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May 5th, 2008
I was standing in the Starbucks waiting for my latte-latte-double-dipped-boing-boing, or whatever it is I get every time I’m there….oh, how I yearn for the days of Sanka….and as I had time to spare before my class, I wandered a bit over to the chocolate-y goodness of the enclosed glass case. I worship that case. I would make love to that case if I wasn’t afraid of getting arrested.
As I stood there, transfixed by the shelves of calories and lard beckoning me with their evil claws, a baritone voice from behind me spoke up:
“What do you want, beautiful?”
A smaller, tinier female voice answered back:
“Something with strawberry.”
Immediately I judged them. How can a dad bring his little girl to Starbucks? When I was little, a big day out with my parents meant MacDonalds and a possible Mayor McCheese action figure. Times change. That’s okay.
I then turned a bit to see them out of my soft focus, and Dad spoke up again:
“Okay. Strawberry. That’s a good choice. Remember last week when we were at Bob’s Big Boy and you ordered that strawberry shake and the waitress brought you a curly straw? Remember that?” he began to laugh.
“That was funny. I liked that straw.” She said back to him.
I could see him begin to pull her in tightly. He whispered again to her how beautiful she was, and then stepped up in line. Their conversation wasn’t forced. He wasn’t talking down to her in some odd, baby voice and tickling her under her chin. And she wasn’t swaying back and forth reveling in her father’s ideology of what she should be, or should become, or needs to be for other men. He was simply speaking to her from the truth from where he stood. She was simply the most beautiful, smart, funny girl in the world. And that was a fact of her life. It was that simple.
I started transitioning when I was 19 years old. Back then, it was unheard of, and I really had no idea what the hell I was doing. Or talking about. I still don’t. I don’t know why I am the way I am. I have no idea what makes me, me. But I’ve come to terms with that. It isn’t a big question in my life. It’s a big question in everyone else’s.
My Father and I lost each other for a while.
He disappeared from my life, and I from his. We didn’t speak or see each other for almost 5 or 6 years. By the time we met again, I had transitioned and was living a life that included new friends from a sub culture I’d only read about, cocaine, heroin, and prostitution. On the side, I tried to slip in as many acting lessons as I could afford. My life was a smorgasbord of oddballs.
And I loved every single one of them.
My mom called one Sunday afternoon and told me my Dad was visiting Chicago from California and wanted to see me. I was terrified. I can’t imagine, thinking back on it, how he must have felt. What was it like to raise a son, go through his whole life, plan all kinds of things, and then one day, wake up, an find out that the whole thing was one big, long dream? I would never know that. I could never possibly understand that journey. And in the same instance, he could never possibly understand mine.
I headed down to Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago which is where my mother and step dad were still living. The day had a hard, deserted feel to it. I drove my boyfriend’s car, rolled down the windows, and tried not to sweat. It was July. July in Chicago is kind of like living in the middle rack of your oven at 350. I had done my hair. I had done my face. I tried to leave off the fake eyelashes and spare sequins, and wore a pair of black pants with a burgundy blouse. I looked fine. Fine, I thought.
But I was meeting my Dad. I wasn’t going back to visit him. He had never met me.
Not…me.
I arrived at my mom’s house, and in the front doorway, framed by the red and white potted chrysanthemums recently planted, my Dad stood in full view. His imposing shape. That round jaw, and those familiar hands. My heart was in my throat. I walked up to him; he smiled, and hugged me.
I sobbed in his arms.
I hugged him back, and kept sobbing. I couldn’t stop sobbing. His hug seemed to release something in me. Something that had been building up for many, many years. And then he whispered to me:
“Well…..I don’t understand any of it, but I think you look beautiful.”
As I turned to see the little girl, who as I had been told over and over that day in the Starbucks was The Most Beautiful Little Girl In The World, I finally saw her face to face. There she stood. Probably 10 years old at the most, long brown hair, some strands falling into her eyes, a little tiny nose, and some wayward freckles just below her cheeks. She wasn’t extraordinary in any way. She was a normal looking, average 10 year old girl. But to her father, she was something else entirely. He was what he wanted to see, and what he wanted her to believe for the rest of her life.
They walked out, after getting their drinks, arm in arm and into their car.
And I saw my Dad.
