Pride
All I want on book tour are events filled with adoring readers, drivers who drive smoothly enough that I don’t get car sick, and quiet hotel rooms with soft pillows.
The only one that is truly important is the quiet hotel room, and regular readers may know I have a history of disasters in that area.
Recently I showed up at very swanky hotel in Boston, after a grueling few days on tour. I couldn’t wait to crawl into bed, order room service, and spend my one day off doing absolutely nothing other than reading in bed and drifting off to sleep.
After an excellent night’s sleep, I spent the morning reading and was just drifting off for a second sleep when I was startled by a loud cacophony of whistles and cheering outside. I looked out the window to see the street outside my hotel had been cordoned off, and was filled with thousands of people, all carrying rainbow flags.
It was Pride march in Boston. I stood in the window in my long white nightie, watching my dreams of sleep and quiet disappear. The crowd looked up, and saw me, ghostlike, in my window, and started waving. I waved back, and then, as a smile spread upon my face, I figured if you can’t beat them, you have to join them.
If you read my novels you will know that I am an unequivocal supporter of gay rights, and that I firmly believe that it doesn’t matter who you love, as long as you love.
My gay male friends (and I have many) ask me if I am sure I am not secretly a gay man. My lesbian friends (and I have many) ask me if I am sure I am not secretly a lesbian.
Perhaps, in another life, I was one of each. I do know that I am fervently and passionately and ardently supportive of gay rights, and that watching that Pride parade brought me to tears. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Sexual Offences Act in the U.K., which decriminalized homosexual acts between two men in private. How wonderful that today so many are out and proud and accepted.
And yet, after years of growing acceptance of different races, colors, sexualities and genders, we are again living in frightening times with no idea if these past few decades of freedom will soon be a distant memory.
I jumped in that march. Someone gave me a rainbow flag, and I hollered and whooped with the best of them.
It may not have been what I planned for my one day off, but I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day.
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