t is Sunday morning after the gay bar. I am still wearing yesterday’s socks, and the sun has already risen above the office buildings of downtown. I can smell somebody else’s breakfast cooking from another apartment in the building. I am dehydrated and the smell makes me slightly sick to my stomach. My eyes are dry, and my joints are a bit stiff. I have a mega mix of terrible songs in my head and I am smiling.
The promise of a cup of coffee coerces me to get out of bed, brush my teeth and drink some water. There are no decent breakfast places I know about around where I live that are open on Sundays. I put some coffee in the maker, get dressed with clothes that I rescue from my bedroom floor and walk across the street to the grocery store to pick up a muffin and some fruit.
There is something so quiet about downtown Edmonton on a Sunday morning. The early bird risers in their running clothes look alarmingly healthy and un-fun against the backdrop of barstars and one-night stands scurrying to get home before noon. The latter wearing sunglasses like shields against the morning sun, their crumpled clothes reeking of last night betraying them, their mouths held in a way that tells a story of impulsive good times or slight disappointment. I smile at one girl as she attempts to keep herself together after getting off a bus. She smiles back.
When I arrive back at my apartment the coffee is ready. I sit at my kitchen table and stare out of my window for a while.
My apartment overlooks a back alley that is doted with large garbage bins every 1/4 block. As I sit there I can hear the rattle of shopping carts long before I see them. Sunday mornings are a slow time in the alley. I watch as mostly single men park their carts and hoist themselves up into the dumpster to start scavenging and salvaging the garbage. It makes me feel odd knowing that I can see them and they can’t see me. It seems to add to the injustice.
I sip my coffee and let my mind wander. I realize that for me the best part of a night out at the gay bar is often those moments I find myself amidst a sea of people dancing without a care of what they look like or who is watching. Flush red faces, flat hair and pools of sweaty moisture collected in collarbones creating a chaotic pulsating choir of movement. I love seeing serious homos let go and let their bodies move to the music (“Vogue” —Madonna). For me dance can be an act of revolution as the dancer reclaims their body and moves it with unabashed freedom.
It makes me happy because so often in our walking hours we Gaylords give up the kingdom of our bodies and inhabit our temples in a way that is not 100% authentic. We pose, bend, posture ourselves for ease of movement or to get by with minimum interference from the outside world. We rarely take the time to align our physical body with our spiritual and emotional selves. We are afraid, I think, of being too much ourselves and letting people in to see who we really are.
It is on the dance floor at a gay bar that I witness many of my gay brothers and sisters merging all of themselves through movement. There is nothing more beautiful than catching the frowned-faced girl from the organic grocery store or purse lipped boy from the clothing shop rock out to Kelly Clarkson or lip-sync every word along with Avril Lavigne as if they wrote the song she’s singing.
And yet as great as gay bars can be, they are not enough, Monday eventually rolls around and we are again roped back into the immense design of things (“Paul’s Case” —Willa Cather).
As I take a last sip of coffee and smile at the text message from a friend who hooked up, I can’t help but think that in many ways gay bars and even villages are beginning to outlive their purpose. Gone are the days when we had to ghettoize ourselves for safety and a sense of community. We are living in a time when allies are plenty. We do a disservice to supportive friends as well as family and ourselves when we are not authentic or honest with how we conduct ourselves. We are all at our most useful when we are ourselves—especially when we have no idea who that might be.
There is still equality to fight for and wrongs to address. To do the work we have to continue to walk the yellow brick road less travell0ed and be ourselves wherever that may be, remembering that we are everywhere (civil rights slogan now used by anti-capitalists).
No comments:
Post a Comment