I can't dance.

It is 1 a.m. on a Friday. The apartment is quiet again. Just me and the cats. The Secret Garden soundtrack is quite wonderful for a contemplative and somber mood. Inspiring, mournful, upbeat at times, and of course--the strings. I'm a sucker for strings. They usually make me unable to sit still, but I still can't dance. I can whupp my students' butts and my own in the Burn class, I can break down moves and dole out combos and even teach full sequences of steps that comprise the length of an entire song.

But I am unable to truly dance yet.

Since arriving home from Quebec and throwing my life into this upheaval, I have only danced three times--the Alabama show, the Durango show and for the rehearsal dinner at the wedding of one of my students. Each time, I relied solely upon the inspiration from those people that had hired me to perform and from the audience that watched (never a shoddy mode of inspiration, but rarely my sole life-blood of creativity). I hear the music, I love it and feel it and am as moved as ever, but the idea of allowing it to animate and embody this hunk of flesh and blood is simply not appealing.

Perhaps it's because my dance room is still ringed with unopened boxes, and the floor is continually the place where furniture that needs overhauling is drug in to be painted, since it's the biggest open floor available. Perhaps it's because the shades aren't up yet in that room, and there is a straight line of sight into my neighbor's windows--and the dances that I really need to do absolutely MUST be done in complete solitude. Those dances that are for me and me alone that fully encompass the depth of the multitude of emotions coursing through me. Or perhaps it's something much more simple than that--perhaps I'm just not ready yet.

I recognize this feeling. It is the feeling when I stop plateauing in karate and my entire mode of sparring changes. It is when my feet get all wonky in kata because I am learning a new way to move and execute strikes. It is the feeling of the coil and stillness before the pounce--that time of steadily scanning eyes and quivering haunches, licking lips and sniffing nose as I decide what my next new toy will be and then SPROING!!!! Onto the stage I burst! This phase is always awkward, frustrating, annoying, fraught with many growling complaints over tea as I decide what is in my way and what needs to go in order to make room for new things. I become a bit rabid about my boundaries. I lysdexize katas that I know inside-out, I trip over rugs on a hardwood floor, I have insomnia and regurgitate massive purges into my journal, I growl and snarl and gnash my teeth.

And I almost always stop being able to dance. I put on the music and nothing flows, nothing is natural, nothing feels right. That's because it's not. It is the old, outdated mode of doing things and I just haven't fully arrived at the new place yet. It is like the struggle from the cocoon. It is the pain of birth contractions. Like the wriggling out of the old snake skin. Huh--fitting that the animal for our brown belt is the serpent...

This phase is highly aggravating and yet at the same time, it is blissfully satisfying because I've done this enough times to understand exactly what is happening. I know this dance well, for it IS a dance. Unmistakably. It is one of the many I do. I have a saying about "what I do"--(OK I have many, but this is one). "I am ALSO a belly dancer." And this dance I do over and over. It is a dance I hope that I never stop doing, because once that happens, I will sadly flatline and then decline. It is inevitable, if an artist stops growing and learning, and I hope I am never quite that comfy.

This totally sucks. And it is perfect.
I am exactly where I need to be. And I don't have to like it one bit.
Through all of this thrashing and gnashing of teeth--flailing, Janet and I call it--I am actually quite content.

Usually I go through this for a few days, maybe an awkward week, a funky month. It has been an entire season this time. The last time that I went through this cocooning, licking-wounds-in-cave stage for such a prolonged period of time was after my car wreck--and anyone who knew me before or during knows what happened to my dancing after that. *eyebrow & grin*

*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*
The mournful strings play on, emanating from the dance room and whispering to me of what I could be doing, what I will do again, what is truly in my heart and soul to do...and I remain at the computer pouring out my thoughts into it. My feet remain content to stay under the desk. My butt remains content to remain rooted to this chair. It has no interest whatsoever in shimmying. My hands and hair and head and torso are interested, but only slightly. Not enough to get up. Not yet. It's not time yet. There is still too much cleaning and organizing and putting things in their places to do yet.

I went through all of my jewelry today. When I arrived in this apartment, there was left behind a paint-be-dripped table with a little inset drawer, a dresser with a missing bottom drawer and many scratches and dings, as well as a lovely wooden cabinet--or what would have been a lovely cabinet if someone hadn't spray-painted in obnoxious red a big ole A with a circle around it. I considered simply adopting it as my ARRRRG cabinet, but only for about .2 seconds. Instead, I painted the dresser and table the same terra cotta as in my office, gilded all the metal, scraped and ajaxed the snot out of the tabletop, and turned them into my new sewing table and fabric dresser. I got some nice baskets to put on the floor beneath the dresser where the missing drawer was--it holds my yarn and spare tassels now. My office is finally cleared out enough that I can see out the windows once more and I had weeded through enough piled-up boxes that I was able to get to my Anarchy Cabinet and do something with it. So I sat with it for quite some time, staring and licking chops with quivering haunches.

Then I pounced. One gold metallic spray-paint can later, all of the groovy trim work was shiny and bright. Then I painted all the panels the same sky blue and turquoise as the dance room, washed out the inside and purred a good night sleep while it all dried. So today I went through all my jewelry, organizing, cleaning, setting aside things for repair, matching up the earrings with their necklaces that had made it haphazardly into obscure nooks and crannies. All those neat containers that hold my shiny baubles, as well as my dance candle supplies and the bucket of fans--they all now reside in the once vandalized, abandoned and now reclaimed cabinet. It really is stunning and I can't stop staring at it.

It is taking a long time to move in, because these are the sorts of activities that occupy my time. I have done the same thing with this apartment. Lisa and I just looked at the Before photos the other day and laughed ourselves silly as we cringed in remembrance of the grime and holes and gunk and broken windows and horrid paint--or lack thereof. As I weed out my belongings, clean off the ones I wish to keep and find the spots where they belong, I do the same thing with my heart.

And I dream of dancing. I had the urge last week--just a spark in the middle of a coffee shop when an energetic Latin-type song came on. My butt wiggled for just a moment. And then two days later I had a dream that I danced. I don't remember what I wore or what I did or where. I just know that I woke up having dreamed it. And the songs are beginning to call to me. New ideas springing up where I have been wandering in the cracked, dry desert for 3 months. Just a little trickle here, a burble there, a flash that I catch out of the corner of my eye. Occasionally I try to capture it, but it is elusive and disappears the moment I turn to look at it. So mostly I remodel my apartment and sort through the collection of the things that have been deemed under the Mine Category. It takes a little work to make them Mine again, rather than Ours Even Though I Use Them, and I play a lot of soundtracks these days. Secret Garden, Blade Runner, Gladiator, Braveheart...and techno. Driving, pulsing beats with hard-edged melodies and voices full of 'tude. Mournful contemplation and adrenaline-induced determination. And my Sarah McLaughlin resides in the CD player under the kitchen cabinets for when I cook. Heartbreak and adoration, sorrow and hope all in the same breath. That is me right now.

I'm very, very tired. I want my life back. I want to live in a home, not a construction zone once more. I long to dance. But my friends say that I'm laughing and smiling and am much more calm than they've seen me in ages--some of them, ever. I am reminded of the Phoenix. One of these days, I will unfurl my wings and burst across the sky like a blazing comet. But for now, I smolder, I sleep, and I dream of dancing.


Thank you all for your wonderful encouragement and words of love, and for your patience as I reside almost solely in my hidey-hole. Indeedy--artists during hard phases can be creatures of immeasurable inspiration and explosive creativity. Fertilizer. Gotta do something with this crap, after all. May as well put it to good use, or else it just stinks up the place. *grin* 'Night.