The subway tonight from 18th to 136th was more interesting than usual -- it's Gay Pride day, so the multicolor bedecked and beaded added unexpected verve to the otherwise long and bleak ride home. Not tired enough to sleep, not eager enough to read (more about string theory -- I've run out of fiction), I was left to unashamed people watching. Widening my eyes in the attempt to make myself look more childlike and therefore, innocent or even endearing, rather than intrusive, I was graced with the thorough range of returnees from summer Sunday soiree adventurers of Chelsea, midtown, and beyond. And intelligent looking interracial couple -- spectacled brown Chinese, perhaps, and his Indian wife -- with sleeping children, still angelic though long limbed and much older than babes. I am unsure if I am seeing a romantic vision of what I want to believe in, or what I am genuinely intuiting from the moment, but given that these children were stunning, aesthetically, and their parents more along the lines of indescript, I begin hypothesizing on the quality and strength of the parent's relationship, reflected in the faces of the fruits of that union. Of that "unit".
["Unit" -- Duleesha this weekend dropped quickly in conversation the struggle of others to learn to live "as a unit" when in a relationship. Partnership. For all my image of a tough exterior, I know why that choice of word sticks with me as no man or friend has. It is the idea of unification, or union, fusion, that is my dream and motivation for existence. Am I talking about soulmate? I am talking about something less grand, more real than that. Am I talking about companionship? I am talking about something more lofty, that is, elevated, than that. I am talking in my new framework shaped by recently (ravenously) finishing Atlas Shrugged -- I am talking about reaching the height of personal egotistical achievement, and of finding your match in that height, at that height. The day I surrender to union into unit will be a happy one, because I know I will not fear losing, or selling out on, myself.]
The subway tonight is filled with beautiful people. This is not because of the sparkle and brightness of Made in China beads. It was because many in that train car were going home from having enjoyed themselves, as combined units, whether the brown family across from me or the black dual-dread-locked lesbian post-parade nappers to my side. It was evident from the quietness of the car that people had exhausted themselves, drunk on joy, alcohol, Pride, each other, and summer sun. There was peace in this car.
There was also random beauty, ever shifting glimpses of human design or crafting with the rearrangement of bodies at every stop. In particular I was blessed with the vision of a man's startling hands, large, muscular, veiny, unscarred. His knuckles ever 10 inches from my face, fist clenched around the pole at my side, yes I found these hands sexual, but more so they were sculptural, they were artful. They were beautiful.
I was drawn to recall the time I found myself chilly in a bra and designer jeans (and chopsticks in my hair) in the attic of a ceramics store in Poland. It was a photo shoot, I was a dancing cultural oddity, but more importantly this was where figurines of Mother Maria and Christ were casted en masse for churches and homes. In the yard downstairs one was faced with rows of pious faces and bodies, even to lifesize, companions to the terracotta warriors (praying on the sideslines of battle?). I was drawn to remember this awesome experience because it was up there in the attic that one found broken hands in supplication or prayer, parts of angel's wings and chipped angel bottoms; it was where they kept the damaged products. I remember being made to feel ... devotional, for the scattered beauty, because every part then had a uniqueness, and you had to be active in finding it and defining its beauty and courage. I want to be clear -- I was not awed by "brokenness". Maybe I appreciated the broken all the more because I became relevant to it's beauty when beauty was not self-evident. How could I relate to absolute perfectness, except for by worship and supplication? ... that is, if I have not reached perfectness ...?
So in the number 1 train I am searching, I am becoming an active participant in the acknowledgement of humanity's beauty. I am not only noting human body parts (I am getting conscious of the hand-man being conscious of me lusting over his gorgeous fists), but also of material encasements, shoes in particular. Maybe because of the image of the mountains of shoes at Auschwitz -- this is what's going through my head, not in a sentimental, but a factual way, because upon staring at angel-boy-child's sandals I think about what his toothbrush looks like. Odd-looking tall old white man at the conductor's door is wearing white sneakers, from which emerge lanky white calves with a literal topography of veins bursting from beneath the skin. Some girl over to my right I don't even look to see her face because I am so drawn to her lime green leather butterfly-adorned fashion sandals. I think they're a little much. I am wearing black pseudo-suede Marie Claire cloggy-booty things, bought from Bata near Raffles City (Singapore) in 2003. How is it that I can remember such insignificant details?
