[Vol. 34] Summer of Love 2.0 ;)
Summer 2021 isn't ready.
I cannot wait for this summer.
After a particularly brutal quarantined winter in New York City, I can’t help but smile thinking about me, sitting in the park with my friends, drink in hand, Pfizer in arm – the long, lonely days of winter + stay-at-home orders finally starting to fade into the rearview.
This summer means the absence of cold outdoor patios, knee-deep slush puddles, and (hopefully) waking up every morning to ever-rising Covid numbers.
Amen to that.
It also happens to coincide with the tail-end of some pretty huge self-revelations I’ve been going through – something I think a lot of us can say after so much time inside, bored, with nothing to do but think.
As valuable as all that thinking was, this summer I say fuck that. Thinking is canceled for a while. It’s about to be the Summer of Love 2.0.
It’s time to take all that thinking and put it into action. Summer 2021 isn’t ready for me – or for you, I see you ;)
In honor of the Summer of Love 2.0, this newsletter is one from the archives. It’s a story I wrote last summer about one hot summer day where I just let all my queerness hang out; a day where I felt I truly belonged – in the space, in my own body, in the moment. It involves a queer beach, sun-soaked bodies, a surprise rainbow, and plenty of salty sea hair.
At the time, it was a rare day among many that I didn’t feel I belonged anywhere. Now, I know, I’m looking at a whole summer filled with days like this one.
Here’s to the Summer of Love 2.0.
*This story was originally published in Prism & Pen, an LGBTQ+ - focused publication on Medium.
“I’m going to Riis tomorrow and you should come!”
I glanced over my friend’s texts, confused. What’s Riss?
“Riis is a queer beach in the Rockaways,” she answered. “I’m going with a bunch of queer gals. It’s gonna be a fun day.”
I said I’d think about it, mostly because my indecisive mind has trouble with the concept of outright commitment. But I knew I wanted to go instantly.
A queer beach? What does that even mean?
How does one declare an entire beach “queer”? My interest was piqued. I wanted answers.
The next day, I grabbed a friend from Manhattan and we hopped on the subway … and so began the hour-and-a-half subway, bus, and on-foot trek to our sandy escape. Looking back, it’s ironic that we complained about how long the commute was, because it was a pretty short trip considering I ended up in another world.
Just an hour-and-a-half out from my busy city neighborhood, I wiggled my toes in the sand.
I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with the salty-sweet smell of the ocean for the first time this summer.
Trekking on into the jungle of brightly-colored beach umbrellas and teeny-tiny speedos, our pavement-adjusted feet sinking into the sand as if it were molasses, my fellow Manhattanite and I went off in search of our friend.
I spotted her first, although I had to do a double-take. She was sitting crisscrossed on her beach towel, topless with a can of beer in hand, her turquoise sunglasses cooly concealing her expression.
If I’d ever imagined seeing my friend topless in public, I would’ve thought I’d be shocked. But I wasn’t, because the Q35 bus had dropped us off in a new world; a world where women went topless, men wore thongs, and everyone in-between could do and express themselves as they pleased.
Without skipping a beat, I yelled out and gave my friend a big hug.
I spent the day lying around on sandy beach towels, cracking open hard seltzers, and feeling the sun on my back.
I dove head-first into the waves and laughed until my stomach hurt and my throat burned from the seawater — man, I didn’t realize it, but I’d missed laughing like that.
The sun had been shining when we ran out into the water, but dark, heavy clouds blanketed the sky as we waded back out onto the beach. When the clouds finally broke, our little blue beach umbrella became our safety from the downpour. There must have been about ten of us crowded under that umbrella, our bare bodies coated with layers of gritty sand, our hair tangled up in knots from the seawater.
We did a little anti-rain dance — what that’s supposed to look like I’m not sure. Mother Nature must’ve found whatever it was endearing though, because the rain let up shortly after.
In its place, a bright rainbow drew itself across the sky.
Its reach seemed infinite, like a great, big, wide smile, anchoring itself on the beachfront and leaping way, way out to some undiscovered spot in the Atlantic.
If you’re a believer, you might say it was a sign — the LGBTQ+ flag written out in the sky over a beach filled with queer people. To me, the rainbow was just a happy accident. Either way, it sure was beautiful.
Although I don’t think we often acknowledge it, there are not many times in a queer person’s life when they feel like they truly belong.
We live in a world where we’re in the minority; a world where we edit how we express ourselves, who we love, and even what we think and feel, all in an effort to feel validated by some unknown, larger-than-life entity we call “society”.
When you come out, it’s easy to feel as if that struggle is over; as if now, finally, you will get the validation and acceptance you’ve always craved — both from the world, as well as from yourself. But then you find your sense of belonging continually challenged, again and again, and you slowly realize that coming out wasn’t the end of an era, it was the beginning of a journey — a journey to understand and be understood; to feel as if you belong.
Funnily enough, it’s not until I feel like I’ve gotten as close as possible to that sense of belonging that I wake up and realize that I’m still searching.
Coming up for air between two big waves, barely able to take a breath before I was betrayed by a fit of contagious laughter, I wanted for nothing more.
Just for a moment, I felt belonging; belonging as deep as the ocean, as true as my laughter.
Today’s discussion Q:
Will it be the Summer of Love 2.0 for you? What’s one way you’re going to embrace yourself more this summer? Regardless of identity, queer or straight as a board, I want to hear your answers!
Let me know what you think! As always, I’ll be reading/responding to all.
And that was That’s Gay, Volume 34. See you in Volume 35, folks!
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A beautiful story Till, one which makes me ache for the warmth and mirth of the summer months. What you say is true, as queer people it can be hard to find places where a true sense of belonging is easily felt. Though there may be places where we are tolerated, or even welcomed, we are still the minority, still othered from the pack. Where we might find such true belonging differs from person to person, but wherever it may be, its value cannot be overstated. I hope to find a place like that one day. Thank you for sharing 😊