elementary school talent show energy
2024
stand under the lights and sing your little heart out flip your body in strange contortions prance with your friends in your sequins and spandex semi-synchronized across the stage read a few jokes off an index card feel around for that elusive punchline timing and wait for the laughs to land solve a Rubik's cube in 60 seconds flat the crowd will go wild and we’ll marvel at your willingness to reveal yourself so bare and unabashed we cannot look away bravery abounds before you’ve learned this unyoung kind of fear ***** Field notes: I remember attending our kid's first elementary school talent show and thinking, this right here is the best of humanity. There's no other audience like it -- parents and peers -- offering universal, unconditional support. The crowd quite literally goes wild, over and over and over again. It's also a bit like watching these kids feel around for an identity -- I think I'm good at this, I think this makes me special. You can almost see the core memories being made in the electricity of that auditorium, their stories being written one act at a time. The lead up is so gargantuan, a kind of elementary school prom, if you will; it's hard to overstate the significance. But more than anything, their courage to stand up in front of everyone they know and perform stayed with me. And yet the risks felt so low in that room. We all wanted them to win on that stage. And they did.