To See Through a Glass Darkly

Chapter 9

Sasha learns why Mama married Papa & that when a medical appointment comes open, ready or not, you take it.

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Working together, Mama and I needed but a moment to clear breakfast from the kitchen table. I rinsed the dishes and put them inside the dishwasher. Mama then made fresh tea for us.

"Моя Саша," she began, "now I'm going to tell you some history of your father and myself. I want you to understand that much of what you experience now is like what your Papa did as a boy and even as a young man when we were first married. You need not fear it as this is in truth normal for you. The only difference is that you must find your own path to understanding how to work with your feelings. And I believe that you have already begun that."

"So, what did Papa do?" I wondered. "Did Aunt Svetlana dress him up as girl?"

"Not quite," Mama said, "I dont think so, anyway. That was not his path. But your father has a very strong woman within him. He did learn, much as you are beginning to do now, to honor and to express the feminine aspect of who he is. Just as you have been, he was fearful when he began, but as the woman inside him grew, she became a source of strength for him and for me. That is why I agreed to marry him."

"You say that he didn't dress up but that he still has a woman in him. How can that be?"

"I will use the word that Ms. Tollefson used yesterday," Mama said. "Your Papa is androgynous as she says. He is comfortable and competent in a woman's ways, even enjoying them. Yet he is no less a man for such. He appreciates the problems of both men and women and the advantages that each show to find their solutions. Your Papa's confidence in life is so great because he is adept at both men's and women's ways. He can easily call upon whichever way is best when he must act."

"What kind of women's things has Papa done, then?"

"After you and Sonia each were born, often I could find work when your Papa could not. So he would do all the work at home as if your mother. He fed you, changed your diapers, and bathed you. When you cried, he held you and when you stopped he put you to bed. He cleaned our home, laundered our clothes, and cooked our meals. He even learned to sew for me. Did you know that he even made dresses and skirts for me? The girls with whom I worked could not believe that my own husband could make more beautiful dresses than they could buy in the shops."

"Papa really did all that?" I asked, nearly in disbelief that my father's creativity was so great.

"Yes, he did. All of it!" Mama affirmed. "After we would put you and Sonia to bed, your Papa and I often sat long into the evenings, sewing clothes while talking about anything and everything. And we both had sewn many of your and Sonia's clothes while you were little children. Those were such special times for us. Your Papa is every woman's dream: strong, rugged, and manly when he must be, but also passionate, kind, and gentle when such is needed. Not only is he my husband, but also he can even be my girlfriend when I need one. Only a very special man can be both."

That was much to think about. To imagine that my strong, rugged father, knocking his opponents to the ice with a good check, also sitting with Mama to sew dresses and baby clothes, simply blew my mind. That was another side to my father, one that I could not recall seeing. Was I maybe too young a child then to have any memories?

I looked but saw neither manicure nor wedding rings on my fingers.

"Mama, does Papa know about me dressing up?"

"Of course," she confirmed. "I told him yesterday after you agreed to it."

"What did he think about it?"

"Your Papa was somewhat surprised and very amused that you agreed to dress like your sister. He was most concerned, though, that you only do it willingly. He would be very upset if he thought you might be forced."

"No, Mama," I assured her. "Sonia teased, pestered, and harassed me; begged, pleaded with, and made me feel guilty over it; and she even planned and schemed ways to fool or force me into it. But she didn't do so because she enjoys being the girl she is and wants to share that with me. So I accepted it as her gift. She never smiled at me like that before, not that I could recall. As scared as I was, and still am, I knew that I did the right thing by Sis. So here sits your son, wearing his sister's dress, underthings, and pantyhose, and her girlfriend's shoes."

"Please, do not feel any shame for how you are now dressed," Mama advised me, "because my son is showing that he is willing to face his fears to become that special young man that he is meant to be."

There's an essay due in my English class. Maybe a good theme would be "The Meaning of Irony"? I blushed.

"And what did you find that your sister could not do unless you help her? Mama continued. "I told you yesterday that you were sensitive and wise enough to know."

"Sonia wanted to teach a younger sister the joys of growing up as a girl, but since she had no younger sister, she has offered it to me," I confirmed to Mama. "And I felt selfish because I had resisted until now."

Mama smiled at me and repeated one of her favorite maxims, "Sasha, it is never too late to do what is right, good, and joyful for others."

"Mama," I continued, "there's another, an additional reason that I should tell you about."

"And that would be, моя Саша?" she probed.

"In the strange hallucinations," I recounted, "Tina and I married only two weeks ago. In our wedding pictures we were both wearing white wedding dresses. And I get the feeling that somehow, my dressing as a woman is part of our marriage. We often wear matching or similar clothing. And I was feeling progressively more at ease crossdressed in my hallucinations. That supported me in my decision to do it for Sonia."

