I’m repacking my snake shirt, hoping no one sees it and reports me to airport security for trying to smuggle snakes onto a plane. No, no, they’re not real snakes of course: I spent the night before hot-gluing plastic and rubber snakes onto an old shirt that doesn’t fit me anymore. See, it is Pride month and I am naturally celebrating by embracing my dadbod and making bad food choices, and only the softly screaming side seams of my fitted button down shirts are my witness. In the meantime, I’m also planning the staged photo I’m going to take after everyone deplanes: “Snacks on a plane”. It’s not my best idea.

I walked up to the podium at the gate. “Wow, looks like someone really did a number on your heart” quipped the chirpy gate attendant as I handed her my ID. My eyes grew wide and I caught my breath. Jesus, does it still show in my eyes? Can people still see the pain I sometimes feel? Does she know I still have occasional dreams of him and I together, like a cruel glimpse into some parallel universe where-

Her brow furrowed as she saw my reaction. “Oh wait, I meant someone did a good job on it. Your heart.” She gestured to the heart tattoo on my arm that was extending my ID.

“Oh. Yeah! Thanks,” I stammered back. One of the rubber snakes coughed, cleared his throat awkwardly, inside my duffel bag.

The photo turns out fine.

It wasn’t my best, but it wasn’t my worst. I asked the right person in the cabin crew which was lucky. Over years of travel, I’ve found that there are always the exact same cabin crews on planes:

1. The Curmudgeon. Also know as the Misanthrope or the Sourpuss, the Curmudgeon is the worst person to ask to help with a photo. She may or may not be the most seasoned, and is often the person taking care of the First Class passengers. I think there’s a rule that says cabin crew can’t leave until all the passengers have left the plane, and she will just balefully glare at her coworkers helping with my photo. She will never help take the photo. She may need a cigarette. Her name is Carol, always.

2. The Enthusiast. They’re a great person to ask to be in the photo, but maybe not to take it because they do not have an iPhone and they will have no idea how to operate yours. If you describe the concept they might not get it but damn if they’ll give it their best try. They *might* come up with an additional idea to embellish your concept for the photo. It is not a good idea and you will have to diplomatically smile and nod and pretend to forget it later.

3. The Cool Cucumber is probably the best one to actually take the photo. While they are seldom outwardly enthusiastic about the photo idea, they view it as their duty and will literally recruit other coworkers to help stage it. They may or may not be good at pretending to have facial expressions if they are actually in the photo.

All in all though, I’m always grateful for these people’s help and they’re always pros when it comes to the, you know, actual duties of their jobs.

After I took the photo I realized I was late for my connecting flight; I sprinted down the terminal to the far away gate, plastic snakes shedding from my shirt. This is normal for me.

Later, it’s another airport I’m in for the first time, this one is Baltimore International and it’s slick and clean and glossy. My phone buzzed and I checked the message: “we’re glad you got in safe handsome, see you soon.” I’m here to see them again, the couple I met in Seattle a few weeks before. It is our second weekend together. We Facetimed after we met up for the first time and we are Excited to See Each Other, but are Protecting Ourselves. We are Seeing What Happens. We are Keeping Expectations Low.

I wouldn’t pretend that dating a couple isn’t weird, because it is. I had always looked down on open relationships and throuples as, while not less valid than monogamous relationships, were less than what I wanted ideally in my heart. It never occurred to me that I didn’t know my heart half as well as I thought I did until I met Jerry and Ben.

I inserted myself into their lives, into their routines: it is like joining a Relationship Already In Progress. Jerry and I make dinner together (he makes dinner, I occasionally open the oven door for him) while Ben grades papers. We all watch the Tony Awards together, Jerry’s legs across my lap. It happens to be Pride that weekend in DC, so we go to the parade.

I see a young man across from us, probably in his early twenties. He keeps breaking down and sobbing during the parade, leaning against a companion’s shoulder. Around the middle of the parade he composes himself more and I work up the courage to violate his privacy, so I wait for a break in the parade and cross the street. We chat for a minute, he moved to the city recently from Nebraska and this was his first Pride ever. I remember being him when I was that young, I remember the world opening up to me when I made my first gay friends, when I got my first boyfriend. I go back to Jerry and Ben feeling incredibly connected to this community I was born into.

The last time I was in DC was in the early 90s for the first Clinton inauguration. I remember standing in the frigid January air and hearing Maya Angelou’s voice reciting “On the Pulse of Morning” and knowing this was important. I also remember a gorgeous young Marine who was one of our escorts. I was fumbly and nervous around him, and he approached my family several times and asked if we needed anything, mistaking my steady but awkward early-20s babygay prototype cruising gaze as a call for assistance. Also did I mention that I had a strategically gelled George-Clooney-in-ER caesar haircut? Did I leave that part out?

In the present day I found Baltimore charming and kitschy and colorful. I had forgotten the John Waters connection and the city was proud to remind me often of its queer icon. I convinced the boys to help with a photo or two on the Sunday of the Pride festival in downtown DC. One of the photos was to be outside the White House, where I wanted to spell a word in letters made up of American flags. It was an odd feeling walking up to the property; this place can be both a symbol of hope and a representation of fascism, depending on who lives there.

We walked to the front of the White House facing the Washington Monument. We walked along a narrow walkway to a wider spot directly in front of it where people were gathered to take photos. People were mostly quiet and somber, but then a family rode up on bikeshare bikes, the parents and their boy, all wearing matching Tshirts supporting the administration. The three of us shared a fearful glance: this wasn’t the time or place to take this picture.

I left discouraged but then I started smiling wider as we walked towards the Pride festival grounds nearby. I hadn’t seen such a rainbow of human diversity in awhile, and queers and their allies laughed and shared stories and gawked at strangers while a terrible boy band tried their best on the stage. I saw that romper from Target, yes that one, the one with the pink and white seersucker stripes and pride flags all over it, yes I saw that on about two dozen men.

The three of us, Ben and Jerry and I (does that make me the Chunky Monkey?) go back to the White House, emboldened and proud. We set up camp, lay the flags out, spell the words. Many, many people stop to stare and ask questions about what we’re spelling. If anyone has a problem, they keep it to themselves. We take the photo, and it turns out exactly how I hoped it would.

In a lot of ways, this is why we need Pride: because we can, because we have the freedom to, because so many queer people around the world cannot. We stand on the back of giants and we shouldn’t fail to honor where we came from. We can’t forget the strong shoulders we rest on, like those of Audre Lorde, Harvey Milk, Marsha P Johnson, unapologetic artists and activists and queer icons.

I leave DC, and Jerry and Ben, promising myself to love harder, to be less fearful, to live my life unapologetically. To speak up when before I would have been silent, to advocate for others and use my privilege whenever I see the opportunity. I’d like my creative output to be an escape from the political, but it intersects my heart too much, and my very existence is political.

We’re in dark days, and a bright horizon seems so far. The trick is to not give up hope, and to find solace in each other. We will come out the other side so much wiser, so much stronger, so much more tested than we would have otherwise. Our biggest strength is to still be able to laugh in the face of fascism while resisting it as strongly as we can.

I am proud of us all.