Rāhui Day 29 (31):
Shit, it’s those odd numbers again.
Oh well, just have to live through them, I guess.
Hard to believe it a month since I sat in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs at Maungakiekie and watched my Cushla coaching, our Finn shooting arrows, and George Corbett trying to strangle me. I deserved a good strangling that morning because Dr George and I trash talk each other mercilessly and, in this instance, I think I’d won – but we’d become conscious of social distancing it being two days before lockdown and, in that context and in that proximity, strangling each other did seem a trifle infra dig.
I rather miss those mornings – the only times in the five years that Finn has been shooting that he has missed JAMA or Youth Archery have been those occasions he’s been at tournaments elsewhere in the country or on international duty and that’s quite a formidable record in anyone’s books – for all of us, actually, because Cushla and I are usually both there with him. It’s not my favourite social environment mostly because of the unusually large number of transphobic and homophobic bigots who seem drawn to the sport but it’s worth braving that crap to be with my son and his mates because kids mostly don’t have that problem. At worst I’ll be confronted by a small person asking, ‘are you a girl who used to be a boy’ and when I say ‘yes’ I’ll just get an ‘OK’ as they skip away or the follow up ‘are you Finn’s Mum?’
Kids are great. They reinforce for me just how important it is for transwomen like me to be present and visible regardless of the pariah status we have with some adults and how horrible it is to live through that week after month after year. Because it is. Horrible, and never-ending, because people like that just never give in. It takes the catharsis of finding out they have a queer family member or some other equally rare epiphany for any change to happen.
It’s sad, especially as it’s these very people who perpetuate the misguided belief that the organisation they lead is in any way welcoming or inclusive. It’s not. Welcoming, yes, as long as you conform to the social norms of the 1950s and the stereotypical gender norms of the born binary. There are those I cherish, too, of course. Jill Skeet and her family, the Rossolatos clan, Dr Corbett, my three trans sisters who tend to be invisible, Di, Richie, Sam, Chloé, Logan, Mark, Dale.
Other local clubs also struggle with acceptance and inclusion but it’s not quite as obvious. Let’s just say that when it comes to acceptance, most of my queer compadres, for the sake of safety, are well and truly in the closet.
Lots of meetings today. Online, of course. Cameras and mics turned off in most cases. Not exactly joyous occasions but also strangely motivating. I’m almost ready for Day 1 of online learning on Tuesday and excited by it. Who am I kidding, I’m petrified, but that’s OK. Even after 57 years in the classroom there’s still that moment of panic before fronting a new group of people – and it happens every time. ‘Will I be good enough?’ I guess it’s a form of stage fright and sometimes I’m seriously traumatised by it. ‘Will they trust me?’ ‘Will they think I’m a freak?’ To their credit – and mine I guess – they never do. Young people get it. They take me, at worst, at face value. Colleagues, grown-ups, sadly not so much.
In my cosy home the food just keeps on coming. I don’t cook. I am a liability in the kitchen. It’s a lifelong capacity I have for culinary incompetence. I blame my mother.
When Cushla and Finn went to Japan without me, I’d blown up all the electrics in the house within an hour of them leaving. How? Trying to make toast and boil the jug for coffee at the same time as I turned on the TV. It was a nightmare. I couldn’t turn the burglar alarm off and it was so loud it woke babies in Te Awamutu! I couldn’t even make toast without causing mayhem. So, Cushla is the culinary queen in our house, and she’s traditionally well supported by Dominos, Pizza Hutt, Rice Kitchen, Mama Rich, our local Thai takeaway, Epsom Fish and Chips and McDonalds. But not so right now, at this moment.
Tonight, we had two types of delicious dumplings and a lovely fish chowder. For 9pm snacks we had bagels with cream cheese, olives and tomato. I’m spoilt rotten. I really am. I don’t think she enjoys it, but she never says so. In our house the kitchen is two rooms away from the lounge which removes her from the rest of the family and the cat. That’s no fun. Two rooms is enough at the best of times but during lockdown it’s like being two towns away in a different country. I know she’d rather be with Finn and me, all playing on our devices. So, I’m grateful beyond words. I haven’t said, in my daily gratitude update, how grateful I am to her because that would just be weird but I am. I so am. So instead, I’m saying it here.
In what seems to have become a thing for us, we watch a movie in the evening. Tonight, we watched Hangman which was like ‘six degrees of Kevin Bacon on acid’. It starred Karl Urban who I had the pleasure of working with a lot when he was a baby actor, both on screen and in the theatre, here in Aotearoa. I’ve followed his career because he’s a nice guy who always does good work. In Hangman he’s very good indeed, especially at the rough and tumble, cop out for revenge, car chase schtick, but with the deeper, more emotional stuff not quite so much.
The film was a bit too Silence of the Lambs meets Seven for my liking and thems big clogs to fill. Pacino ranges from absolutely fabulous to quite awful – again in the emotional stuff where neither the script nor the direction gave either of the men much support – but the women were uniformly excellent – Brittany Snow, who I’d never seen before, was great, and Sarah Shahi was magnificent as she always is. It was fun, if a bit transparent in an ‘I see what you did there’ kind of way, but I enjoyed it.
Segued for a sequel – but I suspect not.
Much chatter afterwards about Kevin Bacon – stuff I didn’t know (thanks, Cushla) – and exposing Finn to his ‘six degrees’ whānau which now seems to include almost every actor on the planet.
Bed, welcoming as always, until I get there. Then it’s insomnia and ‘hello darkness my old friend’ with tomorrow ANZAC Day, which is never, ever, in any way, ‘my old friend’. Not ever. It’s as though this day holds my dad and me, suspended, forever together, in this limbo, that we simply cannot escape.
Fuck ANZAC Day, just fuck it to death.
dykiegirl 