It’s the beginning of Pride month and I handed my first draft manuscript “baby” off to my publisher.

I didn’t anticipate how tender I’d feel about this hand-off. That day, I holed up in our bedroom as the tears poured for reasons I couldn’t wrap words around, and this is how I knew I was ready to let it go. Everything was coming full circle in my writing.

This first-draft ending is a culmination. I have shared very little of this book with anyone and my publisher will be the first to read it. As much as I trust him, it hasn’t quelled the feelings of terror. The vulnerability of this piece of work exceeds anything I’ve published before. The irony is, as much as my story is woven throughout this book, the book is not ultimately about me.

The bright, brilliant star of this book is the natural world. And maybe (definitely) the reason this is so excruciatingly vulnerable is because my heart, my spirit and soul, are made of all the ones I love in nature: the birds and reptiles, the trees and soil, the lakes and waters, the animals and insects, the flowers and rocks. My other-than-human kin. I write of their vulnerability. I write of their tenacity. I write of their wisdom. I write of their suffering, their losses, their oppression. I write of their indescribable beauty and enduring presence. I write with grief and love and rage and wonder.

And it feels like an impossible undertaking, that my words could ever do them justice. They vastly exceed my words and my capabilities. But I had to try. I promised them and myself, years ago, that I would try.

There’s a fear that this book will be too emotional, too scathing, too passionate, too forward. Not poetic enough or scientific enough or subtle enough or thorough enough or balanced enough. And I know that this scrutiny is part of what I signed up for when I decided to write this for publication. Anyone who dares to put their creative work out into the world understands that once you let it go, how others receive and perceive it is out of your hands. There will be critics, there will be fans. There will be indifference and mixed feelings. And there will certainly be things that could have been said better by someone else and things that have been said before.

My job now, as I finish the work to ready this for publication, is to make peace with all these unknowns, possibilities and vague certainties. Separating my worth in this piece of writing from the writing itself — something that’s so easy to point out and so much harder to put into practice. Lordy, I hope I can stand up and face all these things with softness and backbone, holding what I know to be true in my center. That’s the thing, though. I won’t really know until I step into the arena.

I realize this all might sound a tad dramatic. Tears and terror, insecurities and arenas and the probability of falling short? Really? But drama, perhaps, is unavoidable when writing a piece of your soul in book form. It feels especially so in this political climate. So I’m giving all this “drama” space to breathe right now, in the interim. And I’m practicing letting others be privy to this process, front-loading the vulnerability, so to speak.

It seems no accident that finishing the first draft of this manuscript precedes the six-year anniversary of packing up my old life and heading across the country to begin a new one. That, too, was dramatic. Putting this piece of work together also feels like a culmination. Grief and gratitude press in, intertwined, and I can only thank my past selves for persisting. This book is a way of honoring them as I seek to honor the voices I love from the nonhuman world.

I want to say a heartfelt thank you, too, to each one of you who has accompanied me on my journey as a writer. Your words of resonance and presence have been their own kinship. Some days, they have been a buoy.

For the ones who have supported me as paid subscribers, I say an extra thank you. I know my posts have been fewer than usual. I know I offer no additional perks or packages for your subscription — just me and my writing. But my dear friend (and editor), Robin, recently posted something that hit close to home, and I want to share it with you. Food for thought: “It’s that time of year again when a bunch of my annual paid subscriptions are renewing, and I just know half of these people will look at that money slipping away and think ‘what was that even for,’ and I urge you to really think hard about what it means to marginalized writers to have literally any income for the kind of work we do, and then you look around at social decay and authoritarianism and genocide, and you wonder, ‘what can I do to make a difference’ right after you hit the cancel button.”

So, just know that your financial contributions make a difference in this marginalized writer’s life. That’s what you’re supporting.

From my heart to yours,

Phoenix

As time so often does, it feels strung along in its own warp. Both too fast and years stacked into one. Could it really be one year since we packed up the U-haul and I said goodbye to Albany? To the friends I made, the community grown from seed, the places that invited me home. To the trees and squirrels, beavers and red efts, deer and fish crows who felt like family. To the life I carved out for myself there or the way I finally emerged as if I’d been the one chiseled free from stone.

It’s been one year of living in the most densely human populated metropolis in the country. The noise, the smells, the pervasive pavement, the incessant construction of a city that never stops expanding. The paralysis of choice, living in a city with a surfeit of options and opportunities, not knowing where to begin, how to filter through it all.

I confess, when I moved here, I didn’t have a lot of faith in my ability to replicate the magic of the connections I’d made in Albany. How much of that magic was mine and how much was benevolent mystery, the unique interactions of people responding to each other in reciprocity, or sheer luck?

Some magic, it turns out, works quickly, while other magic takes time to simmer before it’s ready to become whatever it’s intended for. Albany was a fast magic. Brooklyn, though, has bubbled on low heat for many months, taking its dear, sweet time.

The past year has contained multitudes. The alchemy of blending homes, creating something new between my love, their child and I. Navigating two top surgeries, the rearrangement and recoveries following. Life in a country running headlong into fascism. A rollercoaster of mental health. The death of one of the loves of my life, my Tarzan. Writing a book. Navigating the channels of opening a small art business. Searching for other employment. Learning the ins and outs of the subway system, trusting myself to find my way when I’m lost. Searching for new friends, community, my people. Holding onto my older ones; letting some go.

This magic has needed many ingredients for its potion. The patience and unwavering love of a partner willing to walk with me through the valleys of grief, the peaks of anxiety, the plateaus of depression, sprinkled with the sweetness of small joys and celebrations of becoming. Neighborhood pigeons, whose features I now recognize. Resident squirrels, frequenting our garden to feast on a variety of nuts from their designated picnic table, tucking them in holes across all our beds and pots. Prospect Park, the largest swath of intact forest left in Brooklyn. A white squirrel and rotating occupancy of wild birds in a less crowded corner of the park. The bodega cat I accidentally stole not long after moving here, whom I stroke for a few minutes each time I pass her on the steps. Green-wood Cemetery, the quietest nature refuge within minutes of home. The living museum of plants at the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, where we retreat as often as we can.

The opportunity for us to turn three empty beds outside our apartment building into a garden is its own kind of magic. Having a place to plunge my hands in the dirt, to tend to plants that are a part of something that nourishes others — a variety of insects and invertebrates, birds, squirrels and our human neighbors, who regularly tell us how much it means to walk past our garden, to see it thriving — is potent. Planting and caring for this space alongside my love multiplies the magic.

And more recently, our neighbors and new friends, who offered us their spacious backyard to start a veggie garden for all of us to share. It’s hard to describe the feeling of contented ease and wholeness, walking across the street and into our neighbors’ backyard, being greeted by their beautiful dog and, often, smiles and warm hugs. We come and go as we please, as if there were an invisible hallway connecting our homes. Their backyard is a palette on which we have the gift of adding our paints. It is a gift with friendship attached, organic and nourishing.

After one year, I know the names of a handful of neighbors. We exchange smiles and chit chat when we see each other, and sometimes, invitations for get togethers. Outside our home, we play hopscotch and jump rope with the kiddo. We hop on our bikes or scooters and circle the park. From our home, we can walk to the neighborhood bookstore, owned by the parents of a child in the kiddo’s class. We can walk to the Central library, the farmer’s market in the Grand Army Plaza, the local theater, a plethora of small shops and coffee shops and restaurants.

One year in, we have dear friends with whom we try to see at least monthly for dinner at one of our homes. Friends with whom we smile until our cheeks ache, staying up later than we normally do because we’re in no hurry to say goodnight. We sit at the table, candle disappearing in a sculpture of melting wax, talking about the hard stuff, laughing at goofy voices and spontaneous dance moves, sharing our art and fears and dreams. Making plans for future outings, and maybe, a hip hop class.

This year, I began as a wildlife care volunteer in the pigeon department at Wild Bird Fund. Every Wednesday, I look forward to cleaning enclosures, weighing birds, giving baths or foot soaks, helping with physical therapy, feeding ravenous baby songbirds, grinning at hilarious pigeon antics. I recently joined a group of volunteers, with my love, walking a Brooklyn beach’s shore at high tide, counting and tagging horseshoe crabs.

