Revelations ~ September 2018 ~Billie

This is a monthly column helping us to get to know our friends and members in a deeper way. We thank Monte High for taking the time to do these in-depth interviews for us every month.
     The stars were aligning, the planets revolving and the molecules doing their usual dance when Billie Sage was born into the world in Cheyenne Wyoming, Earth on October 18, 1955 at 10:55pm. Four years later the family moved to Laramie. They moved to Albany for a couple years, and then up into the mountains to the place that Billie remembers as home. Billie’s dad purchased a 23 acre parcel in the West Centennial Valley that backed up onto Forest Service land. Twenty-three acres in Wyoming is not big enough to call a ranch or a farm – it was simply “our place”.
     Dad moved his house in Laramie out onto the newly acquired land on the rugged Wyoming frontier. The house expanded over the years as they constructed additions and added rooms. They raised horses, pigs, sheep and even chinchillas for a while. Because the altitude was 8500 feet, they pastured the horses at a ranch down the valley for the winter. They hunted antelope, deer and elk to feed the family, and Dad built a small greenhouse so they could raise a few vegetables. Dad got a job working summers for the Forest Service, and a few years later got hired on full time.
     The bus ride in grade school was 15 miles along gravel roads to Centennial. Junior high and high school was 35 miles to Laramie. Billie was an outsider and kept mostly to herself. She was Stoic; schoolwork was easy for her. Billie participated in 4-H, mostly raising sheep. The family attended a Protestant church a couple times a year, mostly to keep their standing as good Christians; but, the children didn’t really have a religious upbringing of any kind. Nature was Billie’s religion. For as long as she can remember, she’s been comfortable being alone, enjoyed being alone. From an early age she began to spend a lot of her time traversing the un-peopled land. Billie was allowed to roam. Mom would ask which direction Billie was going and tell her to be back by a certain time. Occasionally she would take a horse, but she preferred to walk, preferred the quietude and simple motion of her feet placed carefully upon the earth. Billie was at peace among the wild things. She understood nature better than she understood being human.
     In most everyone else’s eyes Billie was born the middle boy. Yet, early on she realized that she was different from her brothers, and when she started school she knew that she was different from other boys. She didn’t have language for what she was experiencing. No one talked about it. The Internet didn’t yet exist. She didn’t understand what was happening to her. Everyone saw Billie as a boy, Billie’s image in the mirror reflected back as a boy, so how could she identify herself as anything but a boy? Yet, the thoughts and feelings were coming from inside Billie, from the very core of being, from “her” essence.
     Billie was confused. Billie thought these thoughts must be bad. She thought she must be bad. She tried not to think these thoughts or feel this way, but it was all emerging from deep inside, from her self, and she could not separate it from who she was. The first time she talked about this (and the last, for many years) Billie was a teenager. Billie tried to explain her experience to her mother. It soon turned into a shouting argument. Billie shouting, “I am like a woman”…
     Billie silenced her inner voice; she tamped her true self down until it was barely a spark. She put on a mask. After all, it wasn’t hard to fool everyone because it’s what they wanted to see. She affixed the mask firmly to her face – put on her male persona. She denied her true self and tried to be what everyone wanted to see – Jim, the middle brother.
     Jim was 13 years old the first time he got blackout drunk on whiskey. Drinking helped cover up his gender issues. It was easy to get booze once Jim got a driver’s license because liquor stores never checked IDs at the drive-up window. When Jim was 17, he tried to commit suicide. He was rushed to the hospital and survived. Jim signed up for the Navy in May, right after high school graduation. The US was still involved in the Vietnam War when he signed up, but he never saw action. Jim was an electrician in the Navy; he did a whole lot of drinking. He did his four years and moved back to Laramie.
     Jim got a job working in the maintenance department at Laramie Hospital. His drinking did not usually affect his productivity at work, though he drank heavily after work and on the weekends. He liked to hang out in bars. At the time he did not consider himself an alcoholic. Drinking is sort of a thing in Wyoming.
     One day Jim met Jeri, a lab tech, at work. He was fixing a machine that she used. They became close friends. Jeri’s husband was abusive and Jim tried to do what he could to protect her, and eventually she was able to leave her husband. Jim and Jeri’s relationship moved beyond friendship, and eventually she began to pressure him – either you’re with me or you’re not. He decided to marry her. His drinking slowed down after he was married. He got a job working for the Laramie Water Department. They bought a little log house in a subdivision south of Laramie. He worked his way up the ladder of the water department and eventually became a wastewater treatment operator, which is a coveted, high salaried position.
     They decided to have kids. Jeri had a miscarriage, yet they kept trying. Her next pregnancy was precarious; doctor’s orders were to remain still for the last three months of the pregnancy. It was a hard labor and they ended up needing to do a C-section. October 3, 1984 they had a beautiful healthy boy – Matt. Jim was in the delivery room, witnessing it all. He was blessed because this generally did not happen in those days. It was an awesome experience; it was Billie’s first glimpse of spirituality. Jim joined the Catholic Church when Matt was 2 years old, Jim joined the Catholic Church because Jeri wanted Matt to be raised in the Church.
     Jim’s drinking began to take a toll on his health. He had always figured he’d drink and die early, but the birth of his son changed that. And then, when Matt was nine years old, Jim’s drinking got out of hand one night. This really gave him a scare. So, at age 40, Jim joined Alcoholics Anonymous. And so began the arduous task of learning how to live without alcohol. One of the tenets of AA is the belief in a higher power, so he began an earnest search for spirituality. He read the entire Bible. He became more involved in the Catholic Church, and this helped him stay sober.
     Without the booze to dull and alter her experience, without the booze to help silence her inner voice, the mask began to slip and Billie’s true self began increasingly to surface – the false male persona began to crack. It became more and more difficult for Jim to deny his lie and Billie began to reach through into the light.
     Ten years after undertaking the assignment to break free and learn to live life without alcohol, Billie found that she could no longer maintain the lie. She decided to come out. She needed to tell the truth and try to explain her thoughts and feelings, to explain the depth of her inner reality. She needed to reach out for help, and find words for her perception, for how she experienced herself.
     Billie showed Jeri her feminine self. She was shocked. Yet after the initial shock, she was willing to try and work it out and save the marriage. Billie then told Matt about her gender issues. Matt was surprised yet very accepting. He had been away to college and experienced the wider world. Matt was Billie’s first ally and has always been her best supporter. Billie’s family of origin was less understanding – they were unwilling to consider “their” Jim as a woman and refused to see Billie’s true self.
     Billie started seeing a counselor. The counselor was unqualified for gender issues but was able to get Billie connected with a national cross dresser group. In 2005 Billie attended Gay Pride Day in Denver for a weekend – her first time in public as her feminine self.  Oh joy! O glorious day! O freedom!
     Later that year Matt helped Billie and Jeri move to Grand Junction. Billie hoped to find both a counselor with experience in gender issues and a group of people dealing with issues similar to hers. (Not to mention that it would have been dangerous to remain in Wyoming as an openly transgender person.) Coming from rural Wyoming, Grand Junction seemed like the largest city that she could handle. Denver was far too large. Billie gave up the promising, stable career and took an early retirement. It was scary and a big leap but once she had the taste of freedom she could do nothing but reach for it.
     Letting go of a stable, false self is terrifying. Leaping into the unknown is unsettling and sets the world spinning. It takes immense courage. Yet for Billie there wasn’t much of a choice but to fall into the truth of who she was. Her delightful inner voice beckoned. Her beautiful inner being put on bells and came calling, refusing to be silenced. What a gift it was simply to exist in the present moment, relating to the world as her true self.
     Billie soon found a part-time maintenance job to supplement her retirement income. She found a counselor who had worked with transgender people. She found an AA group for transgender people. She found an accepting community, in the local Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Marlene was our minister at the time and also worked at Western Equality, the local LG BT Association. She was surprised by our friendliness, by how welcoming we were to her. She attended a UU sponsored LG BT dance.
     After numerous sessions with her counselor, Billie began to better understand her gender dysphoria, her innate identification as a woman. She decided to begin hormone therapy.
     Jeri had tried to stand by Billie, but at this stage she could no longer reconcile their marriage. They got a divorce. They were married for 22 years. This was a heart wrenching, tragic situation for Billie. She loved Jeri. In many ways Jeri had been her saving grace.
     A poem entitled “3” by Billie Sage, from her book “Trans Voice, A Decade of Prose Poems”:
 
