My first three days in Alaska

It’s been rustic. I’ve been staying at cabins with no running water. The bathroom is an outhouse for peeing & pooping. A pot of water heated on the stove and then used to wash oneself in the shower-tent in a corner of the garden is the shower at my friends’ cabin. No shower option at the cabin here at Byers Lake. 

Rustic, wild. 

Some of this rustic, wild simplicity is familiar, it reminds me of my sailing adventures, of the simplicity & “back to basics” of life on those adventures, as a young adult — and I like that. 

A lot is new, though, unfamiliar.

The drive from my friends’ cabin outside Fairbanks to Byers Lake along Alaska highway 3 was beautiful, but in the middle of nowhere. A one- or two-lane highway winding its way through forests, forests as far as the eye can see, and mountains — the Alaska Range — in the distance. One drives through two or three small towns along the way, the major one being the one outside Denali State & National Parks, but these “towns” are nothing more than a cluster of buildings around a gas station. All of them, though, have a State Troopers building. The only town with cafes and gift shops was the one outside Denali State & National Parks. 

At one of the gas stations where I used the restroom, I overheard two guys, strangers, chatting, telling each other about their hunting exploits: one had just shot a moose the day before. 

This is a very different world from a lot of what I’ve seen before — in the U.S. or in Europe. 

I’ve never been so far North. Here, I’m at around 67 degrees North. Although the super-long days of summer and the “midnight sun” are behind us now, the days are still longer than down in Colorado. And the light is paler. The light has a delicate but somehow insistent quality to it. It’s beautiful, it looks almost magical, surreal. 

The trees I’ve seen so far have been mostly spruces and birches, the latter now turning yellow and gold as autumn approaches. It’s all green and golden, all extremely lush. It reminds me a bit of the late summers of my childhood in the Austrian Alps, except for the light. 

The mountains — the little bit I’ve been able to see that was not hidden by the thick cloud cover in these past two days — are different, too. A dark grey, brownish, blackish rock that I cannot identify, and what looks like dark green/dark grey shrubs. But most noticeably, the tree line being so low: because of the high latitude here, the tree line stops much sooner than on any of the mountains I had seen before. 

It’s been a pity, though, that I haven’t been able to see, or do, much more in the past two days because of the rain. It’s been raining almost nonstop for a day and a half here at Byers Lake, since we arrived yesterday afternoon. So instead of being out there running or hiking and exploring, I’m here, sitting in this rustic cabin, hoping we’ll have enough firewood to keep us warm through tomorrow, writing these notes. 

I’d like the rain to stop or, at least, to abate a little. I’d like to get out there and go for a walk in the woods, to enjoy the potentially beautiful autumn here. Preferably without running into a bear… 

Removing filters: an honest view and another hard lesson

Two weeks ago, after a half-marathon trail race where I wore my “Trans Pride” shorts that have hearts with the trans flag on the butt cheeks, a guy (cis-man) came up to me and said, “I like your shorts, especially the hearts with the trans flag on the butt. I was running behind you for a while and I noticed”.  

I was taken very much by surprise. Other people have commented on these running shorts of mine at races but it’s always been women (or female-presenting people) just saying, “I like your shorts”. I don’t do well with appreciative comments on my looks, especially from strangers; and since my looks have become more masculine, I have gotten used receiving fewer compliments, if any at all, and only from women (or female-presenting people). Sometimes there’ll be a very matter of fact comment on our bodies between me & my climbing/running buddies, with a brotherly camaraderie; or a compliment from one of the gay men in the chorus. But otherwise the norm is, “straight/non-queer men don’t make appreciative remarks on each other’s looks” — an unspoken but very clear homophobic social rule. So this comment by the guy at the race really surprised me. And my friends who either overheard the comment or heard about it later when I told them about it, all said that he must be queer and/or hitting on me. And I ended up believing the same — and feeling flattered also because I found him attractive. 

It eventually turned out that he wasn’t hitting on me at all. 

