Gwen Dungy

I have been a participant observer in my own life for a very long time. My first written notes about what I observed were in a diary that I received as a gift when I graduated from eighth grade. I was diligent about writing in my diaries. When I left home to attend college, my mother found my diaries, read them, and trashed them. I never could understand why she would do such a thing.

Except for brief periods, I continued to be a participant observer in my life. I kept journals of my every day as well as extraordinary experiences. Now, at this stage of my life, I have decided that time is too precious to write daily about what I observe and experience. It’s time to reflect on what I’ve observed over the years, to realize what I’ve learned, and to embrace all parts of the experience.

I wrote my journals to be aware of what was happening around me, to be my companion, to be my confidant. I didn’t write them to be read. So now that I am doing just that, I can take the time I did not have previously to discover patterns and themes. Reading my journals now, it is as if I’m excavating precious pieces of history that when put together will define my life as only I could observe it.

An obvious pattern is that change is constant. One day all is right with the world, and not long after that, the opposite is true. Sometimes the rise and fall of circumstances occur within a day or two, or within a week.

And, whether I use the word or not in my writings, love is a theme. When I read entries that I interpret as the love theme, I empathize with the self that I described then by being tender, kind, and loving to the self that I am now. I’m so glad that I have lived long enough to show myself the love that I think no one else could have given me.

My extended family invited me to go with them to see Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. Though I didn’t voice this to them, this movie—among the plethora available—was not on my must-see list. On other occasions of wanting to be with family, I’ve seen similar blockbusters, but I’ve never been invested enough in the movies to retain who did what and what happened from one film to the next.

Perhaps you are a serious fan of superhero movies and will understand why our discussion following the movie was animated and seriously enlightening. I say enlightening because before seeing the movie and being part of the subsequent discussion, I didn’t think that it was about storytelling. I mistakenly assumed that this and other similar movies were all about shocking actions and comedic interludes. Intrigued by what I was hearing in the follow-up discussion, I left the conversation with suppositions and questions.

Storytelling, in whatever form, entertains, interprets, teaches, and stimulates the imagination to create possibilities that often need the space of the multiverse to be realized. Whether the heroes are in the form of humans, animals, or the inanimate, the throughline is wanting to do the right thing despite the improbability of success. The heroes believe and have faith that good will win out over evil.  

In one sense, these very loud and extraordinarily violent superhero films are like fantastical nightmares. But what is a nightmare? Might they be our way of being in the multiverse grappling with evil and fighting for what we believe in?

These movies and our fantastical nightmares may free us from ordinary planes of consciousness in order to help us gain insights through extraordinary ways of imagining what else there may be out there in the multiverse.