"I don't mean to butt in with my two sense but it sounds like it's all in your head. I work with athletes, and one of my areas of interest is performance anxiety. They're usually not looking at you, and if they are, it's because you're good and they want to be like you."
She was an anxious soul, clamoring to stay on the surface, in the space of human connection. She sought and sought and sought, displaying herself with word pictures that she felt strongly portrayed who she was or who she wanted herself to be. She was in her words, in her attachment to who she wanted others to see her as. And so she returned, again and again, to stories and impressions that she wanted to leave, trying to draw our eyes there again and again until we fully saw that image in her mind and acknowledged such with words, too. She wanted us to see her goodness and tell her it was goodness. Then she wanted us to see her liveliness and warmth and tell her it was warmth. Then she wanted us to feel the richness of her life and affirm to her that it was, in fact, richness, not the emptiness of a constantly shifting life that she fears, deep down, her world has become--that she fears, more, that others perceive. She fears that others can see the thing she's fleeing from, can see the thing she thinks others are free from, others who judge, who see, who smile but harbor inner animals who grin slyly. She thinks others are elsewhere and so she requires them to see her elsewhere, too.
"My father taught me to dance. He was a great dancer, but I wasn't interested enough. I wish I had been more interested. I wish I had learned more from him."
Two years of moving. She breaks down the time scheme for us. Three months here, playing pirate. Four months there, walking through landmines. One month there, becoming the pilgram. A week home. Ten days home. Two months home, but not home, rolling away from home. Three months here, with us, with her, with a them who lingers in the distance. She reaches for our eyes and our ears. She is still reaching, reaches toward us, through us, to the mirage she always watches. It is ahead, she is ahead, always ahead.
Dancing, dancing, her eyes alight. It bubbles through the surface—father is dead. Two years, father is dead.
Moving, moving, she demonstrates the incorrect salsa step, her eyes dance as she tells of herself, her body moving alongside her father's, correct, in place. Correct, in line, feet moving in line. In lines she can see and comprehend, now. Moving in sync with a sensical order to the world.
J reminds me that sometimes people say the thing they most need to hear; they clothe it in advice, but it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit, there is no context and it doesn't fit. She wants to hear herself say the things she wants to be true for herself. Performance anxiety. She wants to be seen, but she is afraid of being seen. She wants to live as though no one is watching, but she wants to get good at life so everyone will watch. She wants the paradox to resolve. She wants life to resolve.
She moves, away from us, scanning and asking and looking, her stride solid, shoulders bent forward heavy. She does not know what is next, she says. She steps past us and I watch her walk away.
No comments:
Post a Comment