Essay: Hyacinth

Someone brought a planter of hyacinths into the office earlier this week, and I've dreamed of my old church for the past three nights.

The powder-sweet smell infiltrated my subconscious, I think. Of all the senses, smell is said to be the most closely bound to memory. Did you know that losing your olfactory abilities could be a predictor of Alzheimer's? Sort of gives another dimension to the phrase, "stop and smell the roses."

I don't need to stop for the hyacinths. They sit above my desk and rain their scent down on me all day. I'll forget it for a time, the way you lose the clean bite of chlorine after a few minutes at the pool. Then, out of nowhere, I can smell them again, so thickly that I inadvertently visualize a fog of yellow pollen coating my sinuses, lining my sticky air tubes, clinging to the wetness of my lungs.

The smell delivers me into the sanctuary, sitting stiffly in a pew, trying to hike up my pantyhose without causing a scene. Glossy black flats bite the backs of my heels. My coat is in my lap, because even though it's Easter and the sun is cutting through the tall windows and threatening to burn the right side of my face, frost had grayed our yard this morning.

There is a problem with the way my memory works. The smell of hyacinths took me to church, but I did not see the purple fireworks of petals on the altar ahead of me. I felt burning sunlight and blistered ankles. 

Not only that, but the memory always spirals off, into the Sunday school room where the smiling, dismissive teacher explains the sin of homosexuality, describing queer people in an abstract, alien way. He says, "there are people out there," not realizing that there are people in here, in his room, trying to love without sacrificing their eternal life. 

But I say nothing.

A friend speaks up, questions whether love could ever be something that deserves damnation. The teacher asks if my friend has something to tell us, and it's a joke, and we're a room of high schoolers, and when the teacher laughs, we laugh.

My friend leaves. I stay. I regret this for years, and I think of it when I smell the hyacinth that should remind me of the arrival of spring and other joys.

That's what my brain does. It shoves aside the good memories as it dives into the depths for the dark and shameful ones. It does this at night as I process my day, repeating and repeating every conversational mistake, every occurrence of unkind thoughts, every real or imagined expression of disappointment from others. It does it when I smell sawdust and remember crying in front of a room of art students because it reminded me of my dead Pappa's barn. It does it when the heat draws up the bitter scent of asphalt and I'm transported to the second before I fainted in high school marching band, collapsing under the drums I'd insisted I was strong enough to carry.

Only with great pressure does my brain retrieve the rest of the memories.

Every kind word I share with my friends, every time I make them laugh. The shrieking joy of invading Pappa's workspace and striking him square in the back with a Super Soaker, of seeing his smile before he's even turned around. The drumline instructor jabbing a finger at the rest of the line and saying:

"Look at her! Look at how hard she works! Look at what she can do! Don't you dare let her down!"

The memories are there, down where the light can't always reach. I have to deliberately draw them up.

So do you.

There's a memory I keep under a glass jar, fending off any darkness that might force its way in. 

It's summer, and I'm on an island in the Great Lakes, peddling a rented bike on hard-packed sand. I'm alone, but in the kind of way where I'm at my most whole. I tour a winery, and I'm too young to drink, so instead of wine I sample Catawba grape juice with a powder-sweet taste. 

I ride past the vineyard that grew the grapes I drank. Rows and rows of vines and bunches of unripe fruit, green clusters of pearls. Hot wind shuffling broad leaves.

I reach the far end of the island and lay the bike against a dune, among hardy purple flowers. Ahead of me, water that could stretch to the end of the world, flecked with sails and diving seagulls, blue and white and flashing. My heart aches, like some force has reached from the lake and into my ribcage, grasping my soul, pulling me forward.

Barefoot, I flinch at the coldness of the water enveloping and then retreating from my toes. 

I walk in, step by measured step, the cold dulling as my skin numbs. The bottoms of my shorts are wet and clinging. An errant wave pushes me up, swallowing my hips, then pulls me further out from the shore. 

I smell the sunscreen washing away from my arms and the damp organic odor of aquatic plants baking on the sand. I smell the green of summer foliage and the fragile perfume of flowering weeds.

I breathe deeply through my nose before I sink beneath the surface.

