The country of gender

This is where I live now.

It's an island, or maybe more of a continent, roughly square but quite big, with some lovely scenery. I spent most of my life in one of the two major cities, the one in the south-west corner, but I was never happy there. I never knew why, though. It was a shame really, because the people were quite diverse and there was always a lot going on, but so much of it seemed rough and abrasive and loud. I felt I wanted to live somewhere quieter, somewhere with a more interesting cultural life, somewhere I could feel more comfortable. But nobody was allowed to leave. Or so I thought. Actually, for a long time I thought the city was all there was...for me at least.

There was the pen pal scheme, of course. When you grew up, you could have a pen pal in another city, way over across the country on the north-east coast, and you could write letters to each other. You were only allowed one, for all your life--at least that was the theory--but you were allowed to choose from a big thick directory. It was sort of expected of you. Writing letters to other people in the city was strictly forbidden.

As time went on, I learned that there were other large towns. I didn't know much about them, but there was a road leading straight north out of the city, and from what I heard it went to a town up in the north-west where you could write letters to people in the same town as you, who all came from the city. That seemed like a nice idea, but I never had any urge to write letters to anyone from my city. Besides, I heard that the north road was dangerous. You could get beaten up, robbed, even killed. People from the city did not like anyone taking that road.

When I got older, I heard about the underground railway. If you knew where to go, and you knew the right people, you could apply to go on it. There were lots of tests, and some of them sounded really awful, and even sort of arbitrary, but if you managed to pass them all, you'd be called for one night, and hustled into a doorway, and down some steps, and then you'd be on the train hurtling through the dark tunnel for a while, and then you'd be let out in the other city, and you'd have to spend the rest of your life there. That seemed a bit absolute to me, a bit final, you know? And you had to spend, ooh, I think it was two years, still living in this city but pretending you were living in the other one, and didn't know what living in this city was all about. That just sounded silly.

But I wasn't happy. I had a pen pal by now, and she was lovely, but something was pulling at me all the time, making life in my city uncomfortable. I really didn't want to stay there, but I had nowhere else to go. I'd learned that in the other city, the one my pen pal lived in, there was a road that went south. It was just as mischancy as the north road, but it led to a town where people from that city could live and write letters to each other. That seemed like the place I was born to live in, but how could I? Even if I took the underground railway, there were rigid rules against anyone who did that ever leaving the other city again. The one option that felt right was barred to me. So I just made the best of it. I moved to a new house, high up on a hill where people weren't so brash and noisy, and I wrote to my pen pal, and I just got on with living.

And then--this is the important part--I began to hear about people who didn't live in any of the towns or cities. They lived where they wanted. They. Lived. Where. They. Wanted. Some of them lived on high hills right in the middle of the country and didn't wear the colours of either city or have pen pals at all. Some of them lived in the towns and wrote to people all over the place. Some of them just struck out from their home cities and went north, or south, or west, or east, as far as they wanted to do and then built themselves houses. Some people even had caravans and wandered. Outside the cities, you see, there were no rules. You could live where you wanted, write to whomever you wanted, be whoever you wanted. There was a whole land out there, hardly inhabited at all.

I had to find out what it was like. I had to find somewhere I could truly live.

So, one dark night, I packed a suitcase, crept out of my house on the high hill, walked quietly down through the noise and the crowds and the smells to the city wall, which really wasn't that high or well guarded, and climbed over. I walked till I was tired, always heading east, and slept under a hedge, and when I woke up next morning, I was free.

Well, not entirely free. My house is still in the city, and I have to sneak back in and spend time there so nobody notices I've gone, but it's not where I live any more. I haven't found my place yet. I don't think I'd be welcomed in the southeastern town, not now. I've spent too much time in that city; the colours are worn into my skin, and besides there's no road between those two places, hardly even a track, though I've seen some footprints. My pen pal knows I wasn't happy, living in that city, but she expects me to keep writing to her from there and I can do that. But oh, oh, it's such a relief to get away from those frowning walls and that incessant noise and lose myself in the country. Or find myself, rather. Because I think in a way I've been out here all the time, just waiting for myself.

And I'm so very, very happy to be here now.