More Than the March
A Pride Week field note about music, pie, glitter, and the people who kept showing up.
By the time the Pride Parade happened, Pride Week had already been underway for days in Chocolatina and Lavinia's orbit.
Not officially. Not with a ribbon cutting. Not with a rainbow graphic and a brand-safe caption.
I mean the real version.
Wednesday at Broadway Jukebox, where Chocolatina and Lavinia hosted and the room sang back.
Friday at Bruz Midtown, where Lavinia Draper sold out of pies in record time.
Saturday at Fortissimo, where Pride Happy Hour gave people another room to walk into before the street became the stage.
Sunday was the parade, but the part I keep thinking about happened before the photos.
The 8:45 a.m. part.
The part where people who support The Pie Queen all year showed up early, in various states of glitter, sunscreen, caffeine, and commitment, to march before most of Denver had fully admitted the day had begun.
That is the part.
Not just the parade. The showing up.
The friends who come to the events, buy the pies, take the photos, clap from the curb, stay for the song, carry the banner, and make sure nobody is standing there alone.
The parade is the part everyone photographs. The street, the flags, the glitter, the music, the float energy, the public evidence that something happened. It is easy to look at those photos and think: there it is. Pride.
But my version is not one march, and it is not one week.
It is showing up for my friends on Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and every ordinary day after that.
Not because of a calendar.
Because they are my friends.
The march was the bright part.
The rest is the point.