At a volunteer Meetup, as the young people say, as opposed to Meeting -- too businessy and boring -- or as I like to call a small group of peeps sitting around a table making conversation -- Hellody, Strangers! -- we introduced ourselves and then picked a piece of paper from a bowl with a fun question. Mine went something like this: "Who would you be if you could be somebody else?" I admit I was momentarily thrown. My whole life, I never knew I had such an option. No one ever handed me an exhilarating alternative. In this moment, my busy monkey mind went into overdrive. "Dear God, this question is throwing my entire identity upside down. Does this mean I can click my heels together three times and become someone else? What would my family think if they found out I wasn't me, anymore? Would they celebrate?!" "Uh, Carol, could you answer the fun question?" the volunteer leader said. "Oh, sorry. If I could be somebody else... I'd be... I don't know... it's a tough one... uh... maybe, oh wait, I know... Ginger Rogers."
Why Ginger Rogers? Why the eff not? I loved her style and grace and the way she danced with Fred. I loved everything about her. Well, not everything. Politically speaking, not so much. She was a lifelong member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I'm a lifelong member of the Granddaughters of the Russian Revolution. Ginger and the SJG, we were worlds apart. But to dance like her, to float on air, to tap tap tap my troubles away? That would be something. It really would be something.
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