Dusk
It is dusk. The church immediately across from my balcony just rang its bells. I am going to a play tonight at the new Guthrie Theater, the proscenium space where JSB will perform in October. I can’t wait to see it, apparently blood red, like the inside of a heart or a womb.
I took yoga this AM. I have three days off and felt the need to get “in body” and to cleanse. I do indeed feel detoxified and refreshed, though tired, pleasantly tired. This is the gentle lull before my night begins, a transition that I love. It always begets a thinking in me, a thoughtfulness about my own dusk as I contemplate turning 36.
I am mostly excited at the notion. My body, though dealing with ever-present issues and old injuries, feels, in many ways, healthier than ever. I witness C, on the cusp of 40, as he negotiates time and his own body as a fine dancer. Today I felt a pride, a degree of wanting to take good care of myself, that feels deep and sincere in its necessity.
Later…
Just returned from seeing Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing”. It was about love. I am reminded that it all comes down to that. One of the lines went something like, “It’s easy to love a person when they’re at their best. What’s hard is to love them when they’re at their worst.” True. It comes down to having faith that the person you’re with is deeper than what they’re demonstrating at a worst moment.
This reminds me of my body too. How fine I am when it’s feeling fine, but oh how morose and out of balance I become when it’s operating at a low speed and agility. Here too it’s about loving it anyway, giving it the benefit of the doubt that it will bounce back, rise again, serve my needs toward fulfilling myself. I’ve got to have an unconditional relationship with it and not be a fair weather friend.
I take responsibility for not always being at my best in relationships. I acknowledge my tendency to be self-absorbed when it comes to my dancing. To some degree, I may always be this way. And yet here’s what I’ve learned: I am deeeper than my dancing self-absorption. This divorce is teaching me that. It’s forcing me to sink or swim and I choose, everyday, to swim. To keep my head above the water of insecurity and smallness. And in this act of daily choosing, my capacity for love grows. I feel it like a pulling. I give it first of all to myself with the hope that the outcome will be that I won’t feel so completely driven to prove my worth through my dancing. Yet I am, even as I say this, first and foremost a dancer. It is what I’ve always been, what I’ve always wanted to be, from when I was about 7. It’s just that now, I’m realizing that also what I want to be is full, big, enormous as a person, as a human, connecting to others, either through my dancing or my newly easy smile. I am becoming more integrated and therefore freer to express, in any medium.
Tonight’s play was about love. I am about love, whether or not I have a lover to bestow it upon. It’s still there, not in the least dried up. In fact it overflows. It pours forth; my eyes are clear, my ears are hearing, and tonight, the rain reminds me of all of this.
I took yoga this AM. I have three days off and felt the need to get “in body” and to cleanse. I do indeed feel detoxified and refreshed, though tired, pleasantly tired. This is the gentle lull before my night begins, a transition that I love. It always begets a thinking in me, a thoughtfulness about my own dusk as I contemplate turning 36.
I am mostly excited at the notion. My body, though dealing with ever-present issues and old injuries, feels, in many ways, healthier than ever. I witness C, on the cusp of 40, as he negotiates time and his own body as a fine dancer. Today I felt a pride, a degree of wanting to take good care of myself, that feels deep and sincere in its necessity.
Later…
Just returned from seeing Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing”. It was about love. I am reminded that it all comes down to that. One of the lines went something like, “It’s easy to love a person when they’re at their best. What’s hard is to love them when they’re at their worst.” True. It comes down to having faith that the person you’re with is deeper than what they’re demonstrating at a worst moment.
This reminds me of my body too. How fine I am when it’s feeling fine, but oh how morose and out of balance I become when it’s operating at a low speed and agility. Here too it’s about loving it anyway, giving it the benefit of the doubt that it will bounce back, rise again, serve my needs toward fulfilling myself. I’ve got to have an unconditional relationship with it and not be a fair weather friend.
I take responsibility for not always being at my best in relationships. I acknowledge my tendency to be self-absorbed when it comes to my dancing. To some degree, I may always be this way. And yet here’s what I’ve learned: I am deeeper than my dancing self-absorption. This divorce is teaching me that. It’s forcing me to sink or swim and I choose, everyday, to swim. To keep my head above the water of insecurity and smallness. And in this act of daily choosing, my capacity for love grows. I feel it like a pulling. I give it first of all to myself with the hope that the outcome will be that I won’t feel so completely driven to prove my worth through my dancing. Yet I am, even as I say this, first and foremost a dancer. It is what I’ve always been, what I’ve always wanted to be, from when I was about 7. It’s just that now, I’m realizing that also what I want to be is full, big, enormous as a person, as a human, connecting to others, either through my dancing or my newly easy smile. I am becoming more integrated and therefore freer to express, in any medium.
Tonight’s play was about love. I am about love, whether or not I have a lover to bestow it upon. It’s still there, not in the least dried up. In fact it overflows. It pours forth; my eyes are clear, my ears are hearing, and tonight, the rain reminds me of all of this.
posted by barefootblogger | 12:00 AM
1 Comments:
There're tradeoffs, there're prices everyone needs to pay.
Post a Comment
<< Home