Yesterday my wife and I went for our traditional first hike of the season to begin getting into shape for summer backpacking. We chose our go-to spot - not too difficult but not too easy either. It's a familiar, lovely, uncrowded place in nature that takes about an hour to drive to.
The weather was perfect; mostly overcast and 60F/16C to 68F/20C - ideal for comfort while climbing. The entire hiking route is forested, parts of it adjacent to or across creeks. The wildflowers, birds, new growth on trees, the smells... It all just feels like a primeval "home" every time we're in it.
But yesterday was the first time I was there as myself, Pema. Within just a few minutes, my wife was teary. She saw and felt it. I was different. Soon, I became very aware of it myself. I told her I felt "gentler." She said, "Yes." After a couple of miles, we arrived at a waterfall that is a place you just have to stop and be in awe. I waved to the waterfall and said, "Hi, I'm Pema" with tears in my eyes. I had seen it many times before, but never in that way, fully present as myself. It was magical in the same ways it always has been but also in new and special ways.
From there, we climbed to our lunch spot, a clearing with a view of the lake and hills below. As we ate, my wife asked me what I'd meant earlier by feeling gentler. I love when she asks me questions about my experiences of my feelings, because it prompts me to explore deeply what it is that I experience of myself. I told her it was that I came to the hike with no agenda for the day, that I didn't have any sense of "we need to..." for the hike nor anything that followed. It would all unfold as it would, and that would be wonderful. With that absence of a schedule, there was no rigidity, so I could just be completely present in the moment and enjoy myself, who was with me, and where we were. We agreed that a lot of that freedom was made possible by her having recently shed her lifelong tendencies to stack desires to a point where it became impossible to achieve everything she wanted to do in a day. Now we could just let go and appreciate what is, right now.
Over the course of 10 miles/16 km, we saw 14 other people. Sometimes we'd chat for a minute or two before continuing on. My wife said that Pema is much friendlier with strangers than <old_name> was. She said she'd look over at me and see the Pema smile as I was talking with them. I wasn't even aware of it; I was just happy to be there and to feel free. She also said she felt awful referring to me as "he" during those brief chats. It's OK. All in due time.
Was this my first time "out in public?" How does one define that? None of those strangers saw me as a woman. We encountered two different mixed couples, and both men did the classic thing of turning to talk to me whenever one of the obvious two women spoke. (I've always disliked that.) My wife and I were dressed very similarly; I was even wearing a new pair of women's hiking pants that fit me perfectly. Odds are good that I'll never wear a dress, so it's hard to say what will qualify as my first time out in public. I'm not sure it matters.
On Saturday we'll participate in the local protest, and I'll be Pema there, too. Nobody but my wife and two or three close friends will know, and that's fine, too. What matters most to me is my internal experience of myself and the effect that has on my experience and engagement with the world. Every time I have a new experience - even of a familiar place or activity - as Pema, it reinforces the significance, the validity, the truth of who I am after the decades of conditioning are stripped away.