All my friends and I had misinterpreted. 

This discovery disappointed me in a disproportionately intense, almost devastating, way. I felt not only terribly disappointed but also disproportionately hurt and frustrated, even angry. The intensity of my emotional reaction required an explanation. So here’s the analysis of the four reasons I found for my extreme disappointment, frustration, pain, and anger: two of them are external reasons, i.e. frustration, pain and anger due to society’s biases and their influence on how I allowed myself to perceive this situation; two are internal reasons, i.e. due to my own emotional state & biases. 

External reasons: 

1) Queer people tend to “see queer everywhere”, so most of my queer friends to whom I recounted the episode automatically thought that guy must also be queer. I think many queer people tend to “see queer everywhere” because, for better or for worse, they spend most of their time in queer environments so they end up having a biased view of the world or a tendency to “wishful thinking”. I have spent (& still spend) most of my life, for better or for worse, in environments where queer people are either non-existent or invisible, so I have a more realistic sense of how it is: society, unfortunately, is overwhelmingly straight and sadly normative (and, to be honest, many queer people are sadly normative, too, with their romanticism and monogamic or hierarchical partnering and attachment to marriage). So I should have trusted, or followed, my own usual, logical assumption here, too: chances were that this guy wasn’t queer simply because there are fewer of us queer folk.

2) Society is overwhelmingly neurotypical and allosexual, and people apply the neurotypical and/or allosexual filters to everything. People just cannot take a comment or phrase at face value, they have to, or want to, see (sexual or romantic) implications in everything. I usually don’t. I’m usually literal and asexual to a fault, often missing (sexual or romantic) cues the few times they are directed towards me. So I should have done just the same with that guy’s comment at the race and taken it at face value, as a simple statement of facts: he liked my shorts (like many other people do), appreciated the trans flag (i.e. he’s probably a good ally), and explained the practical way in which he came to notice it. No more, no less. This one time, instead, I allowed the neurotypical, allosexual filter applied by people around me to bias my own interpretation. Why did I allow that?  

I allowed it for the following two, internal or personal, reasons: 

1) I wanted to interpret that guy’s comment in a neurotypical, allosexual way for once because I desperately want (a) “boyfriend(s)”. I’m in such terrible need for that type of connection — for sexual attention and sexual connection with (a) man/men — that I’m trying to “wish it into existence”, I’m seeing it even when it’s really not there. This is a very dangerous and unhealthy emotional state for me to be in.

2) Somehow, for the past decade, when it comes to some form of non-platonic attraction, I have always been drawn irresistibly — subconsciously — to unavailable people/men. I don’t know how but some part of me — my “reptilian brain”? — seems to pick up on cues that indicate the person’s unavailability (to anything non-platonic) and then I’m drawn to them non-platonically. It’s gotten to the point where, for me, the words “unavailable (to anything non-platonic)” & “(non-platonically) attractive” are (dangerous) synonyms.

This is all very frustrating, painful, and concerning to me. 

So, as I try to work through and dispel this burning disappointment, what can I learn from this experience, and what can I treasure? 

I can learn to trust myself both more and less: I can, I must trust my autistic, literal, asexual brain more, allowing myself and maybe also trying to show others to take comments at face value, to not read additional (sexual or romantic or flirtatious) meanings into everything; I can trust my life experiences that keep showing that there are few queer people and even fewer non-normative ones, proving that most people really function in the boxes they were given; but I must also trust myself less when it comes to feeling non-platonic attraction towards people, because there I am in a vulnerable, needy, and therefore very biased and dangerous position. So I’ve got to apply to myself, and follow strictly, a simple rule: if I feel any form of non-platonic attraction towards someone, I must steer clear of them.

On the other hand, I can treasure one thing from this whole experience, from that one comment that guy made to me after the race two weeks ago: for a brief instant someone connected to me in a refreshing, non-standard and simply direct way, breaking those unspoken but mighty homophobic rules that prevent most men from praising each other’s looks; for a brief instant, a man who was a stranger took the courage to say something nice to me, to an openly queer person with masculine looks. No more, no less. 

