Argonaut II

She opens her eyes. She is alone.

Turning in the dark she senses the trees. Senses and does not see - for she is stumbling and blind, tripping over roots and rocks, hearing the elegiac sway of branches. She falls, hands and knees full of dirt, does not cry out. She stays down. It is quiet except for her pounding heart, her rasping breath, the music of branches. Not one creature makes a sound, even the insects sleep. She stays down. She wonders what they dream about.

Slowly she lifts her head. Glimmering through the trees, just ahead, there is.....something. Weary, aching, she pulls herself up, tests her arms and legs, takes a tentative step. Should she be afraid? She is not, she has forgotten herself. She steps firmly, folding back the branches. Her feet dance over tree roots, rocks, vines. She crushes the cool, flat green leaves in her fists and lets go, the branches snapping back over the path.

At a break in the trees she sees the source. A lake and the moon. The impenetrable water caresses the shore, lulling the reeds with it's gentle suck and slap. The moon reflects, mysterious, seductive, on the undulating surface. She stands at the water's edge, wondering, longing. She kicks off her shoes, unties her dress - wriggles free, unfastens her bra, throws it from her shoulders, steps out of her panties - kicks them away and.... stands, feet in the mud - present, creatureful, naked, alert.

With a holler, she jumps! Plunges deep into unknown water. It is shocking cold and seizes her limbs. She stays under, holding her breath until her lungs are on fire, until her head rings - a crystalline sound like the chiming of bells. She stays under. She opens her eyes.

The moon is luminous and cold over her left shoulder. She could reach it in an hour - sleep long, hard and deep on it's dark side. The stars surround her - gaudy prisms - resonant with light. And in between, the dark void. A vast, unobstructed space - she has forgotten herself. She laughs, turns somersaults, arabesques - basks in the cold harsh light of the moon, the song of the stars, the velvety darkness. She gasps and pauses - spotting the earth far below. Oh, it is breathtaking. So small, so precious, so green. So rare....so impossibly bright.

Argonaut

She places her right hand against his chest. The long plane of his sternum fills her palm with presence - with the striving wings of ascending birds, the pounding breath of steam engines, the roar and rush of waterfalls, the vivid locomotion of heart and lungs - it fills her palm with... life.

She wraps her left hand around his neck, twining her fingers into the hair at the base of his skull. She tightens her fingers with each inhalation, each exhalation, pulling him closer - feeling in their bodies the epic pulse of radio tower lights. Silent they stand, signaling into the sky - simultaneously warning and inviting - aeroplanes, bats, moths! - crash into me/don't crash into me.

She presses her lips to his neck and breathes deep. Rain on hot pavement, the rich loam of fresh turned earth, the sun and salt kissed skin of swimmers, the hushed scent of sleep warmed beds, sweet honeysuckle and the bite of burdock. She breathes - intoxicated by the himness of him. She places his hands around her hips, slides them to her waist - willing him to traverse this landscape. She is of the mountains, craggy, rolling, verdant - secret with hollows, tree roots, streams and brambles. Her heart is a red bird hiding, watchful and silent, in the underbrush. It is brilliant. It is built for flight.

She unbuttons the top button of his shirt - fingers stinging and shaking from the shock of his bare skin. She strokes the place just below the hollow of his throat. She worships this diamond of skin. She is prostrate before it, she is breathless, she is light headed, she is bright. It is sacred, it is volcanic, it is ravishing, it is right. It is the only part of him she will ever have.

She closes her eyes, holds her breath, counts to ten. She opens her eyes. She is alone.

The Enthusiast

I forget myself. I have made promises that now fall to other people to keep. I am deeply grateful. It is a kind of salvation, a lifejacket that keeps my head above the water while I work out my ineptitude. While I decide whether to tread water or to swim.

I am an enthusiast, you see. I love people. I really, really LIKE them. I rejoice in connection: creative, mental, verbal, literal, emotional, physical. These connections fill me with elation, with a kind of bliss. Ecstatic, I forget myself - like a child engrossed in an imaginary game. I leave the world behind. I am happy, interested, electric, alive. I act. I turn, spinning and spinning until I fall down. Dizzy, overexcited.

