DRESSING AS ART

ll art begins with an audience of one. The beginning artist experiments with whatever she can find, wherever she can find it. She is her own canvas, her own blank sheet of paper. But then she ties something here, or colors something there. A ribbon, some rouge, a little perfume. She slips into an item of apparel, and then everything in the world is new to her. She has become…something, or someone…she is not sure, but she has never quite been this before. It is the becoming which fascinates her. An afternoon goes by in the blink of an eye.
She experiences all of the excruciating emotions that any young artist feels. All of the taboos of art weigh her down, and all the dangerous turns await. Art is obsession. Art is expression on the razor’s edge. Art is where we go to discover what we need, but can never understand.
I was that young artist. Like most dressing artists in their teens, I denied my talents, even to myself, and I hid my art within a closet, away from a world that had taught me to fear. I practiced my art alone for a very long time.
And then I discovered that there were other artists like me, hundreds and thousands of artists like me. I remember the day I first uttered the word that defined my art: transvestite. Saying it made a difference. And so, all else was in place before I had come to accept myself.
Art is not reality. A painting of a mountain is not a mountain. A poem about a storm is not a storm. A man dressed as a woman is not a woman.
Art is artificial. Art pretends. Art imagines the impossible and then does what it must to trick us all into believing that the impossible is really quite possible after all.
When it is beautiful and true, art looks easy. But the most beautiful truth in art is that it is not easy at all. It takes enormous commitment. It takes passion. It takes effort, failure, suffering, time, and solitude.
Not everyone who dresses is an artist. But I am. My life is better, deeper, richer for having finally embraced my art. If I do not abuse the magic, if I remain humble and curious, follow my intuition, remain fascinated by the process, remembering that all art is play…well, then that is enough. My art fulfills me in the doing. When others tell me I am beautiful, that too is heady stuff. But that is not why I do it.
As with all art, the artist must finally accept that she will never really know why she does it.
For some very few there is a mystic strength in the art, a grace we ourselves cannot comprehend, and which only remains by giving up ambition, by looking at ourselves in a sideways squint.
I am walking a hard dry path by a pond. It is evening. The sunset is pink and violet and gold. The wind is light, like nylon to the touch. There is music in birdsong and music in frogsong. There is a hint of woodsmoke in the air. The cat-tails nod as if to say hello. I feel The Yin and The Yang in my one body, and I am become whole, even though I know that nothing here is real.

Who?

nce upon a time there was a boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing. He was a nice boy. Everyone said so, although many people thought that the boy asked too many questions, and his questions, they thought, were bothersome. Because his questions were bothersome, many people told the boy that his questions would only lead him into trouble, if he continued to ask and ask, as he did.
But the boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing continued to ask his questions, even when there were no answers.
The boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing asked "What?" and "How?" and "Where?" and "When?" and "Why?" But mostly the boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing asked "Who?"
He was like an owl, the boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing.
Everyone said so.
"You are thus and such," everyone said.
But the boy asked "Who?"
"You should grow up to be thus and such," everyone said.
And again the boy asked "Who?"
"Oh, you are just like an owl," everyone said.
"Who?" the boy asked, and then he pretended he had turned into an owl, and he dreamed an owl dream that seemed as real as barns and cats and corn and trees.
"Who?" the boy asked, and he flew without a sound into the night. The boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing flew and flew over ponds and orchards, over rivers and forests, over the broad fields and rolling hills of the land he had always called home.
Then someone yelled, "Hey, wake up! You can't do that!"
"Who?" asked the boy, but it was too late. His dream had been broken, and he fell to earth, and died.
But when he died, the boy who liked to think and dream, pretend and sing turned into an angel. The angel was not the boy, but the angel had always been a part of the boy, even when the boy had not been dreaming.
The new angel was met by her sisters, who spread her wings, and showed her that she was beautiful.
"Who?" the new angel asked.
And her sisters answered, "Anyone."
"Who?" the new angel asked again.
And her sisters answered, "Everyone."
The new angel and her sisters flew off into the night. They flew and they flew until they came to a land of enormous mountains that sparkled under the moonlight. Here the new angel and her sisters came down to rest.
The new angel and her sisters found enchantment in the shadows of the enormous mountains. Angels who wished to think and dream could think and dream all night long. Angels who wished to pretend could pretend all they wished. And many angels sang and sang where the junipers scented the air like perfume, and the streams whispered about a thousand possibilities.
"Who?" the new angel asked.
"Anyone," her sisters sang.
"Who?" the new angel asked again.
And her sisters answered, "Everyone."

