It is June 10, 2018, in the city of West Hollywood, we are Out and Proud, we are Here and Queer, we Are One City, and with the hoopla, the hyperbole comes the hope that one day it won’t matter who or how or why you love, but that the most important factor in your life is that you can LOVE. We will have a parade, politicians will wave, dancing men in leather will perform, colorful costumes represented from countries which still do n to recognize that love is love will convene and we will with great momentum clap and hope one day in their own countries Pride will be recognized for the LGBTQ community. Women riding motorcycles, men in speedos, parents proud of their sons and daughters who have come out, families, whose demographics include same-sex parents, opposite-sex parents, on parent bi-racial parents, will march and as their children pass the cheering and the eager onlookers they will remember how equal, the least today, they were treated.
In West Hollywood, on this day of Gay Pride, it seems a holiday has been declared, and why not take a day off from doing anything but appreciating someone who is other than you, but in reality the same as you. You love, they love, you breathe, they breathe, you want to survive, they want to survive, you have been given the chance at life, they have been given a chance at life, you and they are really us.
Too many years in the history of my life, I cowered and hid, not sure why I was to be ashamed, but knew I must have done something wrong, not be honest. Too many years, I thought I had to explain myself, or just had to remain silent, while all around me, others spoke up for me, not necessarily saying the words correctly, to identify me. Yep, like one holiday after another, we will blanket ourselves with the joys and the jubilee of that moment. The rush of fulfillment will swell our heads, the flush of emotion will course through our hearts, and as if time could or would stand still, as we celebrate, a malaise of ‘ain’t life swell’, will soothe a weary body and mind, and o now all will be good. It is the Gay Pride Festival in West Hollywood, today, June 10, 2018…maybe tomorrow the noise will linger, the excitement, remain, but we the purpose, the reason, that is the tricky part…we must never, ever let that fade or fall apart…
