Enough of this crap!!! - Brooklyn 2003-2004







Thursday, 26 February, 2004

I remember one of my first "breakthroughs" in yoga. I was sitting or lying on my mat, and I was looking at my hand. And all of a sudden I was overcome with emotion. It was as if I was watching myself from the outside, and really SAW myself - my essence, the sweet soul that was hurting so much. And I felt real, moving compassion for myself. And for just an instant - but an eternal one - I felt the connection that I was so hungry for - starving for, from D. - through myself.

I don't know how else to explain it except to say that I had touched God through D. in a very powerful, visceral, overwhelming way… and that on that day in yoga class, I got a taste of touching God through myself. And that's when the belief that I needed something from outside of me started to dissolve.



Wednesday, 11 February, 2004

I may be able to go a very long time without receiving love, but I don't know how long I can go without giving it. Physical love, I mean.

That's something that has surprised me. I realized it with Antonio, and I felt it again after breaking up with D. The need to give. You can learn to live without receiving love, you can get used to not having it, numb to the cravings. But the need to give is more powerful. It is what drives us, and keeps us alive. It is what will guarantee I don't stay alone forever.



Wednesday, 4 February, 2004

It is SO important to teach flight. That's what my ballet teacher does. And that's what yoga does, in a different way. To teach the uplifting of one's soul.



Monday, 2 February, 2004

At the Met.

Paying my respects to Sakhmet. Who I first met here in 1997. There's a new plaque here now:

"The museum invites visually impaired visitors to touch this sculpture. For conservation reasons, we ask other visitors to refrain from touching."

What a nice idea. Of course it would be nicer if they put it in Braille… OK, there's another one on the other side with a Braille version. But what a decent thing to do. What a civilized thing to do. And then I understand why I am here. To experience civilization again. To be reminded of it.

To be reminded that taking off my shoes at airport security is NOT a part of civilization. Just the opposite. It is a big, chunky piece of the detritus that comes falling down as a civilization crumbles. And the gum-chewing slob who asked me to open my bag at the entrance, before I even took off my gloves - and then didn't even really look through it?? What's he? He's not detritus, but he's a hanger-on, a slob, someone who has likely not contributed much to civilization, and won't be of much use in rebuilding it. Civilization supports slobs, makes their lives comfortable, allows for them - but slobs do not support civilization.

God, what a bitch I am!!! But what am I supposed to do? Pretend that I like people who behave like… I don't want to say "animals," because I like animals… who have no respect for anything, who have the attention spans of tsetse flies? I don't. There are people in this world who disgust me. And there seem to be a lot of them. And sure, if I got to know them individually, I'd see their beauty and their unique qualities, and I'd thank god that they were here on earth.

But I DON'T get to know them individually. I see and hear and smell them en masse, in the subway, in airports, and while I can't say I hate them, "strong dislike" is not going too far.

Anyway, that's why I'm here today. To experience the opposite of that. And the opposite of what our country is becoming - a police state where individuals, disgusting or not, matter not, and indeed may not even be safe.

At least there's still the Met.

Back to Sakhmet:

Hey, the Egyptians knew that "war, violent storms and pestilence" and "healing" were two sides of the same coin. Sakhmet was goddess of both.

What will survive of OUR culture? What MUST survive? …and in what medium/media will it survive??



Sunday, 1 February, 2004

That German man who was willingly cannibalized after having sex - "romping" I think they called it in the press - with his killer - it's so sad. Because I'm sure he hungered for the ultimate - for the ultimate surrender, the ultimate release, the ultimate and utter giving of oneself to another. Completely. And at a CELLULAR level.

If only he knew.

If only he had known that sex by itself IS that. Had he really been making love with his killer beforehand, there would have been no reason for his death. One would have already crossed over into the other, taken him over. And a part of him WOULD have died.

But I guess he didn't know that. Is it because he's not a woman? Or just because he's numb?

It's like the gay men who (reportedly) get a deep thrill out of seeking sex with HIV-infected partners. "Bug-chasing" I think it's called. I know. It IS thrilling. Thank God I don't need literal death to get that thrill.

They are simulating sex. Simulating what it really is. Simulating sex, with death. How ironic.

And for D, sex alone wasn't good enough. Wasn't exciting enough. He needed drama around it, needed it to be "bad." …or maybe it was TOO exciting? Too scary… and the drama and gimmickry kept it on a safer level.



Monday, 29 December, 2003

A year ago today, I did not want to be as strong as I am now. And yet I did the things that would get me here. I put myself in the presence of teachers who were much bigger people than I ever wanted to be.

And now here I am. Still not as big as those big people. But bigger than I wanted to be then. And I have to ask myself - what was it inside me that kept me on this path, when all the loud voices inside me were screaming for something else? Something that now I'm not even sure I want. Who was that voice? The voice that got me here?



