“Take me away from all this death”

This is what Mina asked of Dracula in the 1992 movie “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”.

These words echo in my mind as I think: “If only someone could take me away from all these lies, these projections, this meanness,
“This darkness of the soul, this need to destroy the other,
“These spider webs so skillfully and patiently woven over years, decades,
“This carefully dosed poison slipped into each conversation. Just enough to go unnoticed while being harmful. Perhaps even deadly for the soul.”

I do not understand these tactics. They are foreign to me.

What good does it do to bite the hand that feeds you?
What joy is there in seeing that the person in front of you will crack at any moment like a piece of rock you’ve repeatedly been hitting with a hammer… every day, every month, every year for so long?
How can one feed on another person’s pain?
How can one prey on the admitted weaknesses of another?
What merit is there in hitting a person where it truly hurts them, after they’ve told you it is their weakest spot?
How can anyone mistake stepping on someone to feel taller for actual growth?

Like Jiří Kylián said in one of his interviews: “I seek something to lift me just a few inches above the ground.” Like his ballet Bella Figura did for me in 2002, when I first saw it performed on stage, and again tonight on my computer screen – and all the years in between.

Bits and pieces of Jiří Kylián’s ballet “Bella Figura”

Music, food, an image, a voice, a choreography, a text, a film, an open heart, a benevolent look that, for an instant, give me wings.
Not great big wings to fly up to the skies. No, just two little wings to lift me high enough that I can avoid seeing defiling looks, destructive glances, the acrid smell of complacency, the undeserved and unwarranted pride based on reaping what another has sown. What I have sown.
Oh, that I could clip those invisible claws that scratch at me, those tentacles that try to silence and drag me into the darkest depths of the sea.

Where is this justice we so often hear of? This expected success based on merit?
Of course, I am well aware that the great majority of humans living and breathing today have a much harder, more ungrateful, more unjust life than mine.
Of course, I am well aware of my many blessings, of my great luck, of the gifts Life has placed under the tree for me.
But how, in these lasting phases of weakness, can my grateful heart find comfort in this while the life force is being drained from my veins by several foes simultaneously?
Hand in hand they walk and marvel at me while wishing my capitulation. They shoot at me like snipers comfortably posted up on a hill and then applaud when they find me still standing… and then they have another go.

As I look into my child’s wide open eyes, I pray that she never meets anyone who will wish her harm. And yet, the world is filled with such people.
And their concentration around one person seems proportional to the light that person radiates.
Inside my child’s luminous eyes, I see questions, fears, pain, but I see oh so much light too.
I wish I could tell her this light of hers is a marvellous and wondrous thing to have. But the truth is, right now, I believe it will be a wonderful thing for all who surround her.
Not for her though.
Not unless she builds herself an armour.
Not unless she feels protected by all – not just a few, but ALL who are closest to her.
A mother’s love, faith, trust, support are not and will not be enough.

She will need wings of her own to fly up, above the mud, the dirt and the slime of human baseness whenever she needs to.
Perhaps she will find inspiration in the whale and the dolphin who manage to swim up to the surface of the sea whenever they need to catch their breath.
I hope so…

In the meantime, I try not to cry when I see her big brown eyes looking at me with all the faith in the world.
That most beautiful of all beings. I wish I could keep her from ever knowing pain. But I can’t. Not if I want her to live. And that, I do.

And so, I watch Bella Figura yet again.
Thank you, Jiří Kylián, for this invaluable gift.
You have seen the human soul in all its complexity and have shown it to us in a most poetic form.
I guess if one can fall from grace, one can also be lifted into it. Bella Figura seems to do just that.

Now I must feed the light inside me to do the same. To show my daughter that it is possible.
Despite everything and everyone.
Lift my head, stand tall and be a bearer of light again, as I once was.

