Sing a new song

I was struck again this week by ways that I've changed since having transitioned.

On Thursday, Sweetie and I went to see Gossip, a kind of punk-funk-blues band led by the amazing Beth Ditto. Poor woman was suffering from a cold, possibly the aftermath of the flu, but she was still belting out the songs. Once upon a time, I would have enjoyed part of the set and then got bored and restless. I would have preferred running off to play my own music than to sit through the whole set. But Thursday, I didn't feel that way at all. I loved the set, all the way to the end. No restlessness, no dissatisfaction.

Then last night, we attended a benefit performance for an organization called Education Without Borders, which helps schools in South Africa. The show was called Woza Afrika—Tribute to Miriam Makeba. Miriam Makeba, called "Mama Afrika," was a wonderful singer, often in her native Xhosa language, as well as a civil rights activist, who died almost a year ago. The program began with a series of dance pieces by girls from the Pro Arte Centre for Dance, with various accompaniment. One especially moving piece was set to a Vancouver Island native story about how the black Orca and the white Osprey fell in love and produced offspring with the typical black and white colouring of orcas. Don't ask me why it was so evocative. It just was, and we both felt it. After an interval, the Universal Gospel Choir sang several songs, African and others, sometimes with an amazing soloist named Jane Mortifee.

Was that me who said she loved the dance performances? Sweetie has always loved dance, but I have never been particularly moved by it. At least I hadn't been. But I thoroughly enjoyed the dance last night. I even "got it." First musical theatre, now dance. Where will it end?

This is why I say that it is not always possible to reassure those dismayed by my transition that I am the same person inside. In some ways, yes, of course I am, but transition has changed me profoundly. And how could it not? I am a free human being now. I see with different eyes, and feel with a liberated body. Barriers I put up for protection have crumbled.

I love that I resonate with new things. It's like finding notes on the scale that I didn't even know existed.