Shmee with the Vagina Monologues

The first run of The Vagina Monologues  in 1996 gave birth to V-Day, a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence). With creativity and determination, V-activists around the world tirelessly work to end harassment, rape, battery, incest, female genital mutilation and sex slavery. On February 14 of each year, artists around the world honor V-Day with a recreation of The Vagina Monologues.  In recent years,  the show has grown to include spoken word pieces and monologues from  the community.  

V-Day East Bay brought The Vagina Monologues to life with   an amazing cast and collaborators.   Performing in the Vagina Monologues was a deeply compelling experience  for me, one that was enlivened by laughter and attitude emerging from the intensity of the stories we  told on stage.    All ticket sales benefit the Building Futures Women's Shelter and The Medea Project: Theatre for Incarcerated Women.    I am honored to  have been invited to share a spoken word piece   that speaks to my experience as a  gender queer  / non-binary person. Working on this piece  gave me an opportunity to  reflect on the stories of my life and discover the artful wisdom within.
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My Name is Shmee

My name Is Shmee.
People often wonder how that came to be.
When they ask,
I try to answer jovially
As the question drops deep inside of me.
Tracing the textured memories.
My name is Shmee. Samsara Shmee.
What is my legacy?
My mother: she named me Sara,
My father: he gave me a long surname,
My friends: they helped me reinvent myself.
My self? My name is my name.
They called me Sara G., G-Unit, Sacred G., Sara Geometry,
Sara G. Shmee … Shmee? ... Shmee.
 
I was 23, see, and had just moved to Brooklyn.
A buddy and I ran around the city
Like goons with fat cigars, calling out:
Yeah, see Shmee! Yeah, Shmee…
Yeah, yeah, Shmee … see?
It had a nice ring to it.
I liked the sound of it.
The smile on the mouth that spoke it.
Shmee.
 
I was 23, see, and had just moved to Brooklyn.
I met a trans person for the first time.
And my life made sense in a way it never had before.
A doctor once told me, 18 years earlier,
That the only way I could be the boy I wanted to be
Was if I could
Kiss
My
Elbow.
So I tried.
And then I gave up.
Until...
 
I was 23, see, and had just moved to Brooklyn.
At work, I wore a name tag
Right there, over my heart.
Like an aegis adorned, Shmee.
Guarding the bigger questions within.
The query of a rose. What’s in a name?
Shmee... Shhh’meeheee... She-Me-he
Ooh I like that!
She-Me-He. Shmee.
Who is She? Who is Me? Who is He?

I was 23, see, and had just moved to Brooklyn.
I was sitting at a bar sketching in my journal,
His self-portrait.
Writing his name. Sam.
Calling him forth from where he’d been buried.
While still holding her close with all the life she had lived.
Writing her name, too, Sara.
Sam. Sara. Sam. Sara. Samsara.
I’d heard that before.
Though not of a language that was born in my mouth,
I’d learned Samsara as
A Sanskrit word meaning
The continuous flow of life.
Birth. Death. Rebirth.
Reincarnation.
And in that moment I understood
How this came to be!
This She-Me-He. This Samsara Shmee.
 
I was 23, see, and had just moved to Brooklyn.
Where I found a home for my spirit among multiple lifetimes,
Each with a unique expression.
I had found that my identity is bigger than this body.
That my growth is a resurrection.
Still, I had never named myself before. What did all of this mean?
I couldn’t possibly take myself seriously!
One day I struck up a conversation with three strangers.
And before long they asked me my name.
Shmee.
They laughed. Really, they asked, Shmee?
Yeah, Shmee, see..
So you speak Hebrew, they asked.
I shook my head, no?
So they told me the punchline:
In Hebrew, “shmi” means “my name is.”
Then I laughed. Really, I asked, shmi?
My name is my name?
The rose opened. The weight lifted.
My name is my name is my name is…
Shmee
 
My name is …
The continuous flow of life