Good morning from the Reed College library. It is outrageously quiet, the students having returned to their homes on the East Coast, a summer of Sloth and boredom. I always have a special place in my heart for the summer student workers, who clean the messes left behind, feed the slow moving professors who return to their offices to work on that book they’ve been flogging at for fifteen years, the one that will give them fame and a place at Yale or better. The library workers this summer are prominently queer. Do they have homes to return to in Trump’s America?
It is Pride Month. I remember once that a quaker pastor I was friends with said, “Pride is important for the soul, even if it is a deadly sin. Sometimes you need to inoculate yourself with Pride so you can survive the more deadly sins of ignorance, discrimination, and despair.” Wise words from a wise woman, rushing off on her motor bike in black leathers and red hair.
I’ve been thinking about the deadly sins lately, for poetry reasons. Sloth, pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, and glottony. The ancient tome of knowledge (Wikipedia), the deadly sins are rooted in evil thoughts, which can be catagorized as:
- Physical (thoughts produced by the nutritive, sexual, and acquisitive appetites)
- Emotional (thoughts produced by depressive, irascible, or dismissive moods)
- Mental (thoughts produced by jealous, boastful, or hubristic states of mind).
According to the Quaker pastor, deadly sins are any sin that takes us away from community and ourselves. Kill our joy. Kill our spirit. Kill our ability to be together and to be with ourselves. They kill US; that is what needs to be remembered.
So, what are a trans version of the deadly sins?
- Sloth: the inability to leave your house, to fall into despair or quiet, to not do the work of transition. Who want it to happen for them, rather than to see this as magic that deserves our blood. Or the sloth of the closet. The closet feels safe, but safety will kill you in the end.
- Wrath: We all lash out at each other, because who else are we going to lash at? But that takes us away from each other. It kills the person who “deserves” the wrath, and it kills our ability to love and do a bunch of work to be there for each other.
- Greed: Some of us are trans rich. Some of us are desperately poor. All of us are struggling. Capitalism kills us when we are kept out of the market.
- Guttony: What is trans gluttony? This is one I need to linger on longer. I have no idea how they correspond.
- Pride: Pride makes us whole. It makes us see ourselves as special. It makes us feel like we are part of something greater than ourselves. It can be a great motivation, pride. It can also keep us from seeking help when we need it. “I’ve done so much…I don’t need anyone else.” That way of thinking will get you killed.
- Lust: A little bit of lust is a beautiful thing. Trans bodies are inheritently beautiful bodies, and worshipping those bodies feels like worshipping ourselves. But it’s easy to only become lust. To only see our value in how fuckable and unfuckable we are. And that way leads to obsession, and that way leads to suffering.
- and the most difficult one for me: Envy.
What do I envy in other trans women? Their skinniness. Their passability. Their bodies that are able to be recreated in their own vision. Their sexiness. Their girlfriends. Their money. Their tallness. Their softness. Their resources that make them able to do what they want. Their families. Their sluttiness and boldness. Their ability to find the others easier. Their delight. The fact that they came of age without having to deal with so much suicide and despair. Their lack of mourning beads. Their ability to choose sex work if they want to. Their community of new girls that they found and built together. Their stitching to one another in a way that I don’t feel I had at the time. Their number. Their strength.
Envy fills my heart as much as compassion does, and I am a festering wound because of it. I want to be better than that. But envy has set up a house in my heart, like Jesus, without consent.
-Later-
Jade and I just returned from the coast. We made the decision to kill our phones for most of the trip, and to be more present with each other, more present in our sacred boredom, let ourselves not be pulled in all directions by notifications and algorithmic pulls. I spent most of my time in front of a giant picture window, watching the waves lick the shoreline over and over. Listened to the drone of the Ocean rubbing against the land, little erosions on the hills and trees. Watched birds hover over the water. Watched children and dogs frolic on the silica silt, their owners following close by. Surfers cutting through the waves.
We were on the younger half of the other people in this small town (Manzanita. Vacation playground of Portland lawyers and college professors, it seems). We ate overpriced fish and pizza. We drank good coffee (which was non-existant when I was younger). We wrote and solved puzzles, played games, did individual crafts, took walks, just sat their and watched. It was relaxing. It was rebuilding. It was good.
Unemployment butt in. Had to apply for the week’s check, apply for new jobs, read emails in my car. But mostly, it was quiet. All I needed.
Gus was upset when we came home yesterday. Didn’t forgive our leaving him behind. Hid from us for a few hours. Then came back in, and licked my nose, and said “I love you” in lusty mrawrs. We are all good again.
One thousand words here. Love you all to bits. Happy pride.