Play it Forward

Tape made by Erin Robinson, 2001

Last weekend I picked up a few boxes I’d left in my friend Amanda’s garage.  Among the gems in these boxes were my old CDs and cassette tapes. I have a ton of mixes, a tape from Aimee Gross, some Indigo Girls, a defunct band from Berkeley called Combing Dolores, and another from Minnesota called Chris & Johnny.  This one stood out because during this pandemic, I’ve been having a lot of nightmares, and it reminded me, it’s just chronic. Also, the person who made it for me is still important in my life.

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After loading my car outside Amanda’s Central District home, we sat together in the backyard, and talked about life, and choice and change.  Change is a catch all word for pain, joy, rapture, fear, ease, love, and #wonder.  It’s all the things.  But conscious change, working towards a goal – in the middle of a pandemic, an economic crisis and a racial revolution, well, it’s hard.  We had two ways of staying the course.  I think it’s worth sharing.

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I’ve thought of four kinds of fun – the kind where you have fun in the moment but it bites you in the bum, the kind where it sucks in the moment, but you feel better afterwards, the kind where it’s not fun in the moment, or after – but it’s supposed to be, and the fourth, where it’s fun in the moment, and after the fact.  I try to vacillate between these, and aim for the last.  But this is about fun.  Not about making choices. 

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It relates, however, to the idea that the choices we make in the moment fall easily into the first kind of fun.  It’s good now.  In this moment.  We need these experiences to buoy our spirits.  But my friend said when you’re making that choice, it’s a good idea to play the tape forward.  It’s an idea known in recovery groups, but one useful to all.  What would happen if you made the same choice you’ve always made?  What would happen if you played the tape forward?  It’s a good motivator.  If you want the day-to-day experience to be different, you have to make different daily choices.