I wonder. I wonder about a lot of things. I'm in wonderment, also. I think about how many times in my life I've believed that in holding a thing in my mind&soul's eye, that I would bring it into being. I remember a couple of years ago in the studio being so committed to my someday doing inversions with no fear that I'd just see and actually feel my muscles strengthening, while in my mind I'd pull up, feet over head, no fear, wrap my legs around the pole and just hold there. I'd sit on the train and hear a song on my iPod and stare at those subway poles and imagine myself going into the move, graceful and confident. This was my commute, both physically and mentally. And it seemed impossibly far away, almost unknowable. I'd decided that when I could confidently and strongly feel myself in that place, execute that move, that I would have my very own pole in my apartment (my Virgina Woolf moment: A Pole of One's Own). And it happened and I do, and it's probably one of the best things I ever did.
Here's where wonder has come in: I suddenly realize that more is open to me when I don't decide how I think things should look. Really recent development. My dance has been a lot stronger lately when I haven't known what was going to happen next or what song I'd be moving to. My life has been more full by giving up expectations of who or what I think I want to be around the corner. It actually got more full when I decided I didn't want to pretend to know what would be around that bend, when I actually decided that it didn't matter because I would be fine no matter what. A little of a fuck'all mentality, but also I just got tired of making lists of things&stuff and how I wanted it all to look. That got so boring. And I'm becoming really pleasantly surprised.
When I first moved to New York and was in my last year of college, I had to do an internship and wanted to it to be at SPIN magazine, so I called up their human resources department with the single-minded knowledge that if I wanted it, it would happen. When the HR lady told me that I could come intern at Penthouse (because this used to be a father/son operation. Daddy=Penthouse, spawn=SPIN) until a spot opened up at SPIN, I said Sure, because I just thought that was the universe's way of getting me in the door. Or not. Working six floors away from where I really wanted to be definitely delivered to me some funny moments but no amount of loitering on the SPIN floor got me a job there, or even an interview, and I left at the end of the semester with a few good stories on how Penthouse Forum is put together (but you already knew none of those letters are real, right?) and a couple of crazy moments involving interviews with centerfold models (they are all looking for men that make them laugh...really) but I was no closer to getting the position I thought I wanted. But then, four years later, I did become an editor at SPIN after putting in my entry-level time at Rolling Stone, and that was perfect.
While I've never really had large and in-charge plans in the nature of "by this time in life I'll be (fill in the blank)," I suppose there was a certain forward movement that I took for granted. But lately, that movement has appeared much less forward and more sideways or even backward and upside down. It feels like the desires I have now are far from bound by borders, and that actually feels good, albeit a little scary, because I've stopped pretending I know what anything should look like. It's kind of exciting to see what could happen.
Well, truth, I do someday want to really learn how to pull up smoothly into this beautiful move called a jackknife, so any subway commuters out there who notice someone staring intensely at the pole they're holding on to, don't be scared, it's all just happening in my mind's eye, at least for now.
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