I had a certain benefit growing up...if it can be said to be a benefit...in that being AMAB meant the fact that I liked things like science and stuff of related ilk was pretty generally acceptable. The odd counter to that is that at the elementary school I went to, I was the only AMAB to be classified for the gifted program...everyone else was cisfemale. That would change in high school, when unfortunately peer pressure and it's horrific power over teenagers desperate to fit in would take it's toll...and I'd discover all kinds of things that very nearly derailed me, but again, a story for another time.
But I loved science. I was big time into paleontology, and was often found out in the yard, or down by the brook, or out in a field, trying to dig up dinosaur bones or mammoth teeth. There was loads of shale and sedimentary rock around, so I was usually pretty lucky in finding dendrites and all sorts of micro-fossils. I loved my microscope. I loved my chemistry set, even if my parents regretted ever buying it for me (sorry, mum and dad, I really didn't know that would happen if I did that!). I loved slipping out on the roof for the addition built on our house and watching the stars and planets circling overhead...or charting the Jovian moons around Jupiter with binoculars.
It was acceptable.
It was, I admit, a little daunting for my parents to have a 4 year old me explaining 2001 A Space Odyssey to them, after I begged the to watch it after seeing Star Wars and reading TV guide and seeing the magical letters SF next to 2001. I think they figured I'd be bored after 20 minutes. I sat through the whole thing, raptly hooked.
In high school my attention got dragged toward music and literature, but my love of all thing science-y never fully abated. Bio, Chem and Physics were all a blast, even as I was spending more time in the music department because of certain...comfort levels...that I still didn't have words for. I discovered the world of Stephen King at this time too, via a little paperback titled The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger, which was the coolest weird western I could have possibly imagined (a shame it got rewritten to 'match' his current writing style...but the original will always be a special book for me).
As college came around, and I was pretty certain I wanted to be a writer, I discovered still more amazingness in science fiction. Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, Roger Zelazny, Mervyn Peake, and especially Michael Moorcock...I devoured their stories, ad their multiple angles at attacking the genre of speculative fiction, and dove in. Somewhere there's a box with my juvenilia in it, stuff I weep at the idea of reading because I was SO. SERIOUS. when I was younger (You know...'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now') and my stories were full of BIG IMPORTANT IDEAS and absolutely telegraphed from a mile away. One of my stories got me kicked off the college newspaper staff (which was hilarious because I was E-I-C) when it was read as one thing when it was about totally the opposite.
Good times.
Time passes.
I start teaching at an observatory, which was some of the most enjoyable time I ever spent...having access to a scientific center where I could share my love of the stars and planets with people who may never have looked up at the night sky before. I got to use one of the largest telescopes in the state. I was in heaven.
Then I got sick, and my energy levels dropped to sub-zero integers, and that went away.
Still more time passes.
Doctor Who comes back.
Torchwood arrives.
I find my way into the Doctor Who fandom (a.k.a. the fandom that eats itself).
I meet some friends, and one of them insists I could write some awesome fanfic if I just tried. Considering I'd given up on writing in general, I gave it a go, and I think I've written some good stuff...stuff I've been, and will continue, posting here.
My love of science fact hasn't diminished. I may not have the energy to lug out a telescope and stargaze, but I can read, and I read everything I can get my hands on. I keep my copies of Uranometria 2000.0 at bedside if I want to just look at things. I've got dozens of astronomy and astrophysics sites on bookmark so I can keep up on what's happening in the field.
And I see more and more women making inroads into STEM careers, and I smile. Because everyone can be into science, both fiction and fact...it accepts everyone and anyone so long as they're looking for questions that might not be answered, rather than answers that can't be questioned.
I'm proud to be a geek, across the board. There's nothing wrong with enthusiastic enjoyment of something, be it comics, the latest Moorcock book, or the newest set of papers from the Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics.
:-)
😃👽👍🏽
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