Remembering

lost In my favourite book, a book I sometimes feel that I wrote, “The Poetics Of Transgender”, there’s section called “Loss.” It’s the one we read and re-read. This is all about loss. To be someone else is to lose ourselves, our self. Some of us lose our body and find a new one forever. The old one may not have been wanted, but it’s lost anyway. You gain, you lose. You win, you lose. And then you present yourself, and you lose some people on the way. They are lost to you. They can’t connect with you anymore. You may find new people if you’re lucky – you may not. Is the old world well lost? Who can say? There’s only the moving forward. But we live with loss and grief alongside fulfilment. We get used to it, but we remember. There is no section in the book called “Nostalgia” but it’s here, if anywhere. Our past selves are not dead, just too painful, too difficult to reach? And some of us are now gone. But there’s only the moving forward. And outward, and onward. When inward is too much for us.