See you, see me.

A weird thing happened today, this morning as I was on my way to work. A woman passed me by on the pavement and walked on ahead. Nothing interesting in that I suppose, but I was hit by a sudden sense of familiarity. I couldn’t see her face but I appreciated the clothes she had chosen to wear to go to wherever she was heading this day. Her long black flowing skirt, flat heeled knee high boots and fuchsia coloured hooded jacket were not overstated but they struck a chord with me. What ever could it be? Why was this woman different? I couldn’t attain any sense of her age, she carried a small sensible brown leather rucksack over her shoulders and her hair was shoulder length and plainly cut. Certainly nothing to suggest she was screaming out for the attention of our fellow pedestrians. So what was it, this sense of familiarity which, if I’m honest, was starting to become a feeling of unease?

I tried to reason with myself and thought about how all this was connecting with me. I am often used to seeing someone wearing something nice. I can appreciate how it looks on them, consider if it would do something similar for me and how I might pull off a similar look. But it was different this time.  This would require a bit of thought.

I soon ruled out the possibility that this was down to anything connected with attraction. I wasn’t having a ‘she’s nice’ moment, no offence intended to the lady in front of me of course, remember I could not see her face. I was to all intent, connecting in some way, identifying, yes identifying, that was it, with who she was. Oh good heavens, everything she was wearing would be something I might chose to wear myself, but on top of that, her demeanour, her presence was what was so strangely familiar. It was like watching myself, or at least how I like to imagine myself to be.

This truly was weird; I seemed to be having an almost existential moment. Here was my male self looking at what could be my female self, all a bit Richard Bach if I’m honest, encountering another version of yourself, but for a few passing moments there would be no harm in entertaining the thought, surely? I tried to imagine what it would be like to be entirely male, if all my female traits and thoughts were bound up in the woman before me, the two parts entirely separate and not components of some internal symbiosis.  Of course I couldn’t fully comprehend that thought, try though as I might, it wasn’t going to happen. The two sides to me are inexorably intertwined I feel. So I was left with this strange brief feeling that Grace was walking ahead of me, seemingly free and accepted by the world around her. Free of the negative things and thoughts I’ve lived with all these years, hoping and wishing to just be myself, looking for that quiet acceptance from the world around me. There was a certain peace to those brief few minutes as we walked down the road.

Eventually we went our separate ways, that connection broken in my mind, leaving me to feel a little stronger, stronger in the knowledge that Grace is a part of me and identifies with women in a slightly different way to what I have experienced before. My internal affirmation of my feminine side is a little stronger today. It never really went anywhere, but occasionally it will surprise me when I am least expecting it.