[Excerpt] - Gravity is a Concentration of Understandings
An excerpt from my book "Gravity is a Concentrations of Understandings"
[We met at Ocean Beach. I sat on a bench eating fruit waiting for Naya to arrive. The air felt light and honeyed. The sun effortlessly turning beachgoers into light catchers - fractal-wrapped thalassophiles.]
Remy:
Who are you and what is a moment of joy that you had today?
Naya:
My name is Naya Ryan and a moment of joy is right now being here looking at the water with a Black trans person who came all the way here to talk to me. I think this is something that I definitely want to always remember.
So this is a moment of joy for me right now - looking at the birds fly by and listening to the ocean move.
Remy:
How do you describe your soul and the soul in general?
Naya:
I’m gonna take my jacket off. That question here.
That’s spicy. I would say my soul is the voice that is there and it has been here before I came into this body. I feel like the best way I can describe my soul is through all the shit that I’ve experienced in life, I felt like there has always been something that guided me through it. I’m having so many memories right now. When I was in middle school, they did this list of like who is cute on a scale of zero to 10. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this right now, but I remember feeling so out of place. I already had a complicated relationship with my body and I remember seeing my name on this list being judged by people who I didn’t want to be judged by, but also I cared about my peer’s opinions. I remember seeing my rating and I was like, “Well damn, like is that my value?”
I also had this feeling that kept me going forward that was like it’s always going to get better. There’s always more and I just have to keep going and I think that was my soul. It was that voice that knows that it’s going to be all right. It’s always going to work out in your favor and just keep going and trust that shit is gonna be good.
I would say that’s the best way I can describe my soul. It’s just the force that knows. I think I’ll come back to that one, cause I feel like I want to circle back to that. I’ve been like eyeballing the water.
Remy:
Where in your physical body does your soul frequent the most?
Naya:
My heart.
I have a lot of energy in my head too, but I don’t know if I would call it my soul.
Remy:
In times when you feel like your soul is separate from your physical body, what does that separation feel like?
[Naya asked if she could stand in the water while we talked. I followed her to the water as she let the waves wrap around her ankles. I felt the sun hit the back of my neck in a way I hadn’t felt that day, took my socks and shoes off, and let the water flow over me.]
Naya:
I guess the first thing that comes to my mind is sometimes I do affirmations like right when I get out of the shower. I tell myself and remind myself that no matter what I tag on the end of the sentence, I am enough or I am perfect or I am beautiful or I am any of those things. And when I do that enough in the mirror, sometimes I feel like I go into this trance where I’m outside of myself looking at myself. That feels expansive, it feels like I am more places than just in my body when my soul is outside of my form.
Remy:
When was the first time or the most prominent time that you felt like you were fully seen?
Naya:
It’s recently, actually. I’m gonna start with recently and then I’m gonna say the first time that I felt like I saw myself.
Recently, I just started working at this clinic where their mission is to support queer and trans folks and people with uteruses. They perform abortions at the clinic and help people on their gender journey. Other than my writing, the clinic was the first time that I felt like what I was doing was aligning and I felt a sense of purpose. I’m still unlearning so much shit about needing to be validated outside of myself. I had all of these ideas when I was coming into the clinic and then I just started getting affirmed in a way that kind of gagged me. I remember when I was still in the hiring process and was still in the state of trying to prove myself to folks.
I remember being in the clinic and having on this top that was like me taking a chance. You know that place in your gender journey where you’re like, “All right, this is my safe thing to try on and this is like my I’m risking it all’’? So it was one of those risking it all. I felt vulnerable, but like what better place if not this clinic?
So I remember there were moments of feeling insecure and these thoughts coming up of trying to prove myself. There was a person that came into the room and one of my coworkers looked at me and picked up on my body language. I saw them process that for a moment and then come over to me and say “Hey, you know that top you’re wearing looks amazing on you” and I was kind of gagged because I was in such a state of feeling like I needed to prove myself that I was defensive even towards that person that I didn’t even know. I was already thinking like that motherfucker probably thinking this and that about me. And that person ended up coming over to me and reassuring me in a vulnerable moment. Since then I have felt so safe in that environment around other trans people. So I would say that was the first time that I felt seen by other people. The first time I saw myself, I would describe it as like a glimpse. I didn’t realize so much of this would be about my transition, but in the beginning of my transition before I started medically transitioning, I was looking in the mirror and my hair was starting to thin in one place. You know the technical term for that is male pattern baldness so that was fucking me up. I was looking in the mirror and I was like, “Oh shit, I’m going to look like this to everybody.” I was looking in the mirror just crying. I remember one of the first thoughts that I had was I wanted to try a wig on and I’d never tried a wig on ever in my life. I had in Tennessee experimented with makeup and heels and stuff, but never wigs. It never even occurred to me until I was gagging about the way my appearance was changing. I had met other trans folks, but it didn’t resonate immediately with me until that moment. I went to the Bronx, I was living in New York at the time, and I remember thinking like okay there’s this little beauty salon in the Bronx.
When I get off of work, I’m going to get off the train and I’m going to go very secretly try on a wig just to see what it looks like to cover this shit up. When I tried on this red wig in the mirror, I just started crying when I saw myself because suddenly I made sense to myself in a way that I hadn’t before. I remember this little red wig. I need another red wig in my life. I need some more red in my life. That was the first moment that I felt seen by myself.
That was a glimpse of, oh this is me right here. And it wasn’t about the wig. It was the moment that I allowed myself to exist in a form that made sense to me.
Remy:
For that feeling of being fully seen, do you think it should be a constant state or kind of taken in doses?
