What is pride? I ask myself why I go to the gay pride parade almost every year.
Yes, I have seen the people dressed in various incarnations of animals and Spirit beings. Dogs, cats, bunnies, fairies, butterflies, pixies and in the wake of Jerry Falwell, Tinky Winky.
Yes, I have read the snappy statements on t-shirts and signs, ‘Imagine if the Bush’s had used a condom. Protect yourself.” “Save your drama for your momma” and “You are on the top of my to do list.”
I never realized how diverse the gay community was before I came to San Francisco. I know now. The bears, the dykes, the bisexuals, male to female and female to male transgender and androgynous gays.
And their various expressions, lesbians on motorcycles, leather daddies, leather mommas, ever so furry and big bellied bears and gays who practice S&M with their bells pierced through the skin of their arms. This year I see S&M on a whole new level-people hold a horse’s bit in their mouth while pushing their masters in carts. As the carts drive by the masters lightly flogs them with leather whips. There are gays in kilts, thongs, high heels, vintage clothing and big wigs and of course nothing at all. The guy who won the International Leather contest drives by in a fancy car that is followed by the winner of the Mr. International Leather Boy contest.
Yes, I have seen the politics of it all. Bush and Cheney in jail as part of gays for impeachment, parents of gays, straights who are allied for gay rights, international gay rights, domestic gay rights for marriage, gays against racism, sexism and homophobia, health benefits and the right to simply be.
Yes, I have seen the increasingly corporatization of pride through sponsorship by motorcycle companies, banks, clothing stores and any other corporation interested in making money off of the gay community. As the Altoids float came by with 6 hard bodied gay men dancing, everyone begins to yell. They had replicated the Altoids tin and filled it with bubbles and hard-bodied men are dancing while rubbing bubbles all over themselves. I thought to myself, “If only middle-America knew.”
They have people on the ground handing out bags of Altoids. I get a bag that fills the bottom of a kitchen trash bag. Way too much for any one person, this girl and I begin to throw huge handfuls of Altoids packs in the crowd to the left and the right until we figured people are going to start to get pissed at us. We are laughing and throwing Altoids everywhere and we hear someone say, “This is my lucky day.”
Yes, I have seen the religious gays-the Muslims, Christians, Jews and sects I was not familiar with inviting gays to come back to their faith. Catholics holding signs, “Catholic + gay is okay” and Unitarians urging that “You be you and change the church.” Bishops and priests go by waving. A gay rights religious leader from Nigeria waves his hands vigorously.
Yes, I have seen the health campaigns. Raising money for HIV/AIDS and Breast Cancer. Gays against meth, drug abuse and addiction. A man holds a sign, “Gay does not equal drugs.”
4 hours later, I am grateful for the diversity. I know that in some places there is not even a half hour parade or a parade at all. In some places in the world, too many people would die being who they are.
I stopped going to pride with the hopes of hooking up with someone long ago. I know that I am an edge walker. I live in a lot of vortexes and so I have become accustomed to being on the edge of multiple movements. I believe in free love and in justice towards self and other. I believe in Spirituality, but do not purely subscribe to religion. I believe in free expression, but am clean and sober. I believe in social change, but not charity and I believe in honoring culture, but do not subscribe to co-option. I believe in intimacy, but do not subscribe to co-dependency.
Living in that place, means stepping in to the gap and makes it difficult to hook up sometimes. However, I feel that I have learned to be fully present in one space at a time, while holding all of who I am. The gift is that I am at home anywhere. So, I head towards the stage for the reason that I go to pride.
I cut through a group of Latino boys dancing together and they swoom in on me, shaking what they got and calling me beautiful. I am embarrassed and kind of cover my head and run through. They are laughing and so am I. I should know better, it happens every time.
I head towards the stage, past the naked man dancing in a transparent wedding dress, the corporate man whose t-shirt barely covers his fishnets and black heels, the dyke with a Mohawk, and the lipstick lesbian with the t-shirt, “This is what a lesbian looks like.”
I get all the way to the front of a stage and stand next to the speakers. They have the words, “FAG” written out in silver sequins that wave in the wind. I am holding my heart, I am so excited, I can barely stand the deep base reverberating through my body. I bend over and start to dance. A man in a red shirt, grabs me and hugs me. He tells me, “You don’t know me, but I am your friend.” He is the sweetest thing.
I dance longer and someone grabs my hand. I turn to look and it is an old gay man. His blue eyes brimming at me, he rubs my hand in sweet circles, loving me with his eyes. I can feel him and I squeeze his hand before letting him go. Suddenly, the people next to me move over to make room. I turn and find two black men coming thorugh. They are clad in black spandex underwear and faux fur leg warmers. One has fake eyelashes and his eye lids have black make up on them. He is wearing foundation, but his 5 o’clock shadow is showing a bit. His body is carved like a God. I hear someone say, “I saw you at the ballet performance last night.” I don’t realize that I am standing still, staring at him in awe until his eyes catch mine. He looks at me with soft brown eyes and says, “Am I beautiful?” I smile and say, “Yes.” He kisses the air next to me, left then right. I break my trance and begin to dance again.
