It starts with hugs: warm, happy hippie kiss-on-the-cheek embraces, while kids swirl with foam swords as you go to put down your soup pot on the potluck table. Grey hairs on drum and bass, Sinai and Joanna singing in Spanish. The gaggle of Japanese exchange students with tambourines and egg shakers, a Nor Cal imagined scene come true.
I’m dancing next to someone who believes trans folks become so due to lack of strong father figures, who’s also dancing with two openly trans women. We’re singing the same song, eating the same food. There are political refugees, anti-vaxers, moderate autism spectrum folks.
Side note: in my twenties I thought it was funny to say wild dancing middle aged women were doing the Menopause Boogie. Needless to say I am now fully in the prime of my own Menopause Boogie, and I can tell you it’s about having zero fucks to give, and being in community where we take turns singing loud and off key, cheering for each human who walks through the door, and asking, “How are you really doing? Really?”
Sometimes we cry. There was the night N couldn’t stop sobbing and we took turns, the 8 year olds included, stroking her hair, helping her midwife it out. There’s dude talk with cigarettes, sex stories and crone cackles, deep check ins over dishes.
This is a microcosm of how it can be: when you set a steady rhythm (every Tuesday), and open the door. And music, I think that’s key. If we don’t share the same language, culture or values, we humans do all love to dance and sing.
In this time of “unfriending” those with differing beliefs (I understand the need) my preference and stake is in finding our shared humanity. I think it’s our only hope. To dance, beaming, singing the same lyrics with someone with entirely different lenses and politics, to expand our idea of human family, even if it’s just one night a week, this fills my heart and hope chest.
And it flows out from there, to support for a go-fund-me garage sale to save someone’s cat, help moving furniture and pruning fruit trees. A group camping trip.
Years ago I shifted from a focus on dating to investing in community, and this shift has been phenomenal for me. Would you consider the same? I know it works for some, but the idea of one partner and the nuclear family unit is sooooooo dumb. We’re meant to have a village. Our souls know this and have been grieving its loss since before we can remember.
In this time of division, fear, and despair, find your web and expand it. Open your door to the inner toddlers in us all, bobbing to a beat, pointing at a kitty cat, opening a clammy hand to offer soggy cheerios. Don’t stay in contraction. You’re not alone. It’s possible to fall in love with every stranger.
If you’d like to fall in love with a room full of strangers, come to one of the few remaining free community workshops. It will knock your socks off, and you’ll think, “Could I feel this way/be this vulnerable and intimate with everyone?” The answer–under the right circumstances–is probably yes. Please help me get the word out as I want to reach as many as could benefit with the limited time I have left.