Conviviality and Duende at the Festival of Friendship Last Night

Camille Zamora, Lucy Tucker Yates, and Suzanne Lewis: a miraculous convidad at the Festival of Friendship

by Suzanne M. Lewis

Last night, we could not stop exclaiming at the wonder of being together, despite everything.

And now I am a bowling pin, who would give all nine companions in exchange for the chance to remain in this state of having been knocked over, floored, absolutely pinned under the weight of the overmastering JOY I experienced at the Festival of Friendship last evening.

I wrote to Camille and Lucy, once Camille’s musical offering, If the Night Grows Dark had ended, “Where are the words to thank you adequately for ... being YOU?? Because this is what you did for us all last night: you showed us what it means to be out in the world pursuing our passions, living out loud, expressing all our affections – and all without any disguises.”

Isn't it interesting how some, who howl loudest about the need to wear face coverings to stop the spread of contagion, are often the same ones who spend most of their lives masking who they are, tamping down (or screaming over) their duende, hiding their true faces behind a crust of postures, ideologies, and psychological props?

Last night I learned anew that when I experience the gift of a person who is unambiguously and vitally herself, I become more myself:

it's

so damn sweet when Anybody-
yes;no

matter who, […]

or simply Is
what makes
you feel you
aren't

6 or 6
teen or sixty
000,000
anybodyelses-

but for once

(imag
-ine)

You

– E. E. Cummings

Where are the words to express the gratitude we feel when this experience finds us? It’s so damn sweet… In this moment, I feel that “thank you” is the most impoverished, meager phrase I know.