[Note: Raffles City is not a city in Singapore. Singapore is a city. One big city. Raffles City is the name of a mall, near Raffles Hotel, which you (non-Singaporean) may have heard of because Winston Churchill had a drink there called the Singapore Sling. I drank a Singapore Sling with Norwegian scholar friends after our high school graduation. Not a great drink -- sweet, with tropical fruits is all. You know, orange wedge and miniature umbrella and all that. My new favorite drink, as of yesterday night, is the Mad for Mex Big Azz Margarita, which wallops five shots of tequila and two shots of triple sec in a 24 oz glass for $6. $6! I was near falling over myself with just one! Just another one of the many fantastic things that my blog-idol JOKO has introduced me to! Hi Jo! Look, here you are again! SUE, I'll put you in, too! DON'T ATTEMPT THIS DRINK! You'd be asleep on the bar counter faster than the desperate guy next to you can fall over and catch his glass face-up!]
It's past midnight. I have to go to sleep. I will fall asleep to the sounds of a very active neighbourhood nightlife, my ritual lullabye (the orchestra of car sirens), and the deceivingly natural sound of running water -- um, it's the fire hydrant spewing I'd guess a gallon a second 15 feet across the street, ten feet from my front door. Yes, and the gentle tinkle of my vertical blinds as they react to the nudge of my whirring friend Pelonis, who will keep me ... warm, as opposed to fucking night sweat.
Good night, Philadelphia. Good night, New York. Hello Monday.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Friday, June 17, 2005
Today's truth
Hey -- this is starting to look suspiciously like a BLOG. It's my fourth entry this week!
And this one will be true ramblings. Though it's hard for me to truthfully state that I am not predicating anything before I write it -- because it writes itself in my head long before finger hits the keyboard -- but this is as spontaneous and random as it might get.
And with all that prefacing -- I've forgotten the many things I was going to say!
My most consistent teacher -- in that I really respect his teaching above his work which I have not seen, and I choose to go to his class three-four times a week -- has just recently torn his left meniscus (clue: at the knee). This will heal partially on its own, but will eventually require surgery. He is still so amazingly articulate in his torso, so I continue to learn a lot through his choreography and advice, but the misfortune is the lost image of him dancing himself: long-limbed, long-torsoed, shaggy haired and with a visage that in movement changes as quickly from the comic to an ecstasy of being, of being possessed by and possessing the dance. Quoting Laurel Kean, who also takes this class: "watching him dance just makes you wanna cry."
Laurel tonight before heading off to Basement Banghra with a load of other exuberant Swatties from both Philly and NYC asks me suddenly "what I am doing," by which, she means, am I staying in the country. Why don't we talk through my plans, since it has been brought to my attention that I have more than one reader, and that more than one of these are invested in keeping me here. =)
Right now, I'm finally getting "training," the kind I've wanted since returning from Poland in 2002. I take two to three classes a day (last week clocked ten; this week probably 13), which amounts to 20-25 hours a week of various techniques. 6 hours a week I deal with the laundry of this dance studio, a work/study duty which is enabling me to take all these classes for $4 a pop, which is a terrific deal down from the usual $12.50. Soon though, in July, I will be doing an intensive course at a multimedia performance venue in NYC called The Kitchen, for dual purposes of (a)workshopping some cool, intriguing if not critical themes, expanding my range of technological proficiency and collaborating with a diverse group of emerging artists, (b) praying to God that meeting with Ong Keng Seng every day will open up doors for me to make important art at home. Ong Keng Seng is perhaps the most-internationally renowned director from Singapore, and not without reason -- he does fascinating work. His last piece was a trilogy influenced by Japanese anime and dealing with the war crimes tribunals at The Hague. Can anyone say, "Please: involve me?"
But I told myself I would stay in New York as long as it took to dance on a stage here, and perhaps to get some certification to teach -- art, modern dance, fine, cool, but I want to get more proficient at something more scientific, anatomical, useful for the non-dancer: Pilates, Gyrokinesis, etc. This last aim might take longer than the three months I will have as a tourist from mid-September to mid-December, but we will see. I'm in rehearsals for a fall show now, and am trying to organize making and showing some of my own work in the fall as well. Evidently as a tourist one should not work or study, but no one said anything about "volunteer"! Or "under the table"!