My own body letting me down

I’m feeling really depressed. The pain in my left hip & groin is worse again, 4-5/10 now. I don’t know if the pain is worse again from this morning’s run or from sitting at my desk or driving: but as much as I can reduce the sitting & driving to the minimum necessary, I cannot avoid it, so this isn’t going to get better any time soon.
I think this is a real injury: I felt I pulled something in my left groin while doing Sun Salutations last week, on Wednesday 8/27, before heading out for my solo trip to South Dakota. I probably reactivated an old injury from a decade ago. And during COVID, I had a very severe episode of hamstring tension/inflammation from all the sitting and because all I could do during the shutdown was run & hike, and that lasted for months: literally for months all I could do was walk, nothing else at all. So this doesn’t bode well.
I cannot “take it one day at a time”: I need to make a decision for myself now to not run for the rest of this week, lest I also ruin my trip to Alaska next week.
This is devastating for me. All this year I’ve been working to finally do my first full marathon, after having missed “my chance”, my wish last year, and I’m missing it again. I’ve failed again. None of my runner friends get so many injuries and setbacks as I do, so I must be doing something wrong. I feel like I’ll never go beyond the half-marathon. And even there, when I race, I’m performing much worse that the projections, whereas my friends perform just as expected.
Running is all I have. It helps me regulate, it brings me joy, it gives structure to my days, my weeks. My job is uncertain, my relational needs are often unmet in painful ways, climbing depends on others and that often backfires. Running is the only thing I could do without depending on others, without the risk of being let down by others.

But now it’s my own body letting me down.

South Dakota solo trip — Afterthoughts

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. 

2025, thus far: a year of healing

Summarizing in just a few words my reflections from yesterday on what this year has been, or brought me, so far, I’d say it’s been a year of healing. 

Starting with the physical and emotional healing from the salpingectomy & uterine ablation that I had in December 2024. Healing from the aborted friendship with benefits that didn’t work out with the gender-expansive gay guy with whom I hooked up a couple times and from other disappointments related to the chorus. Recovering from my burnout. Settling in to my new place and, at least partly, feeling more “at home”. Allowing myself to rest and relax more, especially when I had concerning health issues. Traveling and exploring. Tending to my close friendships, leaning into & opening up more to those relationships, thus allowing more closeness, more intimacy of a safe & comfortable kind that is truly healing. 

Whether I was aware of it or not, I have been dedicating this year to self-care. I hadn’t fully realized it until these past couple days. 

I have been allowing myself to heal and I can feel its positive effects on me. Not only on my body, but also on my mind, on my heart, on my soul. I’m overall more relaxed, I’m not having real meltdowns anymore and I’m less often feeling overwhelmed or overstimulated. But also, I can feel something opening up inside of me: memories from the past come to me more often and in a less painful way. 

It’s as if windows have opened in my soul, allowing both the past to come back to me and the future to be somewhat visible, or possible for me to glimpse. 

Maybe this is all I should expect of this year: a year of healing. No more, and no less.

South Dakota solo trip — Day 3

I will definitely have to sleep in my car tonight. It’s pouring with rain now, positively pouring, and thundering. “Heavy rain and thunderstorms” had been in the forecast today around 2-3pm, so I guess here it is, about an hour earlier than expected. I just hope it gives some reprieve later, so I can cook myself some dinner and actually get my car set up for me to sleep in tonight… 

I made it back to the campground after my long run & little swim in the lake just in time to have a hot shower and get myself lunch before the downpour started, forcing me to hunker down with my laptop and books. 

We used to have thunderstorms like this in the summertime, at the beach, where I grew up in northern Italy. As kids, it always felt fun: adventurous and cozy. We used to have just enough shelter from the beach-hut to keep us dry and warm, and safe, while also allowing to make it exciting because all we had protecting us from the downpour and thunder was the thatched roof of little huts a few dozen yards from the water’s edge. We’d all huddle close and often just pass the time by playing cards together as we waited for the storms to subside. 

