running away with the circus

wandering around Jacob's Pillow (a dance festival/community/slice o'heaven in Massachusetts) last weekend, i started to wonder about immersion into a thing you love. i had pretty much come to the conclusion that the dancers who come and go there would probably notice if i tried to move into one of the bungalows where they live ("yeah, hi, no don't worry bout me, just wanna see what this is like"...um, no), but it got me thinking about what it's like to be so committed and passionate about something that you give yourself to it completely. Welcome the pain and the pleasure, the bliss and blood. i thought about that as i sat in a barn with dancers not many inches away sweating and breathing through their movements, one of the girls wincing (once) on toe reminding me how precarious it is up there, those five little piggies pressed against that block that's holding you balanced. (and inevitably went to the five-inch platforms i sometimes wear in class and how much i can't stand not feeling my feet on the floor...tho my boots are another story altogether.) I watched these dancers' faces as they moved through insane humidity and crazy heat and damn if they didn't seem (except for the wince) above any discomfort.

I know this is part of performance, tho i also think about what it looks like when you lose yourself completely in a moment while doing something you love and don't think of pain in the traditional way.

A couple of nights later, I sat in the front row in a small space to see the show i'd come to JPillow for: Jacoby&Pronk. they're impossibly tall and lithe and sexy (see pics above) and married to each other and all of that informs the way i watch them. i make up stories (about everything really, like i wonder what it looks like when they dance and are mad at each other? or how amazing to have a job where you get to touch the person you're in love with all the time. how might that work?). I tried to catch their faces as much as their movement, and altho exaggerated in stillness most of the time, the way they watched each other is what struck me. no perceptible change of emotion, and of course i'm getting more now that it's the body that talks, not the face that expresses. at the end, during their bows to the audience, their faces broke and they actually smiled, looked happy and grabbed each other. So naturally being some sort of hopeless closet romantic whose working on coming out of that closet, this grabbing and kissing made me really happy.

But more than that, what was rippling away underneath during this movement that is made to look effortless? and how much goes into masking any pain? while i celebrate my bruises, i also know that there is a place to disappear into when you're really in love with something or at least committed to doing it. it's true that last year, the final miles of the marathon, while always weird and surreal, were almost blissful in that i was completely moving from outside my body. yes, my physical self was obviously carrying me, and if i'd paid too much attention to it, i would have felt it's pain, but somewhere along the way i lifted out of it. during S class i'm often banging against something or smacking some part of my body against a wall, chair, pole. it all sounds sort of spastic, but i'm really not feeling that pain. instead i'm touching somewhere else in there and i'm pretty sure my face is reflecting that. last night after my dance, a comment to me: "i'd like to see what would happen if you danced to 10 songs in a row. you've got all this movement coming out, i wonder if you could spend it all." it actually made me lose my breath a bit to think of that. (And a friend told me later that during my dance she wanted to tell me to breathe. i should just have that word tattooed up my arms, torso, legs.) but i wonder. would it be like the dervishs just spinning and spinning and trancing out? Is that what happens when you love that much? just go and don't care what it looks like. lift off and disappear into it. run away with the circus.

naked

Last night I went with my merry band of dance luvahs to Pilobolus at the Joyce theater. The last performance of the night consisted of the six dancers dancing for the most part naked (flesh-colored g-strings only). At first it was totally startling: four men and two women, all with amazingly beautiful bodies, moving with each other, rolling, tumbling and leaping. Intertwined in each other's arms, climbing each other's body, wrapped around each other's torso. And at some point soon in, i realized i'd stopped thinking about their nakedness physically and started appreciating how naked and raw their movement and expression was.

The thing i've come to adore and appreciate about dance is how it can express emotion, moments, stories, journeys without words—and since i'm a wordy-grammarian type who lives for words, there's that—yet the merest movement of a finger or wiggle of a toe, arc of an arm or angle of a hip can make me cry or laugh and totally get the story in no-seconds flat. (I also appreciate that everyone else is no doubt getting a slightly different story than i am.) I love it when it's gentle and i love it when it's a bit rough...when I swoon and when there are bruises. It's a language that relates volumes.

As I took in the naked beauty last night—and once i moved beyond my inner dialogue: check that lovely dimple in her thigh; holy torso, batman, look at the ripples of her abs; criminy, his arms are amazing; egads, his ass is unbelievable—I started to see it all as a whole. A beautiful landscape. It was as if by exposing everything and riding out the initial shock of all that, er, nakedness, nothing was scary (although a couple of times I winced thinking, Damn, that could really hurt if shifted even an inch to the right or left). It became about staying with the vulnerability and hiding nothing.


