Return... To What?

Yesterday was my first live performance since February 2020 -- twenty-seven months ago. It was my first performance as a married woman, the first since my ADHD diagnosis, and the first performance where I didn't know a single person in either the show or the audience.

This was a curated show for National Tap Dance Day, and my class learned our entire piece over Zoom specifically for this show. I didn't meet a single one of my classmates till the day of.

I also had nobody come to see it. My family and my best friend couldn't afford the gas money (who could, really?), my in-laws were camping, and my husband stayed home as a precaution because of his health issues. I didn't have a single person the audience to greet me after the show.

This turned out to be a good thing, as it was far from the triumphant return to the stage that I hoped it would be. Dress rehearsal went well... too well. I tried to push the apprehension out of my mind, but when I pushed the apprehension away, I apparently also pushed away all memory of the second half of the dance. It was an absolute train wreck. It probably sounded like one too. I skipped huge chunks of sounds all while trying desperately to make it at least LOOK like I was doing the same thing as my classmates.

I know it's been a long time, but watching how well everyone else was doing in dress rehearsal after the same two-year interruption that I experienced made me feel even more like a has-been who really never was. I had thought -- or maybe hoped in vain -- that the long sabbatical would refresh my mind and my muscles. Apparently this was not the case. And I don't know how to come back.

So much has changed-- not just in the world, in me. I don't know who I am anymore. I was thrust so quickly into this identity that I never expected -- a wife -- in a time where not a single speck of the rest of my life was 'normal.' I had no anchor on which to build my new identity, so I cobbled together some scraps ('ADHD,' 'forgetful,' and my so-called 'friends' supplied the ever-popular 'too negative') the best I could. I tried to return to the old one -- to 'dancer' -- and my brain said 'no matches found.'

I don't know what to do. Do I try to get it back? I want to. But how?

The Effect of Perelandra

Almost finished reading C.S. Lewis' Perelandra.

READ. THIS. BOOK.

I am not kidding. I do not care who you are. I don't care if you normally hate fantasy fiction (I do, actually). I don't even care if you normally hate reading. READ THIS BOOK. It gets off to an incredibly slow start, but once it gets going it grabs you by the soul. Not the throat, not the heart -- the soul. What the Chronicles of Narnia has lost by being so immensely popular, this trilogy has retained by being almost completely unknown.

Ordinarily I would start thinking, what can I take from here to improve my own writing? But to try to strip writing advice out of a work so -- there are no adequate words -- intense is to strip it of its weight and meaning. And perhaps that would be an unnecessary exercise anyway -- as I was just saying to my brother not long ago: whatever you're reading will, for better or worse, show up in your writing. Your output will begin to reflect what you're putting into your mind, your spirit, your soul. You don't even have to try for it, it just happens. I was telling somebody the other day that as soon as you start trying to be sincere, you're no longer sincere. That particular discussion was in the context of interpersonal relationships and communicating feelings through writing, but it also applies to art -- as soon as you 'try' to make something great, it automatically loses some of its potential to be great.

Instead, I'll try to document some of what this story has done to me.

For it did do things to me. I was reading Buechner the other day and he said something to the effect that things like painting and music are subcutaneous arts -- they get under the skin and slowly seep into your being. But writing is an intravenous art -- it goes directly into your bloodstream, in minutes, undiluted. If I ever doubted that, Perelandra has proved it to me.

I've never really been one to read trashy novels. My mother was a huge book-lover, a teacher, and a bit of an intellectual. My earliest memory of her is of her reading to us. We, her offspring, read copiously as children and teens (that was just what people did in their free time, wasn't it?). And because my mother was very aware that what you read influences how you think, she ensured that we had access to books of substance. Those were what she bought and read to us, and so those influenced our tastes as we began choosing our own reading material. As a writer myself, I can't stand trashy junk-food novels -- the mass-produced brain-clogging recycled intellectual and emotional pablum that serves only to give your eye muscles a little exercise but not your brain. But even though I haven't even been reading trash, this book makes me think 'this is what stories are supposed to be.' This level of intensity, this real, this rich, this deep, this poetic/allegorical to the mysteries of real life. It's like every story I've ever read to this point in my life has been a cheap facsimile of a real story.

I needed to read this story now, at this point in my life. It speaks to so much of what I've been thinking about and going through lately and puts a lot of it into perspective.