Once home, I'd like to prove my dedication to the motherland enough so that I could in good faith apply for a government grant to go to a contemporary dance school in Brussels, which only accepts new students in two year cycles, so I have to wait for the 2006 intake anyway. If I was still making out OK at this point I'd like to dance for a company in Europe for a bit, delaying my bond just a little, then I'd have to come home, finally ready to maybe really teach and to produce provocative shit. Yes, I think I'd be ready then. O-ma, will you forgive me just a little longer away? Maybe I should ask if I would be able to forgive myself, with the losses either way?
So what happened to non-profit management and international development studies, you ask? Hmm, good question. My heart is in that too ... but not my joy. Note, not "my happiness" ... but my joy. I hold back from saying "passion," because I am told that of this I have ample, if not excessive reserves. Also because the word connotes a recklessness or impulsiveness that I don't want to dominate over the clarity and truth that there is in "joy." But they are related.
I think I should still study for my GREs, and take them in October. Good for five years, cover my bases. Try to once again handle a quadratic equation. Now that I miss studying, I'm not so spiteful of the prospect.
You see, the truth of it is -- or is right now -- is that I only really want to work in the arts, but feel equally a need to impress you and live up to expectation by attaining a professional degree of some sort -- also because yes, I would make more money, have more security, and definitely have more power in the world. I have quite a strong desire for power. Affecting social change is partly an excuse for wielding defensible power. I like, and possibly believe in, the certainty of progress. But it's also said that an Aries is a know-it-all, and will do much in their capacity to prove as such. Match that to a considerable lack of discipline, as well as early above-average attainments of success in my personal history and one sees why I have for these past few years had such difficulty with devoting myself to a "joy" that promises no power of influence, only of self. But let's remember our past musing on "calling" .... Was I called to the arts? Undeniably yes, yes, and yes again ... though I would deny, restrain, avoid, or procrastinate ... or particularly destructively, judge myself negatively for. Issue-mongering, in my case, otherwise known as social activism, was constantly a means through which I was trying to pay the debt of my birth. I wonder, sometimes, non-judgmentally, how different I may have been had I not inherited a Christian legacy. The same could be asked about whether I had been born with skinny genes, or if I had been sooner socially accepted by my peers, which is in some way to ask what I may have been without sources of my fears and neuroses. Are unwelcome traits "weaknesses" if they came from circumstances that were not in your control?
And this one will be true ramblings. Though it's hard for me to truthfully state that I am not predicating anything before I write it -- because it writes itself in my head long before finger hits the keyboard -- but this is as spontaneous and random as it might get.
And with all that prefacing -- I've forgotten the many things I was going to say!
My most consistent teacher -- in that I really respect his teaching above his work which I have not seen, and I choose to go to his class three-four times a week -- has just recently torn his left meniscus (clue: at the knee). This will heal partially on its own, but will eventually require surgery. He is still so amazingly articulate in his torso, so I continue to learn a lot through his choreography and advice, but the misfortune is the lost image of him dancing himself: long-limbed, long-torsoed, shaggy haired and with a visage that in movement changes as quickly from the comic to an ecstasy of being, of being possessed by and possessing the dance. Quoting Laurel Kean, who also takes this class: "watching him dance just makes you wanna cry."
Laurel tonight before heading off to Basement Banghra with a load of other exuberant Swatties from both Philly and NYC asks me suddenly "what I am doing," by which, she means, am I staying in the country. Why don't we talk through my plans, since it has been brought to my attention that I have more than one reader, and that more than one of these are invested in keeping me here. =)
Right now, I'm finally getting "training," the kind I've wanted since returning from Poland in 2002. I take two to three classes a day (last week clocked ten; this week probably 13), which amounts to 20-25 hours a week of various techniques. 6 hours a week I deal with the laundry of this dance studio, a work/study duty which is enabling me to take all these classes for $4 a pop, which is a terrific deal down from the usual $12.50. Soon though, in July, I will be doing an intensive course at a multimedia performance venue in NYC called The Kitchen, for dual purposes of (a)workshopping some cool, intriguing if not critical themes, expanding my range of technological proficiency and collaborating with a diverse group of emerging artists, (b) praying to God that meeting with Ong Keng Seng every day will open up doors for me to make important art at home. Ong Keng Seng is perhaps the most-internationally renowned director from Singapore, and not without reason -- he does fascinating work. His last piece was a trilogy influenced by Japanese anime and dealing with the war crimes tribunals at The Hague. Can anyone say, "Please: involve me?"
