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(Saphia is jolted rudely out of a deep slumber. She orients herself and engages with the difficult question at hand.)

SAPHIA (V.O.): Sometimes joyous epiphanies are followed by rude awakenings. Mine certainly was. I went to bed energized from my transformative weekend, incredibly optimistic about communalism. The rain had stopped, the clouds had parted, etcetera, etcetera. And then I woke up to a nauseatingly unanswerable question, one that had been behind my resistance to communalism all along: what do you do with the people who aren’t your people? I was so excited about having found some of my people, I forgot about the other side to this discovery. I’ve never once been a part of a community filled only with people who I knew were my people; last weekend was no different. I think being a part of a community means being in community with people you just don’t vibe with, alongside those you do. And hopefully the latter outweighs the former. Unless you are somehow able to be the sole and total architect of your communities, this is unavoidable. This is also the part I’ve always sucked at—navigating those relationships. There is no blueprint. These relationships are the definition of tension. Writers introduce them to add plot points to a story—the “thrown together but hate each other” trope is as old as time. But I’ve never seen a single film or tv show dish out remotely helpful tactics about how to navigate these relationships. And in my own life, I’ve usually stuck to the old, “avoidance at all costs” tactic. But that usually begins to erode my overall relationship to the community we co inhabit; I begin to avoid that space altogether as a way to avoid that person or people. I really don’t have a solution here; it’s much too early for that. I guess all that is just to say: I’ve hit another roadblock.

(Saphia slumps back into bed and pulls the covers over her head. Fade to outro.)