Which Story will you choose?

Stories are the future we imagine and make happen, then recount as history once lived.

This is our story:

And when we emerged it was awkward. We fumbled to jettison forced habits, hesitating and unlearning, bursting a dam of desire for touch. We threw away the masks and the distance, and ran towards the stroking of faces and the grasping of hands and the hugs, the long, long hugs. All that missing. The memory of those lost and dying during the time of distance and loneliness, how could we make up for the physicality of loneliness over months and months and months?

We pulled from buried history, new forms of demonstrating love, scooping up Indigenous greetings with the touching of foreheads and moments of silence in reverence at the power of touch. We remembered ecstatic dancing, and laughed as we clumsily learned the waltz and the samba for the proximity it offered us. Love was everywhere. We danced on the beaches and in the streets, and yes — people made love everywhere. Squares and Plazas that mothers had protested in were now filled with fiestas, families eating and dancing. Joy filled musicians finally performed night after night on balconies and in streets, in parades and arenas to raptious audiences, strumming chords and haunting melodies they’d composed in the loneliness of their room.