I’m currently teaching Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive in my Intro to Theatre class. This is a play that I love. I mean: I love this play. I think it’s a really beautiful, haunting, and heartbreaking piece of writing. It seems that most of my students don’t agree, which is a little disheartening, but then: they’re young and it’s a play about child molestation. I always forget how awkward it can be to talk about a topic like pedophilia with 100 undergraduates. I look out into the sea of faces and am struck with the ugly reality: it’s likely that at least one or two of these kids were taken advantage of in this way themselves. This realization causes me to panic. The last thing I want is to force them to silently relive such a horrific experience in a roomful of strangers. I want to take care of them. I want them to know that they’re not alone.

I awkardly shift the focus to the lessons in the play: recognizing cycles of violence and abuse, taking a stand, the power of secrets, refusing to live as a victim even in the face of victimization. Of the play Vogel said, “We are now living in a culture of victimization, and great harm can be inflicted by well-intentioned therapists, social workers, and talk-show hosts who encourage people to dwell in their identity as victim. Without denying or forgetting the original pain, I wanted to write about the great gifts that can also be inside that box of abuse. My play dramatizes the gifts we receive from people who hurt us.” Woah.

In many ways the play is about one little thing in particular: forgiveness. Forgiveness is really hard sometimes. It’s also truly the only way to move forward, to find freedom.

Which brings me to the real point of this post: the video for my very favorite George Michael song, featuring Linda Evangelista:

Yoshimi says Happy Easter!