I suppose anyone who loves parties can say the same thing: that parties stop time, that there are moments that can only occur at parties that can and will be crystallized and become lifelong memories and snapshots, and that since it’s a created space, and a curated guest list, it is a sort of theater production.
But I don’t love most parties, especially ones I am hosting, whereas I do love special events that I host.
What’s the difference?
For special events, be they parades, or festivals, or other types of public gatherings—that’s just it. They are public parties, not private parties.
And often, you don’t have a guest list.
When I think of the first big public event I attended, I think it was the Women’s March on Washington in 1989. I would have been 19, and I would have been excited about everything related to the entire scene—being in the nation’s capital “by myself” as “an adult” and not on a family vacation, for one—and getting a glimpse at what all demonstrators and activists for decades had experienced, being on the National Mall in a sea of people with banners, signs, t-shirts, bullhorns, musical instruments, and feeling that feeling…
What is that feeling?
It’s the feeling that you’re part of something bigger than yourself, and you can converse with strangers who have at least this moment in common with you, which is always superior to standing in someone’s kitchen with a drink making small talk.
It’s the feeling that you are eternal, immortal, timeless, and small…you are a cog in the wheel, you are stardust, you are---
You get the idea. At a party you’re supposed to act important or say something relevant and impressive. At an event, sure—you can do this, but it’s not about you.
At least, it shouldn’t be.
What I’m trying to understand is why I love parades and street theater “more” or at least very differently than indoor, staged theater. I adore live, staged, rehearsed, theater, but in a precious, intense way—and mostly because I love the language of plays. With parades, I embrace the surprise, spontaneity, unity, and unpredictability that makes it all memorable in a different way---remember that time it was below freezing? Remember that time I was in a horse drawn wagon and scared to death that they were going to start to run? Remember that time I tapped a woman dressed as an angel and it was an old friend, but I didn’t know it until she turned around?
Etcetera…
And this I believe, all has to do with death, fear of death, familiarity with death. There’s a sense that if you rehearse something well enough, the satisfaction of the repetition and perfection gives you a wonderful sensation of being in control for the time being. I felt that when writing plays. I could control what was said and done! Imagine that!
But a parade…once it begins….it is its own script. It is a loosely linear procession that tells a story (at least in the case of the Joan of Arc Parade, where we actually do try to tell her story…although all parades, arguably, tell a story inherently by walking past you as if words were going across a page—and it’s on you to figure out how to read it?)
So I love the live event, the live parade, the public gathering. I’m not unique. But why do I feel a need to understand the appeal of event making for my personal sake?
Because I want to know what the feeling is that I get when I’m watching people interact in time and space, held in place for a few hours, being together. It is I think the feeling of time in motion, in a way that you can’t experience in most other situations. It is a temporary imperfect perfection, held together with a theme, a performance, a title, an event.
I know some people feel this at football games. To a degree, I feel it at my daughter’s track meets as well.
But to CREATE the space for the magic to happen, that’s the thing I’m talking about.
To put forth the opportunity for people to connect, enjoy, gather—it may not be the National Mall, but it’s akin to it, because for that short period of time, we are sharing time together.
And that is all I want to do. Share time and feel time and experience time.
I want to know I’m alive, and other than when I’m laughing with my daughter or husband (or both), occasionally when walking the dog and looking at trees or stars or feeling the breeze—I don’t feel truly alive a lot.
I feel most alive during these heightened moments: theater, events, parades.
And so, I suppose that’s that. And I suppose I just wonder, had my brother not died on this day in 1986, would I feel the need for these heightened moments? Would daily life be “enough”? It sure was, then. I could feel that joy playing flag football (as I did the day before he died) or being in a car with a boy.
After he died, I felt very little.
Since my mom died, it’s hard for me to reach those heights…except. When I’m in a darkened theater or watching a film or…at the Joan of Arc parade, where for one night, I’m tied to an eternal person, who never dies…we celebrate her birthday together every year, and because of this, we are unified across time and space with all that came before us and will come after us.
We are in a parade of life, and we will keep moving forward…and the parade will move on without us someday. But let’s not think of that for now. Let’s think of creating the parade, and by doing so, creating and almost controlling the passage of time--for a little while. Enough to know we are alive.
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