Tears for a Colonel

I've already written about becoming more wistful, misty-eyed since beginning HRT in June, but I had not experienced the torrent of uncontrollable tears that I have heard others describe.  That changed today.

This morning I had a beautiful waking dream.  It must have been 1970 or 1971, and in my dream I woke in the basement family room of my oldest sister's house in Oxon Hill, MD.  I was on one of her orange couches, where I always slept when we came to visit.  My nephew, then scarcely ten years old came bouncing into the room, and I thought he looked so funny in his plastic frame glasses.  (That's the pot calling the kettle black, as I also wore large plastic frame glasses back then.)  Then my brother-in-law breezed in, running to grab something from the back, followed by my sister.  I felt so wonderful that I both laughed and cried to think what wonderful times those were even if I was not able to talk to anyone about my deepest troubles.

I woke fully to find myself in my bed here in Bucharest, happily sobbing uncontrollably and not able to stop.  I would just get the tears to slow, and then I would think of my nephew again as he was in those days and as the fine man he has become.  Again I was reaching for the Kleenex.

My nephew is a full army colonel today with his own family and young children.  He has not said so to me directly, but I don't think he fully approves of these changes in his uncle.  That's OK.  I remember how he cried at my wedding in 1982, and my own tears start again.

By the time the floodgates closed, I had a large pile of Kleenex on the floor.  I got up, dressed, and went for an easy early morning bike ride around the Bucharest Sea.

Now, as I write these words, my eyes again become misty.  This is for you, nephew, tears for a colonel.

How We Kidnapped Irina Nita

Did you know that we kidnapped Irina Nita?  Now, before any of my Romanian readers call the police or ask Interpol to put out an all points bulletin, I hasten to inform you that Irina asked us to kidnap her.  We only complied with her request by hijacking the Washington portion of the International Visitors Leadership (IVL) program that has just taken her to the U.S. for three weeks.

My readers outside Romania are probably asking, "Who is Irina Nita and what is this about kidnapping and hijacking?"  Let me explain.

Irina Nita is executive director of ACCEPT, the Romanian national NGO for advancement of LGBT rights.  I've had some involvement with ACCEPT for several months now, but I only met Irina about three weeks ago when I sat down to interview her for my U.S. Embassy report on the current situation and prospects for transgender individuals in Romania.  At the end of our conversation, I asked if there was anything I could do for her, and she proceeded to tell me that she hopes to organize a specialist conference on transgender legal and medical issues in Bucharest next year.  She said should would like to have American participation in this workshop but had no knowledge of or contacts in the U.S. transgender community.  She asked if I could help her.  She then added that she was about to travel to the U.S. on an IVL program sponsored by the U.S. State Department.

That was all I needed to get started on a hijack plan, but I knew I could not do it alone.  I'm a beginner at this sort of thing, and I needed professional help for an operation of this sort.  I turned to my "Oceans Eleven" team consisting of Anne Vonhof at the Office of Personnel Management, Chloe Schwenke at USAID, Shannon Doyle at MAGIC-DC, and my good Foreign Service friend Kay.  They assembled the list of U.S. experts on transgender issues for Irina to meet.  Gays and Lesbians in Foreign Affairs Agencies (GLIFAA) with leadership from Policy Chief Paul Kim anointed us an ad-hoc GLIFAA committee.  With that title, I approached the Public Diplomacy office at Embassy Bucharest.  I got a cool reception at first and was told that Irina's schedule was already fixed with little possibility for change.  I insisted, however, and they sent on our list of additional meetings to the program office in Washington.

A few days later I received an e-mail from Meg Poole at Meridian House.  Meg, it turns out, was in charge of Irina's program.  Not only was the Washington portion of the program not fixed, Meg was having trouble reaching anyone to set up meetings during the summer vacation season.  Anne jumped right in with names and telephone numbers for people she knew were available.  Mara Keisling from the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) started calling Meg as well, saying she was ready to meet Irina at almost any time or place.  Kay stepped forward to host a luncheon for Irina with a number of transgender activists and specialists in attendance.  In the end, we got transgender-related meetings set up for Irina at the Human Rights Campaign, USAID, NCTE, the Whitman Walker Clinic, and at a number of other organizations and government offices.