My love and I went to a crafting night on Friday at a local queer bookstore. The same bookstore I showed up to for a literary open mic several months before. A few weeks ago, we attended the opening reception of our garden-neighbor friend’s art show at a gallery, basking in the brilliance of his work and the presence of so many who felt the same. As we were leaving, we caught the glow of the daylily sunset, spreading between buildings — Earth’s art, persisting even here, in a place we’ve made largely inhospitable to her.

It’s been a year of plunging into a sort of honorary parenthood, getting intimately acquainted with that particular feeling that parents have told me about for years: the fear of failure, of continually falling short, of repeating the mistakes of our parents. I think I get it now, how perhaps nothing will shine a harsh light on all your wounds from childhood like parenting. How much harder I’ve had to work to tend those wounded parts this year. How much harder I’ve had to work to relinquish control. To not lose myself in the undertow. To keep trying my best to show up as the person I want to be.

After one year, big questions remain unanswered. Who am I here, in this city I never imagined I’d end up, never desired to be part of in this way? What will it look like, to thrive here — in partnership and family, in friendships, in community, in work? Will I have what it takes to do more than survive in the years I’m here? How can I make the most of this time, to leave this place a little better than I found it? Yet here, the magic of what has been simmering all these months buoys me, to hold these questions without collapsing in on myself.

Maybe even, to love them.

Why, they wondered, am I not shouting about my art from the rooftops (metaphorically speaking). To them, I seem dismissive and embarrassed about what I’m creating. And to some degree, they’re not wrong. 

I’m still getting used to the idea of being an artist without a great deal of squirming and imposter syndrome, which is not unfamiliar to me as a writer. I’m incredibly fortunate to have a partner who deems my art worthy of shouting about, but the internal struggle to believe in the worthiness is real. I mean, it’s not serious art. It’s not going to change anyone’s life. It’s light-hearted and playful, almost a luxury, really. 

And of course, it’s vulnerable as hell to share art of any kind with others. To not allow the array of reactions to shape my beliefs about myself as an artist. They range from surprise to delight to polite acknowledgement to skepticism to silence. And I need to hold it all at arm’s length. This is no easy feat.  

Still, I sat with the Why. Because it’s more than a lack of confidence in my abilities. It’s how I’ve unconsciously adapted to the many deaths of dreams over the years. Of all the seeds I’ve planted, few have actually broken through the surface of soil and flourished into maturity. Maybe none of them, if I’m being honest. 

In my less experienced years, I didn’t hesitate to talk about them with excitement to whomever would listen. But now I hold them close to the bone, with bated breath and quiet tending. I water and I wait and I try not to get too attached to a certain outcome. 

If this little art business venture survives the beginning stage and grows into a young plant, then I might feel I can speak without a hush about it, I finally answered my partner. Maybe then I can let the excitement take hold of my voice. 

Meanwhile, I’ve been drawing and creating with an energy I’ve not had for writing. I decided on a name and made a logo. I registered my business with the county clerk. I purchased a domain and have begun setting up a website. I’ve ordered product and crunched numbers and checked items off the list of my business plan. I’ve shared some of this with friends and felt the thudding of my heart, the shyness I want to hide behind. 

And I’ve felt the strange discomfort of this shift from writing to drawing. I’m still writing a book and I’m still struggling to tell people what it’s about when they express curiosity. I’m 45,000 words in and still I’m unsure this particular thing is going to make it to a full grown life of its own. There have been at least three times in my life I’ve thought I was writing a book, and each time, they died for perhaps no other reason than it felt like these stories were being told prematurely, or after some time, perhaps they didn’t actually want to be told in book form at all. 

Still, I thought this book was it. This was the one I was meant to write, at least now. I never imagined writing this book would require so much patience, that it would need so much space to come out. That it would come so tentatively. One thing I do not struggle with as much after several decades of writing is the confidence that my writing, at least, doesn’t suck. I mean, sure, it’s not all gems. Sometimes, it does suck. But me as a writer? I don’t suck. 

This book, though. I can’t shake the feeling that it sucks. That it’s a bland version of the rich, vibrant thing that’s been living inside me all these years. That I couldn’t possibly do it justice on the page. And this is a new feeling to me as a seasoned writer. Writing a book is nothing like writing a Substack post. I don’t know why on earth I thought it would be. 

So I continue to hold this book pretty close to the bone, too. I hope one day I can celebrate its life with a party of emotion. Right now, it still feels like a vulnerable seed.

Speaking of seeds, thank goddess for spring and gardens and plunging hands into dirt. In addition to the garden beds outside our apartment building, we’ve been invited by neighbors — new friends — to plant a veggie garden in their spacious backyard. This past weekend, we walked to the farmer’s market with our granny cart to pick out veggie and herb starts and wheeled them home through the park. We moved soil, assembled raised bed planters and filled them with an array of baby plants and seeds. We sweated and grinned at each other with dirt streaks across our faces. 

This is life. Planting things. Tending them. Watching them grow. And hopefully, one day, being nourished by them and sharing their nourishment with others. Some will make it, I’m confident, and some may not. But we’ll keep planting seeds, keep watering, keep weeding, keep tending and showing up and loving them. 

And that’s what I’ll keep doing with my art, with my book, with all the things I hope to grow in my life.

We were in Colorado when we heard the news, Iran’s threat of retaliation against the agregious crimes of this country’s administration. Maybe here, in the prairie, the world would blow. Even on vacation, there is no escaping the heavy hand of the news.

My love and I looked at each other and came to a mutual decision. We would not waste a moment in fear of what might come. If the world were to end today, let it be while we’re traversing the rocky hills, looking out over the prairie valley while the vultures soar overhead and the meadowlarks sing. No matter when or how things end, I keep making a choice, however unpopular it may be, to tune myself to the news of the day through the eyes of nature. What is blooming? Who is singing? Who is emerging from hibernation? How might I join the chorus of it all?

Fear has its place, it surely does. I felt it walking through an NYC airport teeming with ICE agents, and on our way home, wearing my “Abolish ICE” t-shirt, knowing this sort of thing is becoming cause for detainment, or more. I simply don’t wish to live there in the fear.

. . . . .

While on the prairie and in the mountains, I felt myself thawing from a long, deep freeze.

It may have been the vast expanse of sky, an oil painting of clouds and streaks of color. It may have been the sense of walking on hallowed ground, each rock a piece of history. Or the sight of prairie dogs, their heads popping up from dirt mounds; standing in fields on their hind legs, surveying the land. It may have been the prickly pears and the baby barrel cacti spread through the grasses, the calls of meadowlarks from fence posts and desert plants, the dinosaur prints in mountain slopes, the string of Rocky Mountain heads along the horizon, the Pine Siskins bobbing on branches, puffed up in song, the burbling ice cold waters. The scent of horses or the reflection of myself and the earth in their eyes. Or the pair of wild turkeys who frequented the farm, obliging us with call and response in our ridiculous attempt at conversation as they’d pass by.

Whatever the case, in a short time, I remembered what it feels like to appreciate being alive. And perhaps just as surprisingly, I felt the twinge of anticipation at the thought of returning home. Not because I wasn’t enjoying vacation, meeting new family, seeing new lands, or the break from the bustle of the city. But because, I realized, I’m beginning to accept Brooklyn as home. In my delight of all things new and wild, I still missed my pigeon flock and squirrel neighbors, our garden, the park, our little life there.

It feels good, I thought, to hold both things — the savoring of vacation and the anticipation of home.

When we got home, we were met by the loudness of Manhattan, the belching of cars and buses, the crowded trains and landscape, the usual things. But from above, as the plane circled, I saw the Long Island Sound sparkling in the sun, the Hudson River snaking through, the bridges connecting the boroughs, the tiny dots of brownstones clustered in blocks, and my heart quietly thudded, home.

Somewhere, in the tangle of this urban jungle, is a place I now call home.

We stepped off the train in our neighborhood to a world in bloom: cherry trees and eastern redbuds, dogwoods and fading magnolias, tulips and bleeding hearts, hyacinth and lily of the valley, leaves waving from branches where the week before they were nearly bare. Everything, moving so quickly, I didn’t want to miss another day of it.

