Vinn's Journal
10/1/2008 |
These days my life is completely awash in dread and paralysis. The leaning out of doors has become a major undertaking and I struggle to put on clothes to cover my skin. It is confounding to me, accepting the events of this life, the ordinary coming and goings, the chance meetings with people who show up in the nick of time, to bail me out of these doldrums. The witches of wonder who whisper that magic is afoot, and to remain a believer in the unseen forces that are constantly in play. No feeling is final has become a strategy for survival and removed from the pristine placement of a workshop setting.
Lethargy, and listlessness are my twin towers of torment. Preparing to step up and rise from my bed have become major hurdles for my successful daily living. Yesterday I bought a thick gray bathrobe to match my mood of late. It is the kind that I could wear for days, sleeping on the couch and not be concerned about hygiene. I could shuffle around my apartment eating cookies, and drinking tea, (or steak and bourbon). I tell myself that this bathrobe passage could be necessary for my internal development, terry cloth therapy. I notice how my inability to relax after work is creating solid walls of isolated depth diving and how my muscles ache with the soreness of holding on. To live my life in ever widening circles suggests at some point I will get away from the small mind talk of defeat and ego gymnastics of self worth and go out and be with and do with someone else.
I am reading about the life of a Muslim woman, Bibish, who wished to dance to feed her family. Her brother beat her in order to preserve the family reputation in a small commune in Central Russia. I read how Bibish spent days alone, wandering in the desert. I watch as three itinerant men attack her at the age of eight and how her desire to live brought her out of the desert of fear and revenge. I bear witness as Bibish spent weeks eating rotten fruit while seeking an apartment for self, husband, and two small children. Sleeping in the streets of a frozen Leningrad, dealing with hostile bureaucracies she, nevertheless, continues to open to life revealing itself. She never strayed far from a realistic notion that both delight and despair will accompany her.
I understand that in reading the memoir of another I am able to view a lifetime of events in sequence. I witness and understand the everyday dance of Bibish from a mountaintop view. I have the advantage of the big picture with all its resolutions and endings, neatly presented, as story told.
My deep knowing says that you and I as dancers in this cosmic choreography are to stay in motion. We learn the steps as we go; rehearsing is futile because the dance we are living is unpredictable, spontaneous and improvised. Our practice is to stay fit and flexible. Bibish's life points out the inner choreographer who arranges placement and determines the shape and space of daily steps. I wonder how my diminutive daily and self-induced inconveniences pall next to Bibish.
I trust that I will understand more fully this dark cave I inhabit so frequently. I trust I can continue to use any opportunity as a cave dweller to remember this condition of being human. I trust that I will allow for the tire swing between despair and elation to move without projected drama and despair.
In the two step…………….vinn