piece which then led to me being able to place a few more. Eventually enough pieces were in place that they finally made sense and although the puzzle isn’t complete there are enough in place for me to be able to envision what the final picture is going to be. There are still pieces of that puzzle I haven’t been able place yet, but I know now that I will eventually succeed … some day.

It’s likely that someone else posting to this blog will offer some thought which will place another piece. So please, give me your six bits and I will give you mine.