But I told myself I would stay in New York as long as it took to dance on a stage here, and perhaps to get some certification to teach -- art, modern dance, fine, cool, but I want to get more proficient at something more scientific, anatomical, useful for the non-dancer: Pilates, Gyrokinesis, etc. This last aim might take longer than the three months I will have as a tourist from mid-September to mid-December, but we will see. I'm in rehearsals for a fall show now, and am trying to organize making and showing some of my own work in the fall as well. Evidently as a tourist one should not work or study, but no one said anything about "volunteer"! Or "under the table"!
Once home, I'd like to prove my dedication to the motherland enough so that I could in good faith apply for a government grant to go to a contemporary dance school in Brussels, which only accepts new students in two year cycles, so I have to wait for the 2006 intake anyway. If I was still making out OK at this point I'd like to dance for a company in Europe for a bit, delaying my bond just a little, then I'd have to come home, finally ready to maybe really teach and to produce provocative shit. Yes, I think I'd be ready then. O-ma, will you forgive me just a little longer away? Maybe I should ask if I would be able to forgive myself, with the losses either way?
So what happened to non-profit management and international development studies, you ask? Hmm, good question. My heart is in that too ... but not my joy. Note, not "my happiness" ... but my joy. I hold back from saying "passion," because I am told that of this I have ample, if not excessive reserves. Also because the word connotes a recklessness or impulsiveness that I don't want to dominate over the clarity and truth that there is in "joy." But they are related.
I think I should still study for my GREs, and take them in October. Good for five years, cover my bases. Try to once again handle a quadratic equation. Now that I miss studying, I'm not so spiteful of the prospect.
You see, the truth of it is -- or is right now -- is that I only really want to work in the arts, but feel equally a need to impress you and live up to expectation by attaining a professional degree of some sort -- also because yes, I would make more money, have more security, and definitely have more power in the world. I have quite a strong desire for power. Affecting social change is partly an excuse for wielding defensible power. I like, and possibly believe in, the certainty of progress. But it's also said that an Aries is a know-it-all, and will do much in their capacity to prove as such. Match that to a considerable lack of discipline, as well as early above-average attainments of success in my personal history and one sees why I have for these past few years had such difficulty with devoting myself to a "joy" that promises no power of influence, only of self. But let's remember our past musing on "calling" .... Was I called to the arts? Undeniably yes, yes, and yes again ... though I would deny, restrain, avoid, or procrastinate ... or particularly destructively, judge myself negatively for. Issue-mongering, in my case, otherwise known as social activism, was constantly a means through which I was trying to pay the debt of my birth. I wonder, sometimes, non-judgmentally, how different I may have been had I not inherited a Christian legacy. The same could be asked about whether I had been born with skinny genes, or if I had been sooner socially accepted by my peers, which is in some way to ask what I may have been without sources of my fears and neuroses. Are unwelcome traits "weaknesses" if they came from circumstances that were not in your control?
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Who is John Galt?
If anything can be labelled God's gift to mankind, it is the 16" spinhead electric fan, particularly that which is made in China and available for purchase for a mere $12.84 USD from Wholesale Distributors on Broadway and Bleecker. God's emissary in this endeavour was Schulyer Wheeler, who in 1886 produced the prototype for the beast I have created -- um, assembled -- of my own two hands and which now proudly stands in my room in defiance of this unbearable city heat. I have for over a week been simulating scenes of not just my menopause, but those of scores of others added to mine, with each night a torture of one, long, enduring, unassuagable heat flash. I grabbed pictures off the wall nearest to my head and tried to fan myself to sleep, hoping not to smack my arm into my face if I succeeded. Instead, my feet would jerk or twitch when it became apparent that I was falling asleep and I would be again awake to sweat through another hour, or two, fully, desperately conscious, before then simulating death in order to lower my body temperature. But now, now I listen with glee to the lulling whir of my all-knowing friend and comfort, shaking his head amiably at my plight -- my new friend, Pelonis.
My old, and human friends are not to be forgotten. My friends are also good ideas, excellent inventions, technology of the most necessary and sophisticated sort. God's gifts. If anything can be labelled God ....this is where Microsoft Word -- some would say with the same authority, or at least, range of effect on humanity, as the divine -- cuts off my opening sentence in order to make a file name.
