Why do I feel the need to rise to certain occasions and attempt to meet force with force?
Why can't I just allow the words and deeds of others to simply wash over me?
Why do I feel it is my job, my duty, to respond?
A few weekends ago, I became impatient and frustrated with my (now ex-) boy/friend.
Always living a few steps ahead of the now, he was excitedly entertaining thoughts of an impending future in which he will be living amongst Shaolin monks. "This experience will be my Master's degree," he said. "And, after I create my own Self Creation Studio, that will be my PhD."
"Why can't you just be here, now?" I forcefully cajoled.
My annoyance was palpable and it affected our ability to enjoy walking our shared dogs together at the beach. Afterward, as I drove the distance back up north and away from the recently had experience, I started to feel pangs of guilt.
What was wrong with me? Why couldn't I just let him be who he was, and for the moments to pass as they did? Why did I feel the need to exert my will??
I called my sister to confide, but she wasn't available. I managed what in the past would have become a full-blown panic attack as I continued along my merry way to Dance Church and beyond. Life continued, as it always does.
Nonetheless, the topic stayed with me. For, prior to this experience, I had a strange, and strained, encounter with my mother. She was upset with me over some of the things that I had written in my graduate thesis. "Some of those things just aren't true, Cara," she angrily proded. She was referring to the time period when we lived in Canada, which is where I was born. I had written of one of my earliest experiences of dancing to pop music and how both the rythym and the lyrics had carried me off on a life raft and away from the rage that could shake our home to its foundation.
My mother, knowing no different, simply emulated what she had witnessed in her father's parenting style. She used fear to control her three children. She was a domineering force, with a heavy hand. She also suffered, as most of us do, from repressed anger and emotion. It exploded out of her, in irregular bouts, knocking down her innocent young and then picking them up and dusting them off in shame. "I wasn't angry until we moved here (to San Diego)," she wanted to believe. "Well, that can be your story," I responded, "but it isn't mine or my siblings'." She began to shake violently and, at one point, rose to her feet and walked over to where I was seated at the kitchen table, and behind my computer screen. She jutted her round belly into my side, while looking down at me menacingly. To disspell my own discomfort, I raised my shoulders to my ears, rolled my head around my neck, and made silly faces - channeling my little girl of old. She bent down, with a serious grimace, and peered into my face. I reached up, pursing my lips into a kissing position. The moment quickly passed, and she moved on to tend to the laundry. I, however, was left slightly unnerved.
Since then, she has shared with me that she was "only kidding" and that she thought I understood this. "I thought we understood each other," she whined.
I don't know what I understand, to be quite honest.
Nonetheless, life moves on...
At Dance Jam, that Friday, a local dancer, who is one of the founders of my favorite post-modern dance collective (Lower Left), entered our space. I had seen her just a month and a half before, but I had not witnessed her at our Barefoot Boogie weekly event ever (I think). I was grateful for her presence. She began with deep stretching - warming up the joints of her hips, knees, and ankles. With fluidity, she bent into these soft places. I wandered up to her, and greeted her with a soft hug. She spoke of the tumult of her life, of late. I mentioned my investigation of force. With that word, she begin excitedly punching at the air and flinging her arms and legs into space. She used this momentum to carry her around our shared arena, and I observed her moving in and out of full and flowing interactions with others for the remainder of the evening.
Prior to her departure, she shared with me how she and her 8-year old son had been spending time together watching "Star Wars." After the film, she openly discusses with her young and impressionable off-spring some of the themes from the futuristic sci-fi cult classic. She then thanked me for shifting her intention in that space while I greedily accepted her offering of
"May the Force Be With You."
Indeed.
The more I contemplated the word, the more I realized that I was the one who was associating negativity with it. Yet, the images that kept coming to mind were of Tiannamen Square and the man who sacrificed his body because he chose to stand up against an oppressive and initimadating force. A similar and more recent story came out of Palenstine in which an American woman also used her body to take a stand against Israel's enforced settlements. Surely, these two did not die in vain. Surely, there is a ryhme and a reason to standing up for something one believes in, and for not backing down - even if the loss of life is imminent.
