Afterglow

Yes, I am alive! And yes, I will still be writing about trans issues, personal and otherwise, and yes, I will write about the teaching and mentoring thing I just came through. Just no search terms.

"Amazing" doesn't begin to describe how this past week was for me, in more ways than I can count. My official function was teaching guitar to six girls over the course of five days, but the experience was so much more than that. Teaching, interacting, helping, comforting, encouraging, and sometimes getting firm with. Watching them play with their bands. Talking with them at other times, although they mostly talk among themselves, as they should.

It was wonderful working with 30 or so awesome women in a cooperative effort. This was the first time in this city for this endeavour, and everyone was part of making it work. The two directors got this off the ground in a matter of months, and the organization was impressive. They and some of the volunteers had been working on this for quite a while before the rest of us came in to do our thing for a week. Kudos to all of them!

So was it a life-changing experience? I'd say yes. Sometimes our lives are changed in quiet but significant ways. Not all life changes have to be as dramatic as transition.

I had never worked with children and youth before. I had never been in a teaching role. I had always thought I was not suited for it, and I'm grateful to my two teaching partners for helping me to find my way in that unfamiliar role. I had never worked in such an overwhelmingly female space. The very purpose of what we do is to help girls break out of any stereotypical boxes they might have been put in or might have put themselves in. I was modelling a strong, capable woman for them. Audacious, eh?

I learned more in this process than I can begin to sort out now. I learned that I am capable of doing things I thought I couldn't. I learned the lesson we were teaching the girls! I learned how much I love working with girls, especially the younger ones. I learned that I make a pretty good connection with them. I learned so much about what it's like to be a woman surrounded by women. There was one guy who helped with food, and a few of the guest musicians were men, but within those walls was mostly a world of women and girls, and I really, really loved it.

Here's one thing that seems significant to me. After the first day, I was heading home on the bus feeling quite emo, mostly from the usual thing of feeling accepted in women's space. I've written about that before. But after that, it all became normal. I didn't think about being accepted. I knew I belonged there, and I had a job to do, same as all the other women.

I did feel one moment of uncomfortable "otherness." That was when the girls were getting ready in their dressing rooms. I know nothing about teasing hair and doing someone else's makeup. I didn't have those experiences growing up. I was a bit sad to be outside that, but I wasn't the only one. Only certain of the volunteers gravitated toward helping in that capacity. It's just that if I had the experience, I would have been one of them. That's me.

I'm so proud of the girls for what they learned and what they overcame within themselves. I'm so proud of them for putting on a great performance and having fun doing it. And I'm so honoured to have been a part of all of it.

I'm also really pleased to be connected to such a cool and wonderful group of women. They're all younger than Sweetie and I, of course, but that works for us. People our own age are often too "old" for us. We just don't share the same concerns. We're not going to keep up with these women on drinking and partying, but it will be great to work more with them, and hopefully to spend some fun time as well.