Take, for example, my friend Elaina. Elaina has giant curly Chicana hair, worn well beneath a jogging headband or Texan gallon hat alike. Elaina has unashamedly jogged on the spot in my room playing 80s hits as it stormed outside, and continued on to aerobics upstairs, making my ceiling reverberate and chips fall from the giant hole which is where the ceiling fan -- the miraculous divine fan! -- was supposed to be. Elaina is my "wife," even though she now has a boyfriend, who I suspect was the reason I received the loveliest of voicemails as I sat sweaty mid-dance-day. I love my friends who throw me ethical conundrums in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
"Hey Mel, it's Elaina. First of all, it's so nice to hear your voice, like on the voice recording. Ah ... I miss your voice. Um, how you doing my dear. I hope you're well. I hope life, and all the people you encounter in your day life are treating you well. Giving you smiles and, yeah.
Um ... I have a question for you. Do you think it's possible -- well, I feel like it is, but I guess I want to hear your affirmation -- do you think it's possible for a person to be light-hearted and carefree but also really be dedicated to the world, like, to really wanting to help the world? And like ...
you know, you hear about things that are bad and happening and like ... people ... or even in our own society ... and really like be aware and really want to do something to combat them or contribute to improving something, or whatever, but still be a carefree, joyful person?
Not too serious of a person? Tell me what you think, I'd love to hear, if you have any thoughts. I love you very much -- I hope you're well. Bye."
Sent June 14th at 3:04pm. 1 minute 40 seconds.
I'm not going to answer her here. I'm going to call her back, and wax lyrical about the notion of "calling." Because I have deliberated this question for myself a lot, much along the lines of "is 'it' (action X, Y, Z; desire A, B, C; one contra the other) OK?" as noted in my first entries. Elaina and I have together spoken of this many times, but never quite so succinctly as to say: we were not all given crosses to bear.
I went to a movie alone last night. It was a screening at BAM of four shorts and one feature length documentary by Amir Muhammed, entitled "The Big Durian." I thought it was terrific -- but good luck to the uninitiated.
My old, and human friends are not to be forgotten. My friends are also good ideas, excellent inventions, technology of the most necessary and sophisticated sort. God's gifts. If anything can be labelled God ....this is where Microsoft Word -- some would say with the same authority, or at least, range of effect on humanity, as the divine -- cuts off my opening sentence in order to make a file name.
Take, for example, my friend Elaina. Elaina has giant curly Chicana hair, worn well beneath a jogging headband or Texan gallon hat alike. Elaina has unashamedly jogged on the spot in my room playing 80s hits as it stormed outside, and continued on to aerobics upstairs, making my ceiling reverberate and chips fall from the giant hole which is where the ceiling fan -- the miraculous divine fan! -- was supposed to be. Elaina is my "wife," even though she now has a boyfriend, who I suspect was the reason I received the loveliest of voicemails as I sat sweaty mid-dance-day. I love my friends who throw me ethical conundrums in the middle of a weekday afternoon.
"Hey Mel, it's Elaina. First of all, it's so nice to hear your voice, like on the voice recording. Ah ... I miss your voice. Um, how you doing my dear. I hope you're well. I hope life, and all the people you encounter in your day life are treating you well. Giving you smiles and, yeah.
Um ... I have a question for you. Do you think it's possible -- well, I feel like it is, but I guess I want to hear your affirmation -- do you think it's possible for a person to be light-hearted and carefree but also really be dedicated to the world, like, to really wanting to help the world? And like ...
you know, you hear about things that are bad and happening and like ... people ... or even in our own society ... and really like be aware and really want to do something to combat them or contribute to improving something, or whatever, but still be a carefree, joyful person?
Not too serious of a person? Tell me what you think, I'd love to hear, if you have any thoughts. I love you very much -- I hope you're well. Bye."
Sent June 14th at 3:04pm. 1 minute 40 seconds.
I'm not going to answer her here. I'm going to call her back, and wax lyrical about the notion of "calling." Because I have deliberated this question for myself a lot, much along the lines of "is 'it' (action X, Y, Z; desire A, B, C; one contra the other) OK?" as noted in my first entries. Elaina and I have together spoken of this many times, but never quite so succinctly as to say: we were not all given crosses to bear.
