Photo Essay: The New Frontier

I have opened the door without walls, the door in the middle of nowhere (repeat after me now'here). I stand at the threshold. I am afraid. I turn my head. I look behind. I see my life, all I have been. Or haven't been. I see brokenness. I see pieces. A shattered stained glass window lying on a stone floor. A kaleidoscope spilled open. And just for ambience, there is the dripping sound of water, and its echo, as it falls somewhere into a hallow place. I turn my head again, more slowly this time. I face the other side stretched out before me.
I see a row of blue porta-potties.

I see people, so many people and I see the grass they stand upon. Most of them have to go pee. I assume this because they're all standing in the porta-potty lines. Speaking of pee - I am waiting for Kristine. She too had to go pee and told me to wait by the tree. There were two trees. She didn't say which one. But they are close together, close enough to hold a conversation. From time to time, I need to remind myself why I'm waiting - or that I am waiting. I keep forgetting and start to think I am just standing there, between a conversation of trees. But Kristine being Kristine, had to find some other place to go pee, some place beyond a corner, beyond what I can see.
Then I see her crossing the street. She has silver hair, like a mythical character. The wind moves with her. She's holding a cup of coffee. She sees me.
"Did you have to buy that in order to use the bathroom?"
I glance at the coffee.
"Yesss." She speaks with exasperation. "I said to them, 'Look, I empty the bladder first. Then I pay to refill it."

Kristine is my tour guide, my tour guide to other side. She is my Virgil. She prefers the term Traveling Trollop. I never quite know where she will take me next. Today it's the Dyke March. And it's San Francisco.

It all begins at Dolores Park. I'm not crazy about the group breast examination at the beginning of the event. There are some things we don't need to share ... or see. I'm alright with some mystery.
Eventually, just at the cusp of twilight, the crowd moves down from the grassy hills into the intersection of Dolores and 18th. I have never been in a crowd this big before. I am just at the edge bordering the street. I can hear the motorcycles rev up their engines, I see the headlights turn on. The vibrations roar through the air, sending repercussions through all of our bodies. If we are energy trapped in matter, if each individual body is a mostly contained, set of vibrations, then these repercussions seem to weave all of our bodies together, into a collective entity, a sea. From time to time a wave will come. I am in the foam of the wave. We spill into the street. The police come and usher us backward again. We wait. We wait. We wait. We make more unintentional waves. The engines grow louder and louder, then louder yet.
At last the march begins. I watch the women roll by on their beasts. I am standing at the edge of the new frontier and these woman are the new cowboys, making their own rules, living outside the common laws dictated by evolution. This is freedom.