On Sunday I went to my first, but definitely not last Pride Parade in Cologne! We found or way to the parade following my phone´s navigation system but mostly the loud music and trail of confetti on the streets.
We stepped out of a dim side street and into a rainbow, I swear. It was amazing. Hundreds of people were gathered along the street, forming a passage way of colors for the 180 cars and wagons and groups of protestors and dancing parade members to pass through. Everyone was dressed accordingly, in glitter and color and rainbow and in, to say it quite frankly, nothing. Most men were shirtless, some were fully naked, women were dressed in the shortest shorts and tops that looked more like bras. While this sounds extreme, I firmly believe that everyone felt 100% comfortable in whatever they came in, whether that was bdsm inspired or care bear inspired 🙂
I loved it. The whole thing. The glitter, the confetti, the loud obnoxious tunes of Cher and Madonna blasting through the speakers. I loved the condoms and stickers and postcards that were thrown into the crowd, the drag and the energy. Anywhere I looked I was met with laughing faces, lips colored in hues of blues, glitter on cheekbones, rainbows on socks and t-shirts. Mesh and lace and sequins galore!
I got super emotional on the train ride there (anyone who knows me knows that public transport makes me super emotional), and started crying out of pure happiness for this vivid expression of love and happiness and PRIDE.
I could write an entire 4,000 word essay on the topic of feminism and prejudice and hate and love and equality, but I´ll leave you with this quote by Matty Healy and more pictures of the parade.
Keep Loving, Antonia x
One of my favorite albums currently (and ever) is the live album of The 1975, It´s so beautiful and you should really give it a listen if you haven´t yet. The best part isn´t just, you know, the music, but the fact that you can hear Matty and the other band members conversing with each other and the crowd. This is what he said before they played Loving Someone, and I think you might want to listen to this version of the song on the album and listen along to his speech while reading this. (Surprise, surprise, it made me cry the first time I heard it).
If we are the liberals, if we are the left, if we are the young, the black, the Muslim, the gay, whatever we are, we have to understand that all of this shit, these paradigms of race and all this kind of stuff, it seems to make sense but that’s not really what it’s about. A lot of these people who voted against what I believe the majority of us stand for, most of those people are so disenfranchised by political systems that they wanted a change and it’s our responsibility yes to be pissed off, but to be not patronising and be compassionate and be understanding. -Matty Healy, The 1975
