fred_mouse

In my last post I mentioned in an aside about running ally training in my sleep. This is a direct reference to an incredibly rambling dream from some time in the last week, in which I was running queer ally training at work.

I have, historically, run ally training, but in a university setting, not a government department. And my current job has no reason for me to be running such training. But the dreaming brain is not a rational one.

There were many tedious details, like an argument about whether it should be run virtually, in person, or hybrid. There were random other 'I am stressed and attempting to organise Stuff!' details that are common to my other types of anxiety dream. It was, in this way, indistinguishable from my dreams about trying to check out of a hotel/motel/short stay apartment or get to the airport/etc or help a friend move house -- endless details coming out of thin air, sudden extra people/stuff where there shouldn't be, and general shenanigans. It was, to no-one's surprise, nothing like this coherent.

But the detail that really stuck with me afterwards (other than the 'well, that was a bit of a clusterfuck, I hope that has nothing to do with reality') was the section of the presentation where I talk about identity. Because in the real world, because it is ally training on topics of gender and sexuality, I talk about those details, and their fluidity over time. In the dream, I talked about being a recorder player. How it is fundamental to my self-identity. How even though I haven't touched a recorder in weeks, I am always a recorder player.

And the detail that I woke up and went 'Oh!' about: I have no memories of not being a recorder player. Which, in the waking world, isn't quite true. I got my first recorder at age 5 or 6 (I know which house it was in; it has to have been in a very narrow window of time, either just prior to, or at the beginning of my first year of formal schooling, and I turned 6 about three weeks into first term). I have memories that pre-date that, because they are from NSW, and we moved to WA when I was five. But in terms of identity? Of perceptions of who I am? It could be true there.

I'm still in the self-reflection phase of this, working out what it means. I think the short answer is going to be along the lines of my identity as a musician is far more fundamental to who I feel I am than anything about my body, my gender, or my sexuality.

The slightly longer thought is that 'musician' is a life long identity for me. It predates puberty, perception of self as having a gender, questioning the social message about what my attractions (or lack thereof) implied, etc. It is also likely to post-date my life as a someone for whom gender and sexuality are important parts of my identity. Given that both my partners are older, the probability is I will live some years past where they do. My vague perception of that time centres on settling into an identity of 'old', 'widowed'. I have no sense of gender or sexuality that goes with those vague thoughts. I think about books, about making a space for a failing body, for whether I will be able to continue music, about participating in community. Yeah.