OP-ED: My Favorite Bloomers Sketch Was The Land Acknowledgement In The Beginning

This past Thursday, I went to the Bloomers show to watch my friends perform. It was a cold Thursday night. I was like, Hey, I should go to the Bloomers show to watch my friends perform on this cold Thursday night. So I did that. 

I sat down in the front row and prepared my mind, body, and spirit for what I was about to experience. I was prepared for many laughs. The show was about to begin and I was like, Hey, I bet they're about to tell us to silence our cell phones. And then they told us to silence our cell phones. And then it was silent. And dark.

...But what's that I see?

One single spotlight. It danced across the stage, making my eye produce one glistening, lonely tear. The world is so beautiful. Light is so fleeting, so fragile.

The spotlight stopped on one individual, standing in the center with a microphone. The audience took a collective inhale, on the edge of our seats, anticipating the show, waiting for many laughs. The show had finally begun.

The figure in the spotlight began to talk. "We would like to take this time to acknowledge that the Bloomers show takes place at the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts, which was built on stolen land," they said.

I had many laughs. I thought, Ha ha, this is so silly -- they tricked us. They said "the show is about to begin, please silence your cell phones." And then I saw the beautiful spotlight, and the individual with the microphone, and I thought, Hey the show is beginning just like they said.

But I was wrong.

The show had already began. Will it ever stop? For life is but a collection of seconds, minutes, hours...all reaching, grasping towards an infinity that will never be reached, a tomorrow that is just out of sight. And so, as I once cried for the lonely spotlight, I cry for the show now. For there is only light. You, me, bread, and light. That is by Pablo Neruda, because I am an English major and also very worldly, as I go to shows such as Bloomers to watch my friends perform on cold Thursday nights. 

One day, when the winter has closed, and the fresh tulips of April have sprouted up from the earth's hallowed grounds, I wish for a time where my children and my children's children can wake from their beds, rosy-cheeked and full of hope, and know that finally, finally, the show has stopped. This show that we call life has finally stopped, and now we can finally live.