we all have to start somewhere - part the first

so why not at Paphos, like Aphrodite?

when She came forth from the sea after being born from the contact of Uranus' severed genitals with the ocean, She stepped foot on Cyprus and every type of flower bloomed to bring Her joy. i am not saying the same happened at my birth, but people were pleased that i was born. i was the first grandchild, and that's something to celebrate, but i was also a "save the marriage" baby, which almost never works out.

i didn't save the marriage. but that was the weight put on me long before i was born. that's a lot of undue pressure to place on a fetus, isn't it? no wonder i was anxiety baby. anyway, here's why i was unsuccessful: my dad was gay. there was no "saving the marriage" because the marriage was incompatible from its first moments. my dad, in later discussions, admitted that he married my mother to try and change him, make him hetero, but we also all know that never works out, either.

now he loved my mother deeply, that i do know. he had said so many times through my life that he loved her, wanted to make things work, but it was impossible. he was built to love and be attracted to men. there was no changing that no matter how hard he tried, so after i was born in 1979, they tried to make it work but by 1982, there was no improvement. both parents allegedly loved me, but it wasn't enough, could not be enough to keep them together. they split in 1982, and my father hastened to florida where he could explore his truth more deeply.

i have never recovered from that abandonment wound.

oh sure, i talk a big game but he was the first human i bonded with post-birth, and i know my mother was resentful about that. my father said that we locked eyes shortly after i was born, and he understood everything about me, as i understood everything about him. it was a profound moment that i of course do not remember, yet it was still significant on a deep cellular level. i was sealed to this man as a parent, caregiver, companion, and friend and that lasted through our lives, at least as long as i had him.

i think Aphrodite has always been watching over me and i think She softened the blow when my father finally left in 1982. it was devastating, i have heard, and of course i still feel the psychological wounding that is intrinsic to my being. yet still i see Her hand in the stories i've heard from family, and She gave me creative outlets with which to express myself, and a gift of dang near an entire library of books to explain my extremely large emotions, ensuring my ability to develop these talents as i grew. and i developed them early, before age 3, scribbles becoming clumsy letters becoming legible language as i copied what i saw in the many books i had.

language was the first key to being me; that is to say, i believe i was born to be a writer and a poet, which absolutely led to my becoming a seer and a tarotist, because how could i not use these gifts when introduced to the mysteries and magick of the cards? tarot gave me an entirely new language to learn, a language that evolves, a language that makes sense to me even as i learn new conjugations and context every day.

according to my family, i was never the same after my father left. how could i be? he was the parent with whom i had bonded. i had no such connection with my mother. i loved her, sure, and i think she loved me, but it was not at all the same. it was not enough. and i think she resented me being a reminder of my father, always around, a constant memory she'd rather shed than take care of and raise. the feminist in me understands this, but the wounded child in me does not. it's a strange and contradictory place to be.

at the beginning they still tried to get along, for my sake, though my dad had gone to florida in search of a better place to explore his queerness. it's bitterly amusing now, considering all that's going on in that state currently. he found freedom there, and now the state government is doing its best to crush any sign of queerness. but then, he was drawn to tampa, and there he settled into a new and exciting life.

as for me, i was still in pennsylvania, not old enough to have disdain for the state and its backward ways in those days, but young enough to understand that something vital had been taken from me. i think it is good that i do not remember those days, though i do have small mnemonic twinkles that make me incredibly unhappy. i suppose these are fragments of the time that still surface from time to time. i know that writing this is activating them, sending them to the forefront of awareness.

i lived with my mother and paternal grandparents for a short while until my mother decided one day that we were moving to her parents' house. there was no warning, and my paternal grandparents were devastated. i know i must have been, too, because i insisted on frequent visits and sleepovers that became a necessary staple in my young life. they were my link to my father, they still cared about him, and i got a terrible feeling from the new adults in my life when it came to him. it was clear they didn't like him at all, but i couldn't understand why. he was the wishing star in my sky, what was so wrong with that?

but i never got a clear answer until he told me he was queer. then it all made sense because by that time, at age 10, i was painfully aware of two things: the rampant homophobia that poisoned my social circle, and my own queerness trying to grow and develop with that nasty influence in my life.

well, my dad's queerness made a lot of sense to me. he had lived with a man named t (shortened for privacy) for as long as i could remember, and t loved me as much as i loved him. i cherished my visits to my father and t because i knew i was valued and adored and special in their eyes. i even drew hearts with their names in them and that must have made their eyes pop, but i've always been an intuitive sort, and even if i didn't know, i knew. you know?

i immediately became his biggest defender, his valiant knight of wands, though he did not really know it. not long after he told me he was gay, he introduced me to the music of Queen. and that is a whole other tale, perhaps for another day. but it is as significant to my life and art as he had given me life. i used my love for Freddie Mercury as a shield to explore whether people were "safe" to talk to about my dad's queerness - but in the early 90s, despite Ellen DeGeneres making strides on TV and Disney's nascent Gay Days, it just wasn't something you did without great risk to yourself at school.

most people failed the Freddie Mercury test. if they could not accept this queer singer in my life, how the hell could they accept my family? how the hell could i trust them? i could not, and so i held the great majority of people at more than arm's length. it was lonely. and that became an understatement as i grew into young adulthood.

backtracking a little... at 12 after a traumatic event i will not recount at this time, my mother threw me out of the house she had made by marrying an evil and vicious homophobic man. it didn't seem to matter that it was my first psychotic break, quite beyond my control, but it was triggered by being in that house with him. you may notice that i haven't mentioned my mother much in this little introduction to my past; that is for another time, too. what matters is this: it cleared the way for me to go and live with my dad and t in florida where, at the time, i just knew i belonged.

but the kids in florida were no more accepting of queerness than the ones in pennsylvania, much to my great surprise. i had expected more of people in florida; that they were more advanced, more open-minded, provided places to be yourself. i was so wrong! but it was in florida that i came out as bisexual for the first time. i didn't seem to care about repercussions toward me. but toward my dad or Freddie? i would see red and become irrational. they didn't ask me, or necessarily need me to be their defenders, yet i still was.

life in florida certainly was different than life in pennsylvania, that much was sure. i moved there in 1992, just a couple months before Hurricane Andrew would thunder over the city of the Miami, simply washing parts away if not outright demolishing them with wind. however, i will get into that next time as we slowly get to know each other over the blossoming of this newsletter.

as always, thank you for your subscriptions and your time invested in reading these words. i have so much wonderful Aphrodisian love planned to spread through this vector and i'm really excited to be moving into this platform here at ghost.

you're beloved for all time,
j
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jbulsara@gmail.com
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