The second black dancer looks at me and I wave to him. He swings his slender body towards me, so one of his butt cheeks is facing me. He is looking at me and I am not sure what to do. The only thing I can think to do is spank him and so I do. I find myself blushing and kind of covering my mouth and nose as I hit him lightly. I start laughing and wrap my arms around my body. He says, “Yes, naughty!” He kissed the air next to me-left then right and returns to posing next to the fence. He is a diva. I sware that I was a gay male diva in a past life, because sometimes I feel like that. Larger than life. A superstar in my own universe. Beautiful. I must have been a queen.
A new DJ begins to spin and I start dancing again. I see a white man with a tattoo on his stomach. Before I know it, I am reaching for it. He stops dancing, turns towards me and grabs my hand and puts it on his belly, pressing it flat. He begins to rock his body, so that his abs are washboard hard and I can see the picture move and feel a wave of abdominal muscles. I realized that I have touched more skin of strangers-intentionally or by accident-in that single day than I have all year.
I turn to find a young man with tattoos across his chest that look like angel wings. I see the beautiful writing across his belly. I ask him what is says and he says, “Goddless. I am atheist.” I thought about the irony, because he felt like an angel. I wondered what his Spirit came here to do. As he leaves, he kisses me on the cheek.
I turn and this asian man begins to dance with me, so that I am facing him and his partner comes along and begins dancing in the back of me and says, “We are just going to share you.” We are laughing and dancing -the three of us-when the lyrics boom, “Everybody’s freeeeeee to feel good.” I can feel something in me break free. We break from our threesome and we begin to jump up and down and dance. I see a man with long brown hair, I stop him and tell him he is beautiful. He smiles at me and tells me that I am beautiful.
I begin to tell all of these people that they are beautiful and I sware they are. They are just so beautiful to me. I have been watching this black butch dyke dancing next to me. We have exchanged a few smiles. I can feel energy and I want to dance with her, but I am too afraid to ask her. I realize that I would like to see her again. As outgoing as I can be, I am essentially shy. I wish she will ask me, but she is not going to and I know it is for me to do.
The next thing I know there is someone dancing behind me, grinding on me. I turn and am disappointed to find it is not her, but some short little gay Phillipino boy. I am kind of irritated, because there are rules of engagement. He should have tapped me on the shoulder or something and asked to dance. I turn and give him a sort of disapproving look and he smiles and waves at me. I can feel his sweetness and so I laugh and turn around. I am trying to push myself to ask her to dance and I can’t.
In that moment, I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to find a youngish black man asking me to dance. Wait, is it a man? He is dressed in black underwear and a blue t-shirt. I sneak a look and there is definitely something in them, but he feels like a girl. He is wearing a t-shirt and I quickly study his chest, but I cannot tell. I look in to his eyes. He has eye contacts that make his eyes brown with a blue edge to match his t-shirt. He is pretty and I am confused. I am thinking too much and I am barely dancing, so I decide that I don’t need to know.
He tells me that he doesn’t go out much. He had lost his wife a few years ago, so he is just emerging. He is a Scorpio. He tells me his rising is Cancer, so he thinks like a cancer and can understand me. I begin to reflect on the brief conversation that I had with the butch dyke where she told me that three of her friends had committed suicide in the past few years. It occurs to me that there is a sadness in this community. A sadness that is just below the surface. The price of so much oppression.
The three of us begin to dance together-the butch dyke and the he/she with blue/brown eyes. Now, I feel stressed out, because I decide that I would actually like to go on a date with both of them. How am I supposed to handle this?
In that moment, he goes to find his friend and I find my courage and ask the butch dyke if she is single. She says, “I am.” I say, “Can I have your number?” I cannot believe I am saying this. I am being very brave and am shocked. She says, “Yes. Can I have yours?” I agree and run around frantically looking for a pen. No one has a pen and they all give me that sad look, because they know I am a pen away from a hook up. Finally, I find someone with a pen and we exchange information.
As much as I loved being stretched-and I do get stretched every time I go to pride-it comes with growing pains. I hit those places of conditioning, the places where I am conservative, where I hold back. Places that are dying to be set free and that still remain tight.
…and still, even with all the fun, the moment-the reason, I have come to pride has not happened. Then, suddenly, the DJ spins the song, “World Hold on.” Everybody begins to dance really hard. The lyrics fly through the audience like a wave, “Open up your heart, how do you feel? “ I look around and everyone is singing the lyrics. “Stop messing with your future…your’e going to have to answer to the children of the sky…” Then he loops the lyrics, “Children of the sky, children of the sky.” He kicks the music up an octave and the vibration gets higher and we are all singing, “World hold on.” A 1,000 people singing, “World hold on” together in unison.
He raises the music an octave and the vibration gets higher and higher until I find myself jumping up and down screaming in joy! I turn around and everyone else is jumping up and down screaming as well. The song morphs in to the next one and the moment has passed. I bend over laughing so hard, I can barely stand. I am blissed out and I know that there is no other place I’d rather be on the planet then right there and right then.
It is that exact moment that I come to pride for. The moment where we are all free –to be the multiple expressions of God-that we are. The moment where we are free to be exactly how God made us. The moment where we are free to be exactly who we are and how we are. The moment where we are free in our expression. The moment of utopia-where we are free and we are free together.