And with this swell of life, amidst the insanity of this world, I felt my words also returning home.

We’ve had all the wrong kinds of visibility this past year and a half. None of that can burn up the pride I feel to be a trans person. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t horrifying, I wasn’t scared, it didn’t fill me with rage, my heart wasn’t broken, I wasn’t depressed and sometimes flattened by it all.

Since September, I’ve been quietly working on a book. Quietly, as if it’s a mourning dove pecking around in the grass outside my front door whom I approach with soft steps, keeping my distance, so as not to scare them away. Quietly, as if I saw only the shadow of its wings overhead and I’m not certain it’s real. And the words themselves have come quietly, like a trickle of water that appears after a rain until it gradually dries up, waiting for the next rain.

As art often imitates life, so I, too, have felt dried up. It’s hard, at this point, to even say the words, “I’m writing a book.” I’m sitting in an empty well that I don’t seem able to refill. At the same time, I’m floating in a pool of abundant anxiety, depression, grief and overwhelm. My attempts to describe them come out in a whisper or hang in strained pauses. What becomes of a writer who stumbles over their words, struggling even to locate and coax them out? I wonder.

Yesterday I fled the apartment in a cloud of tears I managed to press back inside myself, ironically, in search of quiet. I hurried to the cemetery, my haven, hoping for a place of solitude where I could unburden myself. As soon as I entered the gates, the sounds of machinery filled my ears. Trees in the process of being trimmed, branches being pulverized to sawdust, weedwackers skimming the tops of new growth. I wandered in circles until I settled upon a Beech tree with a spacious lap, roots tucked into a sloped curbside in striated layers. I crawled into a nook of roots and leaned back against the tree’s trunk, letting their body hold mine.

And there, I wept — for all the things I could name and all the things that defied words — while the Beech listened.

Perhaps part of the drought of words has come from the struggle to find my inner quiet. In this still relatively new environment of the city, where there is almost no place where one can find complete solitude in nature, in a world that screams from all directions each day, I have lost my footing. “Going into nature” here means something different, looks strikingly different, than it did when I had a forest and mountain in my backyard or a nature preserve ten minutes away.

I don’t always know who I am here, in the city. But when I am feeding the pigeons or searching for and finding my white squirrel friend in the park’s forest, picking up litter or tending to pigeon patients at Wild Bird Fund, I briefly arrive in a port of self knowing. In a pervasive depression, I fly under the radar much of the time around my own kind. In the company of more-than-human beings, though, that spark of life that still flickers inside me is visible.

While the words, by and large, have not come, I’m deeply grateful that other forms of art and expression have remained available to me. I can summon some of my hushed voice, some of that part that is known to animal and tree kin in nature, and channel it into drawings. And so, I’ve been also quietly working on another creative project: opening a small business to sell my creations. More to come on this, I imagine.

This past weekend, my love and the kiddo and I attended a Gender-expansive families propaganda party in Brooklyn, where we gathered with other families and made art fueled by love, pride and resistance. We screen printed messages onto t-shirts, made buttons and zines and tiny flags to hang outside the building. We bought posters designed by gender-expansive kids in Brooklyn public schools to hang in our home. We filled up on the collective energy of goodness. We did not attend a No Kings march, but we did this in our community, banding together, which honestly felt better. And we gardened, because tending our tiny plot of earth in the city feels like my kind of resistance right now.

These words, all of them showing up for this post, surprise me. They feel less like a return and more like a reminder that they haven’t actually disappeared. They’ll reappear in their own time, on their own terms, a visibility outside my control. One I try to surrender to.

We’ve had crusty snow on the ground for over a month, and it’s just now beginning to melt enough to see the mucky ground beneath. Here in the city, the mounds of shoveled snow that line the sidewalks and surround the trees are covered in grime, trash and dog poop. It’s a sight, to say the least!

Nevertheless, signs of spring are hidden like clues in a treasure hunt, and I relish each and every one. Even amidst the lingering snowy backdrop, I can feel things stirring, shifting, waking up. Seeing life through the lens of the natural world never ceases to be medicinal.

I hope these images offer a little dose of the medicine I most love.

This Red-tailed Hawk swooped past me on a cemetery walk, landing in the snow.

This Giant Leaf Paper Plant is like a tiny library of books, waiting to open.

Is it a feral cat? I wondered. Nope, just one of the park’s many furry banditos, chilling in a grill.

And this Cooper’s Hawk enjoying an invigorating bath in the cemetery was a feast for the eyes — a rare sight.

Indoors, I’ve been delighting in our two newest members of the family — baby snails. Watching them explore the world invites me into curiosity and wonder. These invitations don’t have to come from flashy or rare places. Snails will do, too.

Whichever part of the world you’re in, I wish more of these invitations for you. For all of us.

With hope,

Phoenix

I’m well aware there’s an abundance of horrific news in the world right now — and well over half the country blanketed in the remnants of a massive snowstorm — but that’s not why I’m here. I don’t need to add to the cacophony.

I only wanted to pop in and say, my favorite thing to do on these frigid days is to bring treats to my wild friends. Somehow, knowing they are getting a little extra sustenance to help them through the cold snaps, warms my insides.

So, in case you’re buried, literally or figuratively or both, here are some images to warm you, too.

Every little bit of kindness helps. I believe this with all my heart. I hope you know that includes your little kindnesses, whatever they may be.

A cock-eyed Titmouse…

A squirrel in their perch with a sweetgum peanut butter ball…

Someone enjoying a peanut butter pine cone…

A plucky Flicker…

A Cardinal and a White-throated Sparrow contemplating sharing…

And my favorite of all: a rat who got a nibble.

Always, nature hides these glorious easter eggs of persistence, waiting to be noticed. Maybe you’ll find some of your own.

May you be warm, safe, well nourished. May you know you’re never truly alone.

with love,

Phoenix

Hey, it’s me again — twice in two days, which is unusual, I know. Every time I send a new post out, I watch subscribers quietly leave, and I’m sure this will be no different. But instead of seeing that as a personal slight as a writer, I’m choosing to see it as a gift.

More is not inherently better.

I’m not trying to “build a platform” or a “personal brand.” I’m just writing my heart on the page, and if something in that sparks recognition in you, provokes thought, offers companionship or nourishment, you are the ones I hope my words remain with. And at any point, if this is not true, I want you to feel free to unsubscribe. I really do.

But the reason I’m sending out this second post is because I came across two readings after I published yesterday’s essay. And they were too rich, resonant and affirming not to pass along.

I hope you’ll find in these words something worth savoring, pondering, and perhaps taking into yourself.

A Blessing For Old Age

May the light of your soul mind you.

May all your worry and anxiousness about your age

Be transfigured.

May you be given wisdom for the eyes of your soul

To see this as a time of gracious harvesting.

May you have the passion to heal what has hurt you,

And allow it to come closer and become one with you.

May you have great dignity,

Sense how free you are;

Above all, may you be given the wonderful gift

Of meeting the eternal light that is within you.

May you be blessed;

And may you find a wonderful love

In your self for your self.

From Anam Cara: A book of Celtic wisdom, by John O’Donohue

And this, for those who are feeling out of sync with the pressure of New Year energy.

We Do Not Begin in January

(A bard’s reminder for witches)

Come closer, witch, and warm your hands by the fire.

The world beyond the hedge may shout “New Year, new goals!”,

but we who walk the old paths know better.

January is not a doorway.

It is a hearth.

The Yule Spirits still reign.

The nights are still long, the earth still dreaming,

and the Holly King yet sits crowned in frost and evergreen.

He does not rush.

He does not plan spreadsheets for the future.

He asks only this:

“Have you sealed your clarity?”

This is the season of closing, not striving.

Of binding loose threads.

Of finishing what was begun.

Of letting grief, lessons, and half-formed thoughts settle into truth.

In the old ways, witches did not force intention while the land slept.

We listened.

We rested.

We watched the smoke curl and the embers glow.

January is for:

sealing wisdom,

tending the nervous system,

letting answers arrive slowly,

closing the book before choosing a new one.

Only at Imbolc, when the first quiet stirring rises beneath the soil,

do we turn our faces toward beginnings.

February is the flame-spark.

January is the ash.

