Well, I did half of my strange little experiement/resolution this morning. I woke up, had a little something to eat, & then I queued up my music & danced! My plan to blog about the experience immediately thereafter didn't quite pan out, but I'm doing it now....that's something.
Today's musical selection was the album Reptilians by Starfucker. Tracks 1 through 10 added up to approximatedly 30 minutes of dance-stuff for this drowsy gal. My schedule of late has been: wake up around 10:30 a.m. & fall asleep around 2 a.m. So it was something of a miracle that I woke up around 6:45 this morning and stayed up to dance around.
I thought that I'd have jostled myself out of my sleep-transe 10 minutes into dancing, but that was not the case today. My brain fog didn't lift until much later in the day--midway through teaching water aerobics this afternoon. My dancing was begrudging and heavy-footed, not the joyful, bouyant celebration I had hoped for. Granted, it takes my joints longer than most to loosen up when I get out of bed, thanks to ehlers-danlos syndrome. Feel free to look the condition up yourself, as I am not in the mood to expound upon it this evening. Or stay tuned to future posts, as I'm sure the topic with be a recurring one & that I will delve at some point. Suffice it to say, this morning's pain levels were quite high, & my dancing certainly reflected this. Dancing is a generous way of putting what I was doing; more accurately I was performing a slow, surly trudge around the apartment. Eventually it became, if not dancing, at least rhythmic movement--side steps with cautious hip-dips & sweeping arms, occasionally weaving through the air in some wannabe tribal exaltation.
There were a few strange pockets of time while dancing to Starfucker that I felt a sort of percussive emptiness in my temples and in the pit of my stomach. I could feel my pulse as finite, beating toward an end. These valleys seemed to happen during the songs that were not sung. A man antiseptically recited sad, existential spoken-word pieces over music. It's really no surprise that I fell into this melancholy, surreal landscape. I looked up some of the lyrics later....they weren't, uh, cheerful:
"If you are aware of a state which you call 'is,'
Or reality, or life, this implies another state called 'isn't.'
or illusion, or unreality, or nothingness, or death.
There it is, you can't know one without the other.
And so, as to make life poignant,
It's always got to come to an end.
That is exactly, don't you see, what makes it lively.
Liveliness is change, is motion.
And motion is going 'nnnnnnneeeeeaaw!,' like this,
See, they fall out.
You can see you are always at the place where you always are,
Only, it keeps appearing to change"
The lyrics were apt on a lot of levels-- some obvious (dance=motion) & some slightly more subtle & supremely uncomfortable. All of the things I'm striving to set into motion here: waking earlier & with dance & then writing about the experience- each of those things I seek to change in myself represents some kind of fear that I carry inside me. 1) Getting out of bed and facing a host of life's problems with an uncooperative body, which is at it's most stubborn upon waking. It's certainly easy to sink deeper into my blankets & postpone life/pain. 2) Dancing is a conversation with my body, & it's going to be a different one every day. The pain increases and it decreases. And it moves around. Yesterday it may have been in my neck and shoulders, predominantly. Today, my feet are giant knots and my wrist is throbbing. I want to scream at my body, to MAKE it work. Or I want to ignore it, because I know it will not function the way I want it to, & it is too frustrating & overwhelming to even begin to address. Dancing is a way to check-in with where I'm at at to coax a little healing into the places that need it. I can zero in on the stiff, painful areas & try to move them in a way that feels okay, & then I can zoom out again and try to enjoy & expereince my body as a whole, to feel the amazing elaborate concert of it, working together & doing not-so-bad, considering. 3) The writing is the most difficult part of it all, because my impulse is to keep a tight clamp on all the pain & wild emotions, lest they spill out & refuse to obediently go back IN! The invariable onslaught of raw emotion is acutely painful to me, & I need to find ways to let it out in manageable rivulets. The flood of it hurts like fire, & is destructive like fire. It is difficult to make writing a productive & restorative thing for me. But I'm hoping to learn. And I think I will if I stay with it.
This is nothing like what I expected to write. I thought I would talk about how when I began dancing today, I was in the living room, directly in front of the picture window, & when I looked out, I saw that my boyfriend's ex had just pulled up in front of the house (duplex. she lives downstairs. that is a tale for another day), & I was clearly visible to her. I dance-shuffled into the bedroom & awkwardly boogied there for a bit. I thought I'd remark on how foolhardy beginning this dance-blog untertaking while in the throes of major weepy PMS.
I will talk about all sorts of stuff in this blog. I'm not going to plan, censor, or edit it in any way. Some days it will probably be funny & amusing, & other days, it will undoubtedly be a place to cry & rage & hopefully find some meaning & humor mixed in with the pain as I document it. If you've made it this far, I'm truly impressed. Stop by again some time.
Yes!!:) much love to you!
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