My Dad who brought music into my life, and who gave me the one great gift any father can give his daughter: Acceptance. For a moment, and maybe it was only that one brief moment, in my dad’s arms in the doorway of our old house in Chicago, I was, like that little girl in Starbucks: The Most Beautiful Little Girl In The World.
As I stood there, transfixed by the shelves of calories and lard beckoning me with their evil claws, a baritone voice from behind me spoke up:
“What do you want, beautiful?”
A smaller, tinier female voice answered back:
“Something with strawberry.”
Immediately I judged them. How can a dad bring his little girl to Starbucks? When I was little, a big day out with my parents meant MacDonalds and a possible Mayor McCheese action figure. Times change. That’s okay.
I then turned a bit to see them out of my soft focus, and Dad spoke up again:
“Okay. Strawberry. That’s a good choice. Remember last week when we were at Bob’s Big Boy and you ordered that strawberry shake and the waitress brought you a curly straw? Remember that?” he began to laugh.
“That was funny. I liked that straw.” She said back to him.
I could see him begin to pull her in tightly. He whispered again to her how beautiful she was, and then stepped up in line. Their conversation wasn’t forced. He wasn’t talking down to her in some odd, baby voice and tickling her under her chin. And she wasn’t swaying back and forth reveling in her father’s ideology of what she should be, or should become, or needs to be for other men. He was simply speaking to her from the truth from where he stood. She was simply the most beautiful, smart, funny girl in the world. And that was a fact of her life. It was that simple.
I started transitioning when I was 19 years old. Back then, it was unheard of, and I really had no idea what the hell I was doing. Or talking about. I still don’t. I don’t know why I am the way I am. I have no idea what makes me, me. But I’ve come to terms with that. It isn’t a big question in my life. It’s a big question in everyone else’s.
My Father and I lost each other for a while.
He disappeared from my life, and I from his. We didn’t speak or see each other for almost 5 or 6 years. By the time we met again, I had transitioned and was living a life that included new friends from a sub culture I’d only read about, cocaine, heroin, and prostitution. On the side, I tried to slip in as many acting lessons as I could afford. My life was a smorgasbord of oddballs.
And I loved every single one of them.
My mom called one Sunday afternoon and told me my Dad was visiting Chicago from California and wanted to see me. I was terrified. I can’t imagine, thinking back on it, how he must have felt. What was it like to raise a son, go through his whole life, plan all kinds of things, and then one day, wake up, an find out that the whole thing was one big, long dream? I would never know that. I could never possibly understand that journey. And in the same instance, he could never possibly understand mine.
I headed down to Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago which is where my mother and step dad were still living. The day had a hard, deserted feel to it. I drove my boyfriend’s car, rolled down the windows, and tried not to sweat. It was July. July in Chicago is kind of like living in the middle rack of your oven at 350. I had done my hair. I had done my face. I tried to leave off the fake eyelashes and spare sequins, and wore a pair of black pants with a burgundy blouse. I looked fine. Fine, I thought.
But I was meeting my Dad. I wasn’t going back to visit him. He had never met me.
Not…me.
I arrived at my mom’s house, and in the front doorway, framed by the red and white potted chrysanthemums recently planted, my Dad stood in full view. His imposing shape. That round jaw, and those familiar hands. My heart was in my throat. I walked up to him; he smiled, and hugged me.
I sobbed in his arms.
I hugged him back, and kept sobbing. I couldn’t stop sobbing. His hug seemed to release something in me. Something that had been building up for many, many years. And then he whispered to me:
“Well…..I don’t understand any of it, but I think you look beautiful.”
As I turned to see the little girl, who as I had been told over and over that day in the Starbucks was The Most Beautiful Little Girl In The World, I finally saw her face to face. There she stood. Probably 10 years old at the most, long brown hair, some strands falling into her eyes, a little tiny nose, and some wayward freckles just below her cheeks. She wasn’t extraordinary in any way. She was a normal looking, average 10 year old girl. But to her father, she was something else entirely. He was what he wanted to see, and what he wanted her to believe for the rest of her life.
They walked out, after getting their drinks, arm in arm and into their car.
And I saw my Dad.
My Dad who brought music into my life, and who gave me the one great gift any father can give his daughter: Acceptance. For a moment, and maybe it was only that one brief moment, in my dad’s arms in the doorway of our old house in Chicago, I was, like that little girl in Starbucks: The Most Beautiful Little Girl In The World.