Away We Go: Ceremony
There’s a group of adults milling about the playground and child-oriented decorations on the tables but no children yet present. It’s a classic pre-event scene with some groups socializing, some sitting alone looking at their phones, and two homeroom parents straightening tablecloths and un-lidding clamshells of cut fruit and deli slices.
The children arrive as the conversations are naturally petering out. The little ones file out with the kind of order the that only comes in school hallways. They are wearing costumes and a veil of anticipation. So this is to be the standard holiday play for adoring parents and grandparents. The crowd tightens into an arc around the sidewalk serving as a stage and all faces turn the same direction.
What are the things we take the time to gather for? What are the things that are important enough to stand in a group shoulder-to-shoulder?
Where we turn our gaze towards the same thing for so many minutes at a time? What makes us intentionally pocket our phones and ignore advertisements and stop the auto-play? What are the things we deem important enough to stand up from our desks to get into our cars to find a parking spot and get out, dressed properly for the weather? To then pay attention enough to bring our hands together and make percussive sounds that should frighten the performers but instead makes them feel appreciated?
It can be something like this, a few minutes of outdoor theater followed by snacks. It can be far more formal - humans faces turned towards their alter of choice at a prescribed time. Or something on a momentary level, a small collection of humans united for the moment as their eyes turn towards an old airplane crossing the sky. Or towards a stage where sounds purge emotional distress. Or to hear actors say words we have always known are true but just now came to understand.
There’s also the rituals that are only for me. No one else gets to see it or participate. This can be the only fraction of the day where order exists. And that’s really what it’s about right? That slippery devil: control. As if by taking a deep breath of the coffee odor and using the same cup and turning the machine just so makes it ok that today might bring things incomprehensibly hard.
It could also bring things incredibly good. But I have to be prepared for both. So making the morning’s hot beverage in the same way is the tiniest edge of order I can bring to the expanding chaos. So is praying or meditating. Or going to a musical where there’s a beginning, middle, and most importantly, an end. Where there is closure with a hummable melody.
Ceremonies are connection and predictability all wrapped up in a bow. So it makes sense that we would do all the work to get ourselves to a certain place at a certain time to be present and to witness.
The play was standard kindergarten fare, only really of interest to those related to the performers. I couldn’t help but smile, though, as they got their treats and started fading away towards the cars in the parking lot. This was an occasion for them and the people that cared about them. It was something we humans have done since the beginning of our existence. Countless ceremonies took place on this same ground.
They will continue to. And there it is, that little hit of order among the chaos.
This story based on events in Morro Bay, California.