When all of this is over… when we’re all a little older

I’m going to set up a big tent in the back yard – like the kind they have at weddings. And under the tent I’ll build a dance floor, with more than enough room for everybody and all their family and friends. And we’ll fill that space with people and with music and with food

I’m not sure how, but we’re going to do it. Not just canned music, but the living kind of music, channeled through and in and out of real people, people standing together in the same space.

When all of this is over, we’re going to dance.

Big, full, shameless dancing. Klutzy, awkward, careful dancing. Peaceful, in-the-moment dancing. Old familiar dancing beside unfamiliar dancing. Shy dancing. “We’re going to fucking figure out how to do this if it’s the last thing we ever do” dancing.

We’re all going to dance, together. All of us in the same place. Not just faces and voices in a conference call, not just words appearing on a screen. Humans connecting in person.

It’s old-fashioned, but so help me – it’s a good thing for a body to do.

“If I could choose the way I was to die — I would go falling through the hot summer sky. With ribbons and bows tied to my hands and my feet — I’d gaze across the world, and I would feel complete…”

~ Richie Sterns

Speaking for me, I think that I’d be up for dancing like we’re none of us sure that there’s going to be a tomorrow. I’d be up for dancing into the wee hours of the morning, under the stars.

And when all the dancing’s over, when the people have gone home …

I’d be up for sitting in camp chairs around a fire, curling up in an old quilt that smells a little like the inside of a barn, like grass and sunshine and dirt. I’d be up for sitting in silence, all worn out from dancing, or for listening to stories and watching the sun rise. I’d settle for a forehead kiss and a deep sleep, and no dreams until the late into the next morning.

When all of this is over… I say that like I know it’s going to end. I don’t know. I feel more shaken and uncertain than I have in a long time. Here I am, thinking about dancing in the aftermath of what is not going to be end of the world because we’re not going to let that happen

when right now I’d dearly love to be able to go spend one solitary hour in a coffee shop, or a library, a safe space in school.

I miss the rocks and the trees by shore of a lake and I miss standing around in parking lots. I miss being surrounded by the little movements and the sounds and the conversations between real live other people. I miss passing familiar faces in the hallway. I miss you.

And so, when all of this is over, when we’re all a little older…

When all this is over, I promise, we’re going to dance.