For a while now, I've been realising that I'm different, on a fundamental level, from most people. Even writing that sounds a little boastful, and I don't mean it to be. I mean it only as an observation. I'm beginning to realise that not everyone sees what I see (intellectually/spiritually/emotionally) -- they don't make the connections that I do. When artists say 'people don't get it,' they actually mean that -- people really, truly, do not get it. And it's frustrating because to me it seems to obvious, so simple, so logical, if only you pause and think about it a little. It's like I can see -- however dimly -- what goes on behind the curtain of the empirical world while most everybody else seems to not even realise there IS a curtain.

And although the layperson might think it's cool and fun to see things others don't -- I used to think the same thing till I realised I was one of them -- it's actually so frustrating. You can only converse with people in shallow terms on shallow subjects. As soon as you try to steer the conversation to something that actually does interest you, challenge you intellectually, they check out and tell you you're getting 'too personal.' It's like how a mother feels when they're cooped up in the house or the car with their two-year-old all day long -- it's like you can feel your brain atrophy because of the lack of conversational/intellectual stimulation. Except I experience this adult-in-a-room-of-two-year-olds phenomenon indefinitely -- the only person who seemed to 'get' what I see died three and a half years ago.

It's not something to brag about. It's more of a curse. (Yes, I do realise how cliché that sounds, but it's an accurate description.) It's like I'm doomed to forever be misunderstood and patronised. I've written before on how I often feel the weight of other people's pain and concerns -- things that don't bother my life but weigh on them -- so heavily that often I physically can't breathe.

Every so often, usually at a time when the weight seems heavier than normal, I'll ask God, 'why me?' Why did He choose me to be one of the misunderstood, one of the special ones? Must I be alone in this heavy calling to see so much -- and be completely unable to do anything with that information?

(Spoilers ahead.)

There's a scene in Perelandra in which Dr Ransom grapples with the same question -- why must he fight the spirit that threatens the planet's sacred, fragile innocence? Why not Maleldil? Why not anybody else? Why him? He's nothing special. And I recognised, on a gut level, all those questions because I have asked them myself. Why me? Why am I the one chosen for such a lonely life? Why must I be so completely and incredibly alone, in every possible sense of the word?

This, naturally, turned my thoughts to my own half-finished novel Kyrie. The main characters touch on similar questions within their own experiences. Those two characters represent a friendship that I long for in real life -- that platonic intellectual thing that is completely at home and comfortable with the other person in their questions, exactly where they are at, engaging with them but not lecturing. The entire novel is basically me laying out the kind of friendship I long for in real life but -- I'm realising -- may never actually have again. It's the relationship Ransom has with the Green Lady of Perelandra -- intellectual and innocent.

This further turned my thoughts to a specific friendship I'm in -- one that I hoped would turn into 'something more,' as people like to put it, but so far has not. Yet we somehow have remained good friends. This person has seen me at some of my most broken and vulnerable moments and was content to simply exist alongside me in those times, without lecturing or proselytising, just existing and listening (exactly the thing I need that apparently seems to elude everyone else despite my detailed explanations that this is the thing I want to you to do if I'm struggling). Lately I've been wondering if this is, in fact, that deep comfortable companionship I've been longing for. Perhaps we have been denied romance because romance would cheapen (or needlessly complicate) what we have. I have been trying to be more content with our relationship as it currently is -- not focusing on what I want it to be. In the words of the Lady, "The fruit we are eating is always the best fruit of all."

And there's the other question: am I alone?

In that same scene, Ransom eventually hears from the darkness what he must do and despite his fear, he knows (somehow beyond explanation, but I 'get' it because I've experienced that deep certainty myself at times) that he will succeed in his task. It's no secret that the voice out of the darkness is Maleldil, and it's also no secret in the novel who Maleldil represents.

Something in me still doesn't want this answer to be enough (a held-over scar from the Year of Hell), but it's a question I can't not even consider.

(Possibly more thoughts to come as I finish the story.)


REFERENCES
Buechner, Frederick, The Clown in the Belfry, 1992.

Media Marathoning

Why are music marathons not a thing? We have Star Wars marathons, Lord Of The Rings marathons, Disney marathons, and heaven knows you can marathon any TV show you can think of (as long as the Netflix gods have deemed it worthy of their endorsement). These are seen as perfectly legitimate ways to either get away from it all (*cough* procrastinate) and recharge by oneself, or to have a party with friends and food and group selfies.