Bad at Spirituality

In second grade, I co-founded an onion grass-themed cult. The schoolyard was overrun with tufts of the tall, curly-topped, subtly bluish grass, which were obviously much more appealing playthings than the surrounding swings, slides, and monkey bars. Who could resist plucking out the bulbs and smelling the pungent onion on your fingertips?

We centered a loose religion around the harvesting of the grass. We spoke a simplified, arguably racist language based on dropping out certain sounds and cutting unnecessary words, resulting in chants of "onee-gas, onee-gas" and quick, chirrupy gibberish. As a priest of this order, I officiated worm funerals and encouraged the construction of onion grass bracelets. Using dandelions, we painted personalized patterns on our faces. Our God of Onee-Gas smiled upon us for at least a couple weeks, until our religious fervor was overpowered by the arrival of Pokemon cards on the playground.

Sometimes, after a mower shreds a patch of onion grass and releases that green scent into the air, I reflect on the bizarre peace that my first cult experience granted me.

Most of the time, I feel out of control. Lots of folks probably share that feeling, especially those who suffer from anxiety or depression. It's like life keeps dropping plates out of the sky, and I'm supposed to catch them before they shatter, except I'm on a unicycle and there are live bears chasing me and someone is shouting "BOO, YOU SUCK" from the ringside and that someone is also me. It's a one person disaster circus out there.

Inevitably, human that I am, I drop plates (and wine glasses, and Christmas ornaments, and text conversations because I'm a Pretty Bad Friend sometimes). There's a thing that happens when you drop a lot of plates, or even think you're dropping a lot of plates. You can develop "learned helplessness," which is the perception that you have no way of escaping an adverse situation, so you shouldn't even try. Fail enough, and your brain gives up on finding ways to avoid failure, since it seems that nothing you do has an impact on the final result. Things are bad, and will always be bad, and you have no control over that, so why bother?

Logically, you really should bother. One of the early experiments in learned helplessness (conducted by Dr. Martin Seligman, known for his impact on the field of positive psychology) featured administering electric shocks to dogs (yeah, I know). By jumping over a barrier in an experimental box, dogs could avoid the painful shock. After a few rounds of this, the dogs learned they could jump over the barrier to safety before receiving the jolt in the first place. 

However, if the dogs had previously received inescapable, unpredictable shocks (YEAH, I KNOW), they didn't even bother with the barrier. They might run around a little, but then lie down and give up. And they'd do this over and over, until the dogs made no motion to escape when the shocks started, even though there was the option of hopping over the barrier. 

Even on the occasion that a dog so conditioned did jump the barrier, and discovered safety on the other side, it would go back to its passive acceptance of the shock in future trials. That's how tightly the sense of helplessness locks to the brain.

And if that isn't the saddest thing, then you can get right the heck out.

There's a reason the concept of learned helplessness is tied to mental illnesses like depression. The real or perceived absence of control hinders your ability to get that control back. How unfair is that?

My relationship with onee-gas gave me a sense of control in a chaotic world. Like I've mentioned once or a thousand times, I was(am) a super weird kid. Making friends could be difficult. Reading situations was even worse. A more socially savvy kid might have seen some downturns in friendships coming, but I was blindsided every time. I was dangerously blunt, and hurt people's feelings without realizing it, and that created complicated, painful friendships full of pranks gone too far and unintentionally mean behavior. Plus, unabashed weirdo that I was, I was ripe for mocking, and it took me too long to even know the extent of my ridicule. 

As an acolyte of schoolyard weeds, though, I had a specific role, and the authority to be weird, and a set of rituals that calmed me.

I've always liked rituals. I used to have a specific order for saying prayers, and compulsively finished with a song I'd learned in Vacation Bible School (composed of saying "hello" in about 10 languages, which I added to all the way through college). I tapped a specific rhythm when shutting down my laptop. I counted sidewalk lines on my way to classes. I ate certain meals in a complicated order, originally for luck, but eventually just to avoid inevitable bad luck.

I don't have the same rituals any more, and they never interfered much with my life. I've learned other ways of overcoming my sense of being out of control. It took a lot of trial and error and for a while, those errors were ridiculously unhealthy. 

But I've found a weird way of reintroducing that calming control, and all it took was revamping my dusty and long-disused spirituality.

