Genderless

Genderless

With our meal over, yet none wish to rush a break away from enjoyable family time. Where each member is allocated specific preparation roles. All part of our ritual. Sundry cooking tasks, child feeding assistance and eventually tidying up. We stay extending positive together time, when possible. I want to point out this is not merely institutionalized quality family time, but who we are, and what we do.

‘I recall a professor,’ reminisces my partner Lyric. ‘Don’t remember what was being read, but I can picture a missing dust jacket. And a thin, worn red book cover. Dark red with golden letters. If you traced your fingers over, this lettering was capable of manufacturing shivers. A prickling of wondrous expectation. This academic saw me looking, turned their wicked smile and said…beauty is something you don’t notice until you reach a certain age. It’s invisible to children. They can look right through it. So, I thought we’d test this theory.’

‘I’d probably be inclined to agree with said academic, many children, not just our much cared for group, appear more concerned with size and maybe color of things than auras of beauty.’

Glancing at our children, eyes turned, wide in expectation, leaning in, River’s eyebrows raised, breath held, I wonder, ‘how do you propose this will happen?’

‘Well, Royal, I thought we’d take turns to talk about a thing of beauty. Sort of like verbal Uno or sentences instead of words on a Scrabble board. Capturing verbal photographs is you like.’

‘Round table discussion.’

‘Exactly.’

Childish faces gaze up, keen to be part of our seeming adult game. So Sage, our oldest begins, taking a lead.

‘Easy, touch of an animal. Remember how much our youngest laughed to feel warm smooth fur on their fingertips. Something beautiful right there, in those moments.’

‘Yes, I agree. Except I’d like to take this into a human realm. Touch of babies’ hands, newborn scents – yeasty, milk soaked. Knowing strong parent to child bonds. Tiny fingers grasping. Half-moon fingernails.’

Lyric nods.

‘Of course, we went through so much to see our babies born. Every one special, beautiful. I remember dim lights, busy assistants leaving us alone. Sacred moments. Religious to share new life in those moments just after arrival.’

‘I can still smell remnants of lovely scents, even near your head, Sage.’ Says Lyric.  

I detect Sage caught by slight quivers, ‘yuck! I don’t want to think about things like baby nappies, up-chucks, birth blood bits and other smelly things as beauty.’

‘Pity if we raised you to remember gory things, instead of tenderness.’

 ‘I’d take beauty back long before birthing processes,’ says Sage, eyes sparkling with leaf tones so suited to a name we selected based non-gender desires. Now growing to an adult filled with their sageness, even wearing kindred colors. Today as a loose shirt they pulled from a recycling bin, silver green in color. Hues and name taken as their own. I picture an adult arriving home one day with similar toned hair. Expressing how they are.

‘First time hearing a human heartbeat. On our hospital excursion. Squiggly lines on a graph page, an ECG reading. Did you know our hearts are activated by an electrical current?’

Nods form a connection with younger siblings. ‘We also got to hear a Doppler echocardiogram, swoosh of blood, valves, and heart chambers filling and emptying. So spectacular to see, hear and observe things happening inside all our bodies.’

I imagine a future where Sage works to nurture, cure, or end a significant disease. Words pop into my brain: We need to recognize what makes us ill to cure. Did I share this with our children? Are they aware of this guru’s life lesson? My thoughts are deposed by images of parenthood as a time filled with only slightly veiled fear yet counterbalanced against so much elation and smiles. I am dazzled looking over at these young adults seated around our family table. Grace of tenderness in their exchanges. I can’t help pondering our near and far futures.

‘Dust rising from a dancer’s feet, making connections to country.’ Is River’s contribution. Early afternoon light intensifying their Rainbow Serpent shirt.

Lyric’s eyebrow lifts, reflecting the fact our middle child, born, and named to honour flowing waters nearby, just sent a crashing ball through initial academic’s theories.

‘Frangipani flowers,’ offers our youngest, Casey.

I associate their words with leis adorning visitor’s necks. Dancers with fluidity resembling waves and water. Vibrant garments tied, wrapped, and flowing in tropical breezes. Singing like paradise birds, murmuring tropical, potentially cyclonic island winds.

‘Yes,’ adds Sage. ‘These flowers have texture so like skin. Petals feel like fingertips. Lemon-scent, vanilla tones.’

‘Neither wholly white nor yellow, but a blending of tones,’ offers River. ‘Pink touches on edges. A real mingling.’

‘There is a native Frangipani, completely unlike tropical American ones, with a very different bloom, tiny yellow prolific flowers.’

‘What does it smell like?’ Asks Sage.

‘Not sure, subtler, lemon-tinged musk. I’ve noticed flowers are attractive to insects. Oh, and it doesn’t shed leaves in winter.’

‘Difficult name,’ says River. ‘So, called because an Italian family distributed bread in times of famine.’

‘I don’t get the connection.’ Sage comments.

‘Apparently giving Frangipani flowers is a way of informing a lover they are special,’ says Lyric, shifting our focus. ‘Hence we both wore garlands during on our marriage ceremony.’

‘Yet a Frangipani tree is frequently planted around Malaysian cemeteries. Scents becoming synonymous with haunting and ghosts.’

‘Which only proves different people develop unique concepts of splendor. What one person regards as simple pleasure another sees as torment.’ Explains Lyric.