So if you feel behind, tired, unmotivated, or unwilling to “set goals” —

you are not broken.

You are seasonal.

You are witch-wise.

You are still within Yule’s embrace.

Sit a little longer with the Holly King.

Let clarity seal itself like wax on a letter.

The path will open —

but not before the land says now.

From Across the Hedge, by Witch Guinivere Rose

Peace to you,

Phoenix

The audacity of it, honestly.

Around the change of a year, I confess, I’m mentally rehearsing an inventory of what was lost in the previous year. The losses render the image of the year into a muted palette. I long for a kaleidoscope of color, but I don’t know how to move forward without carrying the reality of all these losses, piling up year after year, with me in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the entire picture. Depression will do this, too. I know this well.

Some years are harder than others. 2025 was one of those years for me. For a lot of us. I’m not interested in whitewashing that or covering it in a glossy coat of positivity. But I am interested in letting more color in.

So I let the water stream down my skin, mixed with tears, and I listen to the words:

When all is said and done

whether you think you lost or won

can you tell me, my friend

what matters most in the end

How well did you live

How well did you love

To let it all go

what matters in the end

isn’t the money but the time you spent

isn’t the things you have but things you share

isn’t your possessions but your loving care

(“In the End,” Olivia Fern. You can also listen here.)

Regardless of how much loss I feel at the start of a new year, how gray my inner world, what is also evident is all the love that’s remained. I may not feel the vast array of colors from this love, but I know it’s there behind the clouds. Even in my depression with its tendencies toward self-flagellation, I can also make a mental list of the ways I showed up in loving care and shared what I had, even if my resources were diminished.

And that, I do believe, matters most in the end.

In a few days, another new year begins for me. I turn 45. I practice the vulnerability of writing the actual number, because with it, I practice rejecting the shame placed on aging in this country.

“Age is just a number.” I parroted these words to a friend the other day and he kindly pushed back. It’s not just a number: it’s lived experience; it’s our bodies gradually breaking down; it’s the social and cultural implications that come with this natural process and the pressure to resist, deny and dismiss it. To treat aging like a battle, an enemy we’re fighting.

And he’s right.

Here is where I offer a little disclaimer and invitation to exit this essay for those who may not wish to read about something as specific and personal as menopause. Or who may not wish to know, specifically, about my experience in this regard. I completely understand; no hard feelings, friends. Bye bye for now and thanks for being here.

For those who wish to continue… I choose to share about my experiences for a number of reasons. We desperately need to normalize and destigmatize conversations about menopause. We desperately need to make these conversations more inclusive, for they do not only belong to women. And for anyone who needs the validation and solidarity: I know you’re not making this shit up. It’s wild and hard, scary and unsettling, lonely and daunting and painful for a lot of us. You’re definitely not alone.

In the past two years, my body feels like it has aged ten. I went from feeling strong and invincible, in many ways, to being plunged into the throes of perimenopause. I was catapulted through a process that typically lasts for years (lucky me?) and deposited on the other side into post-menopause before most of my peers have even begun to experience “the change.”

I’ve navigated this process in the medical community being largely regarded as a woman, constantly having to assess whether I have the bandwidth to educate them or simply grit my teeth and nod. I’ve found no one who can confidently navigate me through the experience of taking HRT for menopause and HRT for gender-affirming care at the same time. So I’ve been a guinea pig.

It’s been several years of being in a body that no longer feels like my own, on top of the pre-existing gender dysphoria. I spent nearly a year with a frozen shoulder and a frozen hip. I have aches and pains now I didn’t have before. My body generates a heat that frustrates me. A good night’s sleep and libido both feel like cherished relics of the past. My skin is changing, muscle tone is diminishing, my brain is foggier, and my previous emotional stability (more or less) is tenuous at best.

So when I try to wrap my head around being in a body that’s lived forty-five years, it’s a lot to process. I feel on the cusp of aging, in this hinterland between young adult and senior citizen, which we call middle age. I’ve watched enough people age to know so many things only get harder. And I feel determined, nonetheless, to not fight my body’s natural metamorphosis. To find my own ways to lean in, to honor the process, to root deeper into myself — with dignity, respect and love.

And to be as transparent as I can along the way.

So this disenfranchised grief of living in a body that’s experiencing loss is mingling with the ever-accumulating losses of loved ones — both older and fresh. It mingles with the complicated grief of living in a country sliding deep into fascism and the myriad losses that come with this reality. It comes with the bottomless grief of living in a world we’re actively destroying and having to witness ongoing death, day in and day out.

How, I ask myself — how do I keep showing up with a heart that’s wide open while swimming in a sea of loss? How to swim without drowning? How to live in such a way that, in the end, I’ll look back on however many years I had and know I gave all the love I had to give?

One song shifted into another and I found myself shifting with it, leaning into both grief and a glimmer of clarity, leading me back to a simple truth.

Time and space cannot erase.
Time and space cannot separate
you
from the ones you love.

They’re in the touch of the breeze
In the wind whispering through the leaves.
They’re in the song the birds sing,
to bring the dawn in
Singing
“Wake up! Don’t miss this opportunity to love.”

(“Time and Space,” Olivia Fern.)

And this, friends, is how I’d like to greet my next year of life, whatever it may hold. With the ones I’ve loved and lost, visiting me on the breeze, through the rustling leaves, in bird song, through the dawn, reminding me to stay awake. To keep my heart open to love in all forms, even as I grieve. Even as I witness. Even as I fumble my way through the unknowns. It’s the best I can do, and I have to believe it’s enough.

I wish this for you, too. For all of us.

Phoenix

I have a new beau. I’ve named him Gregory Peck (though his gender is unknown, he has big masc energy).

Gregory Peck showed up a week or two ago, or maybe he’s been in the flock all along and only now has the puffed up confidence to claim me as his own.

I first noticed him elbowing his way through the crowd with his wings, making a beeline to my cupped hands full of seed. From then on, I knew him immediately as the one who’d charge right to my open hands. When the seed was gone, he’d peck at my empty hands, my wrists, my fingers, not seeming to care when a finger would momentarily disappear in his beak.

Things naturally progressed from there. When I’d step outside and the flock would descend, Gregory would bypass the ground and land on the cup of seed in my hand, helping himself to the spoils.

After months of getting to know my neighborhood flock, I’d have hoped I’d be able to distinguish birds from each other more easily. People tend to assume all pigeons look the same, but when you actually begin observing them, you’ll notice how many variations there are. Eyes, colors, feather patterns, feet, ceres — no two are the exact alike. Still, it can be difficult to tell them apart when those variations become more subtle and the pigeons have a tendency to abscond as a flock every time a blue jay calls or a car door slams or a dog walks by or a person sneezes around the corner.

But I always know Gregory. And Palooza, with her feathered leg warmers. And Ophelia, with the striking white bands on her wing feathers and the way her feathers have pinched in places like tiny pointed sand dunes.

The adjustment to life in the city has been rough, but pigeons have softened it, just enough.

On Yule day, after feeding the pigeons, we left offerings outside for our other wild neighbors. We walked around with piles of pine cones covered in peanut butter and birdseed, stringing them on branches and fence posts in the neighborhood and throughout the forest as we ambled through the park. In The Vale, we scattered them for the cardinals, mourning doves, sparrows and woodpeckers and tossed them to the squirrels.

Bringing joy to wildlife on a gift-giving holiday typically reserved for humans nourishes my spirit.

As it turned out that day, we were given an unexpected gift. While wandering through The Vale, we stumbled upon a small group of Urban Park Rangers holding a carrier. They’d come to release a woodcock who had been in the care of Wild Bird Fund. I stood with rapt attention as they unzipped the carrier, and for a split second, I saw the face of a bird I’d never seen in daylight before he flew away.

I may never get to see a pigeon that I’ve brought to Wild Bird Fund released, but I got to witness this woodcock.

Nature is the gift that keeps on giving, especially as we open our eyes and our hearts. As we remember: we, too, are nature.

with love,

Phoenix

I really wanted to feel the holiday spirit this year.

I leaned into the tradition of making our tiny abode into a cozy, festive nest. I gathered greenery for our Solstice tree (a tripod structure of birch branches) and scavenged a free box of pine cone lights from a city stoop. I found us more holiday mugs for our collection and filled them with many cups of hot cocoa with peppermint marshmallows. I’ve shopped and crafted and baked. I’ve attempted to get holiday cards in the mail.

