CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (5)

By: Bishakh Som
July 14, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of reconsidered passions, reassessed hates, and reversed feelings everywhere in-between. Series edited by Adam McGovern.

Illustration by the author. Click for larger version.

SUMMER

My skinny thighs, sticking to the leather seats of my aunt’s Cadillac Sedan de Ville. B.J. Thomas and Gordon Lightfoot on her “Easy Listening Hits of the 1970s” 8-track. A landscape of exposed flesh. And oh, the excruciating tedium. This is what summertime meant to me as a child. And this was just in New York. If my family took me to India, as they did every two years, we’d inevitably go in July and August, when even the cooling effect of the monsoon season did little to alleviate the heavy heat. These were the years of “load-shedding,” which meant the electricity would give out for hours at a time, every day: the ceiling fans all ground to a halt, and we were reduced to trying desperately to cool ourselves by hand with paper fans. I wanted more than anything to come back to NYC, if only for the air-conditioning.

Discovering goth in high school only inflated my antipathy. I longed for gray skies, windswept moors, the melancholy of autumn and the quiet of winter. I wanted to cocoon myself in mohair sweaters and boots, to cover up my gangly limbs and awkward body, which was obviously impossible after June. Instead, it was ill-fitting shorts and the dreaded rubber flip-flops. God, I hated the summer. And so it would be for most of my life.

Until my late 40s, when I came out as trans. When I started becoming a little more comfortable with my body. I grew my hair out, started experimenting with capri pants, camisole tops, Daisy Duke shorts. At the same time, I started wearing more South Asian gear: salwar kameez, kurtas, tunics — not only because they were femme, but because they felt good in the heat. And since I didn’t think I could rock combat boots with this look, I gave in and bought sandals. (Oh, not flip-flops, mind you! Elegantly strappy barely-there shoes, rather.)

What was happening to me? 17-year old Bishakh would’ve had a full-on aesthetic conniption. Well, that is what trans will do to you, honey. You’ll start epilating your legs and realizing they’re not so hideous after all. Why, you’ll even want to start showing them off! You’ll discover that your shoulders, which you always covered up in three-quarter sleeve baseball tops, are actually quite shapely. And you’ll want to uncover them, framed only in a Cocteau Twins tank top. You know how you did your best to insist on Converse low-tops in the Kolkata heat? Well, you’ll be stoked to finally feel the sun on your feet, the squelch of wet grass between your toes, the thrill and reckoning of your first pedicure. You’ll think: “Aw, we don’t need a/c today, let’s just go to the roof and drink our Malbec.” You’ll make plans to meet friends on a 90 degree afternoon, when the Prospect Park breezes and the sight of frolicking puppies will conjure sappy, sentimental and thoroughly ungothy thoughts. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll finally learn to accept yourself.

***

MORE ENTHUSIASM at HILOBROW

CURVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (5)

Categories

Tags