I never had a love, you see. I had 3. There was you mom, though mother and daughter we could never be. Then I had you, my wife. Never did I think I would have a wife. Thought I would die alone, crazy. Me having a wife changed my very life. Then that love brought down our boy from above. Didn’t think I could love any more than you, my wife, but man, that boy...That’s a love I never thought I could feel. Seeing him born, that’s when I met Love. My soul I could feel. Well I never was no good at showing anyone what I felt, probably because my mind told me I had the wrong pelt. Well this life maybe I didn’t do it the way most understand, but love times 3 is what my heart thinks is grand. I never had a love, you see. I had 3. Then, now, and for infinity. I wrote this little poem because I felt my soul was alone, but Spirit said “looky here! Open your heart, and all your love is always near.” I cried, it felt good. For you see, I never had a love. To this point I have had at least 3.
 
On December 7, 2007 Billie underwent reassignment surgery in Trinidad, Colorado. She transitioned from male to female. She became totally, legally female. She took the legal name Abby and changed her driver’s license, Social Security and birth certificate. For the first time in her life she was able to experience a true body and soul connection.
 
During this time Billie had embarked upon a deep spiritual quest. It was a very intense time, meeting with her therapist, transitioning and the divorce. She joined a Kirtan chanting group led by fellow UUCGV member Jana Joramo. Kirtan was just what she needed. It allowed her to settle down, feel as one with the world and find her essential vibration. She studied many texts in Buddhism, Hinduism and Paganism. And then she studied with a female Shaman. It was an intensive two-year course. It took her even deeper within herself. It included rituals to heal the soul – such as drumming from moonrise to moonset. Learning to love herself. Learning to love herself. Learning to love her precious self.
 
As Billie became better acquainted with her soul the name Billie Sage came to her. The name Billie resonated with her spirit – the truest name of her truest self. It fit. So Billie changed her name from Abby to Billie.
 
During this time Billie also began a custodial job at Mesa State College, now Colorado Mesa University. After 10 years she retired, and for the past several months she’s been going through yet another passage, learning how to live life without a job.
 
More poems from Billie Sage’s book “Trans Voice, A Decade of Prose Poems”:
 
Skip a Rock
See the water. See the stone. Skip a rock. Listen to the ripples talk. Touch a tree. Learn to see. Breathe the air. Turn off the thought. Talk to Mother while on a walk.
 
The Howl
Walking home at 1:30am. Clouds move slowly across the near-full moon that peeks in and out of them. The warm temps have water in the alley with old, dead, musty leaves. The smell is pungent. Some of the dry ones rustle on the cold cement. I look up at the clouds and moon, and I had to, yes, I had to howl, like the long-removed cousin, the Wolf, crying at my love of the moment and the mystery.
 
I Am the Star
I saw a star, and in the Star, I saw an eye, and in the eye, was a glimmer, and in the glimmer was I. And the Star and I were love and a twinkle.
 
Life flows on...          In endless song...

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