Saturday, 20, Dec., 2003

Newark, AKA "Liberty" International Airport.

So I forgot to wear a wireless bra so the security lady doesn't feel me up before I board the plane (the last one was embarrassed when I said that's what she was doing, and rightly so. What would these people NOT do if ordered? I wonder if they know) and have to dig through my bag before I check it, for the sports bra I packed for yoga. I then head for the nearest restroom to put it on.

While I'm sitting on the toilet, it flushes, sending a spray of water up at me, and I curse out loud, not caring who hears me, not caring if someone thinks there's a crazy woman in that stall over there. (It does NOT flush when I stand up.)

I come out and head for the elevators to the security checkpoint. A grotesquely oversized American flag hangs draped between the two escalators. But I've seen bigger…

In my purse, I carry a few doses of potassium iodine, in case there's a nuclear attack while I'm out. In my travel first aid kit is a whole bottle of them, and at home in my vitamin cabinet is another. I also carry in my purse a zip disk of all my data files in case something happens to my HOME (or my home computer) while I'm away from it. I don't update it often enough. Every time I take a trip, but that's not enough.

And it begins to dawn on me, as I unzip my boots, using the exercise to practice standing on my standing leg - really on it, so I could do a couple of fouette turns right there at the security check if I had to - it begins to dawn on me that it really is pointless to fight all this. Not because it's too powerful and my energy could better be spent elsewhere. But because it doesn't need fighting. It can't sustain itself.

A world that spits on people's butts while they're still on the toilet CANNOT last. "It" is like a powerful wave that, right now, is surging upward - too powerful to pull back. But just as certainly, it will come crashing down on itself. The movement of this wave isn't what we need to concern ourselves with. It's already in motion, and we know what will happen to it. What is important is what endures. THAT is where our attention needs to be. Preserving it, protecting it, building it. And being ready to create an environment where it can flourish once again. When this environment comes crashing down - I hate to admit it, but my father just may be right about that. It IS coming apart.

Those things that endured the fall of the Roman Empire were the reasons for Rome. NOT the empire itself. And not the anti-empire. That coin is just not worth playing with. Neither side of it.

Art, technology, philosophy, scientific inquiry, a system of social order that respects the individual and at least tries to do a decent job of protecting them equally… those things didn't die with the Empire.



Notes from my trip home:

1. Riding in the stuffy car "so we don't breathe in the carbon monoxide." So, what? Instead we ride in a little box of air that gets recycled over and over again until it's fully depleted of oxygen? That's better?
2. Finally, desperate for someone else to understand the absurdity of it, I put a sign: "WHY???" Across the FOUR open jars of grape jelly I find in the refrigerator. Three of them are close to empty. (I never get a response to my question, but the next time I look, there is only one grape jelly jar. Yet, inexplicably, there doesn't seem to be any more space in the refrigerator than before…)
3. Why is it so DARK here???
4. "Where did I put my hat/keys/glasses/checkbook???"
5. And now we come to… the gremlins…
6. My father steps in the dog's shit, so, a couple of mornings later, my mother stands at the kitchen garbage can picking dogshit out of his shoes with a toothpick. "He makes more money than I do…" is part of her explanation.



"Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting, and doing things historians usually record - while, on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happens on the banks."

Will Durant
"The Story of Civilization"



Saturday, 13, Dec., 2003

David Gordon's review of the Chris Hedges books - he derides people's need for extreme experience to give meaning to life.

Why not, instead, accept that we do hunger to be passionate - about something, someone, about what we do - and ask why we as a culture have decided that the thing most worthy of our passion is killing and running the risk of being killed.

Or is it just the easiest? The one requiring the least imagination?

Admittedly, if we are talking about extreme experiences, risking death is right up there. Yet there are cultures built on other experiences that do not rely on violence, that provide powerful inspiration, and yes, sheer terror, for its members. Theater would be at the top of that list. And filmmaking. Dance, music, any kind of performance. In other words, creation, rather than destruction.

After the World Trade Center towers came down, my first coherent thought after checking on my loved ones was that there was nothing on earth more important than creating, and love. That there really was a war going on, a war between good and evil. That evil was represented both by the men who brought down the towers and by those who inspired their hatred. In other words, politicians and power mongers. Good was represented by love, and by creating, and it suddenly became more important than ever to do those things and nothing else, to not allow any energy to be sucked into the perpetuation of evil.

It was suddenly vitally important that I make a movie, write a book about the boy I loved… it mattered more than anything that I find a fabulous ballet teacher, and then dance. I had to create something beautiful, I had to produce something to help counter the ugliness and violence that threatened to engulf the world. The only possible antidote to all the destruction was not more destruction, but creation.





(For earlier blogging, see my archives.)