I left the cabin at 6:00 A.M. on November 12. Car all packed, Mo in his booster seat, a cooler with pop and PB&J, a full tank of gas, prepared for the two-day drive to Toronto. I didn’t have much cargo, considering I would be in Ontario for ten months. When I originally drove to Nova Scotia from Manhattan I was not expecting to be gone for such a long period. I assumed Covid would calm down and the borders would reopen by the end of summer. Nope, that was just the beginning.
The air was cool, the sky just before light, mist disappeared as I wove through Wentworth toward Amherst. Sun up, clouds rolled in, a mix of clear and rain. Right when I crossed the border into New Brunswick a massive double rainbow filled the sky. Triumphant. I waved. I planned on splitting the sixteen-or-so-hour drive evenly into two days, but as I drove on November 12, my whole being buzzed. Without music, without a podcast, without a phone chat, I flew by where I was set to spend the night, no part of me ready to slow down. It was 6:00 P.M. in Quebec when I pulled up to a hotel in Old Montreal, a thirteen-hour day in the car. Mo and I went for a tiny stroll, never having seen Montreal this empty and quiet. Tomorrow morning’s drive would only be five hours. The cobblestones felt nice under my boots.
Bloodwork and an EKG were required before the procedure. I walked east along Queen Street to LifeLabs, with each brisk step I grew closer. The day of my surgery, November 17, I went to the clinic alone, you were not able to bring a companion due to Covid. Mark dropped me off. Oddly, I was not nervous, all I wanted was the time to move, that bright light above while the ceiling and I grow apart. I was the second surgery of the day, one o’clock. You could not eat or drink anything, including water, before, which felt fine, because my stomach was interested in nothing. I waited in a small room with a bed, TV, and side table with a peaceful lamp. The nurse came in to take my vitals and talk over everything. The morning surgery was running over, so it would most likely be a while. I curled up in the bed, no TV, no book, no music, and I just lay there for three hours until it was time. Like the moment before I came out, holding myself.
On the table. Light above. Mouth covered. Down, down, down.
Mark picked me up after the three-or-so-hour procedure. He took a photo of me when he first walked in the room. I lay there, partially propped up, high as fuck, wearing a black compression vest, my nipples just removed and slapped back on. The smile on my face, in my eyes, the degree of contentment glowing off me, phew.
Mark drove me home from the clinic in Yorkville to where we were staying near Queen and Bathurst. My friend Marin was filming a different show in Toronto, but she would be back in New York for that month, so she offered her place. We made a spot for me on a daybed in the cozy living room with low ceilings. Mark had the bedroom upstairs with a wall of windows looking out onto a beautiful wooden terrace that was often occupied by raccoons.
The recovery felt appropriate, considering the operation. Those first couple days, meds a-rockin’, emotion seeped out like my blood in the dangling drains. Poor Mark contended with bursts of grief and anger, at all the time lost, at all the self-hate, at all that could have been. He’d sit with me, listen to me, rub my back, be patient with me. He monitored my medication and measured the drained blood, which dripped through two tubes that came from a tiny hole under each armpit. At the bottom hung little partially red, translucent orbs on either side of my waist.
I was grateful for painkillers and Shark Tank and Guy’s Grocery Games. Mark could be on Triple G or Chopped, I do believe. Something delicious was always brewing, from dal to apple crisp like nothing. No recipes and always delicious.
Mark stayed with me for a week and a half. A couple days post-op I had my wits about me again. After eating a meal, Mark started fiddling with the Omnichord he had brought, a synth instrument originally developed in 1981. Not very big, it can rest in your lap. With it you have everything from drums to guitar to organ, a little electric world to uncover. Melodies simmered with the rice, beats worked themselves out on the table, the crunch of a half-full popcorn bag offered an interesting sound. Finding the words and the flow, the tone and heart, we set up a recording zone in the compact spare room. Mark brought a 4-track and a microphone, and we started to put the songs together. We huddled, crouched on the carpet, listening back, recording again, lyrics scribbled, changing words, laughing and surprising ourselves, completely lost in creation, in each other, the moment, like being kids again. How lucky that we will always have those songs. How lucky am I for Mark, my love.
