28 Aug Love in the Time of Corona
One day last week, while having some lunch of leftover mussels and pasta, I was looking through the Weekend Arts section of the NY Times (hard copy!) and saw a recommendation for a two hour show streaming over the weekend called “Love in the Time of Corona.”
“That’s my title!” I said out loud to no one but myself. “How cool!” You see, “Love in the Time of Corona” came to me more than a month ago as a title for my next blog post. Only I hadn’t written it yet. Seeing that someone else liked that title, and used it, inspired me to sit down and finally write the post.
The “Love…” miniseries that’s streaming, according to the description, follows people in four households in “various states of love and marriage” who apparently “watch people on screen talk about isolation” (NY Times, August 21, 2020). The “Love…” blogpost I am writing follows hundreds of people on four continents in various states of quarantine and isolation who create connection with strangers.
My blog post speaks not so much of love for an other, as it does of love for others, not love as romantically possessive, but love as humanizingly expansive. It speaks of love not as a state of mind or heart, but love as the activity of connecting with others in creating ways of loving.
Creating ways of loving is what the Michigan Warrior Clowns do, US veterans with PTSD who connect with other vets in Veteran’s Administration hospitals, as a platoon of clowns. It’s what more than one hundred performers and improvisors do, having formed the Global Play Brigade to offer free virtual play sessions to anyone from any place on earth with Internet connection or What’s App. (Click to watch their stunning “Ode to Front Line Workers.”)
“Clowning Around with PTSD” and “Playing Through the Pandemic—and Beyond” were two of the sixteen sessions that comprised the virtual community-building festival/conference, Performing the World Happening(s), held weekends from July 25-August 30.
“Love in the Time of Corona” doesn’t mean “making the best of it.” It means being creative with virtual space, not bemoaning the lack of physical contact we all miss. We, the organizers and participants in Performing the World Happening(s) and the many other interactive, participatory activities being offered online, are playing with all that virtual platforms have to offer and discovering their powerful potential to create connection, joy, play, laughter, tears, intimacy, inspiration and hope.
In the “Performing Our Mental Health” session, Mana Mukaiyachi from Japan told the story of Bethel House, a community for people with schizophrenia (and other diagnoses) in the village of Urakawa in Hokkaido Japan,where she grew up. She’s a dancer and musical actress now and her telling was in dance, images and stories. She shared how the community works and how it was founded by her father, who she introduced us to. She also showed how members of Bethel House give names and characters to their illness and symptoms.
Mana was paired in the session with Steven Licardi, a social worker and spoken word artist from the US. He shared, through spoken word and images, both his own journey from a kid who had multiple diagnoses, including Asperger’s, to his research into the sordid history of psychiatric diagnosis and drug treatment, to his current work as a social worker. Building on Mana’s telling of the Bethel House members’ characters, Steve divided the nearly 80 or so participants into small Zoom breakout rooms, He invited everyone to name a part of themselves they didn’t like and talk together about how they might be kind to, and even come to love, that part of themselves that gives them so much distress. (People are still talking about how they loved this exercise.)
“Using Magic to Create a Just World” showcased some of the work of Magicians Without Borders. The session featured young magicians and their teachers from Colombia, Costa Rica and El Salvador. As they moved from one country to another, we met teenage magicians and the young adult magicians who mentored them. They spoke of their lives of poverty and how magic transformed them. Each demonstrated their favorite (amazing!) magic tricks and, at the end, taught participants a magic trick—done in unison by nearly 100 people.
These examples are just a sampling of what can be done virtually. They happened by necessity because of the pandemic. And they revealed how necessary activities of this kind are. And how wanting of connection and love people are. And how powerful people are in creating that.
Each of the sessions I just described had ample time for participants to comment and ask questions, both by speaking and writing in the Zoom chat function. And comment they did! Sessions had from 70-150 participants, who wrote between 300-500 messages in the chat for each session. People wrote hellos to each other and said where they were from; they wrote what they were enthusiastic about as the session went on; they asked questions; they congratulated the speakers and performers. And they spoke from the heart. From “Clowning Around …” came “Your hearts open our hearts;” “Thank you for your gifts of love and healing and community.” From “Performing our Mental Health” came “You are speaking for US;” “Finding joy in the midst of chaos.” From “Using Magic …” came “You are a nuclear happiness generator;” “We love your pride—we feel your love;” and Thank you for bringing us to Colombia.”
And what of the experience of playing together with so many strangers from so many countries? Humanizing. Expansive. Joyful. That’s how I read these additional comments.
“I was enchanted, delighted and so moved. It was a beautiful human experience. I enjoyed seeing the expressions on people’s faces and how moved we all were, together, from all over the world. Almost 100 of us! Amazing.”
“It was so important and meaningful for me participate because in the whole world people are in fear, and isolated. It was awesome that people were engaged in play and felt loved.”
“Just being present almost seemed enough. I feel that being with people from all around the globe was healing for me.”
“While still absolutely acknowledging the pandemic and its effect on people, we had permission to play and cavort and move and be silly. And reach out to each other across the time zones and continents and grief and languages. It was quite moving.”
Well, now I’ve written my blog post! And I’ve discovered what the words in that title, “Love in the Time of Corona,” mean to hundreds of people, including me. They mean connecting with others by creating love.
No Comments