I grew up learning to read the weather. I didn’t realize it at first, I didn’t realize it until I actually started sailing around the Mediterranean with my sailing buddy/boyfriend in college. But even before then, already in elementary school and then throughout middle school and high school, those summers spent partly at the beach and partly in the mountains, spending days on end out in nature, taught me to read the weather, to look at the sky, feel the wind, smell the air, and know what to expect, know when to turn back or seek shelter. 

My parents taught me to be adventurous. As much as they later disapproved of “how far” I took “adventure”, how much I pushed boundaries, how much I did “against the/their rules” (i.e. how “non-normative” I’ve always been), they taught me to be this way. They taught me by example. While all the Italian mothers panicked about the summer storms, trying to rush their kids back home before even the first few drops of rain started, my American mother of English & German descent would delight in the downpours. She taught us not to go swimming or out on the empty beach lest we be hit by lightning, but other than that, what she taught us was to delight in the weather: to see it coming, to prepare for it, and then just enjoy it. I can remember the swims in the sea that we’d have as soon as the summer storms had cleared: almost nobody was left at the beach by then, usually, all having fled with approaching rain, so we had the whole beach to ourselves and the chilly water, coming in big, gray, frothy waves from the storm, was one of the most fun parts of the whole experience. And it was similar when we went hiking in the Austrian mountains in the summer: we checked the weather forecast as much as we could before leaving the house, but then it was up to us and our common sense on the trails. And we’d just pack our knapsacks — one each, even when my sister & I were very young — each one of us carrying the essentials for one self: food, water, extra layers, rain-jacket, hat. (Then my parents had some extras, like additional snacks & water and the first-aid kit, for everyone.) What I appreciate — and I can really only appreciate it now, having been unable to really see this before — is that my parents taught me to “just go and do it” or “just go and get it” — that “it” being what ones wants from life, be it a day at the beach, a hike, a new job, the place of their dreams. They taught me to not let the rain stop me: they taught me to bring a raincoat for the rain and to go anyway. 

And that’s what I have been doing my entire life. 

Last night I was able to sleep in my tent. It must have rained, or at least drizzled, because there were drops on my tent this morning and the grass was moist, and it felt colder and damper during the night. But I was OK. I didn’t know exactly what I’d be able to do today, so I left my plans flexible, telling myself I’d decide in the morning based on how the weather looked. I’m taking each day as it comes, one day at a time, fitting my coach’s training plan for me into the weather here, not the other way around. Since the sky was mostly clear this morning and the forecast was for storms in the afternoon, I decided to anticipate my long run from the weekend to today, since I knew I’d have 2-3 hours of decent weather. I brought my rain jacket on my long run and just went for it. 

Tonight I’ll sleep in my car and tomorrow we’ll see. 

It’s the same spirit I had with my sailing buddy/boyfriend when we sailed around the Mediterranean as youngsters: a plan, yes, but vague and flexible, adaptable to the weather, to the circumstances. There’s something very liberating in doing things this way. It makes me feel very attuned to my surroundings (& to myself), very much in the present moment.

Reap what we sow…?

This has been my most productive year in terms of running: I’ve done (& won) four races in six months, the first one only six weeks after major surgery in my lower abdomen, and I might still manage to do one more before the end of this calendar year. 

I think I’m starting to feel some satisfaction and peace for how this year has gone, or how it’s turned out, thus far. But it’s a sense of peace and satisfaction that goes well beyond the prizes I won at the races. It’s something deeper and broader. 

