Gearing Up For A Boss Fight

Several years ago, I choreographed a piece to White Heart's Desert Rose, arguably one of their biggest hits.

 

The song didn't 'take' for me, at first. It was 'too slow' for my high-octane brain, and there were so many other good danceable White Heart songs available to choreograph to.

 

Then I moved to the desert.

 

The desert is, quite literally, the place where dreams go to die. You are surrounded by nothing but brown, all year long. The grass never turns green. The trees... what trees? Those aren't a thing. Rain? Yeah, right. Cloud cover? Never met her. Cool weather? HAHAHAHAHAHA yeah that only happens in fairytales.

The desert is also home to the most formidable naysayer I have ever encountered. The church, the college professors, my extended family and multiple visits from the literal Angel Of Death combined could not do what this woman did: stop me from creating.

 

She stopped me from writing, from having opinions, from dancing, from choreographing, from talking, from thinking, from living. 

She dug me a grave and kicked me into it, then forcibly held me her hands on my throat till I lost consciousness. I have been trapped in that grave for five years. And I'm tired of wasting the breath of my one precious life being silenced by somebody who, by her own admission, knows nothing about me. For the past few months, I have been excavating the ruins of my life, trying to find the faith and courage that was once my sole focus. I'm starting to find the jagged shards and piece them together, like a cosmic jigsaw puzzle. If I can solve it, I'll find my soul again.

For my return back to the stage and the screen, I want to make two dance films: Desert Rose and Hope.

 

Hope has seen a test audience, who seemed to enjoy it. What's more, that means it's already memorised. My idea for that video is pretty simple... probably just a studio video, no fancy sets or costumes.

 

Desert Rose, however, is a lot more complicated.

 

I want to film it in the desert that tried to strangle me and God's purpose for me. I have deliberately curated a bright costume to stand out against the scat brown. Because like it or not, that's what I do. That's what I have always done. I do not and will not fit in. I do not and will not hamstring myself to impress somebody else's imaginary social circle.

Desert Rose has been 'in production' (read: sidelined by my fear of her violent, vindictive oppression) since the summer of 2022. That's over three years now. Every single year, when the weather finally cools enough to even consider being outdoors for any length of time, I look at all my plans for Desert Rose. I think about what it means and how much I want to dance again. I think about how long it's been since I did anything close to fulfilling my dream.

 

Yesterday I was watching a YouTube video about the importance of backing yourself. Most of the points the presenter made were very similar to things I said on this very blog, years ago, that this woman forced me to stop believing. One of the points was 'compare the consequences of doing the thing with the consequences of not doing the thing.'

 

I went to my oft-viewed Desert Rose planning document and wrote the following:

 

'What happens if I DON’T do this?

You will regret it. You already are. You will have no self-respect. You will be disappointed in yourself for not making a way, not trying harder... That $45 you spent on that pink bodysuit will be a waste. This will become just another brick on the road away from your dream. You will never have more time than you do now. 18-year-old you would be angry and disappointed to find out about the fearful pansy you’ve become. She would be so angry that you didn’t fulfill her dream. That you didn’t push through, didn’t follow God, that you have become what she hated and swore she’d never be. You will have crushed her dreams — the only thing she had to live for for so long. You only live once.

 

If you don’t do this, then none of her pain was worth it.'

 

I owe it to teen Kate to get back up, to put on the gloves, to train until I'm untouchable again.

 

I am about to face what I hope is the final boss: the two-headed hydra of the desert environment and the violent, manipulative woman who tried to bury me alive.

 

I will win. And I will win on their turf. 

Music Day - Desert Rose

I really only have two criteria for Music Day posts: 1. It must be legally available for purchase; and 2. It should be a song that means a lot to me at the time of writing.

This is a song that I always glossed over. White Heart has so many loud, interesting complex songs that I was very confused by this ballad's immense popularity. If you mention the name 'White Heart' (to anybody who even knows who White Heart is), this is, nine times out of ten, the first song they mention. And that boggled my mind -- what about Let The Kingdom Come? What about Raging Of The Moon? What about Heaven Of My Heart? I do primarily listen for the lyrics more than the music, but in ten years of listening, I never 'got' the lyrics to this particular song.

Until now.

I am currently living in a VERY remote 'small town' that is literally an hour and a half drive from any other civilisation. There are no arts, no theatre, no dance classes, not even a freakin Staples. We've talked of moving but small tourist towns like this have a way of hiking grocery and gas prices so high that it is literally impossible to put together any kind of savings in order to actually do it (gas prices have been $1.43 a litre here since July; meanwhile my parents three hours north are zipping around on $1.17 gas. In the same province).

I don't have dance and I don't have money. I'm just watching my dream wither and die without practice. And I've been crying out to God, asking why He gave me this dream only to take it away again; terrified that I'm going to die in this literal hole in the ground, completely forgotten. I'm terrified of proving my program director right when he said I would never amount to anything.

Is this one of those desert experiences that so many people in the Bible went through -- Moses, the Israelites, Elijah, Jesus...? Is there still some important thing I'm supposed to do forty years from now and I just have to go through the motions until then?

I still feel angry and ignored sometimes when I think about how Brittney and M and my cousin died and I'm still here. It's not survivor's guilt so much as it is jealousy. They already live in a place where mercy is unreceipted, but I'm not lucky enough to get that chance. Given the choice between life and death, I would absolutely pick death. I'm not suicidal, per se, but I wouldn't fight death if it came for me. This world is not my home, and I want to go home. I don't even really know what 'home' is, but I know this world isn't it. I'm just so weary of life here.

And it's hard not to despair completely when all you see is the desert rising up on all sides -- literally.

(Forgot I was supposed to be doing a Music Day post. Pretending those last five paragraphs never happened.)

The song opens with a mellow but very classic '80s keyboard intro that hints at some of the haunting woodwind flavours that the band would explore in more depth on their next album Tales Of Wonder. And the tender, clear, angelic voice of Rick Florian (who I still maintain in the greatest singer to walk the face of the earth, even after five years of listening to music of all eras and genres while acquiring a BA in Music) comes in, painting a picture of an ocean of featureless sand and the tiny beauty drowning in it.

And you wonder

You wonder

Can you last much longer

This cloud you live under

Will it cover you?

The chorus features White Heart at their band-harmony peak. Harmony was something that White Heart always excelled at (their best-known line-ups featured a minimum of four competent vocalists), and it shimmers here, floating along on that bed of gentle keyboard that Mark Gersmehl weaves throughout the song.

Sometimes holiness

Can seem like emptiness

When you feel the whole world's laughing eyes

This is the part that resonates with me. I feel abandoned, alone, empty, tossed to the side, unwanted, unneeded, and useless. I feel like I and my life have been wasted and I'm just a shell of all my old dreams and potential just shuffling around waiting to die.

After the second chorus, the heretofore muted harmonies go from backdrop to centre stage, filling the song with layers and that beautiful '80s 'big' production. Chris McHugh's fantastic drums go a long way here too, and the effect is so lush and rich that it was several years of listening to this album non-stop (because of the title track and Storyline) before I realised that there isn't actually a verse here, only vocalising and a bit of vamping from Florian. (They pull off the same stunt in their song Let The Kingdom Come from their previous album, but that time they did it by distracting the listener with truly epic guitars, giant drums, and energetic rock vocals.)

Title: Desert Rose

Artist: White Heart

Album: Powerhouse

Year: 1990

Label: Sparrow Records

iTunes here; YouTube here.

Heaven knows

Heaven knows

He will hold your tender heart

Oh desert rose...