Candyland Cactus Garden

When I first started working with this piece I just wanted to do little bits of enhancement using my Mac's baseline editing software that's part of the "Preview" program, with the intention of then going back and doing more editing with Image Tricks when I had more time and head space. But these plants just same alive with the smallest bit of editing, and I did more work than I intended, and it ended up coming out great. So, this final version is from only a few generations of editing from the Preview photo editing tools.

Candyland Cactus - at first, it doesn't look like a fun place to play at all - coz it's all thorny and dry, and crunchy.  But when you get in the Candyland cactus, you can find warm, cozy, soft nooks - places to either curl up and soak in the warmth of the world and lie peaceful in Mother Earth's loving embrace - or find places to sit and meditate and listen to the inner workings of your heart and see if you can get your heart beat in time with Mother Earth's.  They can be witch places, where you can spin magic - butterfly witch magic of transformation - because in the hardscrabble dessert part of Candlyland, you have to be strong to survive, you have to change to soak up the quick rains, the endless heat, or the flashfloods.  Some of us have to be strong to simply live our daily lives - to go out in public, to speak out loud and hear our own voice, to find the voice of our heart in the noise of the mechanical part of the socialized mind - the socialized mind that has told us we are inferior because of how we were born - to put our faces on and survive a world that is bred to see us freaks; strong to know that the world is not all possibility, that there are physical and social constraints we will always have to work around.  Amongst the Candyland cactus, you learn that you can survive even amongst the worst of constraints.  And there is such beauty in this undernourished land, because no one celebrates survival in a more colorful and amazing ways than those who suffer harsh physical constraints because of an accident of birth.  Whose parade do you wanna go to?

When i am in a club these days, i'm not sure what people see when they see me - do they see a woman or do they see a person whose not quite a woman, or do they see a boy whose had a girl painted on (a little boy said this exact thing to me at a party recently).  Whatever they see, i know that my voice is at odds with how i want to present myself.  I hate to speak, these days, because my voice betrays me.  My body betrays me.  It's a hard existence.  Starved for nurturance in a world that can be indifferent or hostile - or the opposite, i can be flooded with affection.  People will see that i'm trans and will shower me with acceptance and warmth - they want to be extra sure i feel welcome, and will go out of their way to be kind to me.  While i do like that, because it feels good to be fawned over, it feels strange too - it makes me feel different - because i'm being treated differently, whether folks are going out of their way to be kind, or are hostile to me.  I'm different - i'm alien.  I feel alien in this world.  I am proud to be different, to be who i am, but it makes daily existence hardscrabble.  Perhaps this is why these Candlyand cactus fascinate me so much - they are different, alien looking - are they plants or stone? are they flowers or thorns? - one thing we know is that they are survivors above all. 

MORE CANDYLAND:
The Fence Into Candyland                   
                                

The Bad Part Of Town...in Daytime       ... at Nite  
                       


Wildflowers                             The Amusement Park            Sweetbriar Corner on a frosty morning