huzun
“Be wildly devoted to someone or something.
Cherish every perception.
At the same time, forget about control.
Allow the Beloved to be herself and to change.
Passion and compassion, holding and letting go.
This ache in your heart is holy. Accept it as the rise of intimacy
With life’s secret ways.
Devotion is the divine streaming through you
From that place in you before time.
Love’s energy flows through your body, Toward a body and into eternity again. Surrender to this current of devotion
And become one with the body of love.”
Dear Simone,
I've been so exhausted the last few days that I haven't mustered the mental tenacity to sit down with you and write.
Barre de Sol began yesterday. I attended the class with Salema, a former dancer in her fifties. She has long dark hair she'd tied off her face with a clip and wide cheekbones. Her eyes are ice blue. Her fingernails were painted cherry orange and her toes were painted blood red. Her posture is impeccable. The way she moves feels like pouring hot coffee over ice.
She is languid and astute, buttery smooth and crackling beneath the composed surface.
Salema's alignment cues and adjustments were sharp as her gaze; her hands moved deftly to my low back - you must strengthen here - and my shoulders - this needs to relax. From the moment I walked in the door, I could feel Salema mentally patting me down, making quick notes about my physique and personality.
Your hair must be tied back.
Lead with your head, and lengthen your neck.
Press down with everything touching the floor.
Rise from the resistence you use to root downward.
She kept putting one finger between my shoulder blades and thighs. Squeeze, she'd say, her grey eyes following my movement from the mirror. And then, respire! Respire!
The entire class was performed on the floor from the buttock, back, and belly. The same exercises are repeated in succession from different angles.
We started on our backs, lounging as we'd just woken from bed. Stretching from fingertips down the length of our bodies to our toes. We expanded and contracted, curling into a little ball on each side.
We moved through the same sequence to soft music, mimicking our morning call from bedside to Danse Citie.
As I nestled in the fetal position on my right, I closed my eyes and imagined him behind me. I sleep on my right side with his left arm anchored at my waist and his breath on my neck. I like when I can feel his curly hair on my face and his legs tucked up underneath me.
This is when I feel the most contained. Safe. Supported.
We sleep side by side, our bodies touching. What does physical contact matter if there is no metaphysical thread binding you to a person? I need the construct as well as the contact. I need to relate through language. Lately, I feel so distant from him. I do not understand what he is going through. When I ask him questions, it feels like Salema's hand on my legs, encouraging resistence.
He does not open up to me; it feels like work when I attempt to relate to him.
My dreams of him were terrible. I dreamt that he burnt his back in the sun. We were in Rio, Brazil. We went on a trip together. Everyone was dressed in white, and the skyline was purple. The ocean was a big blue blanket that rippled in tandem with the movement of the clouds. It all looked fake.
He was there with his hair tied back off of his face with a band of beads. Rainbow shorts. Topless. He had big puffy blisters down his back that had burst. Blood stripped his backside and splattered onto his calves. I tried to help him clean the dried blood from his body, but he did not want help. His hands were wet, and he smelled of iron.
I have to go babe, he said to me in the dream.
He walked away and left me in a white gown at the beach. I sat down in the water and waited. The sun was setting and my tears were creamsicle pink when I cried.
I am waiting for too many things. This is causing me strain, Simone. The muscles I'm trying at dance class demand all my effort and energy. Hamstrings, core stabilizers, serratus, lattisimus, quadratus lumborum, erectors.
Little moves toward big changes.
I am using too much emotional and mental energy on him. I do not know how to balance the Me with the We.
I am blending like water filled with colors from the wet brush. Yellow, orange, green, and pink. Eventually, I will be brown. Finally, grey. And someone will pour me out down the drain and fill the glass with fresh water to paint.
This is how life goes.
This morning, he received a call from his brother. His grandfather is sick and coughing up blood. The other day, his mother was in the hospital with his grandmother. He lives in a home with his family. His parents, siblings, and grandparents. An uncle, aunt, and cousins live on one of the floors of the four-story house.
It is nothing like I've ever witnessed or experienced. In my home, we split the floors by each kid, not by each family unit. My grandparents never lived with us and we saw our cousins only when special occasions warranted the meetup.
If someone is sick, we send well wishes. We show up only in extreme circumstances. When my grandmother died of Alzheimer's, only my father flew to Alberta to attend the funeral. My mother stayed home with my sisters and me.
This is how our family operates.
When he received the call that his grandfather was sick, he jumped out of bed and was out the door within minutes of hearing the news. Pants, shoes, jacket- by babe.
He shut the door as I was saying to text me that everything was alright.
Send me a message is my emotional response.
I have no idea how to act in these situations.
I never have.
I remember where I was when my father told us that our grandmother had died and he would be the only one to go to the funeral. I was kneeling on the floor in the dining room by a shelf. I'd been looking through a book. The kitchen was on the other side of the wall where my parents had been standing. Discussing the death.
My dad had said that there was no need for anyone to go but him; my sisters and mother, and I would stay in Vancouver.
This upset my mother, and they got into a fight. It ended with yelling and crying, doors slamming and people moving in opposite directions.
This is how every emotionally wrought episode went in my family home.
I remember the pain in my knees from crouching on the wooden floorboards for so long. And the marks from the book in my palms where I had been squeezing it and holding my breath.
My muscles clenched- respire! Respire!
When he left this morning, I had the same reaction. I froze.
First, at my desk where I'd been writing. He blew out of the room and told me he had to go.
Then, I watched him hastily get dressed in the doorway of the bedroom.
Finally, in the living room as he tied his shoes and ran out the door.
Once he was gone, I took a deep breath and felt my palms move from where they'd been clenched in a fist, tight at my heart.
Your breath is life; how will you engage the muscles without the inhale and exhale? Salema had strode through the room, speaking to form yet informing us with her philosophy. This is more than a lesson in movement; you must breathe! Breath is life; movement is life; how will you move? First you must breathe.
Simone, I feel tired and anxious all of the time. I don't know why. I feel disconnected and discontent. I don't know why. No matter how far I reach back, he cannot ground me and push my body into his chest. The up and out must come from within me.
What do you hold on to when you feel defeated, Simone?
Right now, I am holding on to you.
I am sick of falling asleep beside him and waking up as myself.
Photo source.
