Butch-to-Butch

Butch-to-butch

Will you take a moment with me?

Butch-to-Butch?

I worry that us Butches do not take care of our bodies enough. Are we crying enough, are we throwing our sorrow, pain, grief back into the wind enough? Are we feeling elation within our own bodies and image enough? Are we allowing ourselves to be with ourselves enough? We do not need to carry heavy feelings like pillars of rot. 

And I work and I work all day and night

I wonder if I'm ever gonna get it right

I push and I push to get ahead

I know I gotta make my daily bread 

I know I don't have time to lose

I wonder if I really have time to choose

I barely have time to shed a tear

I hardly have time to shake the fear (La Vita - Beverly Glenn-Copeland Lyrics)

Whilst reading Stone Butch Blues, an aspect that stuck with me the most was: the notion of being ‘Stone’. What stuck with me is this shared fear of joy escaping us, which Leslie spoke on. For me, for a lot of my life, I’ve felt a fear of sitting in joy. That this wasn’t what someone like myself was supposed to feel for too long. Long periods of joy wasn’t something that was meant to become permanent - a home - for me. This was always at odds with the lessons my mother taught me - to enjoy your life, no matter what is thrown your way. But, I can’t deny, it was always, and still sometimes is, so much easier to stay in the fear. To stay in the ‘Stone’. To stay in this paralysis, which temporarily saves us from feeling it all.

There is a weight we might feel, as Butches, to balance it all. To be authentically ourselves, protecting the masculine that is important to us, sometimes afraid of what the vulnerability or perhaps perceived weakness might mean to the rest of the world, when we’ve fought so long and hard to get it right. However, vulnerability is the key to our joy, to our purest forms of expression. To deny ourselves, for fear of weakness, for fear of making a mistake, for fear of being taken for a fool - is to deny our greatest parts of ourselves.

I get it. I’ve fought long and hard enough to find this Butch within me and alight its world on fire, so that the world would see my beautiful masculinity. Sometimes I am too defiant for my own good. Too tough. This Butch can turn to Stone too often.

This leads me to want to know, to have to ask, my fellow Butch, how do you melt your Stone? 

There are so many ways, aren’t there? So many ways to soften and melt back into our feelings and our love, and allow vulnerability. I would like to share some of my own, and I would love for another Butch to hear me out. Deeply. I need another Butch to hear me out, deeply. I need another Butch, sometimes, to just hold me. I know you do too. I want to share a memory with you.

My mother grew up working-class, carrying a genetic physical Irish strength in her body. She has always moved her body and proved her strength. She didn’t talk so much about her own feelings, but she is the softest woman in the world, who has a heart that burns away for all. Her feelings went into her statuesque body. I grew up watching her in the living room, with a baby on her, using strapped tins of tomatoes as weights in both hands, as she lunged across the room, back and forth for hours. She would do headstands against the wall whilst watching tv, stretching her legs whilst reading the tv guide. My mother was supposed to be a gymnast, yet she injured her wrist whilst young. Gymnastics and dance were the way my mother’s strength melted into her beauty and her vulnerability; her pain and her joy. 

Fast forward, a somewhat odd daughter/son, in her eyes, grew up - me. Music I got from my father, movement I got from my mother. I am a dancer. To dance is the only language I can speak fluently - and I’m a published writer and poet. Ha. It is the way I open up my body again, the way I can see my mother’s body replicated within mine. My guide home. 

The only way I can allow myself and the world to look at my vulnerability and I do not feel afraid. I look the audience in the eye and want them to see and feel it all. More importantly, I can face myself and feel good about all the feelings I have. And trust me, I have a lot. I am so soft really, and I love this about me. At the soft belly of what is me, is where you will find my joy, laughter. In moments of movement, it feels that joy will last forever for me, and it is my birthright. Through this, I discover over and over again: I am charming, soulful, cheeky, hopeful, sweet and silly.

My mother taught me the most fundamental lesson a Butch could need to know. To keep moving, in whatever capacity I can, through life; to keep accepting that joy could be a possibility at any corner I turn. That the only permanence I should avoid, is to stop, to be defeated, to give-in, and even to become stagnant within my Stone.

So, do something with me. Even just for 30 seconds. Put on ‘La Vita’ by Beverly Glenn-Copeland - a trans masculine elder who guides me daily. Find a mirror, look yourself in the eyes, then open your arms wide to the rhythm, bring them forward, look at your shoulders, your biceps, your chest, to your stomach; run your hands across yourself with care. Listen deeply to the words. Wiggle your fingers, your toes; roll your neck around, spin your body, find a new energy, be free. Think about someone who knows you, the whole you, it may be someone like your mother. For me, it is. Let their image of love wash over you, and if you can, let out a cathartic release. Let go. Go on, give yourself a smile/wink in the mirror whilst perhaps a few tears wet your cheeks, champ. You are beautiful, your Butch body is gorgeous; it deserves worship too.