It's only when I wake from the dream that the embarrassment kicks in. A sense of shame. It confuses me. Embarrassed for having been who I truly am for a little while? For letting that secret self into the world? Or is it for having made choices that prohibit my true self from being fully present? Embarrassment?! I could weep for the lack of joy in it.

I try to stand brave in my shoes, chin up, with a bold gaze. You only get one life. I am an enthusiast. I walk the line. I have done nothing, I confess everything not done. I don't kill (not even mosquitos!), I don't steal, I don't lie. I confess the stupid things (I drank, I smoked, I kissed, I danced) - even when it costs me.

And yet there is an embarrassment. Because (it seems to me) I am too enthusiastic. Because I have too many words. Because I want. Because I act. Because I spin and fall down. Because I find it so very difficult to be myself in the world. So very difficult to stand brave in these shoes.

Horse Shoes and Hand Grenades

For once, there was no confusion. Heart, body, and mind aligned with a resounding "Yes!". If something interesting was happening, if some life was going down - all of me wanted in. How rare! How completely, helplessly in love with the moment. Laughing for the absurdity, the joy of breath and heartbeats, sweat and mosquito bites, chipped nail polish, hair, hands, sternum (oh sternum!), spine, hips, leg bones. The impossible tickle and texture of grass covered in morning dew. The siren song of smell, taste, touch. (ah, smell!). This is not all there is, it is not even the most important. But for a lovely, loved moment, it was enough.

Morning. A morning when the sand has already run through the hourglass. When forces are not gathering - not trembling on the potent verge - but dispersing with a "whoosh!" to the four corners of the earth. A morning like this is no time for beginning.

Possibility remains. A hidden land. The voluptuous, undisclosed country of the imagination. It is a secret joy. An inner talisman I hold against difficult times, boredom, sadness. Friendship remains. Art remains. Happiness remains. Creativity remains. Memory (oh yes, thank God, memory!)... remains.

And having so much, I open up my arms, I spread my palms to whatever is coming. I laugh and count myself lucky. Something amazing almost happened! Maybe something amazing did happen. Almost... only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades - so the saying goes. But no matter what angle I look from, I call it a ringer.

Es Ist Schön

Music, language I have known my whole life. Vibration of cells, rhythm of the very heart. As a child, I used to listen to my pulse beating against my pillow, the oceanic hum of my breath. The strum of my Dad's guitar, the twang of his voice, "Hey Jude!" as I played with dolls on the living room rug. Hymns sailing over my head as I stood tiny and bold in my dress shoes at church. Chewing the half stick of peppermint gum my Grandmother offered, I listened to my Grandfather's booming, imperfect voice "Oh the land of cloudless day! Oh the land of an unclouded day!". A consolation to Sunday boredom.

And suddenly (it seems) I am 38 years old and onstage in Germany. Mature with the joy of eyes, vivid electric connection, sonic shapeliness, sensuality of sweat, vitality of breath and motion. I can hear you breathing next to me! Ecstasy of hearing! Brain lighting up like a thousand fireflies, playing together, playing apart. Here comes my favorite bit....right....now! We leap into it together, full heartedly and my heart is...full.
We are wicked and polished. Daredevils! The Red Baron in a streaming scarf and goggles. We are barn storming and everyone knows it. They laugh, applaud and wriggle in their seats. They..... enjoy, we enjoy!

Screw all jadedness! All sad sap gigging. All sighing and humpfing and dragging of feet. Smile....rejoice with me a little. These are people who really know how to play music. They give and give and give. It's not so easy when you breathe life into every damn note. When you pay attention to what is going on around you. When you make a decision, a solid determination to be awake, aware, alive....every moment. That is the effort, the gift.

These are people who really know how to play music. It makes me happy, grateful. Proprioception - extend awareness outward - ears, body, mind, heart. And we become something so much bigger than ourselves alone. I will never forget the last chord of the tour - Emlyn you rolled it! I heard you.

