A Place Inside the Pines

     I went to a wedding last weekend in my native Ohio. I hardly know the newly-weds (I don't even have either of their phone numbers) but I was invited because the bride and I were childhood friends and our parents have remained very close. 

    I never feel comfortable in Ohio. Overly self-aware. Mainly because anyone I happened to know at this wedding knew me before I was a woman. When I am chatting with people I imagine they think I'm mentally ill and then like magic, I feel mentally ill. I imagine that when our interaction ends and we continue on our millings about, eventually they leave and in the utter most privacy of their home, they talk about that girl-thing. I only think this happens because my family does it, too. It's all anyone in Ohio does anyhow. Gossip, gossip, gossip...and then have a cry. 

    I used to wonder if only my mom did this. But during the reception I ran out of the dance floor area and found a massive pine tree with a sort of low canopy I could hide in. It became my safe haven. I basically spent the entire reception under that tree as girls from childhood came to bum cigarettes and we'd talk about the past. "Does everyone here's mom talk so much shit?" They do. "And then she starts crying," said one of the girls, "and then all the kids have to console her till she falls asleep." "Yep, exactly, mine too." 

    All of the girls who joined me under the pine tree were girls that I always wanted to be when I was younger. Some them have brothers, like I do, but I always wanted to be with the girls and the moms. Dads scared me. I was too attracted to the brothers. Interestingly, having become a woman, being around these girls in adulthood is not what I thought it would feel like. They are all incredibly kind, but I can't help but feel like there's something I'm not in on. Our histories are shared but our projections of who we are and who we have become are totally skewed. A closeness that is almost unbearable even though I have to remind myself their names and where they live every 5 minutes, losing the ability to listen to what they have to say. It feels like an Olympic sport, remembering everything. 

    The girls always treated me nice when we were kids, but I was always other. I was a boy. They were girls. Then I became a girl and I still feel other. Some things really can't change, I guess.

    I did my best to be outgoing, to ask many questions. I nervously went up to the bride at a cocktail party the night before the wedding. Even though I've known her since birth, I felt a bit intimidated. I felt like maybe I shouldn't say anything at all to her, but I knew it was the polite thing to do. "You know what's crazy," I said, "I haven't even met your fiancé yet!" "Uhm, yes you have. You met him last Christmas. He was actually asking this morning if you were still coming. You should go say hi, he's over there." I fell apart inside. I remembered him again once she told me that. I told her I was just drunk. (I wasn't.) 

    On the small airplane to Ohio from New York, I reminded myself in my diary to try and not say a word about myself unless somebody asks. Even then I reminded myself to lie a little, to not give too much away like I always do. 

    Nobody asked me anything about my life. I was relieved. People would ask me where I lived and then they'd move on or walk away entirely. I kept waiting for someone to ask me about my love life but nobody did, at least not till after midnight. By the time anyone asked me about my love life, I was gone. I was in another place. I was listening to music in my mind or something and thinking about him. 

    At one point, this small woman in a cheap dress came stumbling up to the tree. She must've been 35 or so. "Give me a cigarette." She was wasted. "You went to Oakwood right? I remember when you were like 2 years old I would babysit you." She went on and on. "My daughter goes to Oakwoood now. It's changed A LOT." Her drink kept teetering off the branch I was using to hold my cocktail and my belongings. "Do you have any weed? I want to get into this but I need weed." I don't smoke weed. "So, my daughter says that there are trans girls, teenagers, in the girls bathrooms. I got so mad so I called the principle and told him he was a little bitch for letting teenage boys dress up as girls so they can watch my daughter piss and shit." I was astonished but I let her keep going. "Oh! And then my daughter tells me the trans girl is going into the locker room and jacking off onto my daughter's clothes! Oakwood is so messed up now, man. You wouldn't understand it's crazy. Do not make the mistake of letting your kids go there. It's not the same as when we were there. It's awful."  

    The richest man in the world was at the wedding. He started dating someone at the wedding's mom recently. He danced. The small girl in the cheap dress tried to talk to him but she couldn't keep it together and I found her later on under my pine tree looking for cigarettes. 

    The only other real smoker at the wedding was Diane. She must've been 90. She would shuffle her way over to me, in her neon pink satin shaw and a voice as deep as the devil's. She went and found my mom to tell her that I was the only other smoker at the wedding and that she loved me. She became a safe face for me. Every time I felt shy I'd look for Diane across the dining area or from my pine tree. 

    There was a mom at the wedding who had a fixation with me. I noticed her at the ceremony. She was 4 rows ahead and she was rubbernecking every chance she could to look at me. It was a look of love and hatred. I couldn't tell. I avoided her the rest of the evening as best I could. During the first dance of the bride and groom, I snuck away up to the old cottage on the hill to use the bathroom. The scary mother was in there, fixing her makeup and texting someone. The tension was palpable, my palms instantly sweaty. In my memory I am looking at her through the mirror like in a movie but I think she turned around to look at me and didn't use the mirror. You could hear a pin drop. I don't know what it was. She was so stoic. The silence between lasted maybe 3 seconds but it felt like an eternity. I was face-to-face with my fear of the day. Suddenly, she smiled so fast. "I love your dress where's it from?" she asked. "Marc Jacobs. I got it on The RealReal for like $60." "Oh my god, I LOVE The RealReal. I need to get back on there." Then she walked out of the bathroom and I wanted to go wherever she went. I misinterpreted her stares. I went into a stall and sat down and smiled as I pissed.

    I got back to my pine tree and slowly all the girls from my childhood were approaching like a swarm. There were only 4 of them but it felt overwhelming because they were seemingly all coming from different directions, alone, at the same time, like I was being guerrilla'd. I gave everyone cigarettes one by one. I began to feel like a witch or something. Like they were all kids still and I somehow aged on to be this lady who hides in the tree and gives all the kids poisonous candies. Innocent yet scandalous at the same time.

    In the car on the way home, I felt very happy. I liked seeing those girls from my past. Being under a pine tree with them felt in many ways the same as when we were children, though this formation was not coherently organized. It was like this tree called for us to go in there and chit chat again. They were all very sweet, much more well-adjusted than I had suspected. I wanted to be friends with them again. Things didn't ever get very deep, we mainly talked about our parent's suffering and not our own. We talked about jobs and cities. Boyfriends. Boys boys boys. I met a girl named Crickett. She was a guest of one of my childhood friends. She would pop in and then leave the tree to go talk to the only single man at the reception. She deserves an entire blog entry of her own, but I'll get there later. 

    For the first time in my adult life, I felt a bit like maybe I wish I'd had an extra day or two to see all these kids from my childhood. I used to avoid them, I'd see them at the grocery store and I'd cover my face or turn around. I one time sprinted away in a parking lot and hid behind a car. They just wanted to say hi but I didn't have the stamina to withstand it because I am a coward when it comes to confronting my past. New York is my real life, I tell myself, and Ohio is a fictional, imagined, and completely hallucinatory part of my story, but that isn't true. It's all very real. Maybe New York is the fictional part. I can't really tell. Lala land.