Dysphoria attack, and getting away

 It's been a strange week. A dysphoria attack, a few days away, a long lonely walk across the mountains at night, and a unexpected miracle.

 

Dysphoria attack

Last weekend was the flower festival with marching bands and flower-decked floats. On Saturday it was raining and I decided to stay in and go to the main parade on Sunday. But on opening the Sunday morning paper and seeing the big photos of Saturday's marching majorettes, female dancers in leotards or fancy frocks, I had a real meltdown. I don't have much body dysmorphia, thank goodness, which is why surgical transition has always been an unlikely option for me, and I keep dysphoria at bay by dressing as a woman every day and enjoying other more feminine items and activities, but some things can trigger real anguish about my gender and for some reason dancers in costume is one of those things. Ballerinas in pancake tutus particularly, but drum majorettes, too, even gymnasts. Maybe it's the skimpy outfits and motions, both designed to emphasize the female form, that thing that I don't fully have. Combined with bad memories of how my sisters were always being packed off to ballet classes, ice skating lessons and the like (none of which they ever took to, incidentally) and I would have loved to do but wasn't allowed to because "it's not for boys". 

Gender dysphoria stinks. Transphobes have no idea and no care.

Go away, just go away. Please just go away. AaaAAurrRgh!!! :-( [Photo tribute: Hugo Martinez]

So I avoided the flower festival altogether, which is just as well as I would've felt pain.

 

A break in Nice, France

I went to Nice during the week. It's not far but the journey there and back is so slow and difficult that it's easier to book an apartment or hotel and stay overnight as they are really cheap at this time of year. This actually saved money as Nice's restaurants are overpriced and I could cook for myself in my apartment. I wanted to spend time in homeware shops and media outlets, see the famous Saleya flower and herb markets, and do a bit more sightseeing. I was partly successful in all of that but even 48 hours wasn't enough. 

Some photos:

The Bay of Angels lined by the famous Promenade des Anglais under a moody sky with occasional divine beams from above ...

The great cascade in the fortress above the city ...

I love the Greek-style mosaics on the citadel, the site of the original Greek city of Nikaia ...

 

The staircase telling the story of Odysseus and the various unsavoury characters he meets, such as the Cyclops, Circe the witch, and sea monsters ...

 

I'll spare you more of these but I loved them. Modern Port Lympia lies near to where human habitation has been dated to 400,000 years ago ...

The Saleya street market stalls are very pretty, including spices, local lavender and soap ...

 

Among other things, the soap stall sold bars made of asses' milk. Cleopatra would approve, no doubt. (Personally, I prefer not to invest in businesses offering Egyptian goods - they're usually pyramid schemes!)

So it was a good little break. 

 

A night in the mountains

It's 25 miles (40 kilometres) from home to Nice as the crow flies (or, more aptly, as the mountain eagle soars, or as the seagull skims the waves). But the journey is always slow no matter what means of transport you choose, and the geography of the area is largely to blame - narrow winding roads, frontier posts, steep climbs, tunnels ... 

I went by train. My journey home back to Italy was awful as a tree fell on the tracks between Menton, France, and Ventimiglia, Italy. This is a normal occurrence, along with rockfalls, floods, etc. and you have to adapt to the dynamic landscape if you live locally. But it's how the railway is managed that is the main problem and French railways have always been arguably the lousiest in Europe. They promised a rail replacement bus to Italy and kept promising and after two hours of false promises I asked them if they weren't just talking rubbish and why were they wasting our time when we could have been making alternative plans. 

Since there are no cross-border buses and cross-border taxis cost an unbelievable sum - more than three nights in a hotel! - I took my suitcase on wheels and walked most of the 12 km from Menton to Ventimiglia up and down the winding mountain road that runs through the steep craggy landscape of the border lands where the Alps hit the Mediterranean (illustrated in my post here). If they hadn't wasted my time I'd have been at Ventimiglia by sunset; as it was I was mainly walking in the dark. I didn't spot any wolves (though perhaps they spotted me ... and licked their lips as they loped silently along, keeping pace ...) Anyway, the rare bus that serves the sparsely dotted mountain hamlets of the frontier country caught up with me and took me the last 4 km to Ventimiglia from where getting home was easy. 

You may think me nuts but I've always sworn that if you want to get from A to B without fuss then your own two feet are a sure guarantee that you'll get there and within a certain time. 

 

Miracle

And when I got home I found that the crooked mini-Trump next door had got his latest set of workmen to place the new panels in the dividing wall between us, a job that's been waiting for four years and which I was just on the point of asking the relevant arbitrators to intervene on. The job's been done very well and professionally and without a word. He may have sensed my bad vibes or something. This gives me greater privacy and what TGirl doesn't want that?

Altogether a very strange week.

Have a good weekend. And please soothe any dysphoria you may have with a pretty frock and your favourite perfume.  

Sue x