Moon Memo: Disarming
Good morning from Portland, where I am back into my world. It's dark in the mornings, again. It's light later again. The months of rain have returned after a brief patch of false sunshine. I'm back to morning coffee and keyboard again, notebook and pen, coffee shop and my dear ones smiling and laughing with me. I'm back home.
Travels
I took a trip on an airplane. I went to a land of eternal skies and corn. I met new people, who loved our missing love. I had sex with two beautiful women, who are kind and sweet and generous and deserve all the good in the world. I cried in the arms of two out of three widows, was gifted ash of my beloved one, cried hard, cried hard. I drank mocktails in a trans owned cocktail bar. I was called beautiful again and again. I was poked and proded by power in airports. I was uncomfortable in a flying tube of metal through the troposphere. I drank coffee, ate delicious food, barely paid for any of it. I met girls from spain and chicago. I met bunnies from Seattle and babies from Omaha. I cried and I cried and I cried. I avoided the others. I'm sorry I was so distant.
I carried the ashes of my beloved home. I went to urgent care due to injury (tucking and walking long distances doesn't mix, friends. No tuck club forever. I never want anyone to talk about my lady bits in masculine ways ever again.). I am home, and I crashed, and I am depleted and sad.
My beloved is dead. She isn't coming back. Where she has traveled is a place you go to once. The Shinigami of trans girls, the guides to trans heaven, are the little girls we never got to be. They do not let us come in to visit, except in our memories. Goodbye, Graye. People loved you. So many people loved you.
Lifestyle
I don't know how to talk about other people's lifestyle kinks, the motivations for them, what comfort the different ways that they experience the world gives them pleasure. I can't talk to these things, so I won't. Yucking someone's yum is not how I live my life. I just have to know what I want, and be there.
I don't want to mother anyone. Not really. I want to be of service at the moment, be someone's big sister, maybe, or better yet, their friend. If that means sometimes biting their thighs or slapping their asses, leaving marks across their chest and torso, I can do that. But if it means taking over their life, making decisions for them, letting them let go of consent, even consensually, in a long term way: no, I will not do that. I will not do that. I will not take the gift they have given me and not do that. I will not take the responsibility that they have asked for. I will not do that.
Quakers talk about disarming their lives. That peace work isn't about guns and bombs but about how you interact with your neighbor and friends. How you interact with your privilege. In your work. In your bedrooms.
I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. But I'm not going to take over anyone's life for them. If you are looking for a mommy, you should find someone who will give you what you want. I'm not here, I'm afraid. I'm sorry to fail your expectations.
There is a lot I could learn from these friends. Consent and its nuances. The pleasure of letting go, of being baby, the good swift hand of daddy there to save you. Of knowing you are wholly able to disappear from this world. But that's not my way. I will not be mommy. I will be your friend.
And I know I'm talking about things I barely understand. And I want to learn. But I'm setting up that boundary. So we are all clear.
Work
Didn't get that job. Got the AI generated "We are sorry. We went with someone else." Got interviewed, and was too expensive. Wrote another cover letter. Searched the ads. Applied myself. Applied myself. Applied myself. Rejected again. Rejected again. Rejected again.
Starting to panic. Told I don't need to. Doing my best.
I am qualified for this position. And this one. And this one. And this one.
But I'm too expensive, or too trans, or too old, or too fat.
Sigh.
Outro:
Coffee is boiling. Time to wrap this up. Thank you all so much for reading these. I love to hear from readers, so please feel free to say hi at mishalynnmoon@gmail.com.
The world is very broken, and power is trying to sell it for scrap. Don't become outwardly valuable for those assholes. Be inwardly valuable with your time and attention and your poetry and friendship.
Love you to bits.
Misha Lynn Moon