I went to a movie alone last night. It was a screening at BAM of four shorts and one feature length documentary by Amir Muhammed, entitled "The Big Durian." I thought it was terrific -- but good luck to the uninitiated.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
"About Me"
I've been inspired by Joko's blog, which is much more user-friendly, less-pretentious (but I can't help it!! I just write like that!), more frequent (obviously -- hers is an actual blog), and looksee looksee: she actually has other friends that read it. So here's what I wanted to put in the "about me" section of my profile, so that, while avoiding the possibility of identity theft, I might seem more approachable. So here is all 1,500-odd characters of "About me", 300 hundred-odd above the profile limit, because I'm not interested right now in selling you partial-view seats.
ABOUT ME:
It's the sixth month anniversary of my starting this blog, and I am realizing that NO ONE SAVE MY MOTHER IS READING IT. So about me? To make you read me? It's evident from the writing: I am reflective and observant, accustomed as I am to outsidership, which I've both lauded myself for as intelligence and a heightened state of consciousness, as well as berated myself for as an unwillingness to take action, to participate in mainstream society and therefore, in what I perceive as the "normal" condition of happiness in the mundane. Whew. Have you had a breath yet? I've been told by a reader that one needs to take a big inhale before plunging into the Mel-deep. And I'm really not trying to impress you, at least not this way. I'd rather be cool. But this is me.
I speak too fast for most people. Some might say I'm convoluted -- I'd prefer: complex. I really enjoy all fruits, tropical in particular, so I could never be a full subscriber to the ideal macrobiotic diet. I do, however, like brown rice, and in food, most things likewise dark and textural. Lindt, 70%. Espresso. Black pepper fuckin' crab, Singapore's gracious gift to the universe and a pox on my lifelong desire to have the body of Uma Thurman.
My favorite body parts (on me) are my deltoids and my feet. And my larger left breast, but I suppose only in comparison to the little guy. My feet: they are swollen from this dirty New York heat, veiny, bruised, and bloody from dancing. They are too wide for most fashionable high-heeled shoes, and they been this way since I was twelve. I love them. They are also a little differently sized.
I was classified quite rightly by my freshman year college boyfriend as a "cultural sponge." I am actually rather squeezable. And indeed, I soak up and let go of diverse interests, languages, ways of being, for as long and as fast as my curiosity and opportunities allow. I have not a failed but rather forgotten command of French, Mandarin, and Polish - this latter is still my instinctive second tongue. But don't worry. I evidently speak English. LOTS of it.
Hey, who are you? What are you about?
ADDENDUM: CHARACTERIZATION IN MOVEMENT TERMS
Explosive
Edgy
Rhythm over melody, but melodrama above all else
Expansive in space
Trying a little too hard, too much, too soon -- a little desperate like that, a little raw, but very sincere
With developing, but not yet fully cognizant physical understanding of her body
ABOUT ME:
It's the sixth month anniversary of my starting this blog, and I am realizing that NO ONE SAVE MY MOTHER IS READING IT. So about me? To make you read me? It's evident from the writing: I am reflective and observant, accustomed as I am to outsidership, which I've both lauded myself for as intelligence and a heightened state of consciousness, as well as berated myself for as an unwillingness to take action, to participate in mainstream society and therefore, in what I perceive as the "normal" condition of happiness in the mundane. Whew. Have you had a breath yet? I've been told by a reader that one needs to take a big inhale before plunging into the Mel-deep. And I'm really not trying to impress you, at least not this way. I'd rather be cool. But this is me.
I speak too fast for most people. Some might say I'm convoluted -- I'd prefer: complex. I really enjoy all fruits, tropical in particular, so I could never be a full subscriber to the ideal macrobiotic diet. I do, however, like brown rice, and in food, most things likewise dark and textural. Lindt, 70%. Espresso. Black pepper fuckin' crab, Singapore's gracious gift to the universe and a pox on my lifelong desire to have the body of Uma Thurman.
My favorite body parts (on me) are my deltoids and my feet. And my larger left breast, but I suppose only in comparison to the little guy. My feet: they are swollen from this dirty New York heat, veiny, bruised, and bloody from dancing. They are too wide for most fashionable high-heeled shoes, and they been this way since I was twelve. I love them. They are also a little differently sized.