History of Flight

The strange stasis of transatlantic flight. At 35,000 feet, I lack imagination. The world below does not exist. I am everywhere and nowhere, a caesura, a blip on the screen between realities. What about the lanky man in 24 C, the woman with a toddler in 26A? I cannot foresee the beautiful fiance waiting in Amsterdam, the anxious grandmother in Berlin. We are a world unto ourselves, a little silver realm without connection. For these few hours, for this brief flight, this is all there is. We watch movies to distract ourselves from the uncomfortable, pervasive question.... do we even exist?

I am running away from something. Home? I leave behind... people, belongings, the vestiges of language. Airports delight me, they throw me into despair. A paradox. Cathedrals of transit - arches of energy, crossing, dancing, bubbling over, never stopping. There is not one thread to grasp. The ephemera of life shifts and shimmers in the terminals. It is a diaphanous glow, forever cresting and waning in the wake of bedraggled travelers.

Nothing really happens in airports. Planes land, people eat, change diapers, meet, buy duty free, use the restroom, collect baggage, make their connecting flights, planes depart. We all stride purposefully, nervously, looking straight ahead. Do not smile, do not make eye contact, do not leave your baggage unattended, report all suspicious activity. I want to place a warm, crushing kiss on the businessman sitting across from me -to knock over his briefcase - to taste the coffee and hand rolled cigarettes on his lips - to grab handfuls of his wavy hair - to astonish him, astonish myself - to prove that we are really here.

In the hotel, I pace. I am vaguely fearful of the cleanliness of the room. I long for connection, context. A fingerprint on the bathroom mirror, a crumpled taxi receipt behind the door. Tangible evidence that someone was here before me, proof that I am here now. I brush my teeth, spit in the sink. I open the window, close it again. I sit on the tidy bed, resolutely muss the covers. I hear birdsong in the courtyard. I am running away from something.

Vestiges of language. Music is the language of the feeling heart? But I don't feel anymore. Not until the bow hits the string. Not until I can hear what I am saying: bold, delicate, shapely, sensual. Music is a language I can understand. First language. There is no ambiguity in it, no precision of meaning. A paradox. Music.... and the language of the body. My heart beats, my palms sweat. I am really here.

Music is the language of the body. See how our eyes meet? A look potent with connection. I smile. A knowing smile. I know what you are going to do, even before you do it. I know exactly how it will sound.

Leaf Song

To be in love again. To love my own self in the world without self-consciousness. I am who I am. To languish in the nascent, soft leaves of spring and let the laugh lines embrace the corners of my eyes. To stop all words and revel in the light of the body's own language.

I stomp my foot and feel the impact echo deep in the muscles of my leg. It is a kind of ecstasy. I swim, holding my breath tight and low in my lungs - delighting in the autonomic nervous system's insistent call. Urgency of cells, veins, bones, joints. Vast demanding desire of the mind. I touch my fingers to my lips, pondering the softness, firmness, fullness.

I turn and look. There is always something lingering just out of sight. A spirit of spring, a vernal coquette - blithe, fleeting, and bright. I blink my eyes against the radiance of the sun. I am dazzled and blind. I am bound to stumble. I transcend the fall.

Falling In With Fire

Sing to me the old ways. Sing to me a song you used to know. Sing to me the forgotten, revenant melody and send it echoing across dark alleyways, under bridges, into sewer tunnels. It is a sentinel, a flag - tattered remnant of human life - that flutters and flaps in the night wind. It beckons, traces the earlobe, caresses the throat with icy fingertips. A siren croon that lulls toward an inevitable ending.

A new song begins. Bloodsong. The pounding, striving heart of captured prey. The rhythm that arches and aches, clutching the life between each beat. A rhythm ebbing, then somnolent, crushingly brief. The surprise decay, the astonished last gasp of fading night.

The finality of shoe heels on pavement. The finality of silence. The finality of the coming light.

