Spring is the Queerest Season

*My wild, brilliant friend Astor invited me to do a reading at his “end of the world” Easter cabaret show this last week. Public performance is not exactly in my wheelhouse but I cant say no to him. The following is the piece I wrote for it.

Astor invited me here to talk about Spring. But before I do that, I have a confession to make.

I hate Summer.

I hate the heat; I hate being warm. I hate sweating. I hate pool parties; I hate splashing. I hate giggling and flirting over bowls of chips.

I fucking hate the beach. I hate sand; but i also hate grass. I despise sunscreen and mosquitoes and flip flops. I hate hot dogs; I hate the fourth of July. Fireworks are boring; it must be said. I know it’s not a fair judgment but at this point, if you really love the 4th of July, you and I probably do not agree on much.

And here’s my real issue:

All the things people think they like about Summer, Spring actually does.

Who turns the dark of Winter back to light? Spring does.

Who makes flowers out of frozen dirt? Spring does.

Who makes the days longer and warmer? Who makes the birds sing? It’s not summer.

Spring puts the winter coats away and brings the tank tops back.

All the joy and connection of beaches and bonfires and pool parties and Fire Island and Ibiza is Spring’s unpaid labor. Summer gets all the credit, but Spring does all the work.

Spring does the impossible.  It transforms Autumn's grief back to joy. It wears grief's other face: hope.

Without Spring, all the leaves that fell in Autumn would stay dead.  But Spring says "No, all that wither and loss was just making room for another cycle to begin." Pain builds a doorway for you to walk though and Spring is what’s on the other side.

You press your face into its new buds and revel in their fragrance. This is how we tend to–and complete–grief. We reconnect the shadow of night to dawn; the Sun came back.

Spring says: I didn’t die; I was turning into something new. I was grass, growing under snow. I was Beauty, just waiting to return. 

This, to me, is what queerness feels like.

The wild, deranged imagination to look upon rot and ash and determine "something radiant will grow here." The darkness is neither a failure nor dead-end but, instead, an initiation. A way forward.

To take dirt and turn it into flowers is fucking gay.

What is gayer than coming back from the dead? Summer could never. Spring is the queerest season. 

This is what it means to be queer to me: from the site of my grief and loss, I will make something beautiful. From my vanishing, I will begin afresh. 

In spite of the ruthless furnace of this world, I will feel the sun's warmth on my face. I demand to hear music again. I am too stubborn to refuse its delight. I make my own sun.

I hope if you are feeling hopeless and lost in the darkness, right now, even here, you remember Spring. I hope you remember its deranged hope. It’s always light born out of the dark. Summer doesn’t just happen.

I hope you remember that Joy is always a resurrection. Joy is always a resurrection.

I hope that you remember that you too are grass growing under the snow.

I long for the day when
all that is dark in me
becomes light

– Mutsuo Basho

*image by Maria Medem