As soon as daylight dims, I turn on our twinkling lights.

Rather than overtaking the darkness, these attempts at merry-making have cast their glow, leaving plenty of corners untouched by light — and maybe that’s all they’ve needed to do. To be flickering reminders of life that persists, even when I feel nothing but grief, depression and disconnect. I don’t need the darkness eradicated.

We showed up for a community caroling walk over the weekend. Huddling together outside the first door, the first song we sang knotted up in my throat. Good ‘ol Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is you.”

I used to sing this to Tarzan, dancing around the living room while he clung to my shoulder and scurried down my arms. While I peppered him with kisses, inhaling his musk. It was our song.

Yet there I stood in a group of strangers, next to my little family, wearing my goofy glasses with blinking holiday bulbs, torn between laughing and weeping at the irony of this song choice, the tears streaming hotly down my face against a festive backdrop. I must have looked like the glummest caroler ever.

I wasn’t feeling it. And it was OK. It was OK to be there anyhow and it was OK to not know whether I really wanted to be there and it was OK to feel a little bit lost in the swell of it all.

This year, in truth, has caught up to me. Like a tidal wave that started miles offshore, gradually growing, until I’m standing beneath it, until it’s crashing all around me, pulling me back out to sea.

I know I’m far from alone out here. Still, it can feel lonely, miles from shore, away from the artificial blinking lights.

It may be dark out here, but this far out, you can really see the stars at night, nature’s twinkling lights. And the moon, our luminary. Out here, there is a vastness of darkness, and as long as we have what we need to keep from drowning, we can lay back and float in it. Our smallness held in the vastness.

For Winter Solstice, we made ice lanterns and burned scraps of paper on which we’d written the things we wanted to release from the year. We huddled on the stoop as darkness set in and watched the glow of fire dance around bubbles and holly and berries frozen in ice. I felt mesmerized and accompanied by the coexistence of both, fire and ice.

I am my own ice lantern. So are you.

Inside me, the love of pigeons and squirrels and trees, the love of all the ones I’ve lost and all the ones that remain, flicker against walls of ice. Light, refracting. Light, warming. Light, illuminating.

The season of ice and dark will pass, in time. But until it does, I’m trying to let it hold me, to let it be. To find rest in the darkness. And to reach out for hands to squeeze as we float along, separately and together.

Maybe we’ll even see each other’s lights, flickering.

with hope,

Phoenix

As is so often my experience as a writer, my own words are finding their way back to me, like homing pigeons. Even if the home to which they return is a densely populated mega city, instead of a home minutes from a quiet nature preserve.

Still, they find me. Still, they invite me to remember — sometimes, to reimagine — what keeps me afloat.

These days, as the temperature is dropping and I’m struggling to stay warm in a home that’s temporarily without heat and hot water, I prefer to think not of life rafts, but of hearth fires. Whether I’m huddling under blankets indoors or bundled up outside, I reach for the things that are kindling for my inner fire. And those things, more often than not, don’t look a whole lot different from one home to the other.

About a twenty-minute walk from home, through Prospect Park, is a magical spot. A little circle of wild in the urban forest where few people wander through, except for birders and photographers. This is where I often head, with pockets full of peanuts and a satchel of birdseed.

Lately, I find myself in the midst of a circle of wild friends, crouching on my heels, basking in the warmth of them. Even in the chill of the afternoon when tears are streaming down my cheeks, the overflow of gratitude and grief and awe, I feel my inner hearth blazing with the existence of them. With their presence.

I try to tell them, without words, how beautiful and precious and essential they are, pouring my offerings on the ground. The food is a universal language, I hope. As they fill their bellies, their aliveness fills mine.

Rather than write of them, let me leave you with images, so you, too, might bask in their warmth.

The squirrels…

The birds…

The flocks, also trying to stay warm…

The Heron…

The evening sky…

The Moon.

What kindling keeps your hearth fire toasty on these frigid days, friends? I’d love to know.

Wishing you aliveness, in whatever forms, wherever you are.

Phoenix

The truth is, surgery (of any kind) is brutal.

The truth is, even though I lovingly cared for my partner through the same surgery three months ago, it couldn’t prepare me for how the surgery would feel in my body. There were things they tried to explain to me, only to leave words hanging in the air, because they had no comparative experience to describe it.

I understand, now.

And the truth is, what I can describe feels too vulnerable to share with an internet audience. It feels too vulnerable to share with most, quite frankly, and so I haven’t.

When people ask me how my recovery is going, I think they understandably would love to hear that I feel relieved and euphoric. That I’m doing well and things are going smoothly, and sure, I’m going stir crazy, but it’s all worth it. They want to hear a happy resolution to this gender-affirming procedure.

They don’t necessarily want to hear about the allergic reaction to surgical prep, the rash that covered the front of my upper body, the swelling and bruising beneath a crushing binder, the edema that pooled in my hips and squished in my chest, the sleep disturbed nights and awake days, the pain.

They probably don’t want to hear how detached I felt from the surgery for days afterwards, because all I could think was, my baby is dead. My Tarzan is gone. And I’d been afraid it would hurt too much to cry, but I’ve found that isn’t true. At least in this grief, my body and heart find common ground. They both have been cut open and glued back together.

I think nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of clawing out of my own skin, post surgery. Like, surgery isn’t a straight line from chrysalis to butterfly, at least not for me. It’s jagged and crude. I’m still dissolving my old body, the one I lived in for forty-four years. It’s going to take some time to adapt to my new one. It’s a shock to the system. It’s a dismantling of numerous old layers of skin and identity.

It’s wild and outrageous and laughable, in a terrible way, to hear the arguments against gender-affirming care, especially the false narrative of “any one can just walk into a hospital and get surgery if they want it.” Oh, the fear-mongering, of “people hastily rushing to permanently alter their bodies who might later regret it and the system allowing it!”

No one would do this to their body on a whim. Even if they would — and every adult deserves this bodily autonomy — the system wouldn’t allow them. This was a year-long process of doctor visits, undergoing therapeutic evaluation, providing verification of persistent “gender incongruence” to the insurance company and awaiting approval. This was several years of wearing a binder and telling myself I was fine, I could live with this. Seeing a speech therapist. Taking hormones. Changing my pronouns. Changing my name. Changing my documents.

This was a conscious choice, once approval came, to visibly out myself as trans in a country that is cracking down on the existence of trans people with terrifying speed.

I won’t regret removing a part of my body I pretended not to have. I won’t regret the scar any more than I’d regret the tattoo that hangs above it: a monarch not-yet emerged from their chrysalis.

But healing? That’s going to take awhile. I can’t pretend otherwise; it’s no longer in my nature.

Nature, however, has applied their own healing balm to my body and my heart, when I’ve ventured out for walks the past two weeks.

After my post-op visit last week, we were walking through Washington Park in Albany, my old stomping grounds, and I saw a carpet of scarlet leaves beneath a Japanese Maple.

“I have to lay there,” I told my love.

I lowered myself to the ground, savoring the comfort of being held by the earth, and covered my chest with leaves. Leaves, which reminded me of blood and love, death and transformation, of shedding and bareness and the promise of new growth.

Leaves, which remind me of Tarzan.

I am a leaf and I am a tree and I am autumn, until I am winter and spring and summer.

But right here, right now, I am autumn, turning. Right here, right now, I am learning to surrender to what is and let it carry me down to the ground.

A friend left me a voice message, crying with me. She said, “Losing an animal is no less painful than losing a human.” She gets it. She knows.

I don’t know how to make chit chat right now, to answer messages about life outside of this loss. I don’t know how to speak to people who don’t understand that nonhuman animals are persons, too. That there is no hierarchy. That he was not a pet or a possession. That this loss rips through me every bit as much as when I lost my Papa, though it has its own voice. That it will forever alter me.

Nights are the worst, when Tarzan would have been awake. His empty cage stands in its corner like a grave, and sometimes, all I can do is crawl out of bed and weep beside it.

The silence is heavy, screaming the absence of him. My ears hear him, though I know he’s not there.

