ALL FRIENDS HERE

WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE has become a space for asking big questions — like how to reconcile creative freedom with the need for stability, how to preserve the shimmering truth of self in high capitalism, and where exactly, in this ad and algorithm-driven landscape, we all belong.

Welcome to Let’s Talk, a new series of conversations exploring the struggle and beauty of being alive. Our country needs more healing spaces and experiences, especially now, and since we can’t find them where we usually might, by gathering in person, my hope is that Let’s Talk may meet that need in some small way.

This week, it’s a true pleasure to introduce you to my dear friend, Travis. Join us for a conversation about fear and joy in quarantine, Black Lives Matter, and his experience as a Black man who feels more in harm’s way walking through his own neighborhood than he does in a global pandemic.

Travis LeMont Ballenger is a generative artist. He has produced for a number of companies, including Arena Stage, Hip-Hop Theater Festival, The Drama League of New York, and The Old Globe Theater, where he currently serves as Associate Artistic Director. Travis also worked as a producer for Market Road Films, primarily creating films for National Geographic. In August, Travis will start as a producer with Lia Vollack Productions, a New York-based commercial producing company. 

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Lauren: Travis, I’m so glad you’re here. How are you doing today? We've all been isolating for two and a half months now, and I'm wondering how you're feeling in this moment.Travis: Well, I'm a mixed bag, as I have been this entire time. I've had some positive things happen today, and I have fun things to look forward to. And then I also found myself frustrated and upset about other things that happened. I'm just a mixed bag. I'm very tired — everything with George Floyd and working through that in the moment of this pandemic, for example. But I was also able to get contacts for the first time and put them in my eyes. So there was a win. Lauren: That's absolutely a win. Talking about those more difficult emotions makes me wonder: Has living through this experience, in all its complexity, made you feel fearful in any way? Travis: Yes, definitely. There are moments when I'm afraid of what is to come, because this is obviously not the end. There's something on the other side. I'm not a paranoid person, but this time has taught me to question my hope and my glass-half-full nature. Maybe I need to be better prepared. Maybe I need to always assume that something else is coming. I also live alone in a city that I'm still very new to. That has been terrifying because if I get sick, I'll be by myself. Also, I've never experienced such silence for so long, and that has been both illuminating and invigorating — and sometimes terrifying. Lauren: How has that been illuminating for you? Travis: I am getting to know myself again. This past year, I traveled a lot and worked nonstop, and this spring, I was supposed to be entering another situation where I did the same. Having this time to just sit with myself and re-experiment with how to speak to and care for myself has been illuminating. I've learned that I am a person who desperately needs a routine. I need structure and systems in my life, and it turns out I can meet that challenge and give myself structure and systems. I'm really proud of that. At first, I felt a little ashamed that I put so much stock into things like waking up at 6:30 AM, always working out and doing this and that. But then I realized, if I don't do these things and stick to this plan, I will fall apart. So I stick to the plan. That's healthy, not painful. Lauren: I admire that because I'm not someone who comes to structure and discipline naturally. I seek a certain creative freedom at all times, but I've also learned that I need structure to stay on track. I haven’t been as successful at finding it, so yeah, that's a major achievement. Travis: It's hard. In my life growing up, I didn't have a ton of structure. It was all freedom to some extent, but in that, it felt oppressive. So I've been able to give structure to myself and say, no, you're going to get up and do this, because this is going to make you feel good. It will help you sleep better. It's going to...Lauren: ...be worth it on the other side. Travis: Yeah. And you know, I'm still holding hope that I'll get at least a week this summer in a skimpy bikini on a beach. I'm preparing for that whenever it comes. Lauren: From your lips! Okay. Keep me posted. I think I need that, too. These fears and challenges have been so present for all of us lately, which is one reason why these conversations are important — so we can feel a sense of camaraderie and support. But along with that, have you found unexpected sources of joy these past two months? Travis: This is going to sound bizarre. But with George Floyd and all of the other Black people who have been killed by the police or others during this pandemic, I’m seeing my white friends pay more attention. They’re using language I didn't hear during Trayvon or Ferguson — about anti-racism or what it means to really hear someone. I think it's directly connected to this pandemic.

This does not sound like a moment of joy, but for me, it actually is. There is something about discovering that the systems we have in place don't always work or protect you. I think white people realizing that now allows them to hear that these systems have not been working for a very long time; that there are other people who have been trampled by the same government that was built to protect us; and that what we need to do is redesign these systems. We need to change the way things are structured so more people can be protected. Lauren: As your friend, I'm so happy to hear you're finding some joy there. It sounds like it’s joyful to discover that all the fights up to this point, all the speaking up for your life mattering is finally being heard — like maybe each conversation pushed a bit further until finally, the pandemic put us over the tipping point. Travis: Absolutely. How can it not, right? We didn't have to get here, all locked inside of our homes for the foreseeable future, but we did. So now we're all analyzing the structures that led to this. We're looking at what's working and what's broken. I think people are actually getting better at that. Feeling it impact them personally changes how they see it impacting other people. Lauren: It really does. So many white Americans are experiencing what it feels like to be let down by the system for the first time. There's no going back from that. I wish they'd had the empathy to consider it before, but if that's a positive we can take from this, then...Travis: ...here we are. Yes.Lauren: I love the way you're pulling out that silver lining. I’ve been thinking nonstop about the protests in Minneapolis and around the world this week. It's striking to me that Black Americans are being forced, in this moment, to choose between their survival in two different ways. They can put themselves at risk in terms of the pandemic and go to a protest, or they can risk not protesting, which is another means of not standing up for their own survival. They have to choose between a deadly virus and deadly police officers. It seems there comes a time when there is no other answer but to put your actual body on the line. Do you have thoughts on this?Travis: I have more fear of being killed by the police than I do of dying from the coronavirus. I feel like I am much more in harm's way when I walk through my upper-middle class, all-white neighborhood in Hillcrest, San Diego than I am in the pandemic. So I don't think there is an option — we have to protest. I also think people are sitting in their homes with less work to do. Things have slowed down. We have more time to think and consider change. Everyone fe…