I was classified quite rightly by my freshman year college boyfriend as a "cultural sponge." I am actually rather squeezable. And indeed, I soak up and let go of diverse interests, languages, ways of being, for as long and as fast as my curiosity and opportunities allow. I have not a failed but rather forgotten command of French, Mandarin, and Polish - this latter is still my instinctive second tongue. But don't worry. I evidently speak English. LOTS of it.
Hey, who are you? What are you about?
ADDENDUM: CHARACTERIZATION IN MOVEMENT TERMS
Explosive
Edgy
Rhythm over melody, but melodrama above all else
Expansive in space
Trying a little too hard, too much, too soon -- a little desperate like that, a little raw, but very sincere
With developing, but not yet fully cognizant physical understanding of her body
Sunday, June 12, 2005
A secret toast for Mr. and Mrs. Christina Richard Corrigan Suchenski
I find it difficult to admit to the meaningfulness of Christina's wedding today, even to the day's worth and week's income of shopping in preparation, and to the excitedness that prevented me from falling asleep last night until 4:30 as testament to such meaningfulness.
I find it difficult, because I feel like I don't have the right, necessarily, to consider it meaningfully. Though we've never been distant, we've never been close ... we were not really given the chance -- as is the fate of many "third culture" kinships -- and so I find it awkward to even acknowledge within myself that I love the girl and only wished I could have loved her more, if we'd had the occasion past the age of 16.
[A tearful Christina, decadent and delicate and strong and the perfect picture of poise and elegance -- shit, do I need to go on?! -- finally emboldens herself to make her appreciation speech after dining and "the first dance" (= superlatively cute giggling shuffle). I likewise shuffle shyly to the end of the hugging line -- again, I feel almost embarrassed, like a secret admirer, a vintage Buggy, a non-ideal memory. I cry too, but this time I surprise myself, for the emotions are not fully of admiration or tenderness as they had been earlier in the day during ceremonies and pretty pictures, but also in part of lostness and the sore acknowledgement of mortal happinesses. I am glad to be overwhelmed like this, because it means I can still feel -- I'm just a little embarrassed, because I don't want to seem inappropriately affectionate. I want to be at an inconspicuous temperature -- warm enough, not cold, not hot. She's not God -- she'll swallow me lukewarm. Isn't lukewarm the path to peace, anyhow? Surely the Bible gets a little extreme?
I am not alone, obviously, in these sentiments. Wedding ceremonies, particularly one that is as graceful and pure as this one was -- quoting Richard's grandmother: "I can't think of two people more deserving of happiness" -- can be a tortuous experiment in self-control of self-contemplation/lamentation. I'm not speaking of jealousy, although this is what it may initially feel like. I am speaking of ... a challenge of faith. Does this really exist? Will it exist for me? Has it, and I missed it? I am not speaking directly of loneliness, that entirely self-centric exercise, but I am speaking from the vantage point of being exhausted by self-rule and lack of companionship. Of needing to love, of needing someone to talk to and to massage the metatarsals of. Maybe I am speaking of aging -- a tear or two felled on my cheek was surely of Peter Pan weeping for the fact that we must, indeed, grow up/away/apart.]
We signified something important for each other, even in distance. My mistake was that I avoided the hurt of that distance, and therefore of that very importance, by busying myself away from it. Hers was that she never told me that she needed me, though based on my own uprooting, I should have known. But we were young.
We didn't grow apart, for as I said, we weren't "close" -- we were equals. We were of equal intensity. Maybe if we'd had more time, we would have gotten more fed up with each other and actually had a fight, and I would have told her how I didn't understand why she worked so hard until she was alone, and she would have bitingly asked me back why I worked so hard at pleasing other people. This would have been a fun battle.
We didn't grow apart, but into our autonomous selves, which were already a generation more autonomous than most when we met in the first place. You were the closest thing to a real friendship I had in those years. You were the closest thing I had to a best friend. We were partners through our mutual passion, and friends in our non-adherence to superficialities. (OK, so there was Harry's -- but even then, we were trying to be deep.) Perhaps we don't really know each other, as you say, Christina, but we know ourselves. I'm never performing when I'm around you. I've always held you in reverence for the simple fact that someone like you existed so strongly that it made me want to fight harder for the strength of my own existence. Today, I've gotten a much fuller glimpse of what you have meant to the family you have just joined to your own, and there too it's by the sheer force of your integrity.
Oh? That's right, this is my secret toast to both bride and groom.