For ten years, he has been my nighttime ritual. Preparing his food, stroking his body, tending to him, delighting in him, comforted by the existence of him.

On Day of the Dead, my love and I went to a celebration at Green-wood Cemetery. We packed our own sack of remembrances and laid them out on a cloth beneath the arms of a golden Maple: candles, marigolds, pictures, artifacts, tiny mugs into which we poured coffee and tea, soul cakes I’d baked for us. We told a few stories but sat mostly in silence, this year a more somber celebration, watching the sky blush pink, grasping each other’s hands.

That night, I found myself again in the living room at 2 am. Lighting two candles — one for him, one for Ninja — beside prints of their hands and feet. I emptied myself in tearful conversation with them.

I have long wondered, how will I move through the loss of him — of both of them — when I have long believed they are the only family I have left.

My love’s arms around me, stroking my back as I fall apart, making me coffee in bed, kissing my forehead, massaging my shoulders, showering me in I love you, gently tells a different story. A new story. One my heart will heal around at its own pace, one day at a time.

*In case you missed these posts: saying goodbye to Tarzan and Ninja.

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Mary Oliver, “In Blackwater Woods”

My love sent me this poem at the beginning of the week. It felt ominous, too close to home, but also like home. Something stirred in me I didn’t want to stir — a knowing, if you can call it that.

A letting go is coming. More than “a” letting go: The Letting Go. The letting go I’ve been dreading for almost ten years. The one that’s kept me awake many nights the past year, the last week in particular. The one I’ve wondered if I can come back from.

This morning, I took my heart, held together by frayed stitches, to the vet for the second time in a week with my beloved Tarzan. Six hours later, I returned home without him, my heart in pieces.

At least, that’s what it feels like right now. Pieces.

Like someone took my heart and ripped it down the middle, two pieces of cloth held together no more, the stitching hanging loose, the stuffing falling out.

In all my imaginings, I didn’t think I’d actually be capable of sitting at my computer and typing this out hours after holding him in the cup of my hands and letting go. But here I am, the pieces of me, huddled together, writing.

I’m sitting in bed with his fleecy cozy cube, filled with his anteater and bear stuffies, tucked into my jacket, snug against my chest. This is the way he came home with me, almost ten years ago, a wee babe. And this is how I hold the memories of him now, his body absent. I bury my nose in his bedding and try to inhale the scent of him through my clogged nasal passages. His musk. The very scent that most people want to cover up and wash away, because it stinks, is the precious smell of family to me.

Family. Such a fraught word for me.

Today is eight months and one day since I had to let Ninja go. The only two remaining members from my reconstructed family of origin this past decade have now passed on. Transformed.

I can’t tell you right now precisely how it feels, to have held one of the great loves of my life in my hands and bathed him in kisses as he crossed over, at the end of my favorite month, in my favorite season, days shy of my favorite holidays. Samhain and Day of the Dead*. It’s not lost on me, even though I’m tempted to hate this, that Tarzan left this earth during a time of potent transformation, of death and celebration. I wasn’t prepared to place him on my altar of Beloved Dead, not yet.

But that’s where he’ll be this year.

I’m only one week out from my own transformation — top surgery — if indeed it happens. Earth willing. It’s hard to say these days, with the federal government still deciding whether or not I and hundreds of thousands of other trans adults should have access to this care. But for today, it’s still happening. I’ll just be transforming without him here. He went before me, maybe even in part to let me know, I, too, can do this.

Maybe it’s fitting that I’ll come away with a red scar across my chest, pieces of me removed, my body stitched back together below my heart.

Maybe while my body is healing, becoming a new version of itself, my heart, too, will be slowly making a comeback — a reconstructed heart, never the same as it was, but still beating strong.

I will try my best to believe this, for Tarzan. For Ninja. For myself. And for the newer family I am learning to lean into, as family itself continues to transform.

I leave you all with these images of my heart. In them, my beloved is still alive, but asleep. I’m grateful I was given hours to let him go.

With a temporarily wrecked heart,

Phoenix

* I’d like to acknowledge that Day of the Dead is not a tradition belonging to the culture I was born into. But I was privileged to become part of a Mexican family for a decade, and through this, I was gifted many things, including an invitation into this tradition of honoring my beloved dead. And though I am no longer a part of this family through marriage, the gifts I received have become cherished, deeply respected parts of me. I know their place culturally, and I know their place internally.

I’m not ravenous.

I limit news like I used to limit calories in high school, so I can get out of bed in the morning. So I can do yoga and make breakfast for my partner and write a book and try not to dwell on the fact that I might be a terrorist.*

So I can feed the pigeons. Do terrorists feed pigeons? I wonder as I scatter seed on the sidewalk to a flurry of wings.

I watch them all in fascination, growing smaller as I crouch beside them, as if I could enter their world and leave mine, even for a few minutes.

I see pigeons with lesions on their eyes and beaks and learn of Avian pox. I watch videos on how to catch them and I practice. One, and then another, we take the train together to the Upper West side. For an hour, a pigeon is perched in a carrier on my lap. I drop them off in the care of Wild Bird Fund and leave with a prayer for their return.

Everywhere I go, I can’t unsee the suffering of pigeons.

I can’t save my people, but maybe I can save some birds. Like a good terrorist.

If I’m going to be anything in this life, let me be a terrorist who cared too much for pigeons, for all creatures. Who thought they deserved a chance to live.

*This is in reference to TIVE — the highly offensive, malicious and unfounded acronym The Heritage Foundation has been pressuring the FBI to use to classify trans people (and those who support them) as terrorists.

* Inspiration for this piece is owed to the trans poet, Gray Davidson Carroll, and their recent poem, which rocked me.

Well hi there, community.

I’ve been living in the land of grief-disbelief-anxiety-rage-overwhelm… oh, and book writing… so it’s been a trip trying to figure out what to say here in the land of Substack. Each time I open the app, as I’m certain many others can attest to, I’m flooded with the deluge of horrific news, much of it centering trans folks as Enemy No 1 in this country. At this point, I either shut the app or scroll frantically like I’m running on hot coals to try to reach the Stacks on my list before burning my feet to smithereens.

As sometimes happens, I shared a moment of basic human kindness the other day and it went viral — which I have a love/hate relationship with. I love seeing kindness multiplied in the comments and the restacks. I love knowing that the simplest things, like a smile passed between strangers, are often the ones that people are craving. And I love welcoming more people here, to my humble online abode.

But I’ll be completely honest: I also hate when things go viral. I find myself riding this intense wave in my nervous system, until I’m crashing down beneath its weight. This generally coincides with the trolls finding my posts. I have to disengage and coax my nervous system back into regulation, which might take days. Viral posts remind me that, as much as I’d like to pretend otherwise, Substack is first and foremost a social media app (as opposed to a platform for writers to share their work).

Several things can be true at once, can’t they? I’m trying to remember this.

Before I share a recycled post from last year’s first viral moment, to welcome the newbies — because I really am so grateful you’re here — I have a jumble of thoughts I’d like to get out. I’ll even try to make it neat, with bullet points and all, which I don’t normally do. These are some of the things on my mind lately, and especially following the latest post. Things I really want you to know.

• In case you’re unaware, trans people are really fucking scared right now in this country. And for good reason. I don’t want to list all the reasons, but I will encourage you to search out independent journalists who are reporting on trans issues as opposed to any of the major media outlets (and I mean all of them, even the so-called progressive ones). Erin in the Morning is one of my go-to trusted sources. Our community needs people who are proactive and informed, so please don’t put the burden on us to educate you.

• My dear friend, Robin Taylor, recently shared a vulnerable and generous post about what it feels like to be trans in this country right now. It’s also a gentle and urgent invitation to consider what kind of ally you really are or want to be.

• And on that note, of allyship, I want to say with all the kindness in the world: We don’t need anyone to announce or pledge their allyship to us. In fact, please don’t. We need people to actually show up when it counts. To be willing to stick their necks out for us. And that’s not something, in general, that comes across authentically when it’s written as a comment in a social media post. It sounds nice, but honestly? I don’t think many of us believe it. Because what we see and hear in our country is that the American people have a TON more outrage for someone like Jimmy Kimmel getting sacked than they do for trans people (and while we’re at it — Black or Brown people — such as all the journalists who’ve been sacked for speaking out who haven’t been supported with an outcry of protest because they aren’t White, cisgender, heterosexual men).

