When my body was giving up, my spirit completely broken and, for the first time ever, my will to live ebbing away, love buoyed me until I was strong enough to fight again. Most of that love came from queers; that is what we do well, we queers – love. We know what it is to exist on the outside, how it feels to be marginalised, what we need to do to support each other so that our suffering is less and our joy more. I feel so lucky to be a part of such an incredible community.
But this doesn’t mean I can’t hold up the mirror occasionally and say, this is not good enough. We’re not doing enough.
My pilgrimage to Milton’s cottage began with my first experience of Paradise Lost. I say ‘experience’ because my initial exposure to the poem wasn’t in print, but rather through an audio book. I listened to it – all 10,000 lines of verse – in my car driving to and from work. Milton, I like to think, let me come to him.