On Oxford Street, This Gay Girl Found Pride While Playing With Balls

Eden. The word doesn?t need adornment, alone it evokes the image of paradise.Except, it doesn?t in my case. Though not hell by any means, my Eden wasn?t the paradise you should find yourself praying for.For you see, my Eden was, and maybe always will be, my community; a coastal Australian town, about five hundred kilometres, though at times it felt more like five hundred years, away from Sydney.Eden was, as you might have guessed, the place where I grew up, a beloved daughter, but, nevertheless, a girl who came to increasingly feel like a stranger in this pleasant rural land.In my early years, I couldn?t even begin to articulate why I started to feel out of step with the community I was born into. Drawing on words like normal, average, and regular for my community had a pejorative overtone, so, even in my youth, I thought it best not to rely on them.I know this will seem nerdy to you, although I have accepted that nerdy is what I am, but when I was fifteen, I settled on the mathematical term 'mode'. The mode is, as you know, the most common, and it was becoming clearer that was a club I hadn?t received an invitation too.My sense of otherness had, as I realized just after my sixteenth birthday, a specific cause. While my friends chatted endlessly about the senior boys in the First?s rugby team, I found myself developing a crush on their classmate and head girl, Sarah.I can still see her now, olive skinned and dark haired, standing speaking in school assemblies dressed in her black school blazer, white shirt, and black and white tartan skirt; so composed, calm and drop dead gorgeous.Sarah?s love life was the subject of intense speculation amongst the girls in my year group. And we all hoped, though I was really following the herd in that respect, that she would date Josh, the school rugby captain and widely considered a star in the making.Funnily enough, both things came to pass. Sarah did date Josh during her senior year and beyond, and Josh turned out to truly be a sporting star; going on from little old Eden to captain the Australian rugby team, to score the crucial try that won the World Cup, and to bring enormous yellow and green cheer to the grey skies of that Eden winter.Around the time Sarah and Josh went to their school formal, my year ten group went on a camp with local indigenous people to learn about Aboriginal culture. And there I learnt one of the most important lessons of my life.You see Indigenous people in Australia have a unique world view that?s distinct from the mainstream. Land, family, law, ceremony and language are five key interconnected elements that combine to create a way of seeing and being in the world that?s distinctly Indigenous.As I came to understand how intricately interconnected these five elements were, I saw the damage done by colonisation. Disconnecting Indigenous people from their culture harmed their sense of identity and affected the meaning and purpose of their lived lives.And you guessed it. Nerdy Annie internalised this lesson and for the last two years of school, and the two years beyond that, I came to see that my world view was, in one significant way, not mainstream and that my sense of otherness originated in a form of colonisation. I was disconnected from my sexuality, living in a place which only seemed to validate that which almanbahis was most common.I knew, but did not yet really own the thought, that I was a lesbian; partly because exactly what living as a lesbian meant was, without role models, less than clear to me. I had kissed a few girls and liked it, but the idea that this secretive groping might evolve into a relationship, well there was no roadmap in Eden showing how that could actually occur.But, apart from the well-intentioned but actually painful question of when would I have a boyfriend, I was generally content in school. Studies, family, sport and hobbies gave my life meaning and focus, even though I knew a part of me was askew.In fact, when it came to school, most people would have expected me to be more than content. For, like Sarah, I was an academic and sporting success which led to me being head girl two years later. And every week I stood in front of the entire school in my black and white school uniform and spoke, confidently and impressively, though, just between you and I, I should mention that the principal saw every speech before I gave it.But, because I felt different in a significant way, my school leadership felt increasingly surreal. I was the standard bearer for the way things were always done at St Joseph?s. Yet, because I didn?t date for reasons that I hope are obvious, I felt increasingly out of step with my own rhetoric especially given my low-level dread of a looming event, namely the school formal.I had to go, of course, these things were expected, and in fact, I would have to speak. Speaking didn?t faze me, what did was the very idea of going with a boy and the expectations he might have. I had read about same-sex couples at formals overseas but in Eden? Dear God, that particular fruit seemed unobtainable, and any rate who would I have been confident enough to have asked.Then something extraordinary happened. One of my friends, Andrew, who I had worked with on the Student Representative Council and who I had also got to know as he was the least introverted of those doing advanced mathematics, asked me. He was totally suitable I realised, kind of good looking and studious, dressed well and easy to talk to so I, with a sigh of relief, went with him.Interestingly my social standing was actually enhanced as the girls in my year group saw him as a very suitable date; openside flanker for the first fifteen, he could certainly play rugby and for that alone was widely admired.You will get how silly this all seems now, but I never considered the obvious, that Andrew the mathematician could add and he had put two and two together and realized that he and I had something else in common. Stupid Annie never considered that Andrew could be gay, falling into that old trap of assuming members of what was reputed to be a homophobic place, namely the rugby scrum, were, by definition, straight.I got through the formal without that thought registering, but then he kissed me good night, on the cheek I should point out, saying, ?There was no-one else I could possibly have done that with, closet sister.?I was changing out of my dress before the penny dropped, 'closet sister, oh my God, Andrew was telling me he was gay.' Yet, though we continued to talk and be good Facebook friends, nothing more was said over the next almanbahis yeni giriş two years about our shared