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| Finding my way while losing it or losing my way while finding it? |
Number 4 in the dance writing bonanza series.
Dance A's For My Own Damn Q's
VOLUME 4: DOUBT REARS ITS HEADY HEAD
OR: THE QUESTION SPIRAL
What questions and challenges are you currently encountering?
I was fresh off a triumphant feeling of wholeness. I was centered, if not in body, at least on the page. I spent all morning yesterday writing about when and why I feel centered. I wrote about how I make it happen. I felt confident, a rare gem in my self-tripping emotional arsenal.
And then I sat down to answer my next question. It happened to be about questions themselves: "What questions and challenges are you currently encountering?"
And all hell broke lose in my brain. Resistance. Panic. Anger. Who would ask such an exposing, soul-peeling question. Why am I taking this so terribly (and being such a baby)?
When I originally posed this question to my students, I meant it in the context of taking a dance class. I wanted them to share what confused them in class--techniques, concepts, knowing Right from Left. "My hamstrings feel tight when I hang over my legs...what can I do?" "When we perform in class, I feel silly. Does that change?" "What is Modern Dance and why would I sign up for it?"
Okay, I realize I am asking for exposure. Vulnerability. And I see when I pose the question to myself, I take it personally. This question raises my hackles. I want to skip it. Who's going to care if I erase this one little question? Me. Alright. But why would I ask this? It feels like a personal assault. That's extreme, but I feel exposed (just like my beginners do when I ask them to open their arms and their hearts). I want to smooth over this ultra-open wounded feeling with a light, pithy answer that doesn't scratch the surface. But I know I'm going in. I don't know where it's going to go. Here we go.
(Side note. I originally asked my students to answer these questions with a meaty paragraph or two and no more. It was a way to quickly capture their thoughts and reactions and gauge how the class was landing in their brains. Somehow, though, when I sit to answer these questions myself, they hit emotional sweet spots (and sore spots) and the answers have become long diatribes of delirious discourse. So be it. Hey, Queen of Distractions and Sidebars...come on back to the task.)
This question cuts to my core--my balanced, enlightened, groovy core that was so light and bubbly only yesterday. When I begin to answer this question, I don't think of my technique-laden dance answers. I take it as an affront to the way I live my life. I see and feel all the blocks that keep me from being fully myself. My blocked creativity, my procrastination, my collection of degrees sitting idly, the work I do that I could do better, the feeling that I'm not good enough, the judgement of myself that I feel so strongly that I superimpose it onto the way other people look at me. Oh, those challenges. The "how do I make it through the day with something to say" challenge.
"I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darnnit..." confirms Stuart Smalley of Saturday Night Live yesteryear. I would say that for most of the time, I'm on board with this. I'm more on board with "good enough" than I've been in several years. But there are triggers, questions that cut, things that make me question the status quo. Doubt rears its ugly head and change is certainly, constantly, on the horizon.
When I first tackled (avoided) this question, I wrote down a list of other questions in my notebook. I never answered the original query. I just evaded it with more questions. I think that list boils down to two essential questions for me:
Why can't I get started? What is holding me back?
I have so much I want to do. I can feel my potential bursting at the seams. I keep it down. I keep it humble. I downplay myself. I have so much I want to do, I can't do any of it. It's too important. It's the BEST DANCE IN THE WORLD syndrome. THE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL syndrome.
For the past few years, I essentially stopped rehearsing. I didn't bounce many ideas off anyone. I called myself a dancer but I didn't dance. I called myself a writer who wanted to write. I was waiting for something...a lightning bolt, an invitation, a cushy supportive artsy job...I don't know. I was waiting for an external fire starter. I didn't have the juice or the balls or the hutzpah to just begin. I felt "underwater" or "behind myself"or "perpetually wearing old glasses with an outdated prescription." I watched the world move without me. I couldn't write about movement if I was still. I was sad. I was underground. All the while, I blamed the world for holding me back and not giving me a chance. When I finally turned off the music and the podcasts and the TV and the running water I noticed that it was my own vice grip on myself that held me back. I fell into the classic artistic trap..."If I don't share anything with the world, it won't judge me." The unfinished work in my head remained pristine, unchallenged and showstoppingly awesome. MacArthur Genius Grant good. And invisible.
For years, untouched artwork laid inert in my ratting brain, sometimes boing-ing into my consciousness as "AUGHHHHHH!!! I never did that!" And then I'd go buy groceries or make soup. All good things. But it wasn't words on a page. It wasn't finishing my half-finished dance film. It certainly wasn't getting anything off the ground. My heart pounded silently and only I heard the call. I changed the channel.
But I knew I needed to write. I knew if I got that started, it would unlock so much.
And hey, I wasn't a slug. "Check the records. I did some stuff," retorts Bill Murray in Scrooged. I taught, I performed, I choreographed. I dusted off my leg warmers. Again, all good things, things I love. But it wasn't work for me. It wasn't the work that rumbles right under my skin.
Last year, I laid some groundwork. I connected with friends and family and fellow creators. I read Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones and it shook me to the core. It woke me up. It sparked a writing practice however irregular. It taught me to get the contents out of my head while my inner critic is out to lunch. I read Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon and agreed with every word. But I have yet to really show anything.
So the writing books keep coming, like beacons, like life rafts, like reminders to !?$#@$ WRITE. Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way is underway. I've decided the embark on her 12-week creative recovery program officially on March 1st. I'll let you know how it goes.
I am calling out to the world again. I am saying what I mean. I am doing the work again. I am awake if only for this moment.
I know what was holding me back was me. I know that anything that still holds me back is me. I know I've opened the door enough to sneak through and keep running my pen along the page and see where it goes. I know I need to tell you I'm writing. I know I need to write.
I don't know if I've answered the original question. I don't know if that matters. What matters is that I'm here writing now, I'm practicing.
That's what this is, just practice. A friend asked me what I'm doing with grinbearmove. What is it? It's just practice. I'm writing about movement, however that comes. I'm opening myself up to the process.
Is that what you asked for, Teach? Next question.
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