I’m often asked if I’ve set off on this journey to do some soul searching or to find myself. The simple answer is no. While I suspect that traveling will have an everlasting impact on me, it is not the reason I travel. The situation is actually the reverse. For me, traveling is a byproduct of my journey towards self-discovery (which I will write more about later).
In my life, I have tried to become many things. After all, “what do you want to become?” is an all too common question when we are young. However, it’s a misleading question and draws our attention away from an even more important task of just being ourselves. Ironically, I find that as adults, we sometimes have to turn a passive act of being into an active one of becoming as we often lose sight of who we are, having practiced for so long being someone other than ourselves.
When I think about being myself, I’m often remind of the excerpt of a poem called, “I Sing the Body Electric” by Andrea Gibson:
I said to the the sun
“Tell me about the big bang”
The sun said
“it hurts to become”
It hurts to become.
Of the many challenges in my life, it’s been hard to accept that I’m gay. It’s been even harder to be out, to be open about the fact that I am gay. I won’t get into the details, but I can assure you it’s been a process that has spanned the better part of my adult life. There’s nothing quite like negotiating expectations set forth by family, relatives, friends, culture, community, religion, work, etc. There’s nothing quite like drowning in shame, guilt, depression, etc. after having violated those expectations.
The idea of having pride in who I am has long been elusive to me as much as I’ve desired it. In that sense, I find it very fitting that the once-a-year celebration of being Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) and the rest of the alphabet soup is called PRIDE. I don’t think it’s about being prideful as in celebrating an inordinate opinion of one’s self. I think it’s about owning our identities--letting fear, shame, and guilt take a vacation--and celebrate who we are, at least for a day.
Los Angeles Pride (June 12-14, 2015)
While in Phoenix, I met Courtney who told me about WeHo (West Hollywood) pride in Los Angeles, CA. She told me that she was going to head there with a group of friends and that I could meet up with them in LA. It later turned out that Courtney did not end up going, but I had already made plans to be in LA for pride. Coincidentally, my cousin was staffing an event at the festival and hooked me up with work.
LA Pride was nestled on a block in West Hollywood. It was a lot smaller than I expected considering LA is a large city. LA Pride was also the first pride I’d been to that charged admission to the festival, a grand whopping $20 a day! I can see the benefit of charging admission if it means the organizers can use that money to keep corporate interest out, but the same corporate suspects were present. I’m glad Minneapolis pride does not charge admission and continues to be fairly accessible to those who want to celebrate.
Probably the funniest part of LA pride was finding out I was at a Kesha concert. I’d been working 10 hour shifts at pride and around 9PM on my second day, I hear Kesha music playing from the main stage. Luckily, I was working in the VIP section (which was fairly empty) and I was able to walk up pretty close to the stage without much trouble.
Ke$ha on the Main Stage
San Francisco Pride (June 27-28, 2015)
One of my dreams was to go to San Francisco Pride for its iconic factor. I remember watching the movie Milk thinking how cool it would be to go see the Castro. Milk is a biographical film based on the life of gay rights activist and politician Harvey Milk. He was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in California; and he lived in the Castro neighborhood.
So, in late June, I found myself getting off the BART at the Civic Center station to go volunteer at the festival’s informational booth. It was entertaining helping festival goers find their way around a city I didn’t live in and inform them about events at a festival I’d never been to.
Andy and I on break from the info booth
SF Pride was of epic proportions. On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that gay marriage was a constitutional right. It’s not surprising that there were over 2 million people who attended the festival.
View from the main stage
SIYA
BIG FREEDIA crew
BIG FREEDIA
After I finished volunteering, I headed to the Pink Party in the Castro to find my friend, Austin. As soon as I emerged from the train station, I was swallowed up in a sea of people.
Pink Party in the Castro
Needless to say, SF Pride was an interesting experience which may or may not have included falling asleep on the last train leaving SF and ending up at the terminus stop without a way to get back to Oakland, losing my credit card, running away from a predatory taxi driver…
Austin and I - surviving the craziness of pride.
HAPPY PRIDE!
