Carnival

Carnival is a big word, David Fleming says.

It holds within it the radical act of choosing joy at every turn and insisting on pleasure even when the world tells us there is no time for it. Carnival is an essential celebration. The chance to get silly, and creative, and wild together creates the bonds that sustain us through everything else. It's the deliberate carving out of time and space to move our bodies in dance, raise our voices in song, and let our imagination run free in community.

Whether through the months-long preparation of mas bands in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, the spontaneous street parties emerge when music spills from open windows, or the simple act of dancing until we're breathless, carnival lets us know that pleasure belongs to each of us.

Today, as we continue to witness so much pain in the world, taking time to celebrate together amidst lives full of struggle and grief, radical imagination, and prefiguration keeps us fortified for care-centered resistance.