But why don't we do this with music? Why don't we ever invite the gang over to listen to the complete works of Steve Taylor? Why not spend a weekend listening to all of David Meece's albums in chronological order? Why not throw the entire Prodigal box set into the CD player and sit down with a beverage of choice or maybe some popcorn and listen to the whole thing straight through? Why not time travel through DeGarmo & Key's entire career? Why not listen to the complete ¡Alarma! Chronicles or Larry Norman's Trilogy on vinyl, for the heck of it?

Granted, for bands like Petra or Newsboys or the Imperials, this could get a bit long. But it's an idea worth considering.

Thought Bubble

Maybe I am crazy. What will this life give me in the end? Not money, that's for sure. Does love and passion outweigh money? Maybe I should stay here. Maybe I should move to the city. Can I really be happy doing a nine-to-five? How much long can I last in dance with my ankles the way they are? I should have picked up a second job. I'm chasing a pot of gold that doesn't exist. Now I won't be able to finish my degree. This degree won't pay for itself. I won't make that money back. Where will it come from? God funds the things that are of Him, right? Is this of Him? How do I know? Will He tell me? Do I just guess? How can I prove it? How much stock do I put in those tiny little signs? Am I spinning everything my way? Where is the money going to come from? Maybe I am stupid for trying to pursue this. Is art really needed? Does art really touch other people as much as it does me? Is it my place to try to encourage people who refuse to be? Why am I doing this, trying to help people if I can't even keep myself above despair? Who am I to say I have hope when I don't believe it? Why is money so freaking important? Why can't I enjoy my life without having to field these money questions? Should I get a student loan so I can continue college without having to take a second year off? But the degree won't pay for itself... Why do my thoughts never resolve, just keep running in circles? Why would God put this love for the stage in my heart if nothing could be done with it? What's the point? Was it to mock me? Was it to make other people feel better about their stupid ridiculous dreams? If I died everyone would bend over backwards trying to fulfil their interpretation of my dream without me but they don't give a rip about it now when I'm alive. Life would be easier if I was dead. I wouldn't constantly have to make these decisions and work my butt off for a dream that doesn't make money and a job to fund the dream. Although isn't that what people do anyway? They work their job to fund the American dream. All those hours and there's no money at the end of it and there's no strength left for the dream. Why is the world so stupid? You kill what you need. Or don't you need art? Is that a lie that I've believed in my desperation to avoid the nine-to-five? Is that all this is? Would the pressure be off if I gave up and worked as a secretary? Or would that be a denial of my soul and my God-given calling? But was it even given by God in the first place? How do I know? I should have applied for scholarships sooner. I should have... I should have... I should have... I don't know what I should have done. What is right? Is it right only for me or is it right for the plan of God to be fulfilled? Why do I have this burning need to avoid the nine-to-five? Am I just lazy and justifying it with art? Am I stupid? I must be or I would have applied for scholarships sooner... or given up this dream. Is it just that? Is it just a dream, a cautionary tale for my future self?

Round, round we go...

Another day, another 5600 revolutions of this circle, this thought bubble, this hamster wheel of the mind, spinning its tires and rehashing these questions to death, adding other more complicated questions when I'm least mentally prepared for it?

Welcome to my life.

The Glory And The Flame

Originally written 27 December 2014. See this post for a fuller explanation of my apprehension.


This has never happened before. I have never had a performance actually bring me to call into question my ability and calling. Even this spring when I danced entirely the wrong section in the middle of the Waltz of the Snowflakes in Nutcracker, I did not doubt my calling or ability (my memory, maybe...). But tonight, on the eve of my second-ever solo performance I am actually ready to quit. To just drop everything related to dance -- performing, choreography, everything. I can't do this. What made me think that I could? What insanity made me think that dance was my calling? Was it just me playing God? Because, when I think about it, how do I actually know God called me?

And the stupid part is, I can't even articulate why this one impending performance has me in such a state. It's a five-minute solo piece in front of an audience that, by and large, doesn't know the first thing about dance. Like at all. Most of them probably don't even know the stereotypes. Anything I do, whether technically correct or not, will be a novelty to them. They will honestly have no clue whether my dancing is good or bad other than from their own aesthetic perspective which I can't help anyway.

It's a solo. I can (theoretically) improvise if I forget or screw up, and nobody will have a clue. I don't even care about that. All the articles say that as long as you perform with confidence, you could make a thousand mistakes and people won't notice. And if there's one thing I've learnt at college, it's that. I would never have survived my voice finals (or my theatrical audition) if it wasn't for that. You just put on the mask. You lie. You smile and pretend it's all right.

