renewing our vows in Durham today
Last year, I wrote a post on my (now-retired) personal blog about Marry Durham, an event that drew ~1,700 Durhamites downtown to declare their commitment to the city and each other. Today, Marry Durham organizers threw a super fun vow renewal/St. Patrick’s day event that has me reflecting yet again on how much I love this city.
To back up: Enrique and I started our day with a little landscaping followed by a break on the porch to admire our handiwork. We were happily chatting away when a neighbor walking his dog stopped to introduce himself. We had a really nice conversation, in which we learned the following:
- His name is James and he is 64 years old. He is admittedly “very southern”.
- We work for the same employer and know a lot of the same people.
- He appears to know everyone in the neighborhood and could identify three other families in the area who came from Michigan.
- He is gay and has been with his partner for more than 30 years.
- His house is immediately next door to Pete’s.
We really liked James, and I remembered my brother saying that a neighbor had left a note in his mailbox welcoming him to the neighborhood. When Pete came over to go to Marry Durham with Dave and me, it came up that James was gay. Pete said really? huh, I wouldn’t have guessed. We have a lot of neighbors like that, actually — who aren’t flying any gay pride flags in front of their houses or making a big deal about it, just living their lives like anybody else. I’m glad, though, that we live in a place that is tolerant enough that neighbors like James don’t have to introduce their partners as roommates, especially after 30+ years.
There is a great deal of tension in Durham right now regarding a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution explicitly banning same-sex marriage (which is already illegal here) — it seems that there is a sign in every yard denouncing the proposal. There’s no question that Durham is against the amendment, but there’s no telling how the rest of the state will vote on legislation that would have seriously damaging repercussions for both same-sex and unmarried heterosexual couples and their children.
Lately I’ve been trying really hard not to push my political beliefs on others, and be more open to understanding other peoples’ viewpoints. However, after our first experience at Drag Bingo last night, I realized that the reality of living in such an openly integrated community is really quite different from the perception, and that is something I wanted to talk about.
The first surprise of Drag Bingo is the mix of people it attracts. Dave and I had expected Enrique would want to sit this one out, but even he was intrigued, so we left early to try to get an extra ticket at the door before the event sold out. We arrived with a group of very straight-looking retirees and clean-cut younger people dressed like they were going swing dancing — conservative, neat, a little festive. Having arrived 30 minutes early, there wasn’t an empty table in the place; we wandered through a sea of people, gay and straight, male and female, young, middle-aged, and older, a few “alternative” looking types, a few flamboyant dressers, and a whole lot of everyday looking people.
We finally found seats at a table with five middle-aged gay men — two apparent couples (wearing wedding bands) and a singleton. The tables were decorated festively with St. Patrick’s Day tablecloths and hershey’s kisses scattered in the center. You could buy hot dogs for a dollar apiece and they had volunteers standing by to dole out homemade chili, cole slaw, and other fixings. As first timers, we had come expecting a theatrical event that would be a little out of some peoples’ comfort zones. What we didn’t realize, or at least I didn’t, was that Drag Bingo is just bingo. With drag queens doing musical numbers between the games.
I think the most surprising thing about Drag Bingo is how wholesome it is. It was SO FUN, but there’s no alcohol, no vulgarity, nothing divisive outside the sexual orientation of the performers. The drag queens sing to the clean versions of songs and they keep the dance numbers family-friendly. They are dramatic and campy and…well, drag queens, but the fact that the entertainers are female impersonators is truly the extent of the shock factor. Everyone involved is a volunteer trying to do something good for the community. Prizes were donated by local businesses and individuals, my favorite of which were blankets crocheted by a supporter. Does anything say homey neighborhood event more than crocheted blankets?
Drag Bingo sells out every time, and to date they’ve donated a half a million dollars to charity. Even Enrique ended up having a really good time. It’s easy for things I like to be “too gay” for him, but believe it or not, Drag Bingo was not one of those things.
Like I said in last year’s Marry Durham post, the thing I love most about this city is this general optimistic feeling that people are good, even people who are different from you, and that diversity enriches our way of life rather than threatening it. The LGBT population doesn’t have to be this secret society that meets at shady nightclubs — older people in long-term relationships don’t want to go to shady nightclubs. They just want an affordable date night they can look forward to, and they’ve succeeded in offering something that appeals to people of any orientation.
Last year’s post also discussed how beautiful I think it is that Durhamites embrace changes to the community — influxes of immigrants, new family businesses; it’s all good! Our neighborhood email list is usually abuzz with news of who’s hosting the next Spanish Club meeting, which taqueria has the best food, and how to translate the neighborhood newsletter into Spanish so that all of our neighbors can get involved. I have seen neighbors send petty messages about dog walking etiquette and passive-aggressive parking, but I have never seen a comment made that would suggest that it’s not important to make sure that neighbors who can’t read English know that they, too, are invited to the neighborhood potluck. And in a list of hundreds of loudmouths, I think that’s pretty awesome.
It isn’t always easy to adjust to changes in the neighborhood; we have weighed in on how to best communicate to first-generation immigrants that on December 24th, American children are in bed waiting for Santa and could do without the fireworks and bachata ringing through the streets. And this is why I love the idea, conceptually, of “marrying” your community. It takes work and commitment and personal responsibility and a partnership-based mentality to be part of something that is bigger and better than just you. A lot of times, if you can put your personal feelings about something aside in order to react in a loving way, your partner will do the same right back. Send Spanish-language invites to isolated neighbors to welcome them to the community, and watch them decide that learning English is important. It happens here, all the time. A marriage can’t thrive between two people who blame each other when things get complicated or tense, and a community can’t, either. This is something that Durhamites really get, and it’s something that makes me really proud to live here.
We can’t know what will happen with Amendment One, but it’s hard to get discouraged here. I wish I could take every person who worries that having openly gay neighbors would endanger their hard-won community values to Drag Bingo, to see the quilt raffle and the senior citizens enjoying their hot dogs and the volunteers meticulously collecting beverage can pop tabs to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. It’s not as much of a departure from my small-town Midwestern upbringing as I would have imagined. I just know that if grandmas in this town can get down with a tasteful drag show, there’s hope that that any social tension can be overcome, any gap can be be bridged, and that we can all be our best community through being our best selves — whatever that may look like.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody. And happy anniversary, Durham!