sexuality.Andrew went to Sydney to start his engineering degree, but, unexpectedly, I didn?t head north as my mother had had a stroke just before Christmas. I found I could study nursing at Sydney University remotely, so I stayed in Eden, hunkering down under the grey skies to study and help dad care for mum.Mum improved, thank God, and shortly after my twenty-first birthday was well enough to manage on her own. So, I set out to live in Sydney and complete my last undergraduate year in nursing, living with my brother who had moved there earlier, to get away from provincial Australia as he put it, with his wife and young son.Now it came to pass at the end of my second week in Sydney, that the March Mardi Gras parade occurred on Oxford Street. It was an iconic celebration by the gay community and I had, in past years, furtively scanned the web admiring the colours and the confidence of the hundreds who marched with pride.And when I said to my brother that I might pop into town to see it, he reacted in a way that amazed me at the time; he was like, "whatever," just as if me going was the most okay thing in the world.So, I caught the train and walked through town to Oxford Street, dressed in jeans and a black tee-shirt, with red floral print matching underwear which, as it turned out, was a more on pointe choice than my usual black or white sets.I unobtrusively found a front row position and wiled away the time listening to music, as the crowd around me built and bubbled with expectation, excitement and colour.But when the dykes on bikes led off the parade itself, the music was forgotten and my sense of sight was totally engaged. As were my hormones as the wink from the cute buxom rider closest to me sent a shiver through me that went straight to my clit.The frayed, somewhat grubby street that usually was Oxford Street, came alive in a cacophony of colour and noise, as the floats and marchers then rippled past. It is a sense of a flowing force, one community rather than a collection of individuals, that remains with me to this day.Of course, there are snapshots or fragments of the parade still lodged in my mind, but it felt like the parade was a living organism, a kaleidoscope of different shapes and colours unified by a shared world view, snaking its way down Oxford Street.I was gobsmacked by the red dresses, spinning like whirling dervishes, which seemed so full of life. Were they women or were they men? No-one cared in the end, they were gorgeous as they twirled with beauty and elegance.I identified with a gorgeous orange float peopled by medical types, knowing that orange is the colour of healing. For the first time that evening I found my voice calling out my support and getting a cheery wave back from a beautiful blond woman dressed in what I presumed she thought of as orange scrubs, but more resembled the scanty attempt at a nurse?s uniform you would get from a risqué store, not a hospital.Ribbons of green twirled in front of a float advocating climate change action. And one of the pretty young things, twirling a ribbon, locked eyes with mine. She smiled and it took a while for me to recognise her and smile back. Mel, who had been in my year at school, almanbahis giriş was always quietly sullen and dressed in goth-like black, but now seemed like a different person in her green bra and skirt.?I didn?t know,? I said, acknowledging her ownership of her sexuality, as she stopped beside me.?Me too,? she replied, ?I always assumed head girls had to be straight.??Everyone did, which made it hard as I never felt straight.??Sorry, that thought never occurred to me. I felt lonely and withdrew, if only I had known.?I put my arms around her, whispering, ?I was a crap leader in that respect, Mel. I didn?t own up to who I was.?Mel smiled and said, ?Don?t be hard on yourself. It takes courage, but the most liberating thing I did was come out, lose that black and wear rainbow colours.?And with that, she slipped my black t-shirt off and with a twirl, and a flick of her green ribbon, she re-joined the march, yelling back over her shoulder, ?We are so catching up Annie. Keep having pride, you don?t need black anymore.?Tears welled in my eyes, and then they flowed as the original Sydney78ers marched past followed by a choir in blue. Their singing of We Shall Overcome, found an echo in the crowd, and Oxford Street resounded to gay voices in perfect harmony.I was still sniffing, contemplating what just happened with Mel and the choir, when with a cry of, ?Annie,? my hand was grabbed and I was pulled into a group of men, topless, but incongruously wearing purple and blue striped rugby socks.It took a moment for me to realise that the face, painted in pride colours was none other than my school friend Andrew, who said, ?Tears, Annie? This is about joy and love, come walk with us.?Stepping from the safety of the curb and into the parade was like being dunked in the river Jordan; I felt reborn, no longer an observer, now absorbed into the organism snaking down Oxford Street. I picked up on the spirit of the group and moved my hips in front of the purple float where topless men danced, or at least danced as well as rugby players, even gay rugby players, could dance.I am not so gay that I can?t appreciate the male body and it has to be said there were wonderful torsos, honed by rugby, to be appreciated. And while I was looking back admiring them, and wondering uncertainly exactly how my place in all this would evolve, two bulky props from somewhere produced mascara and, on the run, touched up my make-up.Despite not wearing purple underwear, I was accepted in my red florals, and they gave me a bucket of purple mini rugby balls and instructions to throw them into the crowd. Which I did, laughing and giggling with Andrew as we caught up.I never did see the floats that followed, but I no longer cared. I had stepped over the Rubicon, and it felt almost like a relief. Absorbed into the march, I got into the spirit of pride, totally accepted as a friend of Andrew?s, happily mincing down Oxford Street and, for the first time in my life, not caring what anyone thought.My sexuality didn?t seem relevant or asked about, yet I embraced the joy that came from everyone around me just assuming I was, like them, gay.It became obvious when we went to the Horton Pavilion for afters, that there was more than friendship between Andrew and one of the other guys, Mark. Mark, was the hooker for the rugby team which was, as you might imagine, the position that enabled more grubbier innuendos than all other rugby positions combined. And, dear God, it became clear that pride for gay rugby players didn?t extend to dispensing with grubby innuendo.