Travels with Amber: Spences Bridge

Morning. The sun has risen. It’s already warm on my face.  It’s above the mountain beyond the rushing Thompson.  The trains made some noise in the night but only once did I wake. I had sweet dreams and felt comfortable here in this camper, with my little dog sleeping through the night on the seats in the dining area. He’d be in bed with me as at home but I fear the jump down from the camper bed would not be good for his back.

I’ve cleaned my face enjoying the smell of dove soap. I’ve brushed my teeth with Colgate.  I thought of showering but really want a swim.  I like having a surplus of water too.  Later today.  

I wore the black nightie to bed with the sparkling word “sexy’ across the chest. I’ve had that for decades now. I’d wear it camping when I hunted alone in the mountains near Pemberton tenting.  The animus hunted. The anima lead back at camp.  Psychological mindedness, tolerating the tension of opposites.  I sometimes think that my masculinity has been ‘reaction formation’ and my femininity ‘identification with the aggressor’.  Yet I embrace both. I so enjoyed the strong young man and his pleasure but now older with less outlet for heavy lifting I’m rather enjoying more the feminine.   

I am a cross dresser.  My transexual psychiatrist friend joked when I lunched with her last month, “What’s the difference between a cross dresser and a transexual?  5 years. “ she said.  I’ve been cross dressing since I was an actor in my teens.  I played a school lead as a woman. It wasn’t an issue back then and I enjoyed those times.  I felt freeer, more creative and alive as only the young can be. Decades of being a doctor and a psychiatrist and an addiction medicine specialist I’ve grown weary of the social homogeneity, doctors dressing like lawyers and bankers.  I like my colleagues who wear shorts and hiking wear.  They are far beyond the white lab coat even.  Symbols of normalcy don’t seem as important.  

I’m technically bisexual by history. On my sad days I fear that when I was anally penetrated an bred the seeds of homosexuality were planted.  I was changed by trauma.  How melodramatic.  My cherry was bust and yet I’ve wallow in the self pity so many girls adopt to be one down and adopted. Of course it could be gentle.  A little lube would have gone a long way. But there are men in the gay community with a mean streak.  Feral.  In the war they were leaders in the SS.  Toxic masculinity describes them. I supposed the like raping boys and girls and the rape fantasies continue in society.  Shares of Grey and Sado masochism.  The most popular female fantasy is being ‘taken’ by a rich and powerful man.  

“Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?” He said.  

“I’d think about it”.  She replied.

“Would you have sex with me for a dollar?”

“What do you take me for?” She said.

“That’s already been decided. I”m just dickering for price”

I got the experience of being anally penetrated.  I said no so it’s technically raped. I was given my first blow job drunk and stoned.  I had sex with a man imagining a woman , so deluded by drugs and alcohol I couldn’t be accountable.  The social programming was broken.  I recoiled and returned to the tame world. I’d taken a walk on the wild side and didn’t return a billionaire but had a sore bum and a hell of a lot of shame.

Velvet Rage is the book I recommended to gay men.  We joked about men being ‘pussie’s’ and it wasn’t attractive.  Being gay was to be ostracized not like the tomboy or was she too a bit reviled.  It was definitely easier for her to return to her feminine role.  When a woman has a child all is forgiven.  So much of society is based on the need for children to man the armies of the world.  The demand only changed with industrialization. The birth control pill was created in 1952, the year of my birth.

The elite always have time and money for any indulgence.  The lower classes we’re too tired to be creative. The middle classes were upwardly mobile but cautious to retain there hard won status.  Homogeneity was the goal.  To fit in. Discretion was the rule.  Dr. Carl Jung differentiated the ‘self’ from the ‘persona’ or social self.  

I’ve done quite well till now.  I’ve served society and now with limited time left want to be free from  constraints.  There is little time for soon they’re just say ‘he’s demented. He’s psychotic’.  Difference is either mad or bad.  Wearing women’s clothes is my Klinger expression.  I don’t want to war no more.

Life is a journey, a grand one at this, This bit is a blip in the whole, a delightful embracing of the whole self.  Dr. Jung called these ‘bits’ the ‘Shadow’. Obviously there are darker aspects of life which were contained by ‘evolution’ but there’s also those other bits which are not so bad or wrong or demonic.  Society is evolving and we thankfully don’t need more children for war so heterosexuality and the trappings of the military are no longer the only game in town.  I like the expressions of the artist.  Besides I’m a sniper and called up as an old man I’d serve my community though really I’m a healer first and foremost. Killing is relatively easy by comparison.  The sheep dog is more advanced thatn the wolf in that regard .  I do imagine myself more a sheep dog, maybe even a bitch.