I love summer nights
even when everything changes...
This summer I rose with the sun
at 5:30 and watched the orange glow as it inched its way above an evergreen forest, across the meadow from my bedroom window.
The sky glowed for fifteen hours before I kept my daily promise to meet the sea and watch that same sun churn yellow, to orange, then drop into the water and turn the whole horizon purple and pink.
This was the view from my home in Mendocino, a rural town on the Northern California Coast surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and miles and miles of redwood forests.
Population 707.
I called this glorious place home for two years before I moved, two weeks ago, with my partner in life, love, and business who was accepted into a fully-funded graduate program in Creative Nonfiction at the University of Las Vegas.
The change is stark. I couldn’t have anticipated the beauty of this place: miles of sandy dunes, cacti, wild burros, and warm summer nights. The day we arrived at our new apartment the bushes outside exploded into fragrant, purple blooms. Since our arrival, I’ve spent almost every evening by the pool with a great book (Dune, an 800-page sci-fi epic set on a desert planet).
This total change reminds me that it is possible to start completely anew.
These days, my summer nights are spent in the water, rather than on the cliffs above it, in a city that buzzes. The art is potent. The food is delicious. I feel grateful and invigorated.
As I turn the page to start again, I feel compelled to clarify what it means that I identify as trans and nonbinary. These words are deeply personal to me. Four years ago, I shared with my community that she/her pronouns have always grated my spirit, and asked to be addressed as they/them.
It didn’t work. Most people explained that it was too hard to remember, too complicated.
“OK,” I thought. “I’ll go by he/him. This way, if a person looks at me and sees a woman, the pronoun correction will remind them that I am not.”
Although many people continued to ignore my pronouns, some people saw me. Friends, clients, and acquaintances used he/him pronouns. In the beginning, I was elated, but over time it became clear that I was using these pronouns for the sake of other people. The truth is, I don’t identify with a fixed point on the gender spectrum. My pronouns are (and, for me, have always been) they/them.
I share this because I believe it is always okay for us to re-define, change, to turn the page and start again. This freedom makes life worth living.