Naya:
Ideally every day. Ideally, but I’m making peace more with the idea that we shape the world around ourselves. Like yes, there are structures in place that were here before us, but I also believe that the experience that I’m having is one where I have more control over myself and my body and the way that it moves in the world more than I was taught to believe. So it should be in a way that makes me turn the question back onto myself. It’s more so that I should be in a state of finding my own sense of self constantly. I don’t know who lives like that. I don’t know what person lives in a state of constant knowing. I don’t even know if that is what I want because it feels human to me to know and then not know and to move back and forth.
Maybe I’ll change them as I grow, but that’s how I feel right now. I would just say I like being in a place where I have these anchors. When it comes to things outside of ourselves, we should definitely have some things and some people outside of ourselves in our lives.
If we don’t, then we need to make concerted efforts to find each other and to find the things that remind us of ourselves.
Remy:
When you think about you and the journey of becoming you, is there one common thought or is it a thread of thoughts over time that make you?
[We back up out of the water a bit and stand in quietness as the sun falls over us.]
Naya:
At this moment right now, I’m not having any thoughts about becoming me. I feel like something in me kind of rejects the idea of thoughts in becoming me. If I give you thoughts of becoming me, I’m gonna give you a story. It’s going to be the pitch from my pilot, but I don’t feel like that accurately best describes me. I don’t know if thoughts are the best way to describe how I became.
Remy:
If it’s not a thought, what’s tied to becoming?
Naya:
It’s a feeling. What comes up for me is joy in the feeling of transformation. I feel happy because I’m seeing an image in my mind of a caterpillar and that is the becoming. I feel a lot of pride because I know it must mean that I’ve come from somewhere. I had this dream a few days ago that I was in this random dark house and I was making my way out of the house. I had a candle and I was telling these people in the house that I was leaving and going home. So I lit the candle and what unfrilled out of the candle was a caterpillar. In the dream, I was like, “Well, what the fuck is this?
This is kind of scary.” I followed the candle with the caterpillar inside of its home and then I woke up. Immediately I looked up what a caterpillar in a dream means and what came up was rebirth like spiritual rebirth. I guess that actually leads me to my name. My name means “new beginning”. Naya means “new beginning” in Sanskrit. I was named Ryan by my parents and this name was given to me because my grandmother said that a white-sounding name was going to get me jobs. I’m from the south.
So I was named Ryan, which is a Gaelic Irish name that I really got no business having. When I renamed myself, I was like I’m going to reverse the order of the letters of the name that was given to me so that it could be mine. It was my idea of saying like I’m going to turn around what was given to me. Ryan spelled backwards was Nayr. It’s the main character in the pilot that I’m writing right now and it was the name that I first chose for myself. I was living in this youth shelter in New York City and the lady there was so sweet. When I told her to start calling me Nayr she did, but I never answered. I never answered.
She was like “Nayr, Nayr”. I never answered, it never felt like me. Eventually, she brought it to my attention and she was like, “You know, you’re not even answering to this name. I don’t think it’s yours.”
And so I dropped the R and replaced it with an A. The first time I heard her call me Naya, immediately I looked up like “Oh that’s me.” It was just a feeling immediately I knew. That is the best way I could describe becoming me. Naming myself is what I imagine, in every sense of the process when it comes to becoming me from the name that I was given to the name that I chose, that’s what I think of as constant rebirth. New beginnings.
Remy:
Other than the caterpillar, what colors, shapes, symbols, describe your soul?
Naya:
The water for sure. I feel like I’m home when I’m near water. My mom used to call me a fish when I was a kid. She didn’t even know how right she was because of the way that we use the word fish as trans women. She was calling me fish before she even knew. I would say the water for sure. I would say nature always makes me feel at home too, which makes me feel like myself. And I feel like my soul has something to do with it.
Nature, water, glamour, and something else that is coming up for me is this anime I used to watch; strange enough, it also helped lead me to me when I was getting all of these voices of who I should be from folks. I was watching Sailor Moon as a kid and I really don’t think I’ve seen a show like it since that celebrates femmes and strength together like fem superheroes. Like this bitch transforms in stilettos, skirts, and makeup and she’s fighting villains and fucking them up. And she’s still fem. I was watching as a kid and not really putting two and two together of being trans because I didn’t have the language, but really wanting to be Sailor Moon because I really love the idea of who we are. I would say glamor not just with makeup or cosmetics or like beauty, but the idea of dressing myself. Like metaphorically trying a new version of myself out that brings me back to myself because I think it’s easy to think that who we are is this fixed set of ideas. I think the reason why I love the water so much is because it’s constantly moving. Whether you can see it moving or not, it’s constantly moving. It’s constantly changing. That reminds me that I am constantly changing.
I’m constantly in flow.
Remy:
If you could leave a message to your soul, whether past, present, or future, what would your message be?
Naya:
Damn. I think I need a second cause a lot of emotion is coming up.
[We sit parallel. The sounds of the water rolling in and out, the birds tracing patterns in the sky, a greater awareness of self fills the air around us. Naya lowers her head into her hands and I feel the weight of her head as if it were multiple hands on my shoulders. A full minute passes.]
This question is what chokes me up because it feels surreal. When I was saying earlier that there was always a voice that was guiding me forward, I felt like that was the best way I could describe my soul in that moment. I feel like that is me now speaking to my younger self so the message that I would give my soul as it experienced me when I was a kid is: It’s gonna be all right. I love you. Keep trusting in yourself, baby. You are beautiful.
—————
To always connect with Naya, look for:
- Caterpillars
- Ocean
- Nature
- Sailor Moon
Remy Note:
We sat on the beach for a few more minutes a little stunned by the energy that scooped us up towards the end of the interview. I left and as I was driving away I got a voice note from her. Little did I know that would become the closing of this book. I was fully seen in that moment with her and by her.