The M Project

After a long break, The M Project is back underway. There has been buzz about the Project; now we have begun to receive submissions. We'll be posting more up shortly, so keep checking back.

If you want to read more by Em, check out hir blog at http://poeticpaintpolitic.blogspot.com.

Yes. (By Em)

Liminal:
2. barely perceptible
3. of, relating to, or being an intermediate state, phase, or condition: in-between, transitional.

This is an exercise in liminality, transcendence, affirmation.

~~~

People that I knew two years ago, even lived down the hall from or considered friends, sometimes do not recognize me now. Hair cropped close and breasts obscured, they pass me on the sidewalk without looking, my expectant gaze unmet.

Occasionally, we will actually recognize each other. We engage in that stunted, curious conversation that occurs when you’re speaking with someone with whom you were formerly intimate, but are no longer. I feel happy that I have been recognized as this most recent rebirth of myself, and we prepare to part. And then, some variation of “later, girl!” or “good talkin’ to ya, lady!”

They do not know.

Unintentionally, I have lost value, have not truly been recognized. I am not sure which is worse, the silent passing, or the abrupt crumbling of some small portion of these fragile fortifications I have built.

~~~

“Who are you?”

I have been thinking about names a lot lately, how their meanings are constructed, the messages they convey to the rest of the world, and to our internal selves.

For something so integral, it seems strange that they are chosen before our births. My parents struggled over my name. If I had been born a boy (but I was, and I wasn’t), they would have named me Caleb. This name means ‘dog’ in Hebrew (I have always been a cat person). Instead, I came out the way that I am. Emma Rose, my great-grandmother on both sides of my family.

Two strong women (I am one, and I am not). Its roots are German (as are mine), and means ‘whole’ or ‘universal.’

This is the name that I have written in childish block printing, carefully in schoolchild cursive, scrawled in the lower right-hand corner of anxiously written checks. It has frequently looked alien to me, in much the same way that the skirts and dresses I started wearing in high school almost always felt like a costume that I donned, a performance put forward for the benefit of my mother, my safety, acceptance, finally.

Shame is powerful, and sometimes enough to force us into submission. But not always.

~~~

Two years ago, I publicly dressed in drag as a boy for the first time. I bound my breasts with ace bandages and duct tape, borrowed a tie from a friend, put on suspenders, striped shirt, corduroy blazer, sideburns. I emerged as Emerson Wilde (a fusion of two nineteenth century literary figures: a queer transcendentalist). Some other semblance of myself.

Nearly a year ago, I walked into downtown Albuquerque in the January New Mexico sunshine, found a salon, and paid a stranger to cut off the hair that had once stopped halfway down my back. For some reason, I remember that she asked if I wanted it cut over or around my ears. I didn’t know how to answer. My hair hadn’t been this short since my early childhood. Later, I rode the bus to the old, colonial part of town and walked around eating a croissant, feeling more whole.

A month later, I returned to school and began asking friends to call me by different pronouns. Again, feeling more whole. (I am growing into these names).

~~~

No word is truly, inherently gendered in its most basic ordering of letters and sounds. Perhaps, yes, in the linguistic sense, but words embody different things to different people, meanings accumulate over time and across cultures. I am redefining my name. What I have recognized as foreign is not necessarily inherent in the word, but in the way those around me understand it (feminine). And so, those potentially heartbreaking moments when someone reads your natal name and then decides, ah, you must be a girl (I am, and I am not).

As much as this name sends incorrect cues to the rest of the world about who I am, I do not wish to disconnect from it entirely.

And so, a severing of sorts:

Em (ma) Em (erson)

I am both. (Backwards: Me. Yes.)

It sounds like “M,” which could be for ‘masculine’ (I am), or ‘many’ (I contain multitudes.)

Inverted, the “M” becomes a “W” for ‘woman’ (bodily), or ‘wonderful’ (re-ordered: I am frequently full of wonder.)

The “E” can function in the same way. In perpetual motion, I am many things, becoming. A poet and writer and being, I want to strive towards the best of these names, becoming wholly human, myself.

~~~

Writing in pencil used to seem fragile to me, the impermanence allows for erasure, selves potentially lost. This is what it sometimes feels like to be given away in the wrong way by your name. In these acts, I am reminded of the shame that I have worked so hard to un-do, this rebirth so carefully constructed. But this has been a process of revision, of messiness and change. Pencil smeared all over the side of my hand.

I have been feminine, and I am masculine. When I am recognized as feminine, that is the recognition of my past. The drag of my green prom dress, long hair and painted nails. But also, the strength of two grandmothers. I do not want to discount any part of this self, whole. When I am recognized as masculine, that is the recognition of my most recent present. The embrace of what I had buried, afraid, ashamed, but must acknowledge.

Someone on a street corner once asked me, “Are you a man or a woman?” (I have also asked myself this question.)

I answered:

Yes. (I am stubborn. I will transcend expectations.)

~~~

Sometimes, still, I do not recognize this self in the mirror, or former selves in photographs. I shift too rapidly, freely. I am learning to embrace these shades of recognition, even in passing on sidewalks or the inadvertent, incomplete gendering by old acquaintances. These people have only seen a part of my self, and they cannot erase the wholeness I have found in this liminal space of transgression and strength.

And so, re-visited:

“Who are you?” (Who am I?)

Masculine, feminine, both, neither, more, liminal. I am closer to wholeness, to my name(s), than I have ever been.

Me, Emerson, Emma, Em.

Yes.

Nov 8, 2009

Yes.

May 18, 2009