Directed by Celeste Lapida • 2021 • Philippines
Starring Celeste Lapida

“ . . . people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth [. . .] want to strike out toward some new location, some space not yet clearly defined or concretely occupied; [. . .] the movement across a socially imposed boundary away from an unchosen starting place.” —Susan Stryker, “Transgender History”

Somewhere a Destination

There are changes that I’m happy about, small ones that only I notice. The details on my skin or every new centimeter of hair, I watch them crawl like a trail of ants on the wall from an undecipherable nook of somewhere else. Sometimes I would hear whispers from my thighs and a humming by my arms, which come so unexpectedly like a breeze, the one that comes in on a busy street of a working afternoon. From a distance and without pausing, they may only seem to be a wall or just a busy street, but it still makes a body—even if it’s just one and only mine.

“It can only be so rewarding,” I tell people whenever I’m asked how it feels to be in this body.

What other people notice is a collection of these changes in images. Ones they collect of a body from 2017 versus the images they have of it today. They recognize an image and assume that that is a certain destination of a body, while only so few can come close and maybe even pause to see that these images are moving, transitioning in perpetuity. Ambiguous details of an ambiguous destination.

I look up at the sky, it’s nighttime. On the left is one grey cloud and it stays there. I look straight at the tall buildings, all staying still. Some windows beam out a light, some are just about to be turned off. If I were by the sea, looking straight wouldn’t mean looking at stiff structures, but the sea, instead, of course. And it would curl in on itself, releasing to the shore. I imagine being there, knowing how much I miss its promise of always new images. I look to the skies again, the one that pairs with the buildings, and the cloud is on the middle. If it were 2pm, I would be hearing metal and wood from a construction nearby. There just always is one and it didn’t matter if it was in my line of sight or someplace else, something was always being built here. The one I am seeing now may promise new images; seeing new details added by its construction. But it has to be finished one day, and the changes it is meant to take would be final. New details would be decay, until its fixed to another defined image. And I watch the cloud. Slowly changing its position, moving closer to the right. It expands too, a new shape, a new thing anyone could imagine it to be. Moments ago, I was imagining the cloud as a person in a dress swaying, perhaps they were dancing. Now I’m imagining a wrist that softly points its hand somewhere. From where I sit looking on, only half of this horizon promises ambiguity, hopefully in perpetuity.

There can be glimpses of what feels rewarding. A recognition that something feels right, finally, brings this reward. When a body looks around a space and notices all the wrong things about it, in its rigidness and straight lines, a body starts to desire. This is when queerhood starts: desiring for a better place, somewhere far from present rigidness, somewhere vast and unexplored.

And being there is like being with her, watching her get dressed and pick the right shoes to dance in. Sometimes she’d lend me her earrings or fix my hair before we head out. Being there feels like laughing with them while walking in a dark street. It feels dangerous, that in any moment uniformed men would force us to show identification and threaten us, then nothing happens. They and I continue to walk. It’s like being with him quietly looking for our seats in a movie house, sitting down and ready to watch. In this dark room, the light is on both our faces, slowly attaining inspiration. When we’re all watching a fireworks show— more light on our faces, changing in each boom and spark. Joy and astonishment. The fireworks are loud but we all cheered much louder, together. Even when one tried to catch their breath, to take a moment in, we were in chorus.

When you and I make a bed after sleeping in the afternoon. Checking all corners are tucked in tight. You offer me tea, knowing just how I like it. The sun starts to set, its orange blushes the white clouds. You say “the clouds are blushing”. You and I sit outside and watch until it’s all grey, before heading back inside for dinner. Being there is being with you.

Glimpses of somewhere, at least for now.