110 stories, and one more

One of my very strongest memories: January 2, 2010. Patrick's birthday; a group of us decamped to Spike Hill in Williamsburg to hear his band play. Among them, a friend who had been so severely injured by a stroke that one of his doctors said he'd never before seen someone who'd survived such an injury walk into his office under their own power afterwards, and his partner, also a dear friend. (The previous day, the partner and I had watched him discussing science fiction trivia with Patrick, and winning the point; she and I looked at each other, and smiled widely.)

I rarely dance much, and although often clueless, I knew this was a Moment; I hung off to the side, and put every neuron in my brain to the task of remembering this tableau: Patrick playing and singing; them dancing, for what was almost surely the first time since the stroke. Later, after the Moment had ended, I walked home, and thought of the words of this poem by John M. Ford: "This is New York. We'll find a place to dance." Surely, if that other Moment that engendered this poem and all the moments it engendered in turn taught us anything, it is this: that while we cannot forestall tragedy, we can will our own response to it, on some human level more primal, more central than flesh or steel; that even when it feels like the end, it so rarely actually is; that even in the face of all that can be, there is a place for dancing, and singing, and love.

110 stories, and one more

One of my very strongest memories: January 2, 2010. Patrick's birthday; a group of us decamped to Spike Hill in Williamsburg to hear his band play. Among them, a friend who had been so severely injured by a stroke that one of his doctors said he'd never before seen someone who'd survived such an injury walk into his office under their own power afterwards, and his partner, also a dear friend. (The previous day, the partner and I had watched him discussing science fiction trivia with Patrick, and winning the point; she and I looked at each other, and smiled widely.)

I rarely dance much, and although often clueless, I knew this was a Moment; I hung off to the side, and put every neuron in my brain to the task of remembering this tableau: Patrick playing and singing; them dancing, for what was almost surely the first time since the stroke. Later, after the Moment had ended, I walked home, and thought of the words of this poem by John M. Ford: "This is New York. We'll find a place to dance." Surely, if that other Moment that engendered this poem and all the moments it engendered in turn taught us anything, it is this: that while we cannot forestall tragedy, we can will our own response to it, on some human level more primal, more central than flesh or steel; that even when it feels like the end, it so rarely actually is; that even in the face of all that can be, there is a place for dancing, and singing, and love.