An Accident of Hope

6.02.2006

Photo Friday: A tree-shaped hole in the universe

I recently read The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. In it one of her characters states that there are no black cats, just cat-shaped holes in the universe. And from there on out things, particularly black things or things in silhouette or thing/people that are going through a particularly soul-less or despair-filled moment are referred to not as themselves, but as a "them"-shaped hole in the universe.

Well, here is a Tree of Utah-shaped hole in the universe. My contribution to this week's Photo Friday theme of home-town oddities. As all of you know, I live in Salt Lake, and it is my hometown, too. And Salt Lake has plenty of oddities, some of which may even vie with this gigantic structure for pure unexpected strangeness. But, unfortunately, I broke the digital camera on vacation and we don't know when we're going to replace it. And we had taken this picture two years ago, but just now developed the film. So this is what you get. A hole in the universe where my digital camera should be. For more info on the Tree of Utah (and pictures of it in the day when you can see the colors), check here and (for a more "official" view) here.

Speaking of oddities... this weekend is Pride in Salt Lake. And, strangely enough, the pride parade in Salt Lake is the second biggest parade in the state. Second only to the Days of '47 parade that takes place on July 24th (Utah's celebration of statehood -- a holiday that is celebrated more fiercely here than the 4th of July). So, pioneers first, gays second. But only just. The funny thing is that most of the gay people here, unless they're actually in the parade, don't get up early enough to watch the parade. So who's out there cheering and watching? Does anyone else catch the bitter irony here? I could write pages on it, but since I have been informed numerous times that my posts are too long, I won't.

This year Kristin and I are going to be in the parade walking with the GLBTQ parent's group. We're going to help decorate the float tomorrow. But this is not the first time we've been in the parade. In 2004 Kristin and I began to get active in the Young Adult group of our Unitarian Universalist Church. And they did a marriage-themed float for the parade. Since Kristin and I had just gotten married in San Francisco, they asked us to be the lesbian brides on the float. So we did. It was the only time (of all the times we'd been married) that we got veils and white and bouquets. I truly enjoyed it. There's a huge part of me that wishes we'd done more planning with our weddings. Oh, well, maybe the third time's the charm.

On the same roll of film that had the Tree of Utah on it there were pictures from that Pride Parade. So, I thought I'd share. Call it another hometown oddity. In an effort to keep my post shorter in words, I've put more of the parade story on the pictures. You can read, if you like, by click ing on the pictures.