“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband & a happy home & children, & another fig was a famous poet & another fig was a brilliant professor, & another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, & another fig was Europe & Africa & South America, & another fig was Constantin & Socrates & Attila & a pack of other lovers with queer names & offbeat professions, & another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, & beyond & above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each & every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle & go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
ARTS: JUST DANCE, GONNA BE OK, DA DA DOO DOO; THE SIMPLEST SOLUTION TO STRESS
Today’s Mood Ingredients: Euphoric, Free, Alive.
Stress. Overwhelming stress. It’s very rare that people today don’t have it. It varies in levels depending on a number of factors; career, family, emotions, personality, lifestyle, income, desires, etcetera, but it’s there. Silently waiting to attack when you least expect it, rendering you manic or crazed or depressed or angry. Let’s say you can’t quit your job to own a farm in California or live a spa life in Arizona. You can’t quit your family, you can’t shirk your responsibilities, you can’t overcome your sporadic but prevalent emotional tsunamis. So, what do you do? Release it. For me, the greatest and truest inanimate, intangible passion of my life is dance. Any form. Drunken, choreographed, impromptu, rehearsed, performed, jumping & booty-bumping with my 2.5 year old nephew, ballroom dancing with the puppy. ANY. If it was possible to bottle the feeling that radiates within and out of me when I’m dancing, I would be in direct competition with the Onassis family as wealthiest around. However, I cherish the fact that the feeling is so inexpressible for me because I get to have a sense of public privacy.
The audience sees a performer on stage expressing lyrics and movements to given music, but much of the time, the performer is in a whole different secret world. I have literally been brought to tears or euphoria on stage depending on the day of performance, & the people, who I don’t even register in my consciousness, applaud. They applaud for a technical performance that hopefully connected with them in some way. What they don’t realize is that the emotion that’s coming off in waves from the stage to the audience at such a high frequency is the tumultuous collage of my innermost fears, happinesses, struggles, tears, accomplishments, sadness, & stress being released. They are privy to something they don’t even know of, & for a hyper-private person like me, it’s my way of “talking about my feelings.” Dancing has saved me from a lot in life. It has protected me from a lot in life. It has given me a lot in life. It is the only outlet that still serves to shatter my anxiety, my founded & unfounded worries, & my fears. The best way to describe it, I suppose, is by using my favorite quote, also tattooed on my ankle: “In life, as in dance; grace glides on blistered feet.” When I’m dancing, I’m at my most euphoric. When I’m dancing, I’m at my most tranquil. When I’m dancing, I’m at my most giving. It’s a blind & frozen moment in time where everything is nothing and nothing is everything & I’m spinning along with the world in harmony.
Everyone deserves this. You deserve to feel this way about something in your life, if not necessarily dance. When things are piling up & suffocating you under their deadweight, find your own outlet. You don’t have to be good at it. Contrary to popular & incorrect belief, NO ONE CARES.
“Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storms.”-Charles Caleb Colton
Is splattering paint across a canvas therapeutic? Do it. Listening to music? Blast it. Playing sports (not my forte!)? Kick it, pitch it, run it. Writing? Scribble it. No one is expected to be the next DaVinci, Stevie Wonder, Jackie Robinson, Ernest Hemingway, but you are expected to somehow be able to enjoy this life without needing an industrial-strength antacid twice a day. I’m lucky that I found my meditation at the age of 3, but “too late” is a phrase I’m just starting to eke out of my vernacular, & I suggest you do the same for “life is short, but sweet for certain.”
Today’s Interlude: “Dance Dance Dance” by Lykke Li
champagne & cookiedough 