Of course, I'm not the type to take a yoga retreat or revisit the Good Book. Oh no. I'm getting in touch with my spiritual side by declaring myself a witch, and here are a few reasons why:

• I already have a crooked nose and unladylike hairs on my chinny-chin-chin
• I've been called a witch before, in that you-know-what-I-really-mean-when-I-say-witch kind of way women (and those who appear womanly) are called sometimes, and I sort of liked the image of me cackling in the woods somewhere, surrounded by cats and the bones of my enemies
• I look suave in a pointy hat (by the way, the tall hat and iconic broom were actually taken from beer brewers in the Middle Ages. Making beer was "women's work," and one of the few ways a woman could be an entrepreneur. So of course the Catholic church took notice of these women making moolah, got all pouty, and started demonizing them. Like, full-on bringing back the idea of witches specifically to weaponize the concept against all women. Having filled society with the notion that women are corrupt and prone to devil-worship and unfit for business, the men of the church moved in on the market and claimed it for themselves, cutting women out of one of their only means of accruing independent economic power. The repercussions of stripping women out of their pre-1300s healing and brewing roles continue to this day. Isn't that heckin' interesting, and by interesting, I mean infuriating.)

Alright, fine, I'll get a little more serious. I realize that there is a practice of modern witchcraft, and while I'm borrowing some ideas from that, I'm making this my own thing, all about positivity, spreading kindness, and gently correcting my own negative behaviors. 

Some tenets of my witchhood:

• Creating sigils as meditation and self-affirmation: Sigils are symbols created to embody an idea, like, "I am smart and capable." You turn that into a drawing, repeating it until it's completely comfortable, a visual mantra. You can discard it, set it in motion through a ritual, or keep it as a reminder.
• Conducting rituals to assist with visualization: Mental rehearsal leads to improved performance in both mental and physical tasks. However, I can find it difficult to focus my intent, so creating a ritual as simple as lighting a candle and speaking a phrase can help get me in the right mindset.
• Being mindful of my environment and my fellow creatures: I can often get lost in my own head. I'm making an effort to notice my world, both the good things within it and the parts I can improve. I must direct goodness out into the world through acts of kindness and compassionate corrections of my negative impulses.

What has scared me off of spirituality in the past is a focus on organized religion or a specific supernatural belief. For where I am in life right now, I simply don't know if there is a world beyond the physical one. I like the idea that there is, but I don't know that I believe it. My spiritual practice, however, is one based in positive psychology more than actual spiritual belief. Even the bits that border on mumbo-jumbo have the placebo affect going for them (and placebos can work even when you know they're placebos).

Ideal. Source

Maybe I won't be riding around on a broom (or a Hoover) any time soon, but I do like the idea of calling myself a witch. It's sort of the spiritual equivalent of saying I'm a "nasty woman." It's restoring the strength of something broken, and that's the sort of effort that my heart is here for.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a worm eulogy to deliver.

La Vie Parallèle

A couple weeks ago, I went out to lunch with my uncle/boss/landlord (it's a whole thing). Because I am a fool, I ordered a sandwich, knowing full well my crooked little puppet mouth would struggle with it. Sure enough, I had to stop eating a quarter of the way through, because the meat was too tough for me to sever between my tongue and top teeth, which is my normal method. My uncle noticed and asked if the food was alright.

"It's good, I just, you know." I gestured to my teeth.

He did not know.

So I explained that my teeth don't meet in the front, which is something I thought was obvious about me. You can see it in my smile: this hanging, partnerless row of jagged, chipped, sawlike upper teeth. I fear it alters my speech and forces me to be deliberate with certain sounds. I worry it juts my upper lip too far out and gives me a dopey look if I don't hold my jaw a specific way.

I stuck my tongue through the gap to demonstrate the lack of slicing action, and explained my tongue method, and my not-in-public alternative of ripping into tough food with my back teeth, like a famished hyena. 

"It's because I didn't wear my retainer," I told my uncle. "I got braces earlier than most of my classmates, because my adult teeth were large and came in very fast. At least, that's how I remember it."

I did not tell him about the time I plucked out a handful of teeth to distribute to relatives at our foreign exchange student's swim meet, but the memory did surface.

