Where's the Common Ground?

 

Oi, the trouble! Having fun is apparently a state of being instead of something to do. What does a person having fun look like from the outside? They grin with their whole selves, bodies loose and fluid. Fun radiates from them, impelling some of us, against our better judgement, to take some enjoyment while in their company. Opens a whole can o' worms. Having felt fun even for a moment or few, the door to feeling is flung wide...or perhaps for some, merely unlocked. The stuff we keep there is there for all the good reasons. We've had to put it there over the years to keep ourselves and/or our children safe from shame, embarrassment, harassment, brutality, poverty. To honor expectations.

Old dreams from our activist years rise. So far from the reality we've created/we've let <them> create--we can't even imagine how to get there from here.

The pretenses we live: Happy family, good job, fun-loving, tough guy, loose woman, competent member of society, open-minded, pc, hippie, yuppy...whatever they are, the fact of the pretense is what we keep carefully hidden behind that door.

And it's not like this all becomes clear when the door is open for a moment. Maybe all that becomes clear is that we're not happy.

And what we know in our bones and perhaps hide from the rest of ourselves, is that we do not have the courage to dismantle our pretenses and try again.

We didn't mean to pretend. Most of us would stop if we could allow ourselves to know what we're doing as we buy more things, arrange more activities, sneer at others, turn on the video, go to our jobs and end our days climbing into bed with the strangers our lovers have become.

Fluidity, radiance and joyful laughter live with the fear and pain and uncertainty we keep behind that door. We must open it to come home. 

4/14/2000 --dede dancing