So the concept of exposure. Very often I've felt my self getting tired from holding onto the proverbial costume. Layers upon layers: a critical corset, soul-crimping crinoline, heavy drapings of brocaded self-doubt, all topped off with an ever-so-stylish veil of occlusion. But it looks fabulous on the outside...i think to myself. Though it's stiflingly hot in there. very little room for movement! It's like some kind of Victorian nightmare, when what i really want is to strip down to a little Victoria's secrets.

And that reminds me! On my birthday eve I took a class. I'd brought in my platform shoes, stockings and other drapings to prance around in. Right before going into the studio, an amazing dance friend gave me a little prezzy of a sexy burgundy, velvet, underwire bra (with a little black bow) and a matching-colored lace pantie, g-string and garter. oh-mi-gawd. Heaven. (and my song was Cheap Trick's "Heaven Tonight," a slice of my teenage confusion/sexual awakening that seemed ready built for a birthday dance). I draped on my gear, got up for my dance and promptly fell out of one of my shoes. I didn't hurt myself, but suddenly I was annoyed at wearing anything, so i pulled off the other shoe, slid off my stockings, pulled down the skirt until all i had on was the lingerie. It felt fab and i probably would have ended up in my birthday suit altogether if I hadn't kept some sense of being in a somewhat public space. Afterward the ladies laughed about how obvious it was that i wanted to rip it all off. It felt so good to feel my skin against the floor, the pole, my hands. all for me, though yes, people were watching. but they were celebrating, too.

And how I can appreciate this moment for my inner self? By continuing to move closer to exposing myself to myself without fear or judgment. just a little closer every day. My wish? To stay there a little longer each time. And be OK with whoever sees. To dance on my own stage fearlessly, tumbling and rolling and not afraid to get messy and naked with it. Victorian is good for novels, Victoria's excellent for lingerie, victorious is how i'm feeling on this journey.

all ears

From my dad i got my ears...sticky-outey moments that probably came in handy when my parents needed to grab me as i was attempting getaways. I got the color of my eyes from both my mom and my dad: blue. I think i got my mom's smile. of course, these are just the physical attributes. From both of them I know I got a sense of how it feels to be loved wholly and completely, even if i sometimes pretended otherwise.
so, receiving. Never been much good at it. better at giving it all away. For instance, this week at work there was a blood drive. I gave some the last time the red cross rolled through here in January. Truthfully, I did it for the blue snuggie they were giving away, and didn't think much about what's involved when you donate blood. So when they laid me on the gurney thing, hooked up the big-ass needle into my vein and left me there for what seemed like days (ok, probably a half hour), i was a bit startled and when it was over, i left clutching my cozy prize feeling woozy. Then I gave the snuggie thing away to my neighbor because...i wanted to. This week the red cross were back with their needles and their prizes. my workmate got a Barnes&Noble gift card. I was eyeing the gasoline coupon, not because i own a car, but because i'm going away next weekend to stay at a friend's house upstate and thought This is the perfect thing to give her for hostessing me (and driving). The guy i work with pointed out that it seemed interesting how i was going to do something that made me queasy not to get a goodie of my very own, but so that i could get something to give away. (The fact that i actually missed the blood drive altogether by miscalculating their hours actually points to the fact that i really wasn't that commited to the giving one way or t'other.)

Back three years ago, when I started at S, my teacher at the time used to say, "I see what you're doing, letting everyone else in class go ahead of you [on the pole, in the dance, etc.] until there's very little time for you to do your thing." And a lot of that had to do with me being uncomfortable with receiving attention and kinda thinking i didn't want to hog up that time. But here's the thing: I love attention! I love the spotlight. In the studio, I constantly crawl to where it shines its warmth on the floor. I want to be seen. And lately I've been able to channel that during my dance. Stay with the moment and let the power of who I can be rise up and hold me to the spot so I can receive the strength from those watching and supporting me. I also feel the confidence in expressing myself.

Now, to dance that into my moments outside the studio. To sink back and receive with stillness and gratitude. I have amazing people and situations in this thing called my life. (and in fact, even as i'm writing this, i'm pondering the etiquette of responding to the many FB posts of Happy Birthday on my wall. Hmmm, i'm thinking, should i reply individually so they know how glad i am to hear from them, or just click the Like/thumbs-up button? or do nothing at all and let all the messages just roll in? such is the challenge of my receiving instinct.) I wonder if it's a muscle that just needs to be flexed to get stronger? the way I make my physical self stronger, I think my inner self is working out/training, too.

