Happy Gay Pride Month!

There's a real thrill for me when I come up out of any downtown San Francisco BART station in June. All along Market Street, the big rainbow flags are flying, and it is a site to see.

For many years, my family marched up Market Street on the last Sunday in June, especially when our son was a little boy. We marched with the LGBT Parenting contingent, and it was an absolute balm to get all those cheers! When Nathan was little, the kids' groups were lined up right after the groups for people with HIV-AIDS, and in the late eighties and early nineties, those groups were pretty grim looking. By the time the children came along, I suspect that the crowds were really looking for a sign that life was going to carry on.

At the time, I really needed the boost too. I often felt like I was holding it together all year long as a lesbian mom, more or less in conflict with my family of origin, and so for this one day in June to have tens of thousands of people cheering for me was truly wonderful.

The rainbow flags remind me of all of this.

I saw them this week as when I went into San Francisco to get euros for our trip to Germany. We're leaving on Saturday the 5th and returning late on Saturday the 11th, so there will be an interruption in my posting next week.

It's a business trip to Hanover with a pleasure trip to Berlin added onto the end. Amazingly, when we get to Berlin, we will land smack dab into the middle of Europe's biggest Gay Pride Week!

So, we'll celebrate in a whole new way this year. I've already learned something new, which is that lesbian in German is lesbisch. How about that!