"I tongued out the retainer in my sleep, so it was difficult to use overnight, and I was teased pretty bad for the speech impediment it gave me at school. After a few months, I couldn't stand it anymore, and stopped wearing it. I was already the weird kid, and in middle school, I was finally starting to realize that wasn't a good thing. I couldn't give the other kids more fodder."

I wish I had written down my uncle's response, because it took me by surprise, and I can only communicate the gist. He praised the experience of living a parallel life, of existing just outside of the beaten track and experiencing the world from an unusual angle. My messy teeth shape a unique set of experiences for me. They change what foods I order in public (sometimes, because as I've previously stated, I am a FOOL who likes SANDWICHES), and they force me to create work-arounds. Maybe my jaw and tongue are stronger for the slack they have to pick up. Maybe my teeth are more ridged and serrated than other folks' because they have to tear instead of cut. 

It's a small shift, but a shift indeed, and my uncle found that interesting and meaningful.

I've been thinking about ma vie parallèle ever since, all the little things that remove my experience from the standard human experience, and give me insight into other worlds. I think about my shortness, and my thin thumbs, and my large chest (I mean, I'm telling it like it is, folks. I got titties. They turn seatbelts and button-ups into my worst nemeses). These are small physical differences that minutely change how I interact with the world (step stools or climbing on counters, not being able to repurpose too-large family rings for my creepy aye-aye thumb, looking like a damn table-clothed picnic bench when I wear flowy shirts). 

Small, small differences, right? I'm able-bodied (and look like it). I'm right-handed. I'm white in a world that rewards me for it. I'm, ahem, reasonably attractive, creepy thumbs and buck teeth aside. There are worlds upon worlds that I never see. I don't have to look for wheelchair ramps or accessible bathrooms wherever I go. Scissors fit properly in my cuttin' hand. The only time people follow me around stores is when they think I've lost my mommy, because I'm small, acne-prone, and maintain a generally dazed/frightened expression. Sometimes people hit on me... I think. 

There are meaningful differences out there, parallel worlds that most of us don't see. There are benefits and drawbacks. There are stories that ought to be told.

And it's not all physical, either. Invisible disabilities create new angles of viewing the world as well. A topic I bring up a lot (because, and there's a theme here, I am a FOOOOOL) is mental health, and how I'm frequently in want of it. My brain does these things that I've learned to laugh at. I've talked a bit about my face-blindness, and how I've developed alternative and sometimes funny means of identifying people, and then there's the anxiety/depression/who-the-heck-knows bucket of mental illness. Like, sometimes my brain goes, "Wow, you better off yourself with this stapler so you never make that mistake again, you vacuous burden on society," and I'm like, "Whoa, my guy, I just forgot to attach a document to my last email, so maybe we leave the stapler out of this."

Sometimes I get overwhelmed and have a panic attack for seemingly no reason. Sometimes I reflexively hit myself for making innocuous mistakes. Sometimes my self-image swings from "I'm pretty sure I'm an actual wizard" to "I'm pretty sure no one would notice if I was replaced by a dummy made out of old gum and chewed up pencils for a week."

I live many parallel lives that, sometimes blessedly and sometimes cursedly, most people rarely see. I take what I experience, and I make it into stories, distributing my slices of the world to different characters, like a musician coping with depressive episodes, or a lesbian overcoming irrational guilt. I research other worlds as well, so I can allow glimpses into wider physical and psychological experiences.

What do your parallel worlds look like? Are you willing to share them? To tell stories about them, so more people can see what you see, and take your perspective into consideration? Because if you have the power to do so (and it is fine if you don't, because you ought to take the best care of yourself that you can), you can spread understanding across multiple worlds. You can unite with people who share your parallel track, and educate those who don't.

In a time when human empathy is in high demand and short supply, I think that sharing your unseen worlds is an important thing to do, if you can. And if you can, I invite you to share your stories with me. I'd love to post some guest entries, or link to your writing (or other media, if that's more your speed). 

If you'd like to get in touch with me, you can email me here.

I wish you a year of empathy and kindness, and as always, I'll be here to listen. 

Wibbly-Wobbly Gender-Bender

I wrote this piece in May and let it fester in my drafts for months. I was worried about posting it, and whether it would induce eye-rolls, discomfort, or even hate. But if people don't talk about these things, they never get the chance to be normalized and discussed rationally and considerately. I believe rigid standards of gender are harmful to many people, transgender and cisgender, women and men (and those outside the binary!). 

