by Cindi Jones
The day was early, the “kid” talked of nothing but comic books, and I soon became restless. Searching for a way to separate myself from my hiking partner, I scanned the site for something to do. We were the only ones there except a couple of fellows set up in a distant spot. They had a nice tent. They had lawn chairs out to sit in. I had a rock. It smelled like they were cooking up some steaks. And there was a little boy with them. I decided to wander over and introduce myself.
The two guys were both extremely handsome. One was “daddy” to the kid. Now normally, upon finding two fellows camping together, especially with a son in tow, you think of a couple of friends sharing a camping trip. It’s a chance to get the boy out and teach him about the great outdoors. But both of these men were very handsome. They were too happy to be there. I assumed that they were gay.
We introduced ourselves. “Hi, I’m Cindi,” I announced as I approached their cooking stove.
“Hello there, I’m Brick and this is Brandon,” responded one of the two as he gestured toward his friend. We chatted for a while. Brick offered up some of his steak if I cared for it. I politely refused and returned to my camp to boil some water for my cup of noodles.
After supper, I needed to collect some water. There was a stream down the trail about a half mile away. I would collect the water, bring it back, and boil it to sterilize it. Sometimes, I would forgo, boiling water and just use iodine tablets in a water bottle. It was convenient but it didn’t taste very good.
I was bending over the stream trying to fill my container when Brick popped down from the trail with his gear.
“Hiya Cindi,” he said as he started setting up near me. I filled my container and prepared to return to my camp. I noticed that he was using a water filter. I had seen them at the sporting goods stores but thought them too expensive for my needs.
I watched him as he filled a container with water and then using the pump on the water filter, transfer the clean water to its final vessel.
“Now that is way too cool,” I told him. I don’t think I ever told anyone just how romantic a water filter could be. This device hatched a relationship.
I sat down and we chatted for a while. Brick had an ever so slight lisp. He had fairly short curly hair. He never stopped smiling. He reminded me of Peter Frampton. Brick warmed up to me very quickly. This guy was likable and funny. Yeah. A guy like this is too good to be true. “Yup, he’s gay,” I thought to myself.
I had dated other men. But it never lasted too long. One fellow fell in love with me and wanted to get married. He worked for a little start up networking company that starts with C and ends with O. He was a VP. I turned him down. The company would later rise to be the dominant company in the business. The VP would have been wealthy beyond any of my expectations. I did not care. I could not return that love. It didn’t click.
I had been open to striking up a relationship with a lesbian. I had gone to the lesbian hangouts and formed some brief friendships but nothing came of it. I knew that I was not suited for a gay life style. That sounds weird doesn’t it? I know. I still wonder about this roller coaster called life. My family asks me why I started dating guys when I never had any previous interest. “Because they asked?” Seriously. That was my stock answer. There is also this odd thing that happens to us when we start getting hormones. I can’t explain it. It doesn’t make sense. Look, at that time, I was open. I did not know. In many ways, I was just a juvenile coming into puberty.
I had given up on finding that right someone for years. I was perfectly content to spend the rest of my life sharing good times with good friends. I had Matty and a couple others. I was happy and comfortable with that.
Brick and I stayed in contact. I was planning a big back-packing trip in the Sierra in a few months. I had only done a long trip twice in my childhood and I had enjoyed it very much. Squirrel and I both agreed that hiking was the best thing in the world to do.
I had several short trips planned over the coming months to build my experience, strength, and stamina. Brick accompanied us on several of them. We got to know each other fairly well. I learned that he was not gay. His life had been one of ups and downs. He had been married twice. His first wife left him to return to her mother. Brick and she had a son when they were only fifteen. They had a shotgun wedding. The marriage was doomed from the beginning. He walked in one day on his second wife making love to a stranger. That ended quickly.
Brick had nothing. Neither did I.
He worked in construction as a union laborer.
I worked as an engineer.
We truly had little in common other than we both loved the outdoors and hiking. We were both financially starting our lives anew.
I did not know it at the time but Brick came to love me. I considered our budding relationship as friendship. He was a great guy to go back packing with. We had some good times. That was all I saw in it.
He called one day and asked me to go out with him socially. I was reticent at first, but he convinced me that it was to discuss the big trip coming up. I agreed to go.
I wore a nice turtleneck sweater and slacks. I wore very little makeup. My hair was perfect. It truly was my greatest asset. Brick arrived in his deep blue Pontiac Firebird. It was a great muscle car. He had done little to it other than clean it up nice and maintain it. It was several years old but ran beautifully.
We cruised over the mountain to Santa Cruz. I hadn’t been to Santa Cruz much. It was a bustling little city with unorganized streets over on the coast. He drove straight to the pier and found a parking spot.
The night was clean and clear. The salty smell of the sea was refreshing. It wasn’t quite dark yet and I could see the sun winking as its light splashed across the waves. The boardwalk was just getting started, I noted, as the roller coaster lights came on in the distance. We walked out to the end of the pier… it is a very long pier… looking at all the shops and taking in the sights.