Richard, I am playing Carla Bruni on my computer now, since I heard it on your reception playlist, and laugh hearing the lyrics:
"L'amour ... um um ... pas pour moi / L'amour, ca pour rien." I laugh, because I have to presume that this is Christina's selection! I laugh, because I'm glad you evidently have a sense of humor, a proven resilience to her resistance, and an intellect the size of a small planet to keep the relationship growing. I laugh because I am so happy for the security you have found in each other that uplifts my life and gives me hope that we all meet our match in the end.
To: Christina and Richard!
I find it difficult, because I feel like I don't have the right, necessarily, to consider it meaningfully. Though we've never been distant, we've never been close ... we were not really given the chance -- as is the fate of many "third culture" kinships -- and so I find it awkward to even acknowledge within myself that I love the girl and only wished I could have loved her more, if we'd had the occasion past the age of 16.
[A tearful Christina, decadent and delicate and strong and the perfect picture of poise and elegance -- shit, do I need to go on?! -- finally emboldens herself to make her appreciation speech after dining and "the first dance" (= superlatively cute giggling shuffle). I likewise shuffle shyly to the end of the hugging line -- again, I feel almost embarrassed, like a secret admirer, a vintage Buggy, a non-ideal memory. I cry too, but this time I surprise myself, for the emotions are not fully of admiration or tenderness as they had been earlier in the day during ceremonies and pretty pictures, but also in part of lostness and the sore acknowledgement of mortal happinesses. I am glad to be overwhelmed like this, because it means I can still feel -- I'm just a little embarrassed, because I don't want to seem inappropriately affectionate. I want to be at an inconspicuous temperature -- warm enough, not cold, not hot. She's not God -- she'll swallow me lukewarm. Isn't lukewarm the path to peace, anyhow? Surely the Bible gets a little extreme?
I am not alone, obviously, in these sentiments. Wedding ceremonies, particularly one that is as graceful and pure as this one was -- quoting Richard's grandmother: "I can't think of two people more deserving of happiness" -- can be a tortuous experiment in self-control of self-contemplation/lamentation. I'm not speaking of jealousy, although this is what it may initially feel like. I am speaking of ... a challenge of faith. Does this really exist? Will it exist for me? Has it, and I missed it? I am not speaking directly of loneliness, that entirely self-centric exercise, but I am speaking from the vantage point of being exhausted by self-rule and lack of companionship. Of needing to love, of needing someone to talk to and to massage the metatarsals of. Maybe I am speaking of aging -- a tear or two felled on my cheek was surely of Peter Pan weeping for the fact that we must, indeed, grow up/away/apart.]
We signified something important for each other, even in distance. My mistake was that I avoided the hurt of that distance, and therefore of that very importance, by busying myself away from it. Hers was that she never told me that she needed me, though based on my own uprooting, I should have known. But we were young.
We didn't grow apart, for as I said, we weren't "close" -- we were equals. We were of equal intensity. Maybe if we'd had more time, we would have gotten more fed up with each other and actually had a fight, and I would have told her how I didn't understand why she worked so hard until she was alone, and she would have bitingly asked me back why I worked so hard at pleasing other people. This would have been a fun battle.
We didn't grow apart, but into our autonomous selves, which were already a generation more autonomous than most when we met in the first place. You were the closest thing to a real friendship I had in those years. You were the closest thing I had to a best friend. We were partners through our mutual passion, and friends in our non-adherence to superficialities. (OK, so there was Harry's -- but even then, we were trying to be deep.) Perhaps we don't really know each other, as you say, Christina, but we know ourselves. I'm never performing when I'm around you. I've always held you in reverence for the simple fact that someone like you existed so strongly that it made me want to fight harder for the strength of my own existence. Today, I've gotten a much fuller glimpse of what you have meant to the family you have just joined to your own, and there too it's by the sheer force of your integrity.
Oh? That's right, this is my secret toast to both bride and groom.
Richard, I am playing Carla Bruni on my computer now, since I heard it on your reception playlist, and laugh hearing the lyrics:
"L'amour ... um um ... pas pour moi / L'amour, ca pour rien." I laugh, because I have to presume that this is Christina's selection! I laugh, because I'm glad you evidently have a sense of humor, a proven resilience to her resistance, and an intellect the size of a small planet to keep the relationship growing. I laugh because I am so happy for the security you have found in each other that uplifts my life and gives me hope that we all meet our match in the end.
To: Christina and Richard!
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