So with that in mind, here's me being me.

Back when my small hometown had a Target, I experienced my first instance of being misgendered while opening the door for my mother and the school superintendent. Once she and my mother were inside the store, the superintendent turned to her and said, "You have a very polite son! He's quite the gentleman." 

I don't remember how my mother responded, but I assume she was gracious, and that she didn't point out the error. I was too busy riding a wave of adrenaline to notice. Something about being called a gentleman was delicious. I wanted to exist in that moment forever, glowing in mistaken masculinity on the dirty white tiles of Target.

My life up until then had been treading on the gender binary line. I wore dresses and flourished my pinkie when playing tea party, but I also sought out the butchiest remote control car when my grandparents offered me a "you're getting a baby brother" gift, and had gone through a period of time in which I insisted my name was Henry (and also that I was a male cat). In fifth grade, my mom not only let me chop my hair off, she encouraged it, ever supportive of my self-image. It helped that feminine pixie cuts were making a big comeback at the time, of course, but my mother had also permitted me to dress myself for school pictures, which resulted in me flaunting a brown collared sweater covered in Rockwell B-1 Lancers in my first grade portrait.

Fun fact: I asked my mom for the picture of me having a tea party in my Chicago Bulls jersey, and was presented with two such photos, neither of which being the photo I remembered, which means there are multiple documented instances of me playing tea as my hero, Michael Jordan. Much love to my late grandmother, who also let mini Michael Jordan do her nails.

Around the time of the Great Target Gentleman Incident, I landed the titular role in our community theater's production of Peter Pan, which kicked my gender dysphoria into hyperdrive. As part of the preparation for the performance, the director had us go around the theatre in character, as if we were on an adventure, and I was in charge of the exploration. I was given permission to behave differently, in unfeminine ways. I was unapologetically loud and stood with my legs apart, taking up as much space as I wanted, as I deserved. I teased and directed my Lost Boys, and stood high on a platform to tell them stories, which I acted out without a hint of self-consciousness. Everyone was swept up by the game, and I had never felt so at ease in my own body. 

But I knew that it had to end. That I'd go back to baby-doll tees that emphasized my breasts. That my hair would have to return from impish madness to the carefully girlish spikes more befitting my gender. That I would lose the magic of Pan. 

It hit me all at once, and after rehearsal one night, while my mom was meeting with some of the production staff (she had a big hand in the costumes and beyond), I sulked alone on stage. The director - then Wabash film student Reynaldo Pacheco, now rubbing elbows on the silver screen with the likes of Sandra Bullock and Ewan McGregor - approached me. He asked what the matter was, but I didn't know how to tell him. 

"Nerves?" he suggested.

I shook my head. For the first time in my life, it wasn't anxiety. At least, not the kind he was thinking of.

"Is it boy trouble?"

My heart shattered. I was angry and embarrassed, and now I was crying on stage, a scared little girl. I didn't have the words for what was wrong. At that point, I knew I didn't like boys, but thought I was just behind everyone else, immature. I think I made some kind of "ew" face at Rey, pushing away the idea like a much younger child might. I felt wounded. I'd grown attached to Rey, who had been so full of support and guidance both on and off the stage. It seemed like he didn't even know me. Maybe nobody knew me.

It meant that this little refuge wasn't really a refuge after all. It was a swiftly evaporating oasis in the desert. My time there was running out. 

Eventually I did return to the feminine world, but the feeling lingered. My heart pounded when the judges at marching band competitions assumed that I was a boy, as most tenor drum players were. I imagined and wrote stories from a masculine perspective. My Halloween and convention costumes were mostly male. In college, I finally acknowledged my homosexuality and discovered the wondrous existence of drag kings. The lines of gender began to fade.

By now in this meandering entry, my mother is probably hyperventilating. Don't worry, Mama. I frequently rock dresses and mascara, and I'm a weirdly big fan of high heels (tall and spiky, of course). However, I don't think I fall into the strictly ladylike camp.  My relationship with my gender is a little... wiggly. 

