The Whirlwind of a Drag Queen
One day among the many wild, wild things that they set up and did, one was they set up a big blanket. They put a blanket on the floor and on the blanket where all of these outfits, girl’s stuff, boy’s stuff, leather stuff, everything stuff, indigenous things, just anything, anything you can imagine.
It was all there and they said, just jump in, one person at a time, put something on that reveals a piece of you and embody that piece of you, whatever it is. So I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I got up there and I walked up to the blanket, and I don’t even remember what I put on, but I became a drag queen and I was this insanely demented, overstimulated, wild, screaming, joyful, hysterical, enthusiastic, out of my mind, drag queen. I was hysterical.
I just became this whirlwind of a drag queen in front of everybody and then I put the stuff down, and I felt such profound shame.
Not because I wore drag, but because I had revealed a part of myself, which is this dementedly, bubbly being that is really a part of who I am and when I’m really myself, I am very much like a crazy kid. Well, that’s one part of what I’m like. But anyway, I went mad with that and afterward I was hit with a thunderbolt of such profound shame and embarrassment, indescribable.
It was really, really bad and I was brave enough to raise my hand and say, “Folks, I’m mortified. I am mortified by what I showed. I’m just full of shame.” And Kathleen said to me, “Oh my God, I loved that part of you. That was so fun and I loved it and I want more of that from you.” So she kind of saved my life. She saved me from sinking at that moment from this thunderbolt of total shame, this ring of shame that I felt around this wildly ridiculously enthusiastic part of my being that I did not know what to do with.
