Borrowed queer joy
weaving our webs of pride 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
If there is one thing I am sure of, it’s that all our webs are intertwined.
June is my favorite month of the year, and with that comes the exuberance of the dyke march. This past Saturday, I got to march alongside my partner and beautiful friends. I got to run into loved ones and watch my friends run into their loved ones. I got to dance and hold my partner’s hand and witness everyone taking up space, strutting down 5th Ave.
In queer spaces, I am struck by everyone’s generosity of love. The ecosystems we create are inextricably connected. I know that when I do not have enough joy, enough love, enough energy, my queer loved ones are always there with a warm embrace, letting me borrow some overflow.
There is a kind of gift economy that is created, only this gift economy is the kind where if you don’t have enough joy to give or feel, there is someone ready to offer it, to let you receive it.
We exchange with each other the gifts of unspoken energy, of pride and joy, of grief and truth. Our ecosystems are concentric circles, meeting each other in the flow and phases of whatever comes next.
When I say happy pride, what I mean is:
Happy pride as in protecting our queer family
Happy pride as in protecting our trans siblings
Happy pride as in gay bars
Happy pride as in drag
Happy pride as in queerness is the fluidity of love
Happy pride as in being seen
Happy pride as in don’t worry, I’ll hold that for you
Happy pride as in don’t worry, you can have some of mine
Happy pride as in togetherness
Happy pride as in we are limitless
Happy pride as in we are all interconnected
Happy pride as in we are all different, and what a miracle that is
Every year, my relationship with pride and queerness and presentation and being seen shifts. But what remains constant, tried, and true is my gratitude to be on this earth in a queer body in devotion to queer people and queer family.
It is no understatement when I say: queer people are magic, queer people are infinite, queer people are past present future, queer people are simple, queer people are spacious, queer people are everything, queer people are whatever they want to be.
Journeying the path of queerness — coming out and shedding layers of internalized homophobia and the fear of being seen — has been one of my greatest learnings in this lifetime. Much has shifted because I have let it shift.
I always knew there was something more, and I am so grateful I followed that thread.
It is my greatest hope that no matter where you are in your unfolding, you arrive at a spot of pure reverence and joy for all that is possible.
Thank you for reading Sacred Attention. Feel free to share this newsletter in any way, shape, or form feels true to you. Gratitude always.
xo,
Christie