I love a good story. I’m grateful for all the stories I have access to in this life, and the ability to choose which stories I watch or read or listen to, or participate in. I’m grateful for happy and sad stories, and stories which explore and elucidate all the states between in all their complex interconnectedness. I’ve loved stories all my life, as long as I can remember. The story that held my attention today was The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. I’m grateful that a friend reminded me yesterday about this iconic 1994 Australian film, which I watched when it first came out, as a Paradise Theater Cabin Fever Flim. I love it even more decades later, with all the mindfulness training and drag education that came in between. I’m grateful for the ability to watch it or almost any movie I could wish to with the click of a few keys and maybe a few dollars.

I’m grateful that pop culture, despite strongholds of bigotry, has caught on to the desperate joie de vivre of drag culture, which this moving story expresses so vividly. I’m grateful for the layers of story within this story, including the story of the Australian landscape with insects and reptiles, rocks and canyons, as well as various peoples. I’m grateful to see this excellent early work from fine actors Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearse, knowing them now from later more macho roles as Elrond in Lord of the Rings and Jack Irish respectively. I’m grateful for the mind-opening Priscilla gave me decades ago, and for every mind that continues to open through experiencing art.