I went scrolling back to see if I'd posted about her today last year on what would have been her birthday. I didn't. I did write about her in January, though, here and it's still one of the things I love best of what I've written this year.
"I was reminded — just yesterday — of her tremendous grace. The muted dignity with which she held herself. You don’t think of old people as graceful. You think of them as old. And old has become one of those words that supersedes the need for any secondary rider."
The truth is, I don't have anything particular to say about her. I just wanted to acknowledge the once-existence of her. You're not dead until the last ripple of you dissipates, right? If there's someone worth trusting, it's Terry Pratchett.
I went scrolling. And got annoyed that I'd written, November last, of the same coffeeshop I wanted to write about now. In this community. It's a lovely place with excellent coffee and it's right up the street from my favorite theatre downtown, which was fun. Peeking in at the actors on their lunch break. Hoping to catch a glimpse of one I like. Running into the daughter of a director I look up to. Life.
It was interesting, watching the similarities, but also the differences.
The place was the same. Even the sign is the same, which feels lazy to me. Of all the words worth speaking, why not wipe the slate clean?
Well, there was coffee. Both to the tomorrow of last year and the tomorrow of now. As for tomorrow-tomorrow? I'm still focused on living today.
Then, as now, I was in between two dance workshops when I stopped to have my second coffee of the day at Orygyns. Same venue, different people. Much different self. I was still then so awkward in my movements, so bruised. Still only just discovering the grace that I, in my youth, am capable of.
This past year, I have danced so much. I have given so much to my body, have worked to solidify the bridge between my physical self and my ethereal, word-bound self. It doesn't come easy. When I just started going, everything about me felt so wrong. My thighs looked stupid in tights. My movements around others were so flinching and terrified.
I still relapse sometimes now. But now I'm able to step back a second and look at myself. The curling in motion of a wounded animal. I was so wounded when I started dancing I expected even the most gentle brushes to leave welts.
I look back on my writing both here and on Medium and am astounded by how much my headspace has changed in a year's time.
"I watch you
Take my voice
Stuff it down a bird’s mouth
Smother me into song
Trill in the morning
Cries you held down
Into the pillow at night."
There was a lot of hurt there in that girl. There is still the question of why. Scorpion and frog. Eternal dance. Just my nature. Which is probably the single most frustrating answer to 'why'.
The difference is now, the 'why' comes in passing. In the silence between two breaths. It came once recently. Randomly. This great sadness at how beautiful something was, how much openness there was once in me that got stung and sunk. But it's passing.
It all passes. It's all ephemeral. The beauty and the pain. The moments I feel suspended, endless in my dancing hinge on the knowledge that eventually, I will be steered back to the waking world. Everything beautiful is in part directed by its end.
I am still dancing. I am more bold. I feel confident and beautiful in ways I thought would be very hard for me. They were. I went, somehow, on the wings of coffee and kind strangers, from being a wounded animal to wrapping myself around others, around love, around life. And all in one measly year.
Where are my origins? It's not so much that I don't remember. It's perhaps that I haven't found them yet.
The origin of me lies with her. If there hadn't been her, once, with all her flaws and fears, her own hurt, her grace and her thoughts, there wouldn't be me either. I'm wishing a lot today that I could return to origin. That I could go visit her, and it's occurring to me that I can't. And it's immensely frustrating.
One of this year's learnings has been, I suppose, that some things, you can't do jack shit about. That some hurts are taking up residence. And that's just the way things are. And the fact that there can still be so much beauty and love and excitement in this world is the most perplexing, wonderful thought. Ever. In any language.
I have also returned to origin in the sense that I am, finally, rediscovering that part of my self that's willing to trust and open and love and try.
I thought it would stay shut. But it hasn't.
Similarities and differences. Last year, I took my coffee in from the cold, reading a good book. This year, I went out and sat on the steps of the Atheneum in the sunlight, listening to the orchestra rehearsing inside.
There is life, and there is music. And there is dancing. And there is beauty. Still. Even now. And I wish she could know, and that the life around me knows about her. There is life.
I miss her.
I'm not sure if this post is entirely appropriate for its chosen community. Perhaps it is not. If it's not, Milly, I apologize.