2025 has not been an easy year for me so far, not at all. I’ve had many moments of profound, painful, overwhelming grief, devastating loneliness, dark thoughts, even despair. I’ve had health issues, some of which scary or concerning. And from the practical viewpoint, my professional situation is still unstable and thus worrisome, and my living/housing situation could be improved. But despite all these difficulties and dark moments, there has been growth for me and net improvement: some of this improvement I can measure, quantify (e.g. the running & races), some I can feel distinctly. I am steadily recovering from the real burnout that was crippling me. I am achieving the athletic goals that I had set myself for last year but was unable to pursue then due to injuries, health issues, and practical obstacles. I have been traveling a lot again, both for work and for pleasure. I have been deepening and strengthening some of my close friendships. I am effectively taking advantage of, and benefiting from, working part-time to dedicate time to travel/vacation, my athletic goals, and my other interests (e.g. writing). 

But especially, I have grown: grown into myself more and opened myself more to the world.  

The races I have done this year haven’t just been athletic successes. I didn’t just go and run my races, as I often used to do in the past. Now I go to races with more in mind than just trying to win the podium in my category: I go to show up openly, loud & proud, as nonbinary trans athlete, with my flags and colors and signs; I go to be with friends (almost every race I’ve done recently has been in the company of friends, whether they came to run, too, or to support me at the start/finish), thus turning the races into fun, social events and memorable experiences to share with people I love; I go to be part of a community, picking the events organized by folks with whom there’s mutual respect. 

Admittedly, I still have unfulfilled dreams and unmet needs. One of these unmet needs — “I need a ‘boyfriend’!” — being the cause of me currently having the sense that “nobody likes me physically/sexually”. This perception is not completely unjustified: in fact, the physical/sexual intimacy that I’ve had with half a dozen people since moving to Colorado has been between April 2022 and December 2024, so none throughout 2025. But it’s also true that I have dedicated this year to other things that I really cared about. Of those half a dozen people, the first three were by chance but the other three or four I sought out. In the past months, I haven’t been seeking out any situations or relationships that would lead to physical or sexual intimacy. I have been dedicating my time and energy and focus to really ground myself more steadily in my life & within myself after several years of almost constant change and stress and difficulties. I have been dedicating my time and energy and focus to my new job, to traveling again, to overcoming disappointment & drama with the chorus, to recovering from (autistic) burnout, to improving as a runner, to showing up & doing activism as a trans nonbinary athlete. And to my friends (as one of my buddies reminded me recently, during one of my bouts of depression, that I “always show up for friends”). 

The areas of my life that I have tended to have, indeed, grown. 

So I guess we really do “reap what we sow”… So maybe now, if what I really want is “a boyfriend” (i.e. friends with benefits), I need to plant seeds in those fields…? … but how?

South Dakota solo trip — Day 2

I might have to sleep in my car tonight. We’ll see. I got back from my hike just in time, as it was starting to drizzle, before it began to pour. It rained pretty hard for about half an hour, now it has stopped again. The inside of my tent is dry but the grass & ground might be too wet, especially if it rains again later this evening or tonight, making it cold to sleep on the ground with only the thin camping layers that I have (& like). 

I’d prefer to sleep in my tent because I really like it, it feels so cozy and so close to nature. But it’s OK either way. I’ll be fine either way. 

I can feel my nervous system relaxing — already relaxed. 

I went on a pretty hike this morning and felt so attuned to my beautiful surroundings — the conifers and deciduous trees; the herons and several raptors; the lake and ponds and creek; the coyote; the fish that jumped out of the water to eat the insects on the pond’s surface. 

My mind rambles on these excursions — I’m one of those people who have almost constant “inner chatter” — but in a way that is relaxed: thoughts come and go; I see them or hear them for a moment and then let them go, without holding onto them, without obsessing; some thoughts come back, almost circling back, and I smile as I recognize them — “Oh, hello, you again!” I’m the thinker but also the observer of my own thoughts; and they do not intrude on nature, nature and my surroundings still capture my attention more than any of my own thoughts. 