The seagulls were flying all about seeking scraps from the fishing boats. The screech and squawk sounds they made were a comforting sound to me. “Birds in flight,”, I thought to myself. “There is no greater freedom of existence.” I found myself mumbling.
“What did you say?” asked Brick. “Oh I was just thinking about the gulls and how free they are. They have conquered gravity, they fly where they will, it is the ultimate freedom in life to break the bonds of the earth,” I returned. “That’s deep” Brick stated.
We ended up facing the door of the last restaurant on the pier. It was a small little place that had the signs of many years of constant use. It was filled with small tables and people laughing and talking. The vibrant sounds of life filled the air. The shingle read “Stagneros”.
“I’ve always wanted to bring you here,” Brick told me. “This is really good food,” he went on.
Okay, now we had two things in common, I pondered. I love seafood.
Brick ordered for the two of us. We enjoyed a meal of clam chowder and swordfish. It was the first time I had eaten swordfish. It reminded me of halibut in firmness and texture. But the flavor was slightly stronger. I loved it. The meal was pleasant. A cacophony of sounds filled the air around us. Bus boys clamored with dishes, orders were shouted in the back kitchen. Scores of people crammed in the place with small tables talked and jibed. But there was a small bubble around us, a bubble of quiet and calm.
We strolled back along the pier towards the car. It was dark now. The smell of the ocean wafted over us as the excited sounds from the boardwalk were carried from what seemed so far away. We paused to look at the boats tied up for the evening. Brick turned and tenderly kissed me. “I love you,” he said.
I recalled when Matty had told me this. I remembered how curious I was about the moment. I remembered how that phrase came to mean a love of friendship and respect. This time was different. Brick had come to know me and my temperament. He knew my likes and desires. He did not know of my life’s journey. He only knew Cindi. I knew that his expression of love wa
s that of pure and carefully considered affection. I had never been in this situation. I knew that I was in trouble.
I continued to share time with Brick. I thought at the time that I should tell him I wasn’t interested in pursuing a relationship.
“Let’s just see where it goes,” counseled Squirrel. I had truly given up on ever having that happiness in my life. My moral feelings were still layered thick on my consciousness. By now, I considered myself asexual. That means I had no interest in intimate sex. Was it fair to lead him on like this? “Let’s just see where it goes” Squirrel would always say. Sometimes I would be angry with Squirrel. She was still up to her mischievous mischief. But now, in my life, in this time, her influence was good. It was motivational. It pushed me in my career and made me interested in learning new things.
I think that a love story should be the first and foremost focus for a life’s journey. It should fill the volume. It should be explored in every detail to make the heart yearn for a good ending. It should have conflict and passion. I wish that I could devote the effort and make this, our story the principal focus in my life journey.
To us, it may appear to be the greatest story ever told. But to most people, it is a story of true love. It has some interesting quirks but beyond that, it is a story of normal people falling in love and living an otherwise normal life… with a few interesting twists.
We continued to plan the upcoming hiking trip. We planned a large loop in the Sierra. We bought maps. We studied trails. We decided how far we could travel in a day. The loop we planned would cover 80 miles and we would take ten days to do it. I had invited five acquaintances to go, including Brick. This was exciting for me. I enjoyed my professional career but it was so nice to think about something fun, something that would test my limits in a positive way.
We had just returned to my place after a quiet evening together. I often told Brick that I had a complex life, as I contemplated my life history. He just thought that I was talking about all the technical stuff that I knew. He thought I was a genius. I knew better, I had taken the tests. On the IQ scale, I rated “gifted”. For most of my life, that was meaningless. I would have settled for any normal score… just as long as Cindi could be Cindi. Now Cindi was Cindi. But Cindi had a growing problem.
How would a construction worker warm up to the fact that the woman he loved had been at one time in her life a man? It was a very difficult thing for me to contemplate. How would I ever tell him? I couldn’t bear to hurt his feelings. I had hurt too many people in my life with the unknown secrets I burdened them with.
I was still growing up. I no longer was confused with raging hormone syndrome. I only had strong feelings and logic to deal with. This could be resolved. I could reason through this. I knew that if I loved him, I could tell him. But I held back.
We had been dating for months. Brick came to know that I was a very moral person. He would not make advances on me. He was caring and sincere. But this night, his hormones were in gear. His passions lead his thinking. What he wanted I could not offer.
“Cindi, I love you” as he played with my hair and moved his hand around my back.
“Brick, I have something to tell you,” I whispered, scared out of my wits, wondering how he would respond to what I was going to tell him.
“Cindi, you can tell me anything,” he replied. My heart started pounding with anxiety.
“Go ahead Cindi, tell him,” Squirrel told me. How would he take this? “He’s a construction guy,” I thought to myself. He’s not your typical construction guy to be sure. But they are a pretty macho bunch. How will this go down? Will he hurt me?
Squirrel started running in her wheel attempting to help. “Tell him Cindi,” she said.
“What’s wrong honey?” Brick asked as he saw tears forming in my eyes.
