Yesterday morning, I woke up just past dawn. The air was filled with the calls of birds you don’t often hear together: blue jays, seagulls, and perhaps a dozen other mountain birds and seabirds, all singing back and forth in an epic call to the Solstice morning.
Coffee in hand, I headed up the shore to Big River. For much of the early morning, I wandered this wide estuary, where a large river just south of Mendocino meets the Pacific Ocean. I spent a long time pondering how and where the riverbank shifted into the seashore, watching the patterns cut by currents and tides, imagining the flow of freshwater into saltwater, and seeing how the tides push it all back up again.
Earlier this week, my Stepping Into Pride group spent our time talking about how our identities shape our interactions with the people around us, and how the people around us shape our identities. Whether we’re queer, trans, kinky, poly, or some other adventurer who transgresses cultural norms, we constantly navigate this. Where can we fully embody our identity as it is? Where do we need to reel in for our own safety or security? Where do we push back in an enormous rush to defend our own rhythms and needs?
In the world of ecological design, the edges are where the magic happens. These spaces where we can explore boundaries, conversations, edges, and mixings, create spaces for restoration, regeneration, and diversity.
Heading away from Big River, I could pick up Southern Humboldt Public Radio. All they could talk about was Southern Humboldt Pride this Saturday. I’m finding a similar spirit where I now live on the southern Mendocino coast. I’m thrilled (and slightly nervous!) to attend my first Pride here, starting with a kickoff show tonight. The stakes feel enormous, and it’s very clear that Pride is very political up here. Fun, yes. But urgent. The need to defend our identities in the current shifting political climate is very real.
Whoever you are and whatever ways you’re transgressive, I invite you to take time over the next two weeks to notice your own shifts. Where and with whom do you feel completely yourself? Where do you feel like you’re overcorrecting? Where do you feel like you’re fortifying your edges? Don’t try to change anything; just notice. What does pride feel like, and how does that shift based on our environment? Just notice. Keep noticing.
Now, I’m back to my own sense of nervousness and excitement, and picking out which hankies to sport for the drag show up here in Mendonoma tonight!
xoxo
Mir
PS: For local folks, I’d love to see you at San Francisco Pride next weekend. WIcked Grounds be at Leather Alley in the adults-only area of San Francisco Pride on Sunday, June 30.