Disco Party Party

Party origins and growth plan

The atmospheric river began yesterday at about 2 o’clock. This downpour that merges sky and sea may continue long enough to bring down every leaf with it.

Today is election day in BC and by tonight we may know our MLAs and premier.

My own East Van riding is always NDP so I get a bit lazy researching the other candidates. But there’s still time. Now. Today. While the rain slashes away and before I have to be anywhere. I’m inspired to look a little closer at this late hour. My partner last week took time to research the independent candidate in our riding who has innovative ideas around childcare where school can potentially become a living space and an alternative to the foster care model. Residential schools immediately came to mind—uh, a big problem. What are the questions that need to be asked of this idea to avoid a repeat of history? Other images arose of an Eastern post-industrial Communist model where parents go into factories and children are raised collectively by other people—a collective, community-based model of care. Overall we entered into a conversation sensitizing us to childcare issues alive in our province and we shared our attitudes toward inclusion and care. What other systemic changes can we think of that might actually work? I myself had done zero extra candidate research because I figured it was in the bag, a priori, with my choice for candidate. But conversation with my partner only shows me how I continue to think in binaries. I’ll catch up on my research today to take the whole picture into my view.

On the night of the US election I will meet a friend for a glass of Riesling and falafel, ostensibly—I suggested—to toast a Harris win. My friend replied with “a Jill Stein and Butch Ware win.” Again, it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be an alternate, third-party winner to toast. The title of a book we have not read yet, my friend gently said: The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible. The end of binaries?

In early October made a dinner. I ordered a kit from Elections BC that included a voting station, ballots, pencils, flash cards and other things so that we could try out a mock election, but mostly so that I could re-educate myself on the democratic process. The dinner was too small for an election, and there was only one taker for the flash cards. But together we consulted those cards with a vigour we usually reserve for tarot. We found out that anyone can run for MLA as long as they are 18 and have lived in BC for six months. I asked my nephew’s partner Polly what she’d call her party. The Disco Party Party, she said.

That’s it. I’m done thinking in binaries! I’m signing up.

Last Saturday I went to a friend’s birthday. Highlights included a DJ and delicious snacks. When are we ever together this way nowadays? My friends are mostly in the same zone as me, early or mid-fifties. The party was so connecting and so much freaking fun that my partner sent out his own party invite—including dancing—a day or two later. I went home wrote out a solstice party invite. For the first time ever I put “dance tracks” in an email. For the first time ever I might have a dance party at my place.