Trans Canada Trans 101

Field Notes

In/On Transition

Trans Canada Trans 101

So here's my dorky latest attempt at a video blog, I kind of like the  you can tell I am reading the text vibe, but I plan to get more professional in my presentation as I do more of these which if you follow along, you will see I am again promising to do more of. the TLDR version, is I am going to keep looking for low key work in the fall, and postpone my train trip until I get more financial secure (I am on the way)  and better at the video blogs throug actually doing some more of them... below is the transcript or script that I kind of painfully read in the video above...

I have been saying for about a year now, that I want to take a train trip across Canada on VIA rail and video blog it, little daily bits maybe, longer pieces in the places I stay for a few days, or weeks, about said place, hopefully talking to other Trans folks, family, and friends, as I have so many friends and family all across Canada. I was/am calling it Trans Canada Trans and well it’s not happening in the near future, but maybe the not too distant future instead. From this contract job I am finishing up this month with DOXA The Documentary Film Festival, I have gained more experience with editing, graphic design,photography software, and hardware. 

Doing something I enjoy and a good at all summer for a decent wage has done wonders for my self confidence, working wise. To explain my vague plans for the future though, I want to switch gears to my transition, which has been kind of my rock in the muddy garden, or some other mixed metaphor during my recent tough time with employment.

I have come to a calm state or some sort of plateau in my transition. I haven’t felt that life long sense of desperation that dogged me right up until this past winter. When I had to apply for welfare, and so many folks reached out to me and gave me small jobs or gifts of cash, and food, love and most important told me how much I mattered to them. I think I finally accepted this to be true, That I have finally come to a point in my life that I can stop running away from the idea of who I was ’supposed to be’ and accept that who I am is a person with friends, allies and a network. I used to be so desperate to prove to myself as much as everyone else, that I really was the woman I thought I could be. The person I wanted to be is the person that I am, and she is accepted, and loved. I think that even up until this past new year’s I didn’t really believe that it was true, I have become myself.

But I really have become acclimatized to ‘getting to be myself’ now going on 5 years since I started this part of the journey. I still have a hard time with being put on the spot about the future. I have no understanding of how people have all these five year plans at their fingertips when someone asks them their plans for the future, or even just how they are doing. I have so many plans, that I couldn’t possibly do all of them, let alone all at once. The last few months I have used most of my creative energy, really all my creative energy every day at work, doing my job, whether taking photos of events, panels, and so on, or designing postcards and other ephemera for events and fundraising, or editing videos that I shot, and others shot, ages ago that haven’t had a chance to get polished. I haven’t had the gumption to do more than a few spurts of Strawgirl paintings, and some cool instagramming via some great new photo manipulation apps.

Now it’s a couple of weeks left in this awesome gig, and I haven’t looked that hard for a follow-up, I am pretty sure I will get a good reference and have done some good networking with this job, but since I was able to save a bit over the summer, I have decided to use that to live and get some of the momentum back I had selling my own art and getting my writing going again at the same time. And yes, I will keep looking for some contract or short term gigs, or part time permanent things to supplement my ongoing artwork. I am redoubling my efforts to get the video blogging or at least some kind of blogging out far more often, to help build the Trans Canada Trans brand, and in doing so, perhaps find ways to fund doing the trans travel blog that I had initially intended with this. For now though, it’s going to be me in the neighbourhood, and around Vancouver, and not so much across Canada. But eventually I will get there.

Watch this space for updates soon and more regularly, updates about Strawgirl swag, my memoir, my new awesomely( but so far )secretly named quarterly zine/e-zine/recipe book, and whatever other weird things I come up with. Peace Out!