Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Letter to Elaina

My dear Elaina!

your beautiful email comes at such a poignant time. i keep much to myself in my room on this 5th floor berlin walk-up, battling demons and memories and phantoms of regret. I've felt on the edge and yet strangely at peace .... perhaps it's a process of dying to yourself .... in that way that is full of light, not darkness.

There are still many thoughts going through my head, fantasies of myself, realizations about chapters in my life and the wonderful people who have shared them that make them a chapter with a beginning ... and a necessary end. Being here I want to be in New York, finally, at a time when I am being questioned again where/how to stay there -- more specifically, in the service of what long-term vision? And who to serve? What is recreational and what is professional? What is it I want to do, and what is it I want to know?

I spoke with Sue earlier this morning and realized that with the opportunities we've been given at a school like Swarthmore, what you know becomes what you do. I suppose that's very clear to you, as a teacher?

I find myself free and then I find myself stuck again ... I have a venue on another mixed bill at the end of the year, I am finding comfort and joy -- finally! -- in my dance practice, and can't wait to go back to it in NYC. I am reconciling old blockages in myself to do with my family, my relationships with men ... I feel myself having a passion and wanting to share it and apply it for a greater good. Hmm! So I suppose things are not so bad! I think the only confusion remaining, then, is really what are the next steps and what is the real world applicability. I suppose, the confusion remains that my main love does not make a living. My love doesn't have ambitions. It's just love. But I have ambitions. So is it an unsustainable love? And in terms of knowledge, is it simply preservationism that wants to make authoritative my knowledges gained from this pursuit for so many years -- as a matter of justification?!? (sorry, concretely, getting an MFA for example rather than pursuing a separate line of academia which I find equally but very separately interesting and vital).

Doing a lot of research on graduate programs, this is the fuel for the wood burning in my brain. Otherwise, I'll be back in New York next week Thursday, with just more work to do on all fronts. I'd rather I didn't have to move to change so quickly. Naa Aku says that maybe there are no demons, but there is indeed inertia.

Lots of love -- liebe liebe

MEL

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