• I’ve been reflecting a great deal on what it means now to care for each other, starting with basic check-ins. What I’ve noticed is that a lot of people seem to think that “Thinking of you” or “Hope all is well” counts as a check-in. I can only speak for myself, but when I receive messages like this these days from people I consider friends, it amounts to receiving “thoughts and prayers” in the aftermath of a tragedy. It’s neither a question or an invitation; it feels like a box someone can check and move on with their day. So I guess I’m asking myself and anyone else who cares to consider, how can we genuinely check in with our people (I’m not talking about people we don’t know online) in ways that invite and nourish connection? How can we ask better questions? And if we don’t feel we have the bandwidth for someone’s real response, can we practice having good boundaries and being honest with each other? If we’re feeling depleted, how can we communicate in ways that support us not over-extending ourselves while also maintaining connection? I always, always prefer honesty to an interaction that feels trite, performative or obligatory. I imagine I’m not the only one who feels this way.

• I got a kick out of seeing all the ways people addressed me in the latest post —young man, guy, trans man, girl, lovely lass — when I didn’t say a word about how I identified (other than the “they/them” on my handle that seems to go unnoticed). It was curious more than anything, but also telling, I suppose. People are still so used to coupling “trans” with “man” or “woman.” But I’m a trans person who likes to keep people guessing about my gender. So, on the one hand, I was delighted that people were inconsistent in their perception of me. And on the other, it’s tiresome that people still have to gender someone at all. So, all that to say, for those who are new: Hi! I’m Phoenix. I’m trans, and I’m also nonbinary. We do exist! Not a he, not a she, just a Me (and a they/them).

Whew. Are you still with me? I can imagine that this is the point someone might hit Unsubscribe, and no hard feelings if this is the case. I don’t have a lot of fucks to give anymore, so I’m just trying to keep it real. You know, what you see is what you get. And I want you to know what you signed up for. Do you want this?

If you do, then here’s a softer post — one that still rings true, almost a year later, even if some of my personal circumstances have changed or the political climate has blown up beyond comprehension.

Thank you for accompanying me with your presence, your smiles and your open heart.

Holding on,

Phoenix

Today is my first rebirthday as Phoenix.

One year ago, I held my own renaming ceremony. Even though I’d been asking close friends to call me Phoenix for months, this was my passing of the torch moment from old name to new. The alchemizing of identities.

(Oh, and if you haven’t read my post from last year, never fear. It’s right here:)

But back to the present.

I still can’t quite grasp this truth — how I could have only inhabited this new skin fully for one year — and the slippery nature of its both/ands. I am still growing into Phoenix, and, have I ever been anyone but? Those forty-three years before under a different name seem to belong to someone else.

As I was out for a walk the other night with my sweetheart, I joked, “I guess I’m also a Leo now.” Until a dear friend gently corrected my mistake: “I hate to tell you this, but August 24th makes you an honorary Virgo.”

I’m not gonna lie, I swallowed that one with all the recalcitrance of a toddler in a booster seat being asked to eat a spoonful of peas. My aforementioned friend naturally knew something about my unfortunate history with Virgo suns in need of healing. I certainly didn’t want to be one.

If Virgo were a flavor, then for me, it’s a saturation of shoulds. It’s being held to someone else’s standards and graded as a failure for missing the mark. It’s acts of service with an aftertaste of martyrdom. It’s decades of conditioning corralled into one stuffy, claustrophobic room, and me, sweating in a starched shirt. It’s a veneer of niceness disguising resentment, a funhouse mirror playing with my eyesight.

I clearly have some baggage here; I can own that.

I suppose I should (thanks, Virgo) pause and add this disclaimer, especially for my dear readers who share this sun sign: I know not all Virgos are the same, yada, yada, yada. And I really do know this, just as I know there are multitudes of nuance contained in each person. I have no desire to lump everyone under the Virgo sun into the same generalized heap — including the Virgos who unwittingly created it in my life. But that doesn’t mean much to the wounded parts of me who insist they don’t want to be associated with this astrological sign.

My other parts begrudgingly accept that there’s an invitation to deeper healing tucked inside this irony. After all, something painted in such black and white strokes often points to an unhealed wound, or the fear itself beneath the wound, that maybe we are the very thing we fear.

And after a year of stepping fully into my Phoenix identity, really claiming it, Virgo sun inflames my fear of being an imposter. Digging deeper, more than an imposter: a liar. Because even after all these years of rising from the ash heap of old, a voice from the womb still insists that self-liberation is a blasphemy apart from god; that any autonomy I think I’ve gained is deception, idolatry, hubris.

I can only ever be who I was proclaimed to be upon entering this world. A new identity is nothing more than a story I’ve made up about the character I want to be, and that’s a freedom I’m not allowed.

It’s all a facade and you’re a phony, this voice from the Virgo wound accuses. If you had only stayed in character the way the script was written, but no, you had to go off-script. And now look what you’ve done…

While I was out on a walk again with my love, they casually uttered some sage reflections I couldn’t dismiss (paraphrased, more or less): “Isn’t it interesting how this Virgo season begins at the cusp of fall, a season of letting go, of composting what we no longer want to carry in us or with us? And that compost nourishes everything else.”

I stole a glance at them and they continued. “Phoenix. You’ve already been doing the work of letting go, of shedding that old conditioning that this form of Virgo represents for you. This is just another iteration of that work.”

I thought about what it might feel like for that part of me to finally unclench — the part that knows Virgo as being bound up in the restrictions of my past — and I could almost imagine a loosening in my chest.

This year of claiming myself as Phoenix has been both a glorious, creative mess and a fine-tuning of self. Adjusting the dial of self truth back and forth, finding the places of attunement, where the static of guilt and doubt fades into the background. And then, learning to live in that frequency with confidence, slow growing as it may be.

It’s been a year of letting go — of overextending myself, excessive apologies, chasing reciprocity, elbowing my way into spaces, swallowing my needs — and filling out. Allowing myself the itchy, burning discomfort of new growth; allowing this to exist alongside the ache of grief.

If now I’m being invited to drop the last vestiges of this old skin in the compost, it begs the question, “What could grow from the soil of this death?” What might it look like to be an astrological Phoenix rising from the compost heap of who and what I was once expected to be?

Well, for one, it might look like writing a book… there, I said it. I don’t know when I’ll say more on this, but for now, it’s enough to let this truth breathe here in this space. I’m working on a book. And for this reason, it might look like less words published on Substack as I shift my focus to a bigger project. I hesitated for days in hitting publish on this post, wondering if this is where these words belonged. But in the end, my desire to share with you won over.

And it might also look like a slightly eccentric, gender-bending forty-four year old covered in pigeons and filled with pure glee. Not caring who’s watching or judging or unsubscribing. Just me, fully present and content. Confident in this, too, being a worthy purpose, sitting with the birds on the ground in a Manhattan park. I think that’s as good a place as any to begin.

From here, everything else can unfurl.

Being a deep feeling person with a highly sensitive nervous system; someone who loves people, but honestly, enjoys other-than-human beings more; someone who leans towards introversion and requires spaces of quiet, away from others, to replenish… this has been a tough pill to swallow.

In the City, life is always up in your face. Aggressively so. The cars, bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, strollers, delivery vans, sirens. The many colorful human beings. The dog poop and human poop and bottles of urine in the streets. The never-ending construction of a city perpetually building itself. The lights at night, masking the darkness. The garbage, everywhere — and I mean everywhere.

Living so close to Prospect Park is a lifesaver, this gem of nature in the thick of urban jungle. And it, too, is a constant reminder of humanity encroaching on nature and not giving enough of a fuck about the impact. I miss walking through forests that aren’t littered with bathroom wipes, dirty diapers, tampons and condoms.

But the flip side to this, of course, is that this impact is largely a symptom of the systems that oppress and exploit human beings, creating scarcity, desperation and apathy that lead to much of these in-your-face behaviors. Parks lack funding. As such, the parks offer few bathrooms for such large spaces, and NYC in general is a public bathroom desert. Where are people expected to go to relieve themselves? There is a far higher demand on resources for the unhoused, addicted and mentally ill than there are supports for these vulnerable groups, leading to public places and parks becoming bedrooms, living spaces and dumping grounds.

