Ripples

I grew up in a small, dying mill town in southeast Pa. About a mile up the railroad tracks, hidden in the woods, was a largish pool of sickly orange stagnant water people called the “Mill Pond.” Scanners indicated it was incapable of supporting life except for the huge mutant swarms of mosquitos that spawned there. In the winter, people skated there. In the summer, the water grew a coating of green moss and algae. No one went there in the summer, and all the kids heard stories from the bigger kids about the monsters that lived in the depths.

Which meant it was the perfect place for teens to go to get high, drink, and hook up.

Or for a lonely kid, different from all the others to go and think.

I would go down to the pond on summer days and toss rocks into the water. The plunk of the rocks caused concentric circle ripples on the surface. Part of me hoped that whatever unspeakable horrors that slept in the depths would awaken, and emerge to destroy my painful little life.

The ripples spread further and further, unknowing providing me my first lesson on Wave Theory.

Ripples from multiple rocks would intersect altering the course and form of both. My first lessons in Zen… and that cliché. Yes, I’m going there.

JoAnn Roberts passed away a couple weeks ago. If you read this site, you knew this. If you read my blog, I wrote about it there as well. I’m not going to relist all of her many accomplishments here — I’ve come to praise her, not catalogue her, right Marc Antony?

When I threw bigger rocks, the ripples (and plunks) were bigger. JoAnn’s ripples were tsunami. Yes, I went there as well. The number of lives she affected, both in the Trans-community and out, was staggering.

Last Tuesday, I attended a Memorial Party for JoAnn at her home. Strictly drab. This was the “civilian” party. There were many trans people there that I knew, some of whom I never saw before in pants. Maybe sixty people were there, drinking, eating, sharing stories, laughing in the face of our pain.

JoAnn collected many things, including trains. She had a Lionel lay out in her basement. At one point, I went downstairs to look at it. In a former life, I worked at a company that made toy soldiers and war games. To play these games, we built hills and houses — just like model train folks. I looked at her workbench and thought of the pleasant hours JoAnn must have spent there, puttering away at her hobby. On the bench was an unfinished building kit.

It will never be finished. It was left undone. So many things, left undone.

I fell to my knees and cried my eyes out.

The Ripples of her life overwhelmed me.

Last Thursday, I attended the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference (PTHC). I went from Thursday to Saturday, but I could only attend Thursday. I volunteered at the Renaissance Table, talking about the organization, who we are, etc. There were many psychology graduate students in the crowd. They were easy to spot — they were the only ones that didn’t have big smiles on their faces. One of them, a pretty young redhead from the University of Florida, asked to interview me for her research.

I agreed, and we spoke for a couple of hours. I answered her questions, asked some my own, and told her stories of my youth and reawakening. And I told her about JoAnn Roberts. And so JoAnn’s ripples intersected the student’s.

Four thousand people attended PTHC, many of them young. Many families. Many seeking their truths, others having found it. The Philadelphia Convention Center was buzzing with sound and laughter. Not unlike giant mutant mosquitos over a pond alive with waves of ripples eternally changing.

That afternoon, I went to the Hard Rock Café for lunch — a transwoman alone in the city. That night, I dined with my support group in a very special dinner at Maggianos.

Then I went home. And I thought about the conference, and my Sisters, and about all the smiling faces.

And I thought about a plastic kit of a building in a basement, unfinished.

All of us will leave things Unfinished when we leave this life. Unless we give up. And stop trying. JoAnn never stopped. She left things unfinished. Her works are Mighty indeed. I can say with full confidence that without JoAnn Roberts, there would’ve been no PTHC for all those smiling people to attend this weekend. So many people, myself included, would have to seek so much harder for our answers. The Ripples of our life would be very different indeed.

Being Trans is hard, we all know. But sometimes, we meet people who help us along our journeys. And occasionally, oh so rarely, someone comes along who changes our lives.

In their song “Ripple,” The Grateful Dead sing
You who choose to lead must follow
But if you fall you fall alone,
If you should stand then who’s to guide you?
If I knew the way I would take you home.

JoAnn guided so many of us. Her life touched people whom she would never meet. We who Remain celebrate her memory and continue the work she left unfinished. Guiding others, creating our Own Ripples in Still Water, where there is no pebble tossed, nor wind to blow.

Sleep Well JoAnn Roberts. And Thank You.

Tags: featured, Identity, JoAnn Roberts, opinion

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Opinion