Revealing Suzie To The Spouse...

n July of 1998, I revealed to my wife, Tess, that I was a transvestite. I went slowly then, and I continue to move slowly. Right away, Tess accepted me, although she had many fears and concerns that we had to work through, one at a time. Since July, however, I have been able to be entirely honest and open with her, and this has helped our relationship enormously.
This is the story of the first time I showed Tess what I look like as Suzie, live and in person. She had seen the early photos here on my homepage, but being in the same room with one's husband, when he is dressed as a woman, is quite different than viewing pictures.
Tess accepted me and my femme image as well as--or even better--than I could have hoped. I believe that I had thought the process through as carefully as anyone might have, and that my preparation was again essential to keeping us both in a mood of acceptance and trust. We were travelling out of town. Tess herself had pointed out that this would be the very best time for me to show her my female image, and then she said I should pack an extra suitcase.
The first thing we did when we got into town was to go shopping. I had already planned to buy her a nice dress. So we went to the mall and walked and shopped and thought about our kids and held hands. It was very nice. Then we raced across town to shop in the thrift stores I have come to know alone. Immediately, Tess was helpful, as we talked about my needs for a Halloween costume. We bought several things for Tess and several things for Suzie, and we had a few laughs about how our tastes are so different.
This next point is important. As soon as we checked into the hotel, and got to our room, we made love. This also was not a spur of the moment thing, as I had thought ahead about how important it would be to confirm my love for Tess before I began the process of transformation. Furthermore, I thought that this might calm me some and keep me from being nervous.
As I began applying makeup I kept up a running talk with Tess, although she was around the corner and out of sight, reading magazines and watching television. Several times she commented about how good it felt just to be off by ourselves, away from the house and the kids and our jobs.
I cautioned that I would probably be bleeding a bit after shaving, which surprised her. I tried to hint that she might want to watch a bit more as I worked on my eyes, but she was slow to understand my hint, so finally I just asked for help with the eyebrows, eye liner, and mascara. I was quite glad I asked, too, because she gave me some "mini-lessons" about the look and the techniques of application. Still, soon she went to lie down again as I continued. One other time she came to the sink to watch as I applied beard cover. She was surprised at the red required to counteract the beard, but she took it well, and complimented me on the final job I had done on my eyes.
Thereafter, however, she did not return to see me, despite my hints. I know now that I should have simply approached her myself, or I should have asked her to come to the sink to see. This is because I went ahead and completed the makeup and began dressing. There is a kind of acceleration to my process that occurs after I complete the makeup. I take forever on my face, but the clothes seem to go on quickly. So when I had finished with everything but the wig, I knew it was important to have Tess view me again.
I called out to prepare her for what I thought might be a bit of a shock. "I'm fine," she said. "It's okay." So I came around the corner as a woman, except for the hair. She was stunned, but she was not scared. She was not speechless, but she was careful. She talked about how different I suddenly looked. The cincher is part of it...and the outer clothes, of course, especially the legs and heels. She commented on how good my legs looked and I thanked her. "Are you alright?" I asked. "Should I continue?" She said it would be okay, but was honest that I had startled her already, and I could hear it in her voice. So I put on the wig.
She was impressed. Suddenly she said that the only thing of her husband that she had to hang onto was the voice; otherwise, she said, this was a new person in the room. "I know," I said. I had told her ahead of time how important it is for transvestites that we not horrify. All of our work goes into beauty and attraction, when all of our feelings are working overtime in the fear of being rejected. She is a very, very smart lady, my Tess. I believe that she was as kind as she could possibly be. She was amazing. She advised me about my walk. She asked about the size of hands. She said that, except for my voice, I was passing. I felt some doubt about that, thinking she might just be acting kindly for my feelings' sake. "So I could walk out to the car in the parking lot, get something, and come back without being read?" I asked. "Yes," she said, "but the way you look, you'd probably be whistled at, at least." I seriously considered going out, and said so. She shrugged, but I thought it really best to stay with her.
We had ordered pizza. Now we kidded about whether I should be the one to meet the delivery boy when he arrived. "You'd give him a thrill," she said, "or a heart attack." (Isn't she sweet!) But I went into the bathroom and put on my nails when the pizza arrived.
I was still concerned about Tess's feelings, so I only carefully entered the subject of pictures. But again I had prepared ahead and made it easy for her if she accepted the idea. She did. She was getting more and more comfortable with my presence, and we were joking. I asked for help with a button on my sleeve, and though she did not say anything right then, later on she told me how I really had become a different person--how I felt so different to her touch, how I smelled different as a result of the makeup. Everything was different, she later said. I was careful not to embrace her, but I tried to squeeze her hand with my own in a way that told her how I appreciated her, reinforcing all I had been saying already, over and over. It was true. I was calm on the outside, but you know my heart was racing. I was thrilled, and frightened.
So Tess took a few pictures, we laughed and talked about the future, and that was it. I undressed quickly and washed and washed, and returned to her and the pizza. She was glad to have her man back, she said, and I understood. I held her and I cried and talked about how lucky I am.
I firmly believe that you can only successfully reveal the femme in yourself to a wife only if you confront your own emotions and let these come out entirely. She had to know how frightened I had always been of what had just occurred, and she had to see that I was reduced to nothing but my emotional honesty in a true appreciation of her acceptance. Those things are more real to a loving wife than the physical image. She talked about how it made her think about who it is she loves. She said how everyone talks about loving the inner person, but that this was not at all easy for her to remember in the presence of Suzie. She was challenged by that idea, she said, and had held onto my voice during the evening, as a link to my heart. And then we talked about the future.
I post this writing that it may serve others in their relationships. May you be blessed as I have been!