Mama closed her eyes and took another sip of her tea.

"Моя Саша," she began, "from now on, I will only address you in the feminine when you dress as a girl. Now, know this, my daughter. I do not believe that you are "hallucinating." That word implies that what you see must be false, untrue, not real. But I believe that what you see visions, what the Irish call the "second sight." Thus, you see the true sight of what must be somehow real."

That sounded just a little too spooky to me.

"Mama, I've never heard talk about anything that way before," I told her quite worried. There were still no wedding rings or manicure on my hands.

"Until now I never needed to," Mama disclosed. "But others in your Papa's family and in mine have also seen visions, or so stories are told. These stories were told in ancient Russia, ancient even before the time of writing."

Suddenly sonorities from Igor Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps filled my mind. We had played a suite from it in the All-Metropolitan Youth Orchestra almost a year ago. Had I mentioned that I play violin, oboe and English horn? Stravinsky's ballet suite was heavy stuff to be going through a teen-ager's mind while having a heart-to-heart talk with Mama.

"So what are you saying, Mama?"

"There are seers in your Papa's line and mine," she paraphrased. "I think that you may be a seer, also."

Suddenly, to be a boy wearing his sister's dress seemed uninteresting, if not quite normal, compared to what Mama had just told me. I was just glad not to have heard any of this before talking with Ms. Tollefson yesterday.

Just then the telephone rang and Mama answered.

"Hello, Petroff's residence... Yes, he is here how."

With her finger, Mama beckoned me to the phone.

"Hello, this is Sasha..."

"Sasha, this is Ms. Tollefson. I just had a call from Dr. Torricelli's office. He's the psychiatrist I referred you to. If you could be ready now, he has an opening and can see you right away. He had a sudden cancellation. I could drive by now and get you, if that's okay?"

That was just great! There I was, wearing my sister's clothes and the school psychologist wanted to take me to see a shrink.

I lowered the handset.

"Mama, Ms. Tollefson said that an appointment just came open with her psychiatrist and she wants to bring me with her. Should I go?"

I liked making it sound as if the appointment were for Ms. Tollefson.

"Sasha, always accept an unexpected opening. Medical appointments are often hard to get."

"Okay, Ms. Tollefson, I'll take it..."

"Good I'm only five minutes from you...," she said. "Bring the blue form from Nurse Banner, too..."

"I'll be ready, then," I confirmed. "Thanks!"

"I'll be there in five. Goodbye!" Ms. Tollefson said and ended the call.

Quickly I went upstairs to retrieve the blue medical form from my desk, but it was now pink. Glancing at the clock, it displayed green digits. On my hands, a French manicure and wedding rings.

"Sasha!" Mama yelled up the stairs. "Bring your wallet and cellphone!"

I hadn't even though of my wallet since the previous day. It would still be in the pocket of my windbreaker. Got it! The cellphone was still in its cradle on my desk recharging. Had it too!

Downstairs Mama was waiting for me with a small black clutch bag. "My daughter," she said, "a lady going out anywhere always carries a purse with her. Sonia prepared this for you yesterday."

Mama gave me the bag which I opened. Inside were a silver Russian cross with a matching chain and a ladies watch with a silver band. Also, it contained a compact with mirror, a few small tubes of cosmetics and some hand lotion, a small package of tissue paper and two scrunchies. There was just room left for my wallet inside. Outside were pockets for a calculator, which Sonia had thoughtfully included, and my cellphone. There was also a long strap with brass fobs that was attached by rings at the ends of the bag.

Mama helped me fasten the chain for the cross and the watch. Tina's so thoughtful. She gets a big hug and kiss from me when she gets home.

"Take this," my mother said, offering me a twenty-dollar bill. "You might need it."

Never one to refuse money, I accepted the Federal Reserve Note from her.

"Thanks, Mama! I'll try not to use it."

"It's for a cab or bus fare to get home and, if needed, lunch."

A car-horn honked an obnoxious four-note sequence from outside.

"Oh, Mama! I'm really scared now. Do I have to go out there as a girl?"

Smiling and hugging me, my mother reassured me,"Yes, you do, Sasha. My new daughter must make her entrance into the outside world. And you will do fine!"

Hugging her back, I said, "I love you, Mama!"

"And I love you, Sasha!"

I slowly walked to the front door.

"Sasha, would you turn around just a moment?"

 ¡Flash!

A metallic after-image lingered a moment in my field of vision. I hate camera flashes. Then the obnoxious four-note sequence repeated.

"Mama?!" I whined.

