020: luck

I’m sitting on a dry space looking over a deeply blue marsh, knees pulled to my chest. No spring peepers—just birds, rustling through trees on the other side of the water. I’m lost in thought when I notice the jingle sound, soft padding paws. I turn; a brown-and-white patched dog, ears perked and flappy, eagerly sniffs my hand. I stroke his silky head, feel warm lapping tongue on my fingers. His master calls him, apologizes. “It’s okay.” He sees my face, grins; they run onward. I watch until he and the dog disappear. I find that I’m breathing again.

019: yet.

Two weeks remain of classes. Then exams. Then home for the summer. I won’t come back to Gordon for a year.

I just wanna cry.

For months I’ve been feverishly excited for Oxford. I still am, underneath. But the realization that this year is nearly over is shocking me, practically killing me.

I’m not ready yet. I’m not done with friendships. Or exploring the woods. Or creative writing courses. Or Marty’s. Or the quad swing. Or Beverly. Or dorm room conversations. Or anything.

I want more time.

I chose this adventure. I didn’t acknowledge that I’d be leaving one, too.

018: the swingset

afterwards I feel restless and overwhelmed and anxious, so I walk out onto the empty quad (where the real geese are) and pace through wet grass under a cold dark sky. I sit on the wood swing for a while, driving it back and forth with my feet on cement—then, dissatisfied, stand and run to the swingset behind bromley. I swing for unmeasured time, looking at stars and window lights and cars and, when I swing forward, swoop back, upside down pines and full howling moon. four short years—they have to be wonderful…but my contentedness is so fragile. 

017: sorrow found me when I was young

At MoMa PS1, The National will perform “Sorrow” for six hours straight.

Insane. Brilliant? I want to go. Could I stand there, in the pulsing dark, and hear it, washing over me for all that time?

- - - -

“The Royal Game” by Stefan Zweig. Dr. B in solitary confinement under the Nazis. He finds a book of chess games in a coat pocket, spends the empty hours mastering chess in his mind. The game, an abstraction for him, becomes his universe—he goes mad.

- - - -

Expanding into experimentalism, into madness. Dancing in ruins. Running past finish. It’s everything. Go insane, for art’s sake.

016: forgetting.everything.

literary memoir class: mind can’t absorb, process, regurgitate onto paper all of the wonders fast enough. I scribble half-sentences, jump to new thought, draw lines, flip notebook sideways, jot in margins, at the end can’t fathom everything already lost.

actually thought of choreography tonight, first time in months, ecstatic, drawn in by my own movements. missed choreography being taught in order to write mine down and not forget.

how many brilliances vanish because my pencil is too slow for my mind?

thousands. millions. as many as there are cells in me.

memory is everything; yet I can’t do it justice.

015: things I wish people understood about dance.

1. dance is art. we take creative freedoms. this allows for weirdness.

2. dance is 85% not sexual. stop watching MTV.

3. there are numerous genres of dance. different styles, different purposes.

4. dancing is really hard.

5. dancers get a lot of crap. stereotypes abound. respect us, and we’ll love you forever.

6. dance cannot be explained. that’s why we don’t speak.

7. we dance for you, audience. without you, we’re just dancing for empty chairs.

8. dance has the power to do anything. give it a chance. allow it to speak to you.

9. there’s a reason we sacrifice ourselves for this. dancing makes everything beautiful.