Storytime: When I was 16, I went to the prom with my first real boyfriend, Dan. He was in my guitar class and we'd met while rehearsing Rush's 2112 show, which we were performing for students, parents and the like. I was a singer, he played the electric guitar. (During the first performance a man in the audience had a seizure when the 20 of us in the chorus exposed our collective white-painted faces from our black hooded capes all at once. apparently it was quite a shock...but i digress.) Dan and I thought we were too cool for school--literally. we skipped classes a lot so we could make-out behind the gym. I'm pretty sure that's also where the idea began to form that i didn't need the same expressive boyfriend-stuff that other girls did. (Read: flowers, love letters, stuffed animals, formal asked-out-on-dates moments.) It's maybe a small miracle that we even went to the prom, tho i do remember we kind of made fun of it, and that corsage he brought me (in the picture) was supposed to be a joke. But here's the thing: deep down in me, it was no joke. I liked receiving all those romantic things, I just pretended that I didn't, cuz I thought it was geeky to like them. Actually, I thought I wouldn't get them, so better to front that they were silly.

And a circle was formed. One I've spun inside of for my many years going forward. Even in my marriage, I played it like the receiving wasn't important, and that drifted into the emotional moments as well. So now i'm gonna say it! I like the receiving and whatever comes my way, i'm going to stay in it, all eyes, ears and heart open.

not forgetting

Forgiveness. i've been meaning to look into this for a long time, but naturally have managed to avoid it for a long time. The spaces in between are where i've escaped to. That's what i normally do: disappear into that wide chasm and not look too closely right or left. It's been four years pretty much to the day since the motorcycle with him on top rode out of NYC and i began again. For a long time after, when i'd go out for a run I would not look to my left because that was where he had been when we ran together, side by side. A friend of mine observed how ironic it would be if i got mowed over by something approaching from the left, just cuz i refused to look that way. Well, a little bit, that's what's happening now. The force of my need to look and see is hitting me upside the head. And there I am beginning to crack open.

What's inside of me to forgive? that's where i start. He loved me as much as he could, given that he had a hard time loving himself. Whatever happened inside of our moments together were two people living it out. Wherever he went in those other spaces of exploration that he craved did not have to do with me. he wasn't out to annihilate me. But there were consequences in that double life because we were sharing something together. but now that we're not, however he's sorting his stuff, it's his to hold.

How do I hold my own inside of what was us? lighten up and let myself off the hook? yes, i hid inside of us while willfully keeping the blinders in place. i did not at all honor those murmurings of desire inside of me. i was afraid of getting messy, falling apart. so, ok. that's where i lived. i know everything is a gift to learn from. the door is there (just to my proverbial left) for me to open, to walk through and roll around. to get messy with it. i've mentioned how lately in the studio i've wanted to be up, aloft. I hear music and i literally imagine myself being lifted up, up, up. when the crescendo of notes happens it's intense. and when i lose my mind there with the music and movement, i let myself just have all of the wonder that has nothing to do with the thinking. suddenly i feel the ceiling under my hand and realize i've climbed to the top, then i let myself come down slowly without the intention of thinking. It's the place i stop holding on so tightly with my mind and let my body do the gripping and supporting. i stop wondering why things don't seem to stick and i start celebrating how it all falls apart because it's actually really amazing to fall. a. part. a friend/classmate observed the other day that my movement reminded her of an accordian: i can be really pulled in and small and then i need to open out legs and arms spanning and stay there for a bit. that's where my breath comes. this is a recent development. i've been terrified of being that open and seen because i think no one could possibly want to see that. but this isn't for anyone else. i pull in, open up, fall apart for me to learn. for(me to)give.

So i forgive. myself for hiding, for ignoring, for holding on hoping the earth wouldn't shift and pitch me off. but it constantly shifts and pitches. that's the point. i fall off. yes, it felt good to own my anger and have him be a witness to it. and even to send him to the proverbial cornfield. to unfurl a distance. i did that. that's done now. what's not done yet is me turning and stepping to my left where the forgiveness lives. of course i can do this. do i want to? loosen my grip on myself and run with it. see where that road takes me and not mind being smacked upside the head. see what happens.

It's what happens up to :48 and then again at 4:08 that really interests me. staying in it and feeling everything.