Spring has sprung here in Wisconsin and I can’t help but already fantasize about what summer will bring. Summer has always been a time of fantasy for me. I would fantasize about Disney World and roller coasters, long nights with friends, endless possibilities.
It’s hard to believe that just a few summers ago, that fantasy was robbed from us. When the pandemic hit, suddenly we were fantasizing about normal life. There was a moment when I thought that maybe we would stop taking so much of life for granted, and that things would be different. Fast forward to today, and things could not be more surreal.
Between the anti-trans and anti-drag laws in our state legislatures, to the still ongoing debate about the role of race in America and cries over "wokeness," to our response to the COVID pandemic, we are continuing the neverending battle over our shared reality. Whose identities are allowed to be real? Whose struggles will we acknowledge? If so many people are becoming "woke," what American dreamland are people still sleepwalking in?
Turn on any cable news channel or social media outlet and you’ll find a number of people insisting that their worldview is the reality we all live in. Yet, I wonder what world we would live in if we started from a point of fantasy, rather than a point of complacent realism that says “This is all there can be.” What about the things that could be? When we lose ourselves in fantasy, hopefully we find that real life could be just as liberated, fulfilling and wonderful. Can you imagine?
—Angelo