"Out of all the flags I've flown, one flies high and stands alone..."

Tomorrow, November 20th, is the eleventh annual International Transgender Day of Remembrance. More information about it can be found at http://www.transgenderdor.org.

Since 1999, I've attempted to spend TDOR away from public events held to mark it. I spend much of my time and consciousness on community organizing, advocacy, popular education, social justice work, etc. The few TDOR events I've attended over the years, while certainly memorializing in tone, included a How-can-we-turn-tragedy-and-pain-into-action? capstone. I don't condemn this, but it doesn't work for me. The only focus, the only emotion, I can summon on this day is love...love for sentience, I guess...and also grief, for the destruction of it. It is a difficult and willful act for me to maintain that focus, actually. The call to action is so tempting...because it is a turning away from loss.

So, I take a day off from action and am simply in love and in grief. In some ways, it's an annual reminder of my daily disassociation. It takes this day --and a couple others like it during the year-- to knock me into...what...I'm not sure...that particular layer of vulnerability that is an ache for the triumph of kindness, of collective access to awe of knowledge, existence, connection - of being. To stay there, hopeful in that vulnerability, it helps for me to be alone.

Clocking out now...see you soon...