I was driving back into the city after being away in New Jersey all day and flipped on the radio. It was a ‘greatest hits’ kind of station that I don’t usually listen to but they have traffic and weather reports. It’s always a good idea to check and see if the bridge or tunnel you take is jammed in advance as it can save you alot of time, also tonight they were saying it might rain/sleet/snow and I wanted to be prepared.
While waiting for the next report to start the DJ took to the microphone to take a request. A young man was on the line and the DJ asked him his name. “Sean”, he replied. The DJ asked him what song he wanted to hear and who he wanted to dedicate it to. He said he wanted to hear The Door’s “Light My Fire” and he wanted to dedicate it to his boyfriend Josh. The DJ said “no problem Sean, and where are you and Josh tonight?”. Josh replied “Hamilton” and the DJ then said “You guys have a good night” and with that the song began to play.
There I was driving on the Garden State Parkway with tears welling up in my eyes. It’s hard to explain to someone what it’s like to hear a young kid be so comfortable calling up and making that request and equally to hear a DJ, after decades of hearing homophobic comments on radio, be nonchalant and treat him like any other love bird on a Saturday night. It felt like a milestone, one of those moments where you find yourself at a marker along a very long road. All those years marching, writing letters, voting, living out loud in an effort to raise consciousness and boom, there it is, raised. On top of that was the sweetness of the whole thing, just being moved by fact that this will now be ordinary. It’s what so many of us have fought so hard for.
There are still tons of battles to be fought but you have to savor those moments when you feel something has been accomplished and tonight was one of those for me, and it feels so damned good.