There’s a photo I took at a bar in Washington D.C. from November 2016.
Just days after the election.
My friend is in the foreground dancing. A packed dance floor behind him. Flags from around the world hanging on the wall. Nothing but passion, joy, commitment to the moment. I posted it to IG at the time with a caption: what do we do in dark times? Dance harder, dance more.
Almost a decade later, I found myself in a similar moment, with the same friend, dancing salsa in the immediate aftermath of a terrible election.
I wrote about it last month in The Sadness of Always Leaving:
Last night my friend and I danced salsa on a makeshift dancefloor on the edge of the beach under a full moon. Salseros from around the world hugging and kissing on the cheeks, sharing a beer, dancing close to bachata, twirling around to salsa, each one of us basking in the gratitude of a beautiful February night of music and friendship and (for some) simmering romance.
The piece was about this and how sad it made me to continually be leaving communities that I had grown to love.
I got a lot of nice responses to that piece. Everything from “I can totally relate,” and “This hit home,” to my favorite, “You are my spirit animal.”
But one woman, apparently hoping for a respite from doom-scrolling bad news, said she had hoped the piece would be a “distraction from the chaos in the US”—unfortunately, she thought the whole thing was an “out of touch” indulgence.
It got me thinking.1
What should be our response to a world that is seemingly falling apart at the seams? We each must have our own answer. I for one take the question quite seriously.