Will Conversations in Dog Parks Save America?
This is a story about my friend Joe.
It's years ago, and Joe is a college senior majoring in theater at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas. When he holds auditions for his capstone project, he's quite taken by the talents of a freshman named Emily. So he casts her in the show. And he begins dating her. But Joe can't commit, so for months they have an on-again off-again kind of thing. Before long, Joe graduates.
Joe moves to LA to try to make it big in Hollywood. He works for an important agency and scouts talent. He starts to become important and is proud of the business card he flashes about. Yet something about the work leaves him feeling hollow.
One night at the house of a dear friend, Joe has a fit of frustration. He realizes that he is passionate about the raw reality of live theater, and what he wants to do with his life is direct plays. He comes home to Dallas to regroup and do some local theater. Before long, he bumps into Emily.
Together, Joe and Emily fashion a unique brand of art. They stage adaptations and produce original work in people's homes which they call "House Party Theater." Their provocative format takes off. A competitor springs up. That's how they know they're developing something of value.
Joe and Emily also begin seeing each other again. They like to go two-stepping in Ft. Worth. One night, they're working on theater stuff in Emily's kitchen and a certain song comes on the playlist. Joe asks Emily to dance. After so many false starts in their relationship, that night in Emily's kitchen Joe finally realizes that he wants to hold onto Emily forever.
Joe and Emily deepen their relationship and strengthen their craft as theater artists. Joe gets accepted into the two-year Masters in Theater program at Brooklyn College. Emily begins a three-year Masters program at Iowa. After Joe earns his degree, he moves to the midwest to be with Emily. They get engaged. She graduates.
Now it's early in the pandemic. Degrees in hand, Joe and Emily pack up their belongings and their two cats and two dogs and move to Auburn, Alabama where a friend runs a vibrant community theater and offers them work. The pandemic thwarts their wedding plans, but only for awhile. At some point they say to hell with it and get married anyway.
Joe and Emily enjoy creating stories that push audiences to think about what's wrong and what's right. They're both white and liberal and they appreciate the unique privilege and obligation that attends these identities. On his decision to pursue theater in the American South rather than in New York, Joe tells me, "If two years ago you’d said to me, ‘You’ll be in Auburn’ I would have said ‘What went wrong?’ But to be white artists in the South trying to create anti-racist work feels meaningful to me. We’re more needed here. There are fewer barriers to reaching policymakers. It's small, and we get to be honest and have these conversations. If we were with a bigger company we probably couldn't be bold and say, 'Hey, we have to talk about some shit.'”
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When Joe's not hard at work on a project at the theater, or at one of the odd-jobs he takes to make ends meet, he takes their dogs Charlie and Abner to the local dog park in Auburn where his fellow dog-owners tend to sport clothing and hats with MAGA slogans. Joe says that given what he looks like, “I’m used to being presumed to be on their side. But it becomes clear when I open my mouth that I’m probably not.”
But Joe's dog park conversations don't go the way you might expect.
Joe says that despite the high improbability that connection is even possible across such stark political differences worn literally on folks' sleeves, the dog park is actually a great place to see someone’s true mettle. “Your dog tells on you," Joe explains to me. "If a dog is good, it has a good owner. But if your dog’s an asshole, you’re an asshole.”
Joe quickly gets philosophical with me. He wonders aloud whether, if our dogs are good dogs, so obviously we’re good people, and therefore we can engage with each other at the dog park, maybe there’s something more to that? Maybe it's a way to save America?
He explains, "I can't hate these people and like their dog at the same time, and maybe that's a privilege I have. But there is something there. We are both in this dog park. There are rules in this fenced area. We don't hold the same values outside of this area, but we understand that our dog's behavior is a reflection of us. Maybe we're not as entrenched in our polarized views as we think we are, because each of us is here with a dog that we care about, and the recognition of us as people who all care about dogs, at least, is abundantly clear. In those moments, we love our dogs and don't care about politics. Maybe we're telling a bit more about the truth of ourselves when we open up to each other in the dog park."
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Joe describes this potential bond between conservative and liberal dog owners as "standing in a weird doorway."
What do you think?
It's not that simple, you may be saying.
I get that.
But just humor me (and Joe) for a moment. Have you ever been in that kind of weird doorway?
I have.
You may recall my recent post about me spending an hour in the back seat of a car driven by a Trump supporter. That post was wildly popular and I got a ton of heartfelt reflections in return. If you missed it (it's here), basically, it's about how this dude and I kindof set our differences to the side for an hour and ended up a bit tearful and hugging.
So I invite you to ask yourself about your weird doorway moments whether at a dog park, in the back-of-the-car, or perhaps on the sideline of your kid's latest activity. Ask yourself Could knowing each other as people and talking about things having nothing to do with politics begin to allow us to see each other as humans once again?
Can we try?
As Joe so eloquently puts it, Maybe we're telling a bit more about the truth of ourselves when we open up to each other in the dog park. Or, I might add, on an hourlong car ride where this dude and I got to the raw truth of both of us having once having been a kid who was mistreated by another.
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As I write this for you, it's a Friday, which is the Jewish Sabbath. And as you know, the Jewish community is increasingly under threat in today's extremist America. The Jewish community, like many communities needs allies. Needs folks making meaningful connections to broker a deeper, kinder connection. So I'll share a quote from Howard Zinn, provided on social media today by the American Jewish World Service:
Are there some small acts that you regularly undertake which you know are making a difference? Are there some additional small acts you might be inspired to undertake?
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I'll leave you with where my theater artist friend Joe is now.
"I'm really questioning," Joe tells me. "I'm understanding that we are in the presence of real evil. The bell has been rung for this higher calling, and I have no grasp of the scale of what's at stake or of how much hope has been lost, but Emily and I are here for this moment. Ten years ago my thought was, Make this into a career. Get the awards. Have the money first, and THEN I can serve with my art. Now I just want to serve. I realize the moment is calling us. If I'm going to do anything meaningful in the face of it, I've got to do it now."
I'm pretty clear that Joe's work is not only what happens on a stage, but what also happens at the dog park.
How bout you?
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Also: some aspects of my conversation with Joe are excerpted from my book Your Turn: How to Be an Adult (Holt 2021)
📸 Cover Photo Credit: Getty Images/A-Digit/DigitalVision Vectors