Hope In A Little Blue Rock
While walking with my mom earlier this week (six feet apart, of course), she said offhandedly that she read that the DragonCon parade wasn’t approved for this year.
It’s not something I was expecting to happen. I hoped and prayed for months, but now that the crisis seems to only be deepening, my hopes for a normal life this summer - let alone my favorite con of the year - are hardly realistic.
At the same time, however, it felt crushing to hear the news. The website still doesn’t show a cancellation, but I don’t imagine the con would go on without its most important event, and even if it did, it wouldn’t be the same. It’s yet another addition to the laundry list of things that have been changed, canceled, postponed, or ruined.
Being at home has helped me keep a positive mindset for the most part, but I can’t help but feel grief at the loss of both my last big plan for 2020 and my denial about it - as much as I enjoy spending time on my Animal Crossing island where coronavirus doesn’t exist, I do have to face the real world when it means canceling flights and plans to see old friends.
We kept walking in semi-silence as I absentmindedly tapped on the pokemon I’d taken along for the walk. I caught it earlier in the week, a pokemon I’d been looking forward to catching for a year, but it felt bittersweet since I was supposed to be catching it at a large, canceled event with friends. I’d caught the pokemon I dreamed of in silence instead of shrieking and hugging and so many other things we can’t do anymore.
Loneliness sank over me and I wasn’t quite sure what to do. It’s not like there was some magical solution that could tell me my thoughts and fears were wrong, and with no end in sight, it’s easy to listen to friends and coworkers who see this as a “new normal.”
But then, out of nowhere, Mom broke the silence by telling me that she’d walked the dog on a parallel path earlier, and she found a little rock that someone had painted blue and written a kind message on. I instantly perked up and asked her to show me where the rock was, and as soon as we did (extending the walk, which is something I usually shy away from just as much as our very lazy dog), I recognized the rock.
Not the specific rock, of course, but the idea of painting rocks and leaving them around the city for people to find. It’s a DragonCon tradition, enough that there’s a Facebook group for people decorating and hiding rocks around various places in Atlanta and beyond. When people find a rock, they take a picture, post it in the group, and start conversations with people who have found similar rocks. Sometimes the rock’s painter even surfaces to join in, and to ask where the rock is now - it’s tradition to remove the rock from its original place and either keep it or put it somewhere else for others to find.
I’m notoriously bad at finding these rocks at DragonCon proper, but this blue one stuck out in the pinestraw, and I ran over to it with more excitement than I knew I could muster. All I could think when I reached out and touched it - yes, touched it with my bare hands, without a sink in sight - was, “I found my people!”
It wasn’t until the initial excitement faded that I noticed the rock said “Be Kind.” I’ve seen similar platitudes on rocks before, both at DragonCon and souvenir stores. But for me, it held a deeper meaning: not only was I feeling the kindness of DragonCon, and starting to feel awash in happy memories of meeting some of the rock creators at last year’s DragonCon during the “Swag & Seek” meetup.
From there, the memories just kept flowing: I remembered finding a little army man perched on an escalator, my first piece of “swag” from the con, and reaching out for it quickly before the movement swept me away. I remembered the way the sleeve of my elf dress almost caught on the bottom step, and how the sleeves flap so beautifully in the wind, and the photoshoot where I wore it by a waterfall, then running to the next shoot and meeting a new friend who I immediately texted to tell about the rock.
Seeing the rock helped me remember the kindness of others, as well as the imperative to practice self-kindness. I’ve been doing well in terms of keeping up with my work and eating healthy, but I need to do more in terms of keeping alive the things that matter to me the most, canceled or not. Staying in touch with friends and remembering the things we love is what makes me the happiest during this time, and I now have a reminder of a picture of the rock on my phone to keep me from feeling lonely.
I might not be able to go to DragonCon this year, but I have a plethora of photos and a multitude of memories to keep me afloat. When fabric becomes more available, I can work on a cosplay in the hope of attending a con next year. And going through my con autographs and souvenirs can help me feel more connected even if the news made me feel hopeless for a future where gatherings of 80,000 people will be possible without having to add a mask to the ensemble.
In the end, much as I hate change, DragonCon is going to look different for me this year. It might be virtual, or not at all. But I did make one positive change: instead of picking up the rock as per con tradition, I left it where it is, out in the open for anyone to see. I can only hope the next person who finds it will glean as much hope from it as I did, and perhaps they’ll leave it there too, inspiring more people than the rock’s painter will ever know.
Ellie, a writer new to the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.