The first club party I ever went to was at a gay club. It was a Party Monster themed party, my oldest friend took me and another friend, we were about 5 minutes past the age of 18, and decked out in full costume. We danced to music we adored remixed in glorious ways we hadn’t ever dreamed of, under flashing lights, fog, and among a crowd of joyous, beautiful faces.
My favorite club in San Antonio, possibly the only one I actually really liked at the time, was a gay club. When my friends came to visit me from Houston, it was the highlight of places we’d go. I always managed to meet wonderful new people, hear amazing new music, witness awe-inspiring fashion moments and engrave memories in my mind that still make me smile years later.
Never in any of my 12 years of going out to any club have I ever had to outright fear for my life. Rough moments, sure; but it’s incomprehensible to me what the people at Pulse experienced Sunday morning. Never have I danced along to music and had to discover that it’s not bass, but bullets. I have only ever experienced moving bodies on the dancefloor; never still, senselessly robbed of the lives they deserved to keep much, much longer for themselves.
They were innocent human lives. Lives that had families, friends, goals, dreams. Lives that had joy, sorrow, laughter, tears. Lives that had memories. Lives that were making memories. And now, because of the twisted mind and emptied heart of one person, lives that can only now continue as memories.
We are all left with so many questions. What was the 29-year-old’s motivation? Was it political affiliation, or repressed orientation? Why do we live in a world where faith, Christianity and Islam alike, is still perverted to justify the violent murder of humans who weren’t hurting anyone? Why can’t people understand that in America, you can disagree with a person’s beliefs, opinions or lifestyle, they can disagree with yours, and that’s OK. Somehow, some way, we all have common ground.
Yes, all of us. I have immediately identified my common ground with the victims; not just on the dance floor, not just as a life-long ally of the LGBT community, but also as someone who could be anywhere at any wrong time.
I identify with the anger, sadness, and frustration of a nation that grows more exhausted and heartbroken with each tragedy.
I identify with the Muslims who stand in solidarity and say, “This is not our religion and we do not tolerate this.”
I identify with the Christians who, against the ignorant and hateful support of this act, also say the same.
Most difficultly, I identify with the gunman. We are both 29 years old; parents; born and raised in this country. We are both part of a generation plagued from childhood by violence, political extremism, mass shootings, internet misinformation, propaganda, war, suicide, mental and emotional disorder, and social divisiveness. We have both no doubt experienced anger, loneliness, alienation, just as the victims had in their lives, just as all do at some time. If only his identity hadn’t been shaped, fed, and self-sustained as “us versus them,” perhaps he would have felt much less of the anger, loneliness, and alienation that caused him to take these victims. Perhaps he would have found more to this life.
If only he could have identified the innocents he killed and injured as human.
If only he could have identified himself as human, among billions of humans, all very different, yet so much the same.
If only any of us can identify with our humanity far more than our hatred, we could all have one more dance together to the song of life.
Our sincerest condolences to the humans of Orlando, Florida, from all of us at the Department of Dance.
Ash Cash Dillon is a legit word nerd with a killer bass face and a love of all that is stone cold groovy. You can find her writing all over the interwebs, business world, and take-out menus via sharpie vandalism.