‘This beauty game is getting to be more than an item, word or mere sentence.’ Interrupts Sage.

‘Frangipanis are tough and can survive drought and neglect.’ River brings our talk back to the environment. I imagine their future role most likely among grasses, trees, earth, and rainfall. Or a sprite taken more into worlds of dance, performance, and music.

‘Leaves can be used to make a healing poultice.’ River again.

‘How do you know these things?’ Asks Sage.

‘I read in books…and remember.’

‘Times when I’ve watched you read, I must say, is a thing of beauty.’

‘If you put a Frangipani flower behind your ear, isn’t this a signal of availability?’

‘Depends which ear.’

‘I also know these trees are an ideal home for several varieties of orchid.’

Sage makes a disgusted face, ‘such grotesque shapes.’

I am sure their pretenses are for flat, almost unremarkable leaves taken from their namesake plant. Subtle, with peppery undertones.

‘Sounds of music,’ River again. ‘Those actual lyrics, Maria singing about favorite things. Raindrops on Roses, whiskers on kittens.’

Sage breaks in with, ‘spheres of water hovering on petals, would be a beautiful thing.’

‘And while I don’t think whiskers are so beautiful, we already did animal fur beauty thing.’ Lyric contributes.

I cannot resist adding, ‘those words, they are Royal Lyrics.’

Smiles and chuckles all round, as I play with names.

‘What else is listed, copper kettles, warm woolen mittens, and brown paper packages tied up with string…?’

‘Probably more about shortages leading into Global Conflict.’

But I won’t be distracted by practicalities. ‘Does tip over into European centric quickly. Sleigh Bells, Schnitzels, and noodles. Remember, the film, we sat and watched in outdoor cinema chairs, a whole family in those cute curtain materials matching outfits. Wait…wild geese who fly with moon dappled wings is a beautiful image.’

‘Now you are playing with someone else’s images. Maybe we could try to think of something more local.’ Chides Lyric. ‘Anyway, favorite things are different from beauty. One denotes familiarity, the other might clash and awe.’

‘Sunbeams over our valley.’ Offers River.

‘Magpie warble songs.’

‘Crunchy frosted grass.’ Suggests Casey.

‘Sea-mists rolling in.’ Sage again.

‘Curious how cloaking views, obscuring things something classifies as beauty.’

‘Why not. There isn’t an illumination capable of declaring belle, harmony, exquisite on to random vistas.’

As our oldest states these poetic words I am given time to think. Recalling a day when sea fog rolled in over waves, hefted shoreward, a light changer seeking shelter in coves, grey-brushing sea. Narrowing coastal spectrums from blue-green and gold to heron-grey tinted ash. Standing on that shore, youngest on my hip, hands on our oldest shoulders, I was besieged by something bigger than our family. A creature both young and old. An ancient character freshly, wetly minted. Strange kin to thin damp rain, quiet sibling to thunderstorms, gather cloud like spun air.

Happy to share with our next generation, a new world cast, made visible, rolled in, and would roll out again, or uplift, streak, stretch and dissolve like honey in herbal tea, leaving us to savor, remember and re-imagine. Hopeful for another. 

Our youngest breaks in with, ‘waves, ocean …’

‘Let’s not use ocean, seaside and beach things.’ Says Lyric. ‘Down the valley close outside our windows. Make beauty a little less accessible and further away.’

‘You are always slightly changing rules.’ Sage again.

I want to regard this comment as pushing against their parents. Enjoy thinking I am observing part of maturation processes.

‘Being able to tell when someone else is around, watching, close by.’ Is River’s next contribution, brows knitted, focused. ‘Can’t explain why. A bit like feeling human pulses in empty spaces. Beating hearts in landscape filled with trees, bush, and native species. Strange heaviness when you share air with someone else. Our subconscious recognizing another human presence.’

River, middle one, with earthy connections, who they are. Child of movement and rhythm. I am loving diversity assembled around our table.

‘Rubbing noses greetings.’ Lyric picks up. ‘I never realized how intense such an experience of breathing in another’s human air.’

‘Sunlight through roadside plants. Probably weeds, fine rush like seed heads catching early morning glints. Saw this while we rode our bikes just yesterday. Thought it was beautiful.’ River again.

‘No reason a weed can’t be picturesque. Beauty can exist in blight.’

‘Zena princess warrior.’ Says Casey.

An intake of breath, by our two older children.

‘Why?’

‘Strong, yet pretty.’

‘Little one, pretty is a social construct. Different from beautiful.’

‘So, you say.’

‘Besides we’d like you to adopt non-binary language.’ Suggests Lyric.  

‘If you are a princess, what else can you be?!’ Casey’s button nose is screwed.

‘Is there an alternative for princess?’ Asks Sage. ‘Because Prince is the other end of a scale.’

‘Monarch, Royal…Yes I know you might disagree, because that’s my name.’

‘Did your name giver want you to be a Princess?’ Asks Casey.

I see Lyric’s jaw tighten as our youngest ignores non-binary language.

‘No, I took my name when I married Lyric.’

Look over at my long-term partner, softened, enigmatic in memories. I recall family amongst trees. Wandering down to a patch of exposed earth. Symmetry in our footsteps, gentle applauds wafting. As we vowed to share our lives in a place which became a home. We now spend days gathering with, circled around, and discussing our beauties. This is how we are.