I’m back from my solo trip in South Dakota, I got back yesterday late afternoon.
I was on edge for the first two thirds of the trip because after about half an hour of driving a whining/whirring sounds started, the pitch getting higher as I sped up, which indicated that it was something rotating, like a belt slipping. I still had over 300 miles to drive, mostly through “the middle of nowhere” and on a holiday, so all I could really do was keep going and hope that everything would hold up at least until I got back into “civilization”. (It did help that I had a good friend/mentor, one of my “sailing uncles” father figures from California, with whom I could text about the mechanical issue for brainstorming and reassurance — another example of how, even when I am technically by myself on these trips, I am not utterly alone, I guess.)
Fortunately, the noise stopped as suddenly as it had begun and didn’t return for the rest of the trip so, despite the anxiety due to the possible mechanical issue and the pain coming from my left hip-flexor injury, the trip went more smoothly and quickly than expected. And when I got home, I wasn’t even tired: all I could feel then, as now, was the joy and healing power from this trip.
It was healing. So healing.
And I’m so glad I went and did it.
I didn’t do “anything special” while I was there, I didn’t even go see the “sights” in the area (Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse memorial, etc.): partly, the frequent, intermittent, and sometimes abundant rain stopped me from being able to make big plans there; partly, the flaring up of an old injury in my left hip-flexor prevented me from risking strenuous hiking; but mostly, I just listened to myself, to what my body & soul needed, and what they (i.e. I) needed was rest.
So I rested.
I allowed myself to rest.
I went on one very pretty hike and two runs on beautiful (& technical) trails, all in the same area, all very close to the campground where I was staying. I went for two swims in the nearby lake. I never did any physical activity for more than a few hours, less than half a day. The rest of the time I relaxed: I sat and read and colored and listened to music (& sang along), hunkering down when it rained; I lay on my big blue woolen blanket in the soft grass in the sunshine under the oak trees in the campground, reading or napping or listening to music and singing wholeheartedly, when it didn’t rain. I made myself healthy meals regularly, took hot showers, prepared my tent as well as my car every evening so I’d have a warm, dry place to sleep even if it started storming in the middle of the night. And the last two nights there, as the moon shone in the clear sky, I sat and looked up, or walked around slowly, looking at the sky. Once the campground had quieted down for the night and almost all lights were off, the sky was so clear, so full of stars and I could even glimpse the Milky Way. And on both of those last two, clear nights, I saw shooting stars: three on Saturday night and two on Sunday night. And again, I felt that thrill, that beautiful, sweet, radiant joy of a child. As if I had just received a wonderful gift from the universe.
Those last two nights with the clear sky were particularly healing for me. On Saturday night, as I stood looking at the moon over the dark shadows of the trees in the forest surrounding the campground — a landscape so similar to the one painted by my European queer ex-lover on that mug for me, which I buried and no longer have — I felt something loosen up in me, open up in my soul, in my heart, in my chest. I felt myself make peace, wholly, for the first time fully, with that part of my past that is connected to my European queer ex-lover and thus truly open up to the future & any relationships it might bring. As silly as it sounds now, that first shooting star that surprised me on Saturday night felt like a sign.
This trip was also important for my growth or pushing my comfort zone living in my body (& identity) as a trans person traveling to areas/States that are “not trans friendly” (to put it mildly). I was scared about going to South Dakota, driving through Wyoming, all by myself, as a trans person. But I decided that I wouldn’t let that fear stop me, stop me from exploring, enjoying, traveling, i.e. from being me. After all, when I looked like a woman, I also ran risks traveling by myself but I didn’t let that stop me: I just tried to be sensible. So I did the same here.
It’s easier said than done, though: this “new body”, this “new identity”, my masculine looks, using men’s restrooms, etc. is all still very new and somewhat foreign to me. I still cannot fully believe that the world sees me as a man — as I moved over for some horseback-riders on a trail and one of the men thanked me, saying “Thank you, young man!”, I was still half incredulous.
I have been using men’s bathrooms quite regularly for a couple years now but I had never showered in any of them, not even at my climbing gym where I feel quite comfortable & safe. So when it became evident that I’d have to do this trip all by myself (or cancel it), I called the campground and had an open-hearted conversation with the woman who managed it and with whom I had had several phone calls trying to fix the dates of my reservation. I asked her if they had single-stall and/or all-gender showers at their campground. When she said “No”, I explained my worries to her, i.e. that as a trans man I was afraid that if other men in the showers saw my “weird/different body” they might be violent or hostile towards me. She listened and, while admitting that she could not understand my experience because she “didn’t live in my body” (as she put it), she told me that the showers were all single, i.e. separated from each other with walls & a curtain, so I would be able to undress, wash, dry myself and dress again without anyone seeing me/my body. Knowing that, I decided to take the risk and go on this trip by myself — and I did shower there every single day in the men’s bathroom.
Apart from the privacy of the showers, I didn’t do anything else to hide my body or my transness: I swam in the lake twice in my Speedos, I wore leggings, and I walked around bare-chested when the weather allowed it. I didn’t “flaunt” my queerness like I do here (with T-shirts, tank-tops, armbands, pins) but I didn’t even obsess to hide it. I tried to strike a balance between being careful/sensible and still being authentically myself in a place where I was definitely a “little weird” (the campground’s guests tended to be cis-het couples, families, and vets). At the end, when I checked out yesterday, I went up to the campground manager, whose husband was also a veteran. She was sitting at a table with a dozen people, adults in their forties, many of them vets, and a few children & teenagers. I could sense some hostility and/or curiosity from the manager’s husband, but she had always been very helpful and nice, I think genuinely nice, to me, so I told her what I felt. Loud enough for most of the other people sitting there to hear, I said, “I want to thank you for that conversation we had on the phone about the showers: it helped, and I’m glad I took the risk and came here for my trip. These are not easy times for people like me, so if you ever have another guest who is trans, you can tell them that at least one trans person felt safe here.”
I said that because I truly wanted to thank her. But also because I wanted to state openly, as I was leaving and thus was “safe”, that I am trans and that things are hard for me & others like me now, especially in places like the area where that campground is. I hope as many people as possible heard what I said there yesterday. I might be the only openly trans person they’ve ever seen and they might think I’m a freak, but there’s also a chance that they might see me as just another human. Now more than ever, as so much of the world wants us to cower in fear and hide or shut up, I’m going to stand up and be me. I’m not going to do it putting myself consciously in danger in silly ways, but I am going to do it as much as I can: existence is resistance and visibility, just being out there, is the first battle — the first battle we win.
The Little Prince and the Fox 