This was the most time we’d spent together since backpacking through Eastern Europe. Long, meandering journeys leading us back to the frigid winter in Queen West, Toronto, thirteen years after Juno’s premiere. He was my guest at that Toronto International Film Festival. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he saw me as hair and makeup did their final touches. His eyes were big, an expression like a stomach drop, he looked on with noticeable concern. I had the urge to take him aside, to explain, but what was there to say?
And after this, there was a drift. We no longer lived in the same city and I progressively disappeared as I tucked myself away. I didn’t want to see that expression on his face, I didn’t want to be reminded, I already knew. It all felt choiceless. And we never really did talk about it, I felt embarrassed, ashamed, betraying myself felt like betraying him, too.
He knew it wasn’t me then. Now, he knew it was.
A couple days after my surgery, we drove to High Park, one of our old haunts as teens. Overestimating my abilities, I grew weak as we were nearing the end of our stroll. Deep breaths, I took my time, not wanting to admit I might not make it. Walking up a hill, I winced. Closing my eyes, I felt Mark hold my hand, squeezing it tight, and we made our way home.
By two weeks I was up and back at it (somewhat). I just would not be able to lift anything over five pounds for the next couple months. I was alone, and changing my nipple bandages on my own was an adjustment. The shock of seeing them, bruised and unrecognizable, tiny bubbles of blood, every time thinking I’d done something wrong and every time learning I had not. The prospect of taking off the compression vest for good, to have my chest out, forward, unconfined … wordless, leaning into the mystical. But this was not my imagination. This was finally it. I had to block it out and just wait for the time to tick or it barely fucking ticked. A few more weeks.
The most painful point for me was having the drains removed. Massive needle after massive needle to freeze around the tiny holes under my pits. The nurse stood beside me, speaking calmly as I tried to let go, to embrace the hurt. When both sides were frozen the surgeon was set to remove the tubes. The nurse counted down from three … two … one, the doctor pulled, it wiggled under my skin, an angry worm forced out from my insides.
I purchased too many button-down shirts online. Typically too big, but some work out. Putting on each, I looked at my profile in the mirror, huge grin, running my hand from my neck to my abdomen. A mini fashion show, a montage sequence gone on way too long. My phone filled up with pictures of my smooth chest, the new angles, that smile. It healed well, as planned, my left side a few days behind the right.
And when the vest was gone and the nipple bandages done … well, I have no words for that.
* * *
As a trans person and a public one, the sensation is that I’m always pleading for people to believe me, which I imagine most trans people relate to. Tired of the wink and nod. When I came out in 2014, the vast majority of people believed me, they did not ask for proof. But the hate and backlash I received were nothing compared to now. Not even close. I was not nervous to tell anyone in my close circle when I came out as gay, but disclosing this new information felt different. I do wonder what some friends say behind my back, what they really think when they look at me.
I am sick of the creepy focus on my body and compulsion to infantilize (which I have always experienced, but nothing like this). And it isn’t just people online, or on the street, or strangers at a party, but good acquaintances and friends.
“You look adorable,” a pal said at an awards show after-party. Someone who is a Pulitzer Prize–winning progressive force. You’re feeling dashing AF, literally for the first time at an event, and then a friend has to roll in with that. Fuck you, “adorable.”
“Wow, one of my best friends is trans?!” a bosom buddy said in response to me being me.
“I guess that is just something you don’t make a comment about,” one of my dearest friends said on the heels of a long pause after I shared my decision to get top surgery, one of the first people I told. She most certainly made “a comment” without “making a comment” and proceeded to make more, offering her opinion unprompted. I couldn’t talk to her for a long time.
“My friend asked if you’re going to get the other surgery…”
“I was surprised to hear your voice, but I will get used to it.”
Or the classic: “This won’t give you all the answers, you know that, right?”