TOTTIE HAS LANDED.

 

Tottie. I’ve landed, exhausted, 18 hours in a plane with hundreds of strangers is not my idea of fun, but then there really is no other way. Unlike Tom I really couldn’t splash out and go business class. I should have booked a seat but ended up right at the back by the toilets and no chance of sleeping. At Dubai I was sure my luggage would be lost, but miraculously it all appeared on the carrousel at Perth. I tried to take a leaf out of Tom’s book when packing but still ended up with two large bags, and somehow managed to stay under the limit. I know I’m only here for a month, but shoes take up so much room. Charley’s youngest daughter Nicky picked me up from the airport holding a large handwritten NADIN sign. I’d already been in touch with her and she hugged me like the long lost relative that I am. We stayed up chatting into the night, looking at old photos of Tom’s previous visits, and I can now understand why he wanted to make it out here again. I’m so excited to meet them all at New Year, and Charley has said I must join them on the trip over to Bremer Bay.

New Year, mid-morning. We’d made an early start and arrived at Kent Road just in time for coffee. They were all waiting on the front door step as we drove up, Lara Charley and father-in-law Tim, and two other visiting friends, but Tom was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if he’d done another one of his disappearing tricks, or had caught wind of my arrival and was now hiding in the walk in wardrobe. After hugs we unpacked the boot and Charley lugged my cases in. They had a house full for New Year so he popped my things into the first bedroom, which l thought might have been Tom’s since it had what looked like his latest needlework propped up against the wall. Once into the kitchen Charley shouted to Tom down in the sitting room that someone was here to see him. He struggled out of the chair and stood for a short while rubbing his hip before looking our way. It’s difficult to describe the look on his face, some sort of strange mix of delight and shock horror rippled across it in quick succession. A somewhat forced smile and look of embarrassment followed by, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Well that’s a fine way to greet a friend”, said Charley, and I began to question the wisdom of making my visit a surprise.  Tom recovered quickly with a large grin, and we made a rather awkward embrace as everyone looked on, obviously delighted by our reunion. Thankfully it was Charley who took over from there, explaining how the secret of my arrival had been kept, however I could see that a more expansive back story was required. Charley was all ready to whisk us off to the beach in the Land Rover for their traditional New Year’s Eve brunch, but it was Lara (a very wise and observant woman) who suggested that maybe we would like some time together to catch up. So, off they all went and left us to have coffee by the pool.

Tom. “What the fuck!” I knew something was up, but I didn’t see this one coming. Tottie in WA was simply not on my radar. I’d known about her looking into her family tree, but thought little of it. Now here she was. We sat in silence for several minutes out by the pool, while both of us wondered what to say. I thought she was going to burst into tears, but then all of sudden she roared with laughter. “The look on your face was priceless”, and I began to see the funny side of it all. Right from the start we’d been doing this ridiculously clumsy dance around each other, and it was time to get in step. So, yes; I’ve been on a female hormone treatment for the past 18 months, my body has changed shape, and at times my emotions were all over the place, torn between mourning the loss of my masculinity and embracing my newfound female side. Coming to terms with being a chemically neutered man is not easy. There is both anger and disgust in equal measure, but an overriding powerlessness to change what is inevitable if one wants to continue living. More than ever now I thought myself lucky to have done that work back in my mid-thirties on discovering what made me tick. However, I still felt ill equipped to deal with such an unexpected turn of event. Nobody thinks they are going to get cancer, why would they. We drift blindfold into the future rarely giving a thought to what is inevitable. Advanced age brings with it infirmity and illness. We become our own pill-popping parents, something we said would never happen to us, and yet here we are fighting for our lives, every day another miraculous blessing, or a determined struggle with the bum hand of cards we’ve been dealt. I can now look Tottie in the face and know she has always been a part of me, quietly hidden from public view. Remembering now how I loved as a child to go through that box of my mother’s old clothes, to twirl around and dance in a long frock, and later in life the pleasure I derived from putting on makeup for a party, and to be what we saw as being outrageous. The hormone treatment I’ve received has simply made me look again, and I do now see that as a positive thing. I can count myself fortunate in having this opportunity of experience. Tottie will always with me, we are one in the same person. I feel different for sure, but I also feel complete, wiser and more powerful, and nothing like that which society sees as being “A REAL MAN”. I hope that over the past year you have enjoyed reading about my adventures with Tottie, and will continue to enjoy the part she now plays in my life. We also hope you will continue to enjoy our creative output, be it with a needle, paintbrush or some other manual skill. No sooner had my latest piece come off the stretcher than another old section of blanket took its place. This time it is the turn of the tiny jetty that sits south of the Clannish stones. I’m part way into the drawing but still have little idea of what it will look like when complete. Much like my own life, I love the often random way in which it has developed.