Home of the Heart Shaped Tub (Poconos)
After a two hour drive of trying not to choke on all of my feelings all at once, I find the driveway to Clutch and Ambrose’s swamp house tucked away in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. I put my things away first: my medicine cabinet so it doesn’t melt from the sun, the little propane tank out of the truck bed so it doesn’t explode in the heat (and burn my shit to the ground…yes this image replays in my mind over and over again), and my immediate necessities and clothes inside. They take me on a short tour of the land and tell me about how a lot of people are afraid to go near it. I think the swamp represents something about the unknown and that makes people uneasy. It’s densely covered in trees, some dead, some thriving, thick mucusy green and orange slime, and animals lurking in the shadows (mostly beavers, fowl, herons, and amphibians). The swamp is actually more like a sponge or the “kidneys” of the earth. They prevent flooding by allowing a space for rain water to commune. It also soaks up toxins/pollutants and filters out the bad to make room for the good. Swamps get a bad rep, and I love how enthusiastic they both are about this new habitat they’ve become so close to the last couple of years. Ambrose heads into NYC for the next couple of days, and Clutch and me head indoors for the night to watch a movie. They proceed to show me the area where they believe George Santos is hiding behind an anonymous profile in the Poconos on Sniffies…obviously V important.
The next few days are spent with me juggling work and trying to give them the visit I want for us. Clutch and me spend Monday working and then going out to look at a few waterfalls with a hike. They tell me a short history of the Poconos. One being that it was once considered the “Honey Moon Capital of the World” due to the waterfalls, lakes, and forests nestled in the quiet and romantic Poconos forest… but really it was just home to the heart shaped tub. Resorts popped up everywhere in the mid-1900s to sell their getaways to honeymooners in a wild era of tourism amongst the colonizers. Ambrose gets home Tuesday and we go for a hike deep into their land. It butts up against the Delaware State Forest, the Appalachian Trail, and has the most beautiful swimming holes I’ve ever seen. There’s one particular trail that Sofi (from Philly) said is her favorite in the country and it happens to be right in their backyard. “The Thunder Swamp Trail.” What a name. I have a hair-brained idea to come back in late October for the change of the season and leaves to hike the trail myself.
The last day is spent going for a foggy hike up to a fire tower called “High Knob”. We spend most of the hike trying not to step on all of the 1-3 inch long efts hiding on the trail. We get to the top and realize we can’t see anything, but the coolness of the light rain gently covering our bodies and skin feels like a much needed relief from the belligerent heat we’ve had the last couple of weeks. We hop scotch our way back down around the efts and grab a sandwich from a nearby store called the “Pickerel Inn and Deli”. It’s an old Inn from the 1930s that now is a gas station that sells live fishing bait and delicious rueben sandwiches. I ignore the 1 single dead minnow floating upside down in the water tank by the fishing gear…
We head back to their house just in time for me to start therapy. I haven’t met with her since I left Seattle so we had A LOT to catch up on. I tried to inform her in the most unbiased way of everything that has happened and where I’m at emotionally. When we’re about 2 minutes from the end of our session she responds to something I’ve said with “OHHHH, I’m REALLY excited to pull that apart and I think I just found the throughline to most of the things you’ve talked about, but I just realized it’s the end of the session.” We both realize I’ve said something remarkable enough that we have the same reaction… I’m excited for the next session. I don’t think I’ve ever said that about therapy…that’s probably a good thing, right? One other big thing I’ve come to a conclusion on is that I no longer identify as non-binary or queer. I’m trans and either gay or a bisexual, but not queer. I identified as genderqueer for such a long time. The ze/zir pronouns never felt right for me, but around 2010 I started using they/them, and that’s been the case for the last 14 years (except for the 3 months I tried on he/him in 2013 and that grossed me out). It wasn’t until the mid-2010s that I started hearing the term “non-binary”. I think it was just a sign of the times and language evolving to feel more relevant, but I should just stick with what feels the most genuine. I’m trans. That feels like it covers it. As for the term “queer”. It also seems to be losing its relevancy with the younger gays, but I think what really feels hard is that I used to use the word singularly throughout the 2000s and 2010s to describe my political identity without having to say too much. Like there was a large swath of us that when we said that word “QUEER” out loud it would mean we were part of a network of punks, outcasts, and freaks looking towards a better version of the world that encompassed us supporting and being able to rely on one another to get our needs met whether that was housing, food, community, music, etc. And we were able to live that reality for a good long while. It also just represented what we thought about the world…steal from stores, beat up racists, abolish prisons, create your own fucking family, fuck the cops, and have LOTS of sex in the woods. I’m sure there was more to it, but that was what left the biggest impression on me. And don’t get me wrong… it definitely had (still) a lot of fucked up real problems. A couple being rampant racism and then rich trust fund kids going incognito as queer Carhart-wearing train hoppers. A lot of those spaces were whiter than they should have been, and didn’t provide space for anything other than that at times… A lot of people (including me) didn’t understand the concept yet of not just being ~not racist~, but actively practicing anti-racist beliefs. And as for the rich kids, well a lot of them now seem to have nice houses with a picket fence and 3.5 children being raised within heterosexuality. GREAT. SO HAPPY FOR YOU. Anyway, that leads me to my point being that I no longer feel a connection to that word. People that have used that word around me are so far from my political values and identity that it just feels wrong to continue using it the same way I have since the beginning. So just call me gay or a true bisexual. That will work for now.
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*Land of the Lenni-Lanape, Munsee Lanape, and Mohican*