It’s heartbreaking and maddening and unjust, heavy with the weight of so much brokenness and suffering. And it’s also sensory overload, emotionally taxing, and sometimes, just too much to look at one more goddam thing right this second.

The friends with whom I regularly exchange voice notes have heard my many attempts to record a conversation while walking past jackhammers, motorists blaring music from a speaker on the back of their bikes, buses and trains rumbling by. How often these recordings are stilted, paused, knocked off course, because I can’t seem to walk and talk and also take in the many stimuli of the city around me at the same time.

Of course, they also hear birds and childrens’ voices and the conversations of strangers passing by. They hear me stop to adore a Monarch or a Swallowtail flitting among the flowers of a sidewalk garden, getting distracted for a moment by the nature that persists among us.

I hadn’t been aware of how parched I’ve been for a place of respite, even for an hour at a time, until I stepped inside my newfound sanctuary: Green-wood Cemetery.

Though we live a relatively short walk from it, we hadn’t yet visited until last week. As soon as we stepped inside the wrought iron gates, I swear a contracted ball of pressure released from my chest. I looked around the vast expanse and diversity of large old trees, lanes and grasses and wildflower plantings, the chiseled gravestones and crypts tucked into hillsides like a Shire for dead people, and felt I’d stumbled upon my very own version of Disneyland.

I squeezed my love’s hand and my eyes sparkled with tears as we wandered through the serene landscape together. Pausing at particularly splendorous trees, I pressed my palm against their bark and said thank you. Thank you for being.

That first visit, we were blessed by the wildlife gods with a sighting of a baby skunk, rooting through the grass for grubs, oblivious to our presence. The next day, we stood back and delighted in a roly-poly groundhog as he grazed among the graves, followed by another baby skunk appearance.

We’ve marveled at the sight and sounds of a flock of wild Monk Parakeets nesting in the gothic spires of one cathedral-like entrance to the cemetery, hoping we might one day get lucky enough to find a green feather.

Last night, we witnessed three darting Italian Wall Lizards, one of whom regarded us curiously with a cocked head. And a mother and her baby skunk, trundling around a stone mausoleum.

Among the few humans we’ve passed by, two were perched on folding seats, sketching among the tombstones, surrounded by paints and brushes. Each time we see another of our kind, we regard each other with an unspoken understanding of silent reverence. We are here for the serenity, the respite, among the dead and among the living urban wild.

B and I follow our curious whims to decide which direction to take, every turn beckoning us like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book. What lies beyond the bend of that cobblestone trail? Or that spooky, towering structure on top of the hill? One such turn led us to a cavern of rhododendrons, housing two graves inside. This place not only feeds our hunger for quiet and nature, but also our need for curiosity, creative inspiration and exploration in a setting that runneth over with beauty.

Sometimes we don’t know what we’re lacking or how undernourished we are until we encounter what we need and drink deeply of the offering. And the offering of this cemetery is one I know I’ll drink from as often as I can, as long as I live in this Brooklyn neighborhood. A reminder that, if I’m open and willing, I might find enough of what I need wherever I am planted.

One leg on either side of a subway turnstile, granny cart propped (and falling over) on the side nearest the tracks, attempting to heft my four heavy sacks of groceries to the other side while locked in a metallic embrace, a sheepish Oh fuck look on my face.

I had been so proud of myself for embarking on my first grocery outing with the granny cart (usually, I pack-mule it), puffed up like a male pigeon about my ability to navigate the train on my own. Look at me! I hauled my groceries down the flights of stairs on one arm while holding the granny cart with the other!

Yet, somehow I woefully miscalculated this landing.

I watched a metro employee sidle up, side-eyeing me. She shook her head and muttered, “I’m not saying a word,” then disappeared through the revolving doors.

I managed to haul my stuck leg up and over the turnstile without falling face first into my groceries on the subway platform. I think I even managed to do it without much of an audience (when I tell you that city folks don’t bat an eye at all manner of bizarre shit, I mean it: it doesn’t faze them).

And this is the perfect lead-in to my ongoing list of favorite things about living in Brooklyn, in a round-a-bout way. Because before I was tangled up in the subway turnstile, I had walked an hour to the nearest Trader Joe’s (pushing the empty granny cart, another rookie mistake). And herein lies a favorite thing about city life…

8. It’s generally more efficient and far less stressful (not to mention, far more of a sensory feast) to walk, take public transportation, scoot or bike here. I left behind a mostly car-less life in northern Washington for lives in Vermont and Albany where, though starkly different from each other, I largely needed a car to get around. And I resented it. I love using my body as my primary form of transportation and I’ve missed a life where this felt possible. Where it didn’t feel so much like a luxury to walk places — if I had the time! — and more like something built into my life.

   Now, inevitably there will come a day I join the ranks of commuters and these kinds of hours-long walks to do the grocery shopping will become a luxury of the past. But until that day comes, I’m leaning into it hardcore (even if it means leaning into a turnstile tryst).

9. The Brooklyn Bridge. Seeing it never gets old. Like, I’m waving to it as we pass by on the subway, “Heyyyy, BB. Looking good.”

10. It’s dog city here. No joke. If I didn’t already have dog fever before moving here, adorable and fascinating dogs of all shape, size and breed combination are parading around at all times. I kid you not, I actually saw a pitbull walk by WEARING PINK CROCS and I still haven’t recovered. It immediately inspired a song I can’t get out of my head (thank you, Chappell Roan): Pink puppy crocs/I wanna see my pitbull in some/pink puppy crocs/pink puppy crocs…

11. NY Liberty ~ Brooklyn’s WNBA team. I don’t want to paint this ultra-romantic, Instagram-esque picture of what life is like here, as if it’s all dreamy subway rides, puppies and pro women’s basketball games (because I assure you, it’s not). But y’all. We did score free tickets to a Liberty game several weeks ago and I’m not gonna lie: I could really get into this. Yelling and pumping my fist in the air for this team from the stands came pretty naturally to me. Bonus: it’s a very queer-happy scene.

12. There’s truly something for everyone here. I saw this flyer in the park my first week in town and was determined to join this group of people reading to kittens. I’m sad to say I circled the area to no avail when the advertised day and time arrived and had to conclude it was outdated. But hey! Just knowing this event existed in the world was enough. And bonus: if you can’t read to a kitten in the park, you can always read to a bodega cat on the sidewalk (or accidentally steal one and take it to the vet).

13. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. We live about a thirty minute walk through the park from the gardens, where we’re bonafide cardholders. The sad truth is, I’ve only been here twice since moving, but just knowing I can go anytime I want is so dreamy. BBG is a true living museum of plants and I’d live there if I could. The tropical greenhouses, filled with bogs and hanging installations of staghorn ferns, make my heart go pitter patter.

14. Proximity to the ocean. This is technically the closest I’ve lived to an ocean since I was in Portland, OR (I miss you, Oregon Coast). I mean, I lived near saltwater in Washington, but it wasn’t quite the same as THE OCEAN. And the Atlantic is a different personality than the Pacific, so I’m getting to know and appreciate her.

    For instance, horseshoe crabs. I haven’t seen one alive yet, but I found this (suspected) exoskeleton on a Long Island beach last month. Friends, I had never even heard of a horseshoe crab (how is that possible?), let alone seen the primordial shell of one, before moving out here. They are devastatingly endangered, but somehow still swimming out of sight in the ocean around here… just knowing this wrecks me, on several levels.

15. Opportunistic wildlife. You had to have known it would circle back, somehow, to wildlife. It always does. And yeah, I know squirrels and raccoons, pigeons and rats, are opportunistic in whatever urban setting you can find them. But let’s just say that they’re the crème de la crème here. I am not the person you want around, for the record, if a squirrel raids your stroller snacks. I will be the one filming it with glee, not the one shooing the offending squirrel away.

And on that note, I will bid you adieu from Brooklyn. There are more favorite things to share, but hopefully this begins to fill out an eclectic and vibrant picture for you in the meantime.

love,

Phoenix