Resuscitate

Old Posts as New Posts - I am freaking out today. I thought this was pretty.

Maybe I was dreaming. He was with me. I could not see his face, the lines and angles obstructed by some unwillingness of mind. There was light and the soft scuff of flannel against my face. A sense of falling, a settling of limbs as into deep sleep. My hands folded together, supple, but skittish as birds. My cheek rested against his chest, my shoulder notched into the crook of his arm. An interlacing of curves and angles, the merging of frames. We fell together and fit. This gave me a sense of peace.

I measured his breaths with the weight of my body, delighting in the elastic expansion and contraction, lulled by the sea rhythm. The breath is the life. I rested content, fathoms deep. Was I home again?

I bathed - standing in the open. I raised my arms and felt the icy lash of water, the cool, solid platform of slate beneath my feet. I scrubbed and shook out my hair. I sputtered and turned, splashing water into the leaf strewn air. He stood nearby, a half-smile on his water flecked face. A face I couldn't really see but only sensed. I felt no embarrassment, no fear. It crossed my mind that I had something to do with his unhappiness. And yet he seemed.....happy. Do I dream? Am I home?

B Minor

"Half of all our lives are spent, encouraged by embarrassment...." Matt Pond PA

A man walks into a room. He is unknown and unknowing. A cypher of veins and sinews, synapses and molecules. Heart pounds, breath accelerates. He is someone (gasp), oh, he is no one at all.

A man walks into a room. He is no one at all. The play of light, molecules dancing, air breathed in and pushed out, a taut stream of superlative sound. I open my mouth and say.......ten words. I say ten words to this man. I say nothing at all. Mumbled courtesies, fumbled inanities. He is not for me. But I am filled with a sort of pride, a kind of awe for having opened my mouth.

A man walks into a room. He is everything, he is distracting, he is beautiful (gasp, oh!). He is nothing at all. Bones, sinews, veins, joints. Water, light, feeling, sound.

Foreign Press

I've been dreaming about Australia. Or rather- Australians. Dreaming something strong and deep, warm and bright. Been dreaming brave and out loud. Dreaming beacons of light that flicker and dance and never go out. Been dreaming beautiful eyes, intelligence, vigor and art. Mostly been dreaming of losing myself to that unknown land. How can I see so tenderly, so passionately, a thing I've never known?

To my Aussie friends (actors, musicians, poets, dancers) - you are the stuff of dreams.

Spanish Harlem - Smoke Signals

From the archives of my old blog - ah, summer.... I must learn how to write again.

She looks into the mirror and sees that she has become....beautiful. Whether her right eye is bigger than her left, whether she could lose ten pounds, whether her nail polish is chipped or she is getting laugh lines around her eyes, she sees it. Something about the dark softness and luster of her hair, the sheen of sun and sea on her skin, her deep set, tender eyes, the angle of her collarbones as they slope towards the curve of her breasts, the fullness of hip. Men notice her. Not boys....real men. Men who understand something beyond the mortifications and triumphs of their own adolescence. Men who know something about women. They watch her when she is walking, when she is dancing, when she is simply standing, listening to them talk.

She lays in bed, completely alone and whole unto herself. It is quiet. She remembers his hand upon her bare shoulder, the pressure and duration a kind of question, the flash of her eyes and smile a kind of answer. Though they met only a moment before, exchanged barely a dozen words, they have reached an agreement. She marvels how acquiescence, how articulation, how the necessity of "yes" fades in the light of the body's own language. She muses how "yes" does not mean "definitely."

She lays in bed alone, whole, quiet. She reflects on the sensual memory of sharing a cigarette. The way her slender fingers flared out when she reached for it. In love with the grace of her own hand. The way her palm grazed his knuckles roughly as she took the glowing ember from his fingertips. The sweet and wrenching intimacy of placing her lips around the filter. She tasted the aura of his lips, teeth, tongue. She inhaled, holding the smoke deep and taut for a long moment. She exhaled, squinting her eyes against the sting of smoke.