Irina will also travel to Atlanta, San Francisco, Des Moines, Atlanta, and Albany, New York, on what will be mainly an LGB itinerary.  The Washington component, however, now has a decidedly T shade that it would not have had otherwise.  At Irina's request we successfully cracked our way into an existing USG program and rearranged the parts.  Never before have I so thoroughly enjoyed being part of a hijacking.

Travel well, Irina.  Drum bun.  It's "wheels up" in Bucharest.  We'll see you in a few weeks.

PS -- Anne Vonhof managed to open more closed doors for us in Washington than I thought possible.  The next time I stand in front of a locked bank vault, I want Anne next to me to speak the magic words.

Interlude: Bucharest by Bicycle

Graffiti:  Moldova is Romania

Many old friends and colleagues from my years on Hubble are probably wondering, "Is she still riding that bicycle, or has this T thing taken over her life with the speed of a overloaded tandem careening down a mountain road without brakes?"  To all assembled lovers of two wheels I hereby declare, I'm still riding.

1989 Revolution Began Near Here

There's a deeply embedded T side to my riding a bicycle that almost no one would have guessed, but I will get to that in one of my "So How Far Back Does this Go?" entries.  For the moment I just want to share the joy of riding in Bucharest, where this summer I have again become an urban cyclist as I once was for many years in the Washington, DC, area.  I ride my bike to the Embassy in the morning.  It's not even three miles from my home, but having the bicycle at work means I'm ready to go when the workday ends.  I ride to my electrologist appointments, I ride to the market, and I ride just to explore Bucharest and the immediate countryside.  Unlike in Tashkent, where I had an $800USD Honda with no gas gauge, I own no motorized transportation here, and thus the inspiration to ride is all the greater.

Ceausescu's People's Palace

Concert Hall

Mind you, this is urban cycling, not a pleasant ride in the park, although there are also some very beautiful parks.  Bucharest is a very busy city with too many cars, not much infrastructure, and too many drivers in a hurry.  As in the Soviet Union, cars were out of reach to all except the lucky and well-positioned during communist times.  This all changed after the revolutions of the late 1980s.  When Ceausescu fell in December 1989 and the doors of capitalism opened wide, the Romanian love affair with the automobile began and has not abated despite gridlock traffic and excellent, fast public transit.  Everyone just has to own a car.  It's a status symbol of wealth and well-being.

Chased by a Truck

Old Town

Riding a bike in central Bucharest on a workday is about the same as riding in Manhattan or in downtown Washington, DC, during rush hour.  There is a laughable system of bike lanes on sidewalks that is entirely unusable because of pedestrians and cars parked on the sidewalks.  (I could mount my soapbox and lecture that bike lanes on sidewalks are dangerous by definition and should be banned everywhere, but I'll resist the temptation. . . .) That means I'm in the traffic lanes with the cars and trucks just as I used to be in the U.S. and as I still appear on the cover of the Maryland Bicycle Safety Guide.  Since there are scarcely any hills in Bucharest, I'm able to keep up with the motorized traffic for extended spurts.  In the very center sometimes it is impossible even for a bicycle to make headway in the gridlock, and then I find myself walking the bike on the sidewalk with the pedestrians.

Romania's Arc de Triomphe

As always, riding a bicycle is a great way to explore, and that's what I like most on weekends.  I've been here long enough now that I don't mind getting lost and then figuring out how to get back on familiar ground.  Some of the nicest districts are those I discover by accident.  Bucharest was once known as the Paris of the East, and there are still back streets where one can find the atmosphere of the inter-war city that once was.

A Quieter Ride

Will I continue riding when the snows of winter come?  Probably not.  I did that for years in the U.S., but I will now let you in on a secret:  it's not fun.  There is nothing like a 35F (2C) rain to soak and chill a body to the bone.  (The trick, as Peter O'Toole says in Lawrence of Arabia, was in not minding it.)  Here I will enjoy the warm, long days of summer riding and switch to metro, bus, trolley, and tram for the bad winter days. 

Astronomers' Street

Question for future thought:  Should I trade in my trusty Atlantis for a Terry? My bicycling friends will smile and say, "So, she had to end on a T note after all, didn't she?"