I attended the EuroPride 2008 parade in Stockholm. Met up with other expat friends and we settled ourselves near the wall across from MariaKyrket. Pride should be experienced rather than just observed.
Previously, my Swedish husband and I would watch the parade from a second-floor café, sandwiches and cigarettes, a few other folks in the room all comfortably chatting and checking the view outside the windows from time to time. But there's no more smoking indoors and the air now feels a bit close up there. I used to like that spot, but now I prefer the outdoor locations.
This year, I started on the train, early. Other things are happening in Katrineholm and those are for another story, so my darling husband did not join me this year. Instead, I went shopping in Gamla Stan, fika with a dear friend I see only now and then, lunched with a crowd of expats and members of the GLBT community in preparation for a stroll in the rain to the perfect street on Söder.
Sure, it rained on us. Yes, we had umbrellas. But while there is something to be said for watching this show from above, there is nothing like experiencing it so close that the marchers reach out and touch you. And definitely there's no energy such as was shown by the gay guys next to me, jumping up and down and shaking hips to all the music blaring from the trucks.
It's a spectacle. And a wondrous one. Emotions, however, run high. And when I saw the duct-taped mouths and t-shirts reading "Marching for those who cannot", I cried. Absolutely cried. Intolerance eats at me. And I find it offensive that there is still so much of it.
After the parade, our group moved to a private home for a little dinner and chatter before those with dogtags would head out to Pride Park. When you spend time with friends of all backgrounds, religions, cultures, tastes and languages, you realize how small our world really is and how much we need to communicate, even if we don't necessarily agree on every detail.
It is the openness of discussion that brings me to call this particular group of people my friends. And the two I did not already know before Saturday, I hope to include in future get-togethers, I would be proud to also call them my friends.
Experience things. Stockholm has plenty. Pride parade is only one.