So I guess tomorrow I'm going to church to lie.

I want instant gratification. I want to know in advance that I won't fall over in the balance in attitude devant. I want to know, right now, that I won't blank at the easiest part of the choreography. I want to know in advance I will actually have the physical strength to get through this. I want to know, now, that I won't bore the crap out of my audience with some kind of self-centered, self-serving, made-up crap for five irretrievable minutes of their lives. I want to respect my audience. And that means giving them something good to watch -- something well-prepared and well-executed and pregnant with meaning.

But on the other hand, we who claim to serve God also have to toss in that whole 'Soli Deo gloria' thing. Am I doing only for the glory of God? Or for the glory of God and the pleasure of man? And if it's the latter, does that not cheapen the glory of God? But then where does respecting the audience -- His creation -- come in?

Whose Dream Is This Anyway?

The Edge Of The Dream.

I gave this blog this name mostly because of the White Heart song of the same name, but I justified it because I felt I was at the beginning of the journey to the dream God has placed in me -- the dream to dance/choreograph/be involved in the stage world.

But over the past couple of months, I have begun to question whether or not it is God's dream for me. There were quite a few little things that were sufficient to convince me two years ago that God created me to dance, but in the past year or so, all that has been thrown into question. Did God really place that dream in me? Or did I take it for myself and convince myself that He had given me this desire? Has my desire to be in the dance world filtered all of my experiences to such a point that I am unable to hear God saying, 'no, this isn't it'?

Over the last while, I keep hearing sermons and messages and things mentioning sacrifice. I always thought the idea of sacrifice in the Christian life, while not wrong as Scripture teaches it, has been grotesquely distorted by the churches of North America. Sacrifice, say the churches, is the law against cracking a smile. You cannot do anything you enjoy, if you don't think your life sucks, you haven't sacrificed enough. 'God created you for a purpose, whether you like it or not.' Sacrifice, say the Scriptures, is hard, but it is for your greater good, and one day you will look back and be thankful that you did because your life has been the richer and more enjoyable for it.

Which is correct? Am I supposed to be sacrificing the dream or sacrificing for the dream? Is this my dream or God's? How am I supposed to know?

I don't even get to find out the answer to this at my leisure. A huge opportunity has come up for me to be involved in an existing dance team, and the application deadline is Monday. Ordinarily I would jump at the chance. But the catch is, if I am accepted to this position, it means that I very likely will not see my family between August 2014 and April 2015. For most people my age, that's an incentive, not a stumbling block. But I'm odd one for my age and generation... As a homeschool graduate, I have spent literally all of my time with my family. As a result, we're pretty close. The two-month blocks between mod breaks here in college pushes my limit as it is -- can I really handle eight months? That and I'm the oldest of a rather young set of siblings... I feel an enormous responsibility to be there with them, to be a present sister, and instead I'm a nine-hour drive away. I've seen them for three weeks out of the past five months. I keep hearing how one of my sisters is practically gutted by my absence. I'm glad that she misses me, but on the other hand, I don't want to destroy her by prolonging the agony of separation. I remember being that age. I remember feeling unloved. And I didn't even have an older sister who left for college out-of-province. How much more will my history repeat itself in her life -- and how much more will it be amplified by my absence?

Which is worth more -- the family God put me in or the love for the stage that He has apparently given me? Which trumps which? Under what circumstances?

Music Nerd Musings

I was just thinking... why do we have a drug problem? I mean, who needs drugs when you can have music?
Seriously, who?

Music Day

I hadn't actually paid much attention to this song -- after all, on the album it's preceded by Bye Bye Babylon, Sing Your Freedom, and Let The Kingdom Come; three of the best White Heart songs ever, one right after another. By the time you've listened to all that you're reeling from the sheer epicness of it all and your brain takes some time off to process it, thus mostly missing the next couple of songs.

But the other day I really heard this song for the first time.

And my reaction was... wow. Just wow.

Such emotion. Such honesty. Such raw vulnerability.

You can almost see Rick looking in the mirror as he sings that line... I look into the mirror; Have a silent fear; There is no-one really there... He nailed this song. Absolutely nailed it. He captures the apprehensiveness so perfectly.

Title: Eighth Wonder
Artist: White Heart
Album: Freedom
Year: 1989
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

I've been thinking about me
Wondering who I am
Trying to be somebody
Wondering if I can...