"Sorry!" she apologized, giggling. "But I promised your Papa!"

I opened the front door to take my first steps into the world as a girl.

*******************************

From the landing outside the door, I took the two steps down to the sidewalk and then tried to walk along the path. In confusion and fear, instead of feeling my own sense of balance, I strode a step or two and felt as silly as I must have looked. So I stopped, closed my eyes and stood there a moment. When I opened my eyes I looked at my French manicure. But this time I saw it because I needed to see it. Hallucinating, I could feel the right way to walk.

Now I strode confidently toward Ms. Tollefson's car, placing one foot deliberately in front of the other, swinging my arms. I smiled hearing the click-clack of the heels on the pavement. Only a few seconds later, I was at the curb and opened the car door.

"Sasha?" Ms. Tollefson asked. "Is that really you?"

"Yeah!" I snickered. "Whaddya think?"

Smiling, I spun around once for her to see my dress.

"You are so cute!" she said. "But I think it's the braids that drive the look home for you."

I stepped into the car with my left foot.

"No, Sasha!" Ms. Tollefson stopped me. "Girls don't get into a car that way! Put your rear into the seat first, then keeping your legs together, swing them in."

It definitely felt awkward getting in as she described it.

"Doing it will take some practice." Ms. Tollefson lectured. "To get out, you simply reverse the procedure: keeping your legs together, swing them out, plant your feet on the ground, and stand up."

More easily said than done I thought to myself. These girls' activities were appearing harder than they looked. No wonder Sis enjoys being a girl so much. Mastering the various tasks in a girl's life has to engender a daily sense of achievement.

Ms. Tollefson turned the car toward the medical district.

"So, Sasha," she began, "why are you cross-dressed today?"

"Honestly?" I asked her to clarify.

"Always be honest with your psychologist or other therapist," she reminded me. "Otherwise, they can't help you.

"Well, Sis has teased and pestered me for years to let her dress me up. I'm so upset over the hallucinations that I needed some kind of distraction. But remarkably in my hallucination, I felt comfortable when I was cross-dressed, like I was supposed to. So I concluded that it might not be too bad after all. She's very happy now that I've agreed to it and I feel better because she does. It made her day. I was also surprised how important my doing this is to her. She says that she enjoys being a girl and that she wants to share it with me. And I think I can feel myself enjoying it at least a little that way."

"That's very interesting. I'm pleased that this is your own choice with Sonia," Ms. Tollefson said. "What do your parents think about it?"

"They're supportive. My parents are all right with it because I agreed on my own to do it. My Papa was only concerned that I not be forced. My Mama thinks it would be a good experience for me to try out that androgyny thing you told me about yesterday. She said that Papa is also very androgynous and I think they were expecting me to do something like this. Of course, just before I came out, Mama snapped my photo to send Papa."

"Yesterday you told me that your father would object to you cross-dressing," Ms. Tollefson recalled, "but he did not apparently do so. And your mother told you that your father is also androgynous. How did he express his androgyny?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, what androgynous things did he do? she clarified. "Did he dress up like a girl? Have mostly girls for friends? Play with dolls?

"When Mama and Papa came here to America, he had trouble finding work in his profession for a while. So he stayed home doing housework and taking care of Sonia and me. He even learned to sew and make clothers for us. He kept doing it until he found work as an engineer."

"Then you mean he did the housework while your mother was employed outside the home?" she asked, again seeking to clarify."

"Yeah. But when I was two years old he found a good job at the plant here and earned much more money than Mama could, so she stayed home with us until I was old enough to go to school."

"How did your father feel about doing the housework?"

"I don't really know, since I haven't talked about it with Papa directly. But Mama talked as though he merely accepted it as necessary and went about his way getting it done. Also, she said that he could be like her girlfriend whenever she needed one. That did surprise me, but Mama talked like it was one of his most remarkable traits."

"Does he seem like a manly enough role model to you?" Ms. Tollefson probed further. I wasn't sure I liked the implication of the question.

"Have you ever seen my Papa play ice hockey? I replied. "I've seen him knock opponents to their butts with some good, solid checks. And he's taught me to do the same. What we take, we give, too! "Mama calls it 'asserting our presence on the ice' when we do it."

"Then your father sounds like a good example of an androgynous man," the psychologist concluded. "He can raise babies and sew clothing, then haul and kick ass in a hockey game. He's rugged but soft, as gentle as he is strong. And I can see you being much like that, too. No wonder Tina likes you so much! Most young ladies would consider you a good catch."

Even wearing this?

"Tina's the only one who interests me!"

"She is such a nice girl. You ought to hold on to her."