I think a lot of folks who experience homosexual attraction can relate to that. In some ways, our sexuality aligns us with the "opposite" gender, culturally speaking. The gender constructs that shape our worldview are heavily influenced by sexuality, and so it's no surprise that so much intersection exists in the queer community. We describe masculine lesbians as "butch," and you don't have to be a man in drag to be called a "queen." As for the bisexual folks? In a world so colored by the gender binary, their sexuality lands them in especially choppy and chaotic waters.

This year, I've been thinking a lot about gender's place in society and in my own life. I don't like how much of human behavior is dictated by its rules, and the strict cut-off in gender presentation frustrates me to no end. Like so many things, gender exists on a scale, and I wonder how different I would be if I had grown up as a boy. Would I be more confident, like I used to be on the stage? Would I have encountered better opportunities? Would I actually have cash in my savings account today?

Even if I had been assigned male at birth, I get the feeling I would still be somewhere in between. I love the frill and flourish of the femme, but also the confidence and swagger of masculinity. As a boy, I would still have done drag, but this time, in an over-the-top, traffic-stopping, sequin-laden evening gown instead of a gruff leather jacket and work boots.

So, there it is. I'm genderqueer. And honestly, I think we all are, to some degree. It's nearly impossible to fit perfectly into the gender roles that society places on us. Not just for women and queer folk, but for all of us. I'm one of the fortunate ones, though. I'm comfortable with my she/her/hers pronouns, and while I'm often frustrated with my body, I also don't mind playing dress-up with it (to quote The Producers, "If you got it, flaunt it, baby, flaunt it!"). Truly, I lucked out, and am happy with my (occasionally mercurial) identity. 

I challenge you to consider your gender today and what it means to you, whether you're at the far end of the spectrum, consider yourself genderless, or are somewhere in between. Do you like where you fit in? Can you imagine yourself somewhere else on the scale? This is a topic worthy of exploration, so don't hold back in your self-analysis!

As always, I would love to hear from you about your experience, and I'm always down to chat. 

Happy holidays, everyone. Be kind, be safe, and be yourself, whatever that may be.

Bless you, Snapchat. (Also, add me! abi_douglas)

Nooooovember Update

Pronounced like NOOOOOOO vember. You know, like:

-vember. (Source)

Ayyyy, just kidding, November isn't too terrible. It's just busy as heck. There's Thanksgiving, our first anniversary of marriage, my birthday, several buddies' birthdays, National Novel Writing Month (I'm several days behind and ready to descend into HELL!), and a number of more private anxiety-producing events that I may have to hit on another time.

Anyway, I wanted to post an update to reassure everyone that I'm not dead, which seems to be something I have to do every November for one reason or another. 

The problem with November is that it's all the morose atmosphere of autumn without the snow-magic of winter. It's a series of cold, soggy, colorless days between Halloween and Christmas (etcetera). I want to like it, but the main point of November is to say, "Hey dudes, if you think this nasty, toe-chilling weather is sucky, just wait until we get deeper into the Cold Dark and Awful season."

Admittedly, a lot of my sour attitude toward the month has to do with my lingering childhood denial that I was technically born in the Christmas season (the latest Thanksgiving can fall is the day before my birthday). Greedy baby Abi thought that meant cheapskates would try to pull the whole combined birthday/Christmas gift scam, and I was a kid with needs, you know? Summer birthday babies had an even cycle of gift accumulation throughout the year, but I'd have to buckle down for 11 months of free-stuff drought. 

Plus, I somehow managed to be sick almost every Thanksgiving (at least, that's how it seemed). That really puts a damper on the feasting aspect of the holiday. 

My adulthood experiences of November, aside from last year's wedding (HOLY CRAP Y'ALL) have only served to deepen my negative associations with the month. So, it takes a little psychological struggling for me to make it through. 

With that in mind, look forward to future entries regarding:

• What I've learned after a year of marriage
• NaNoWriMo and my (usually off-kilter) balancing of priorities
• The harrowing tale of how I've been unknowingly driving with a suspended license for over a year without ever having violated a traffic law or shown myself to be anything but a neurotically cautious driver (and haha, wasn't that so super duper fun to find out less than two weeks before my license expires)

Having dropped that anxiety bomb, it's time for me to blast off again. Good luck, fellow NaNo participants, and until next time!