[Above taken from a notebook I've been keeping on a creative project I'm collaborating on with a friend, a project that you will most definitely get to see, explore, and feel called to participate in when it's launched next year. I would say "drum roll, please....." but it's not quite at the drum roll stage. It's more at the faint-slightly-annoying-tapping-coming-from-over-the-mountain-range-that-will-take-about-14-months-to-get-here? stage. When you hear that slightly annoying tapping, that's us! Me and Creative Partner in the laboratory, preparing to astound you.]
The couch being whatever that place is, that magnetized, attractive, comfortable metaphorical piece of furniture that keeps you from doing what you know you want to do...
The other night I got an e-mail from KO who was talking about a movie she'd gone to see, Every Little Step*, a documentary which follows the journey of several dancers through auditions for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line.
Here's what she wrote in response to seeing the film:
When I was about 13 to 16 my dad used to take me to Broadway shows, and when I saw A Chorus Line (I think in '77 or '78)—that's what I wanted....It was so great to see these dancers that weren't all tall, skinny, flat-chested ballet types. I started taking jazz classes...I used to play the parts of the show in my basement, I had the album and would sing the songs when no one was home. But, being horribly shy, with no self esteem and certainly no one at home encouraging me—I shoved it to the back of my mind and whenever I thought about it—it was with the thought of 'Who were you kidding anyway?'
That last sentence is the most moving to me and the most important. I thought this for years after I quit gymnastics (and I even got to have a little bit of glory before I stopped competing). I didn't get to live my Olympic dream. I considered myself a failure for not staying with it. I don't think that now because I have a different perspective (ie; my body would not have held out), but I do know intimately, as a lot of us do, the sometimes-painful realization that "you can never go back." The really getting that you won't be 15 again. Or 18. That my right hip hurts if I move it a certain way...like in any direction besides straight ahead. That whatever I'm going to be or do has got to start right here with whatever I have and am.
Having said that, the present tense version of "Who were you kidding, anyway?" comes with the territory of living a creative life. For years, that phrase stopped me from doing anything. Writing. Dancing. Keeping a blog. Moving forward with creative projects.
I look at people who are successful—publishing books, performing, getting pieces broadcast on This American Life (ie; Things I Would Like to Do One Day...) And I'd get frozen in the mindset that that success, or even the "doing," was what other people did.
The belief is so specific that I used to imagine that those people all knew something that I didn't, that they got together at secret meetings, that they knew the "special people." But when I cleared all that shit away, I knew the only difference between me and them (in most cases) is that they got off the couch and did it. While I, more less, sat around just wishing I did.
This big, drastic couch period I am talking about for me was after a relationship ended. I was watching television, yup, on my couch, and it was some commercial with hip-hop dancers in it. And I felt the ache I usually did seeing amazing dancers. I want to do that! I could do that, too, if somebody just showed me how. But then "it's too late. I'm too old. I missed my chance." I heard myself. I thought: is that what I'd tell a friend if she told me she was aching to dance? No, I would tell her: go take a class! So that's what I did. I took a hip-hop class. The class led to being asked to be part of a group which led to rehearsing and dancing and competing and performing... it wasn't MTV. But there it was. The dream. (Did I mention I was not 18 doing this? I was 35. Just an FYI).
I'm in the process of writing a short proposal for a Master's colloquium presentation out west--a thing, as a grad advisor, I am asked to do. I'll do something in the spirit of Learning to Love You More--the creative assignment (take a photo of two strangers holding hands, write about a scar and send a picture of it, videotape a reenactment of a favorite scene in a movie, etc).
Having said that, and as practice, I have an assignment for you: Interview yourself about a memorable date you went on. Take on the persona of an interviewer. So you are not necessarily "you" interviewing you. You are an interviewer who knows nothing about said date. And who finds the subject matter (and you) endlessly fascinating.
Send to me at: lauradidyk1@yahoo.com and I will post right here on outloud (anonymously if you wish).
What are you waiting for? Go interview you. I can't wait to read it.
Health, stealth, and the exploration of the wide-open-but-sometimes-craggy-and-hard-to-navigate landscape of having a body, a mind, and something else none of us can put a finger on but oh do we try. (And, also, sometimes, frogs, punk rock, and unsolicited advice.)