"I intend to," I assured her. "She's my sister's best friend as well as my girlfriend. Breaking up would be too awkward, even if we wanted to."

I had never thought about that before. It was probably a good thing that Tina and I were completely in love with each other. Glancing again at my hands, no rings or manicure. My medical form for school was now again blue.

"We're almost there," Ms. Tollefson reminded me. "He's in the Medical Arts Professional Building.

"I've never been to a psychiatrist before," I said. "What's it like?"

"Remember that first of all, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. He's had all the training that any other physician has. But he's chosen to specialize in how the mind works and especially how it works with the body. Many times when something is wrong with the mind, it's because something else is wrong with the body that needs fixing. You need to know why you're hallucinating. For example, maybe you had a brain injury playing ice hockey? Or did you ever get beaned playing baseball?"

"I never got a bean pitch, but I have been knocked to the ice a few times," I conceded. "Like, wouldn't I know, though, if I had like a concussion?"

"It's very possible," Ms. Tollefson told me, "to have a concussion missed in an initial diagnosis. It happens all the time."

"You mean I could have had a brain injury playing a sport and not know it?"

"Yes. It's common in football and ice hockey," she said. "And if he thinks it might have happened, Dr. Torricelli would prob'ly send you to a neurologist to check your brain more carefully."

I began to wonder if I could have a concussion. I had taken a few checks on the ice that were just as hard as I had given. And I had also been involved in a couple of hard collisions at soccer. Yellow cards on both plays. But I had never been beaned at the plate. Not yet, anyway.

"But what Dr. Torricelli is most likely to do, is to try to get you talking about what's really on your mind."

Then it happened. I suddenly had fit of giggles. I don't mean full-blown laughter, chuckling, or snickering, but cute, darling, mischievously girlish giggling. I could not do this at will, but it was spontaneous and involuntary. And I couldn't stop.

"What is it?" Ms. Tollefson tried to elicit an explanation from me.

Still I could not stop giggling. I put my hands over my mouth briefly in a vain attempt to stifle the giggles. Instead, the giggling merged into a squeal which caused Ms. Tollefson to join in the giggling. At that point, I had tears flowing down my cheeks. Now I began to really laugh and hug myself. I had to try pulling my knees up into my tummy to keep from hurting. Not easy to do strapped in seatbelt and shoulderbelt!

Ms. Tollefson guiding the car into a parking berth, smiling and shaking her head all the way.

I unfastened the latch holding the safety belts and let myself curl up into a ball of warm, happy feeling. All the worry and anxiety that I had endured for the past few days seemed suddenly to dissolve into calmness.

"What brought that on?" Ms. Tollefson asked me. "You suddenly were entirely silly. None of the morose character that I saw yesterday. And you were giggling and laughing completely like a girl. Like there were no boy in there at all!"

"Ms. Tollefson," I answered. "What's really on my mind? It's so absurd! We're talking about how I may get a serious brain injury playing sports or could already have one. But what am I really scared of? I'm scared of wearing this dress. I'm afraid that now someone might recognize me appearing as a girl. But do you know what I'm most afraid of?"

"No,"she answered, "how could I know, unless you tell me?"

"Now, I'm most afraid that I might like dressing up and being a girl," I confessed. "I'm afraid that it will be fun and that I will enjoy it as much as Sonia hopes I will. Yet I don't understand how. But after I giggled, screamed and laughed like that, like I've heard girls do, I felt calm and very happy. Is this how a girl always feels?"

"Always? No," she answered me, "but I think you just experienced a high point of being a girl."

"But how could a boy feel it?" I inquired. "Does dressing up change someone that much?"

"Sasha, that's a very good question," she acknowledged. "In your case it helped. If you remember the results of your BSRI from yesterday, you scored in the higher range on both the M- and F-scales. That means you're androgynous. Wearing a dress gives you the permission, even a requirement, to show off your feminine side. As high as your score on the F-scale was, I'm not surprised that you were afraid of liking this experiment with being a girl?"

"But how could I already know how to giggle and laugh like a girl," I objected. "Sonia's friends haven't even started coaching me for it yet?"

"You've been watching your mother and sister and their girlfriends since you were born as well as all the other women you've encountered in daily life. You've observed them all and, believe it or not, you've learned much about how women and girls behave. Like, when you stepped out of the house and onto the sidewalk, you were unstable because you were trying to walk as a boy in those heels. Then it looked like you stopped, thought about it, then you strode down the path like a runway model. You already had the knowledge in you. You only needed to find and use it."

"Believe it or not," it was my turn to say, "I called up a memory from a hallucination when I could already walk in heels."

"And that's why we're here," Ms. Tollefson reminded me. "We need to do something about your hallucinating."