What makes possible the psychic translation of the surgical incursions into the body into a poetics of healing is a kind of transsexual somatic memory. Surgery is made sense of as a literal and figurative re-membering, a restorative drive that is indeed common to accounts of reconstructive surgeries among nontranssexual subjects and perhaps inherent in the very notion of reconstructive surgery.
—Second Skins. This longing for and nostalgic memory of a home (a home in one’s own flesh) which has never been experienced reminds me very strongly of Augustine’s discussion of our memories of Adam’s happiness. (Which… I only vaguely remember, at this point, your joke here. Am I making this up? It’s certainly related to the Augustine-stuff I discuss here; the basic idea, as I understand it, is that we share not only in the legacy of Adam’s sin but also the memory of his happiness, and it’s this remembered happiness which allows us to long for goodness and to recognize it [when we do recognize it!] in this life.)