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They Will Keep On Speaking Her Name, Volume 13 - She Wanted to Be Found
Thank you for joining me for this listening party.
This post is Volume 12 in my memoir project They Will Keep on Speaking Her Name. The crux of this project is that I’m using my transition mixtape as a framework to write memoir pieces about my life as a transgender woman. Learn more about me and this project in the Liner Notes.
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Side A:
Track 1 - Be Still, Child
The bluest iris that I'd ever seen / She vanished like a dream, sinking back / Into the ground / Singing "maybe I wept real tears" / But maybe she was hiding because she wanted to be found / You wanted to be found!
-from “Be Still, Child” by mewithoutYou
When I was a little girl, about five- or six-years old, I started having a recurring dream, a dream I continued to have variations of in my regular dream rotation into my late-30s.
The dream went like this: I dreamed that I could start over—start life over—as the girl in my soul. She had Shirley Temple curls. She spun graceful cartwheels. She painted her BFF’s nails at slumber parties. She sang soprano with her great grandma in the church choir. She twirled her floral print dresses. She smiled with her entire face.
I didn’t want to wake up. I knew it was a dream and that it would end with waking up and having to be him again—a nightmare that I didn’t have the words to describe.
As I grew up, details in the dream changed to match my age. The magical ability to start over was always there, taunting me. When she was 12, her mom took her to the mall to pick out her first makeup essentials. When she was 16, she drove a quirky old convertible instead of the pickup he drove. When she was 17, the prettiest girl in school asked her to the prom (a lesbian couple would’ve made quite a splash in my small Oklahoma town in the ‘90s!). She and her sister shopped for the perfect prom dresses together. When she was 22, she gave the valedictorian speech at her college graduation. She was bold, confident, and focused while he was the exact opposite. She smiled with her whole heart.
Maybe she was hiding because she wanted to be found
I woke up depressed and dysphoric and lonely and angry. I desperately missed her when he was awake.
I tried to not dream about her. I tried to not think about the dream magic working. She always came back—calm when he was frantic, joyful when he was low, bold when he was unsure, true when he was false.
The more I tried to ignore her, the more I tried to suppress dreaming about her, the more steady she was in my psyche. Willpower couldn’t make her go away. Prayer didn’t release me from her presence. Hypnosis failed to release her. She stayed in my soul and heart and patiently waited for me to bring her out of the dream.
The Daily Immune Ritual I Trust All Winter Long
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Winter wellness doesn’t need to be extreme to be effective. For me, Daily Immune is an easy, consistent way to feel supported, strong, and cared for all season long
Side B:
Track 1 - Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town
I seem to recognize your face / Haunting, familiar yet / I can't seem to place it / Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name / Lifetimes are catching up with me // All these changes taking place / I wish I'd seen the place
-from “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town” by Pearl Jam
It took me until I was almost 40 until I realized that I could rescue the woman in my soul from the dreams she was trapped in, that I didn’t need to start over; I could start from there. Now I dream about her future.
Dreaming about the future used to be impossible for me because I didn’t think I’d have one. When I was 10, I thought I would be dead by the time I was 16. When I was 16, I thought there was no way to make it to 18. When I was 18, 25 was the age I couldn’t imagine getting to. When I was 25, I thought about 30 as a punctuation mark of finality. By the time I was in my late 30s, 40 became the number for me to finally choose whether I wanted to keep dying slowly (I had given up caring for my body and was abusing it with smoking and alcohol) or start living.
One of the dreams I have now is about me as an older woman. I’m working the counter in a coffee shop or bookstore, some place chill that serves as a third place for the community. I’m there greeting the regulars by name. I’m there teaching young people about creating hope for their future. My poetry books are for sale on a shelf by the door. The smile I finally found in Miranda is there.
I dream about my wife and I going on little adventures like we do now, holding hands walking a trail or along the sidewalk. Maybe by then I’ll finally learn to stop walking so fast.
I dream about my curly hair turning fully silver (it’s on the way!). I dream about looking in the mirror and seeing wrinkles formed by joy rather than by pain and melancholy.
I dream about inviting our neighbors over for dinner and cooking way too much food. I’ll send them home with Tupperware that I don’t care if I get back.
I dream about a future I used to believe I couldn’t have. [Deadname] didn’t want to live; I do.