1.




     I see a child take their singlet off in front of an unclouded bathroom mirror.

     And pose

                       sideways. Look

     at their still flat chest, deciding if they’ll get away with cutting their

swimming suit in half, and tucking something into their bottoms.

     When they go swimming with their newly found friends next day.
     I see a child freeze. A bee approaches them in the garden.

     They halt their breathing when it hovers

     oh so close.

     Question their own. Gender—

     does it make you a girl if you are frightened easily by insects?
     I see a child visiting the village of their relatives and everyone they meet

would like to know their age and how they are related to so-and-so. Discuss

who they remind them of.

     And then decide based on the length of the child’s hair, solely, whether to

call them

               gorgeous

               or to praise           their apparent strength and bravery. 
     The relative accompanying the child rushes to correct.

     She. He. He. She.

     The duel of pronouns ensues. A ricochet above the child’s head.



     It’s Mikael. Lucia. Me.

     Again Lucia.
     It’s bees and water everywhere

                                         in my memories and films I watch.

     And I no longer know what’s what.

     Whose queer childhoods. 
     Mikael is swimming. Lucia is swimming. I am swimming.
     And I am booking tickets to another queer childhood film to see with a

dear friend of mine. That’s two in just one week surrounding your birthday,

she points out smiling: 20,000 Species of Bees and Monster.

      (And Tomboy that I streamed without you last week, I want to add. But I

just smile back).
     I am looking,

                             I think,

     to fill the lacunae between the things that I remember.

     Where a sensation                     of not-being-present

                                                            is pooling. And where

     its accompanying vagueness can’t make up

     for what has never been acknowledged.



     And when I read the scenes above out loud I can’t help but notice how they

resonate.

               Within my body                 they are indistinguishable

               whether the words            come from my diary

               or outline                             something I’ve seen on screen. 
     Performance and authenticity might seem at odds, or even opposites, but

aren’t we always dependant on the shared, borrowed from each other

gestures, storylines, vocabularies when we either are contriving our lives or

trying at a later time to language our pasts.







     2.




     I take out silver prints. A faded stack I store inside an envelope on the

bookshelf. 
     And it’s me and my grandfather 
     this time                       we are on the beach. 
     Here, I am sitting in front of him, leaning my back against him. And our

arms are folded in a gesture of, well… nothing in particular…

     It’s just a shape we made.

     A pleasing visual echo of each other’s body we composed inadvertently.
     And here—I am in the shallow water of the Azov.

     His childhood sea. My childhood sea.

     Its name now borrowed by the ordinary heroes—a battalion of defenders

of Mariupol. A small town nearby that now made them famous.
     Here, between Leena,

                                               with braids arranged into loops,

                                               tied up to stop them soaking in salty water,

     and                       a boy

                                               whose name is lost (perhaps, a neighbours’ child?)

     I am smiling

     and I am perfect.

     I am neither–nor.

     I could not

     do it better if I tried, deliberately.
     And the photograph is modest in size and slightly tilted. Printed in the

makeshift darkroom in the bathroom. Corners are slightly bent, but

composition reveals a practiced eye and hand.

     In yet another coastal location, approximately thirty years prior, the same

photographer took pictures of

     my newborn mother,

                                           and her older sister,

                                                                                 their nanny,

     my grandmother,

                                      the US navy ships,

                                                                         communication tower locations,

     idillyc islands

                               strung along the coast of Greece.

     But that’s a story for another time. 
     Here, he simply framed three children sitting in the shallow water.

     And then I shiver realising that this boy, whose name I do not know, is now

in his forties.

     Like me. This boy.

     Was killed in war? Still fighting? And my throat closes up. 
     Next print is me and my grandmother. In the playground, on the high

shore with view over the sea. I am hanging off the bars above the slide. My

grandmother is keeping watch from under her oversized sun hat. And she is

working on something delicate that’s resting in her lap. 
     A pair of lacy socks is in the making here. To be held up by delicate

crocheted ties with the cherry-size pompoms that make a dainty bow below

my skinny knees. An outlier in my wardrobe of red and navy corduroys and

sweaters—all hand-me-downs from a cousin. 
     I barely had any clothes suited for a girl. And maybe, it begins

to bother my grandmother. And she wants to correct this. 
     Maybe, it’s a summer when we are on the brink.

     Of tensions

                         caused by boyish misdemeanours.

     Of voiced concerns

                                        and stopping me

     from climbing trees. Correcting

     manners inappropriate for girls.
     The image of a boyish child in the lacy knee-highs is sweetly camp, but I

could not know this at the time, and I objected. It will be a long while till I

understand that you can feel and look not less but more a boy when wearing a

dress.



     What is the word for a bookish, shy, sensitive tomboy

     in lacy knee-highs?
     How do we read her? 
     A bee is circling around to suggest an answer.






Films mentioned:

20,000 Species of Bees. Directed by Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, Gariza Films Inicia Films, 2023.

Monster. Directed by Hirokazu Koreeda, Gaga Corporation, Toho Co., Ltd., AOI Pro., Fuji Television, 2023.

Tomboy. Directed by Céline Sciamma, Hold Up Films, Arte France Cinéma, Canal+, 2011.