I’m by myself but not utterly alone. Out in nature, exploring or adventuring, my loneliness always turns into a soothing solitude. I met fellow hikers and exchanged some friendly remarks. And some of my close friends know where I am and are keeping an eye on me from afar. I’m planning to stay offline from my cell phone & email for the length of this trip: I need it. Part of the rejuvenation & relaxation that these solo trips give me comes from being offline in order to enjoy the present moment, to really be here & now, and to leave all my daily concerns behind, to free or clear my head, my mind, my soul.  After the initial, intense disappointment and pain of having not just one but two buddies bail on travel plans with me for this trip to South Dakota, I’m glad I came out here by myself. These days on my own are good for me. But I also know that they would feel much more lonely and scary if I didn’t have the support of a handful of good friends who are looking out for me from afar. Half a dozen close friends of mine have the details of my current trip. Several of them can check on how I’m doing by reading me here, on this blog. And two of them who follow me on Strava have agreed to call the campground where I’m staying if they don’t see any activities on my Strava account for a couple of days in a row. 

Technically, I’m still alone out on the trails and on the long drive, so something could go wrong there and I’d have to figure things out by myself. But knowing that my friends care and are looking out for me, albeit from afar, helps. 

South Dakota solo trip — Day 1

I made it to South Dakota for a few days of a solo trip to camp, hike, and trail run in the Black Hills & Mt. Rushmore area. 

Funny the things one thinks about while driving alone for hundreds of miles. 

Towards the end of my drive today, I found myself counting the number of people with whom I’ve had physical and/or sexual intimacy in the past few years (I guess I’m fully into my “horny teenage boy” phase!). And I suddenly realized that I’ve had much more physical and/or sexual intimacy since moving to Colorado, three & a half years ago, and since coming more explicitly/openly into (& out as) my nonbinary transmasc self than I had during the six years in California. 

It’s interesting how relative things are, how tricky feelings and perceptions can be. 

For a while now, I’ve been feeling like “nobody likes me physically or sexually”, that “I am unable to find people with whom to connect on a physical and/or sexual level”, etc. But in reality, I’ve had different forms of physical and/or sexual intimacy with half a dozen people in just over three years here in Colorado, whereas in California I had only two friends with benefits during my 5-6 years there. In California, it was with two cis-men: one straight and pretty normative in his approach to relationships; the other queer (bisexual and polyamorous). In Colorado, where my gender-journey really began to flourish, including the medicalization part and the masculinization of my looks, I have had physical and/or sexual intimacy with seven people spanning almost the whole gender-spectrum: a queer cis-woman; a nonbinary transfem friend; a nonbinary, queer AMAB person who was slowly leaning more and more feminine in their spirit/identity (even if not physically); a transgirl; a queer/pansexual cis-man; a gay cis-man; and a gender-expansive/nonbinary gay cis-man. Some of these interactions were brief — a kiss, a couple of hookups, some handsy snuggles. Others lasted a few months. Most were “superficial” or just “experimental” or casual. A couple really took my heart. But in all of them there was for me the element of exploration, discovery, experimentation. 

I went through a similar phase between the ages of 15 – 19. So when I feel — and say — that I’m like a teenager all over again, it’s true: I am, once again, discovering what physical and/or sexual intimacy mean to me, what I like, what/who attracts me, who likes/is attracted to me. 

I need to keep this in mind, to remember this in the dark moments of loneliness when I feel like nobody is physically or sexually attracted to me, or when I feel that I’m not physically or sexually attracted to anyone. It’s true that I rarely feel physical or sexual attraction towards anyone, especially if I know nothing about them. And it’s true that I have a very hard time understanding when other people are interested in/attracted to me physically or sexually (as the case with the guy who hit on me after the race last Saturday proves!). And it’s especially true that most of the situations of physical or sexual intimacy that I’ve had since moving out to Colorado & since being openly nonbinary/transmasc have been fleeting experiments that didn’t work out. But it hasn’t been a barren desert. People have been interested in/attracted to me physically or sexually, and they have made their interest/attraction clear and known to me, despite my “weird body” and/or awkwardness. 

