city life

This past weekend I my friends Anne and Damien invited me out to Fire Island with them. We stayed with Damien's sister who lives in Watch Hill working for the New York Parks Department helping to protect and maintain Fire Island's environment. It was a wonderful trip, not just because it's so much fun being out on the beach while drinking great cocktails, but also because it's immensely freeing. And I mean that in the gayest way possible.

Fire Island consists of several sections, not all of them gay, as is what I thought before I went. Watch Hill is not a particularly gay area but on Sunday morning we walked to the Pines, which is very affluent and very gay. We went to watch the Invasion of the Pines which happens every 4th of July weekend where a whole slew of drag queens board a ferry at Cherry Grove (a more rambunctious area of Fire Island) then disembark at the Pines, thus "invading" it. It has to do with the Pines being full of snotty wealthy gay men or something. Anyway, that's not really the point of my story. This next part isn't either but just let me say that walking six miles on the beach sucks ass. No wait, that's not so bad. What really sucks is walking six miles, standing for 30 minutes then turning around and walking six miles back. It fucking blows to walk for longs distances on sand. By the time we were half way back no one was talking. We were all mentally and physically exhausted.

Back to being gay. Here's the thing. I walked around wearing a sarong and carrying my parasol and the only comments I got were, "Nice parasol." "Wow, I need one of those." "I like your umbrella." (Don't worry, I corrected him.) My point is, no one fucking cared what I was wearing or carrying! And I could look at guys if I wanted to without the fear of their being straight or offended or whatever. I found myself thinking, so this is what it would be like to live in a gay male world. And it was an incredibly freeing experience. It wasn't until I was on the train back to Manhattan that I began thinking about how I often dismiss being gay as an insignificant part of my being but that simply being gay adds a constant low level amount of anxiety to my daily life. And it's exhausting. It's difficult to recognize until it suddenly disappears. Now the Pines provides me with a different level of anxiety since so many of the men there are incredibly attractive and built and I get self-conscious and blah blah blah but I don't have to worry about this integral part of my being. To keep that sense of freedom while being in a predominantly straight city I felt like I would have to adopt a combative attitude. I'll wear what I want and be who I am! But I don't think I have the energy or the desire to greet each day with a "fuck you! I don't give a shit if you're staring at me!" It helped me understand the attraction of gay "communities" (ugh, that dirty c word), where you won't be judged for being gay. I try to convince myself that in 2010 who's judging anyone for being gay, it's doesn't matter anymore, but that's not true. It does matter. And it might not be the most down-trodden minority but it's a minority nonetheless. And since I'm not eager to move down to Chelsea maybe I will have to start being more bold in who I am. Shedding fear will need to become a daily ritual.