“I just don’t know how to tell you Brick,” I returned.
“Cindi, you can tell me anything,” said Brick.
Could I really tell him anything? Brick had seen a lot in his life. I knew how he felt on so many issues. His mind was not clouded with any prejudice or malice.
“Brick,” I started “you know how I’ve always told you that I was a complicated person?” I asked, wanting to go on, while I still had the courage.
But Brick interrupted me before I could finish.
“What are you going to tell me… that you used to be a man?” he asked.
It cut me clear through. Did he know?
“Well Cindi, how could he not know?” said Squirrel. “On the other hand, Cindi, he really might not know,” she continued. “Oh what do I do now?” I asked Squirrel. “Tell him,” she demanded.
He later told me that he was joking to try and lighten the mood. He truly did not know.
“Yes, Brick, that’s it. I used to be a man.”
I expected a long pause at the least or to be beaten at worst. But that was not to be. The answer was quick, with no forethought. It came honestly and sincerely from his heart.
“Oh honey, I did not know,” he said. “You have revealed something very precious to you. Thank you for telling me. I only love you more for telling me.”
This was a difficult secret to share. It was the right time. I did not deceive him. I did love him. I let myself finally love him. My vision blurred with tears of joy and happiness. A tremendous wall of trepidation was pulverized that night.
We finally did do the big loop in the Sierra. We shared a small tent. Sharing the tent was a practical necessity and not a reason for intimacy. He would give me a peck on the cheek each night as we turned in.
You get to know someone really well on a back packing trip. You learn about their character, their stamina, and their will. You learn about how a person will react under stress, how he is when he is tired. You learn to share responsibilities. You can learn love. I would remember these ten days together for the rest of my life. It was an experience of sharing and compassion. It was all and by itself a wonderful story of love.
We were married a year later in a place near where we had met. A licensed friend accepted our vows next to a warm campfire after dark. Brick’s son was there as was his best friend. A few close friends just happened to be around and they were invited to join us.
Brick and I by necessity agreed that there were a few secrets that we could not let out.
- I could not divulge the fact that we were married to my family. I couldn’t handle the new set of issues that might arise.
- We would tell Brick’s family of our wedding. But we could never divulge my background. Brick’s family expected him to straighten up and our marriage was an answer to his dear mother’s prayers. I loved Brick’s mother. She was a most cherished woman. I agreed to never do anything to hurt her. She loved me tenderly. She passed away recently and it was a great loss to the world.
Brick and I have had a wonderful life together for these many years. We keep no secrets. We have never had a heated argument as a result. I am very close to his family. As far as religion goes, he says he’s a Bochalist. I say that I’m a Druid. It’s a joke to confuse those who ask. We hold our sacred beliefs to ourselves. They are ours to share together. We will never force them on anyone.
Now, with my children living on their own and Brick’s mother passed on, we are finally ready to release our secret. I am so sorry Mom and Dad that you have been left out for these many years. But I must tell you now before it is too late. I want you to share the true love of having another son in the family. Please forgive me and accept Brick as I know you secretly must have already.
We are a family of love. I can think of nothing more special than the love we have shared. And now it is in the open. And now it can be understood.
Am I a flake?
I reviewed my resume recently. In my career of 28 years, I have worked for 15 different companies. I’ve held 21 different positions. I worked as a hardware designer, firmware engineer, software engineer, marketing manager, systems analyst, engineering manager, consultant, technical editor,
web designer… the list seems almost endless. Some of the moves were due to the normal swings of silicon valley business. I was laid off a couple of times due to corporate acquisitions. I left most positions on my own accord for something more interesting.
In the beginning, I convinced myself that I was moving to another job for a better opportunity or to make more money. For years afterwards, I thought that I was a flake. I beat myself up because I could not hold a steady job. I wondered why I could join a company, impress the hell out of them for a couple of years and then lose interest.
Squirrel, my muse, had driven me in a path most unimaginable for most. I had changed my gender. In my early years she also pushed me to learn music, study mathematics, and participate in school drama. I won science fairs. I excelled academically. Scholarships were easy to get in college. I even got to have lunch with the Governor once because of my accomplishments.
I had once thought that Squirrel pushed me so hard as a defense mechanism to fight against my gender dysphoria. I believed that if I did other things, if I excelled, I could tame the beast.
But my life has never been that simple.
Along with all the other problems I’ve conquered, I finally was diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) and Dyslexia. I learned this late in my life. I was offered drugs for the ADD. I turned them down. I’ve always struggled with reading and writing from the dyslexia.
I know that my drive, my passion, and my incredible stamina to do new things, and to reinvent myself are unique. They have made my life incredibly interesting.
No, I realize now, I was not a flake in my jobs. I’d move in, take control, and solve the problems at hand. I would extend every effort to learn what I had to know and do what I had to do. I would give each task my whole self, often with great personal sacrifice to do my very best. And after a year or two, after I had solved the big problem, after I turned a small company around, I’d get incredibly bored. I needed new action. I needed new problems.