So maybe there is hope for me. Maybe, just like those years between high school & the beginning of college when I was trying to figure out who/what I liked and who liked me, I’m slowly figuring things out again, in this second puberty. As I blundered back then, in my teens, and kissed or snuggled or hooked up with many people who ended up being the “wrong fit”, I’m blundering now: experimenting, trying to understand by trial and error.

And hopefully, sooner rather than later I’ll zoom into the “right persons”. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, the “right fits” & I will find each other…

Compartmentalizing — Decompartmentalizing?

I tend to compartmentalize my relationships: friends with whom I walk&talk or meet for tea or dinner or movie night; friends with whom I go out dancing; running buddies; climbing buddies. And sometimes, friends with benefits, with whom I usually share little more than sex and some emotional and/or intellectual connection. 

It wasn’t always that way for me. In my earlier “serious” relationships with sexual partners, we shared much more. But in only one relationship that involved sex did I also share my adventurous sides with my partner, and that was with my sailing buddy over two decades ago, my first “great love” and first “serious partner”. We were friends, buddies, comrades, sailing partners competing together as a team, sailing buddies going on fun adventures together, shelter for each other from our dysfunctional families of origin, source of encouragement to explore the world. I’ve never since had any other relationship like that, nor do I seek it out or believe it possible anymore. 

In California, I had a sailing buddy with whom we tried to also be friends with benefits, but it didn’t work: we found that we could either sail together, as platonic sailing partners on a team, or we could have sex together, but we couldn’t do both. So, first we tried to be platonic sailing partners; but the sexual attraction, and thus sexual tension, between us was too strong, so we eventually agreed to find other sailing partners and be friends with benefits. And that worked: the boundaries were clear, we compartmentalized our intimacy, limited our closeness.

For a couple of years between California & Colorado, I had a nonbinary transfem friend who was also a climber (mostly a boulderer) with whom we had two phases of being sexual friends, and in a way it was nice, fun to go climbing with them (& common friends) and then come home and act as if we were “partners”. But it was always just for a few days, a long weekend, because we lived in two different States, so that automatically compartmentalized the relationship, setting specific, practical boundaries and limits to our closeness. 

I love the camaraderie, shared experiences, and special intimacy I have with my climbing buddies and running buddies, who are all cis-het men. And I also like the fact that the boundaries of our relationships are clear, our closeness and intimacy are limited. When I was trying to “date” people and using the apps about a year and a half ago, I tended to avoid, or be uninterested in, people who were explicit runners or climbers; and when I was seeing the transgirl who was a serious runner and wanted to go running with me, I was very clear and unmovable in my “No”: running was what I did with my buddies, my cis-het guy friends, it was my “bro-time”, like climbing, not something I was interested in doing with someone who was my sexual or romantic partner. 

Something has been feeling a little different for me in these past two days, since the interaction with the man who showed interest in me at the race on Saturday. I’ve allowed myself to think about those interactions and, especially, to let myself explore my feelings around what happened and what it could feel like for me if there had been some “future opportunity” with him. There was definitely a mutual “noticing” of each other, mutual interest, I am sure of that. And it feels flattering, first of all, simply because a guy I found attractive also showed interest towards me. But thinking about it a little deeper, I must admit that his being a trail runner, too, adds something to my interest, to the pleasure or gratification I feel, and to the wish that something had come out of it. It adds to my pleasure to know that it was both a cis-man (I assume, a queer cis-man) AND a trail runner showing an interest in me that was beyond athletic.

It can be flattering to know that someone finds you physically attractive; and it’s very gratifying for me to feel the (mutual) athletic admiration that my running & climbing buddies have for each other, and the fact that with my buddies this admiration is wholly platonic feels safe & comfortable, I cherish that simple, brotherly connection. But I must admit that the possibility of that runner at the race on Saturday finding me both athletically AND sexually attractive feels nice. And I must also admit that the fantasy of sharing both sex and a deep interest like trail running with another queer man feels like something that I might want or enjoy… And this comes as a surprise to my own self.