- Ashley Inguanta
- Sabrina Napolitano
Here is what I remember: I was at home, and my partner told me there was
a shooting. “Twenty dead,” he said, “at Pulse nightclub.” I don’t remember
much else from that morning. My body felt like it was hollowing; it felt like
my body was emptying, and I sat on the bed, and I started shaking, and
then I started texting and calling everyone I knew who loved Pulse. “Were
you there? Were you there?” One after another: “No, not last night,” they
said. “I was not there,” they said. One after another, my friends were
marked “safe” online. But some of their friends were not safe. This week,
some of my dearest friends have attended funerals.
I’ve had a lot of people ask me about how safe I feel now. That’s been such
a strange question for me because the truth is that I’ve always felt a little
unsafe. Being gay very much holds a steady undercurrent of anxiety. ”Will
my partner and I walk by the wrong person?”; “Which towns should we
not hold hands in?”; “Should I pretend to be straight in this situation?” I
ask myself those questions more often than I’d like to admit.
Over the past week, I’ve watched my friends hold and release some of the
heaviest and most painful emotions I have ever witnessed. I am doing my
best to be here for them; to bring them yoga, meditation, love, conversation, silence. I will do anything for my community, my Orlando. Anything
kind and soul-nourishing, I will give.
I have been living here for nearly twelve years. I keep coming back here
because there is love here; Orlando taught me how to love. I hope that
we can honor the victims of the Pulse massacre by remembering them,
by taking care of their loved ones, and by learning to love and nurture the
differences between us that make us human.
So, to have a space that was forged to be safe for the LGBT community
taken away so violently doesn’t make me feel unsafe. It makes me feel
violated. Someone came into my home and shot my own family. Someone
took their lives from them in the one place they shouldn’t have had to be
afraid. I mourn for them every day.
But, we are still dancing. We are still loving. We are still having Pride,
and kissing in the streets, and daring to live. I like to think that shows
something about us. That we’ve come together so quickly, so brilliantly.
The straight community has rallied for us. The president has rallied for us.
The city itself, has rallied for us. So, “safe”? No, I didn’t ever quite feel
completely safe. But someone tried to take a space from us, and we took it
right back. We will keep dancing. I know that much, at least.
Messages of Hope, mixed media installation by David Matteson.
This work was created as part of the program Art with Purpose--an initiative between the Zebra Coalition, an Orlando non-profit that provides
social services to at-risk LGBT+ youth, and the Orlando Museum of Art. The program’s intention is to deliver effective, engaging studio exercises
for the Zebra youth. This specific work was developed after the tragedy at Pulse nightclub on June 12. Each youth received an individual portion
of the heart installation with the instruction to provide a message of hope for the Orlando community.
Orlando’s Art Scene, v. 1.2
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