On Sunday I had the pleasure of roller skating the entire route of the Long Beach Pride Parade. Over the years, this event has increased in attendance dramatically, it is now the second largest event in the city behind the Long Beach Grand Prix.
Thousands of Long Beach residents including politicians, police, fire and family come out to show support for this event and it was a blast to be smack dab in the middle of all the excitement for hours on end.
I skated along with the students, faculty and staff of Long Beach City College and we all wore "Safe Zone" t-shirts. The vibe of the event was about unity, acceptance and love and being true to who you are.
Pride goes beyond being gay or straight, pride is the willingness to come out of our socially constructed shell and dare to be authentic. At least that's what it means for me.
I've been teaching at Long Beach City College for close to 10 years and I feel fortunate to have such a great job. During the beginning of my time at LBCC I was very cautious about stepping outside the box and overly co-dependent and concerned with fitting in and being a people-pleaser.
Over the years I have been teaching about
co-dependency and I discovered that I am more effective as an instructor when I am just human, when I don't try to play a role and be fake but instead try to be of service to the people in my classrooms.
Ten years ago I might have been afraid that someone would see me in the Pride parade. The phrase "what will people think?" unconsciously ran my life but now, I am "
Galvanized". Attending the Pride parade alongside my colleagues and former students was my way of coming out of my "college instructor" shell and allowing myself to just be.
Yes, I dance. Yes, I like music. Yes, I love diversity and color and crowds. No, that's not anything to be ashamed of and today I am not which in my opinion is cause for celebration.
There was plenty of music and dancing at the parade and lots of Lady GaGa being pumped out of loudspeakers. But the part that stood out to me most was the amazing crowd. Wow, talk about high energy. I began the parade route at Ocean and Temple. As we progressed down the route the crowd was more dense and at one point the crowd was spilling over into the street which made for a cozy, crowd-meets-parade feeling.
When we turned the corner at Los Alamitos and Ocean there were hundreds and hundreds of people lining the streets and sidewalks and many of them were screaming, smiling, dancing and taking photos and video. It was so exciting to skate around and high-five people along the route and I even took some photos of the crowd as I moved down Ocean Blvd. I posted the entire
photo gallery on Picasa if you'd like to see some of what went on there.
Regardless of whether you have a Pride Parade where you live, please dare to be yourself. Ultimately, it helps us all.
So, I sent Cynthia home with three CD's:
I came across a quote this week by Bruce Barton: "Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstances." I realized that most of the time we are stronger than we think we are and sometimes we have to come close to losing something we value before we dig deep into our resources and access all the strength we have.
This little gif with the cat and the bear (above) is a good reminder for me. I also enjoyed the following TED video: Beverly + Dereck Joubert: Life lessons from big cats as a demonstration of that inner "something" we can all access when something is truly important to us. Be sure to watch it to the end...it's a little disturbing at one point but then becomes very inspiring.
