I keep looking for labels. When I first read about nonbinary identities, I think of my family, and whether there might exist a word in Polish that means the same thing.

When I do hear Springsteen’s “4th of July, Asbury Park,” I won’t long for something I never had because I was born too late. I’ll let the song wash over me gently, wistful for all the people I knew who made the best of bad luck down the shore.

“We were talking about all the places we wanted to visit, all the people we wanted to be. When she asked to kiss me, I said yes.”

Everything looks better when you’re in love, and Nevada City was no exception.

A teen dyke wanders around the country in the early 2000’s, armed with an Ameripass and a journal.

I spent my adolescence trying to be a boy. I wasn’t very good at it, but I tried really, really hard. I didn’t wear bright colors, I didn’t listen to pop music, I didn’t even style my hair until I was 17. I certainly wasn’t the kind of person to dress in drag. And yet I was. And yet I did. Because when I was 16 I won a drag show in Florence.

Considering the discomfort my friends and loved ones experience when we travel together, or when I share what I think are unremarkable experiences of microaggressions or discrimination, has helped me understand the degree to which I’ve normalized things that are not normal.

I didn’t expect us to create a Blood Moon Healing Circle Ceremony. It wasn’t on the emailed itinerary. Why did we even feel the need to create it? Two words: intergenerational trauma.

In the span of a few hours, in two different Indian airports I experienced a spectrum of responses to my gay trans self that would serve as a microcosm of not only my trip, but of my entire queer experience. There are no guarantees, so I’m learning to be my own safe space.