Excerpts from “Bella Figura”
(the best version to be found online: the original NDT)

“Anger is a cruel and furious beast”

I do not remember having had this much anger trapped inside me during my childhood, nor my youth. Sadness, frustration, definitely. A lot of both. Especially during adolescence. Love, joy, exaltation too. But now it’s anger that I feel invading my body and soul. It prevents my legs from moving, it burns inside my chest and pierces my breasts like needles, it twists and forms knots in my throat, then continues to move up my stiff neck and my tense face. It blocks my sinuses, my ears, transforms into a veil over my eyes and finally settles under the roof of my skull. There, it grows and pushes up tirelessly. Trying to escape, to find a hole, to form a crevice in order to free itself and shoot up to the stars like fireworks. Instead it remains a prisoner of my body and thus, holds me hostage. It cannot escape. So it spreads in my thoughts, it clings to my nerves, choking me and haunting my dreams.

I have no rest, let alone peace in my soul. I only see the present through this dark and twisted filter. Even when I think I have appeased it, when I feel the coal inside dying down, any unexpected irritation can have the effect of a powder keg on just barely live coal.

Oh, how I dislike this anger! My companion, by day and night, that deforms my features, consumes my flesh, carves my wrinkles, discolours my hair. Where is my strength now? My energy, my love, my hope, my faith in happy ends?

*Photo by the Feminae et Insula Collective (c)*

Anger, let me go! What can I do to free you without perishing in this battle? If only you would move downwards, if only I could liberate you into the ground. But like metal to the magnet, you are welded to the inside of my skull. I can feel all your heat as I place my finger on the uppermost point of my head. You are like a glowing cork, cutting my connection to the universe, to infinity. You cut all my ties. I feel devoid of healthy emotions. Food has lost its taste, wine no longer appeases me, champagne no longer lightens my spirits, embraces no longer move me. I wear a carapace, a shield that prevents outer harm from destroying me – and goodness from reaching me.

And yet, I have everything I’ve wanted all my life. I should be happy. But the battles I’ve had to fight alone, the innumerable compromises I’ve had to make, the mistakes I cannot forgive myself for, the stupidity I’ve had to tolerate and the insults I’ve had to swallow… they have piled up over the decades and formed such a mountain of vileness that nothing viable can grow on such rotten soil.

Now it’s too late to start all over again. I am too old, too cynical, too sour, too tired. I am the shadow of the person I used to be.

(Title: quote by Pierre-Claude-Victor Boiste)

“Deep in my heart, I know I’ve got talent”

Charles Aznavour has died.

And his song that comes to my mind is “I was picturing myself” (“Je m’voyais déjà”). Because it speaks of what every ambitious soul, what every dreamer has felt – and will always carry inside. In spite of everything. In spite of life’s disappointments, falls and wounds.

Aznavour sang about believing in a dream, even when everything is telling you it won’t come true. About staying young inside, even as you age. And this character he plays can seem as admirably hopeful as pathetically unrealistic.

“My features have, of course, aged underneath my makeup
But my voice is strong, my gestures are precise and I am resilient,
My heart has grown somewhat bitter with age
But I’ve still got ideas, I know my craft and I still believe in it

Just feeling the stage beneath my feet
Seeing the audience seated in front of me, makes my heart beat faster,
No one has ever helped me, I haven’t had any luck
But deep in my heart I’m sure that, at the very least, I’ve got talent.”

He said it all, sang it all.

And here I am, 40 years old. Inside me, I still carry the young woman that dazzled ardent glances, the one who danced on tables into the wee hours of the morning. The one artists and producers wanted to conquer. The same one who wanted to conquer it all. That Queen of the Night who drank, smoked, danced, sang, ate, loved, cried, embraced, glowed.

And today, she is more resilient than ever. More constant than ever. Though her inner light has flickered and dimmed down, the flame is still burning, carefully sheltered under a windbreak. Several times, it seemed to have perished with the passing tempests, storms and hurricanes. But, as discreet as it may be, the flame is still here.

Just like in Aznavour’s song, underneath the fine lines and greying hair, the core being has remained intact. And after a glass of wine, with the right outfit, listening to good music alongside loved ones… the vital force comes back, the voice returns, the will springs back. And suddenly, my 40 years seem to melt away. Not in that I return to my youthful naivety. Even in moments of great enthusiasm, I do not entertain the delusion that a whole new life is ahead of me. But what does return is the will to live this one life that is offered to me. And the desire to shine once again – this time with a calm glow, for a very long time. Because I am certain that this soul of mine is here to create and to bond, to love and be loved.

Because “deep in my heart I’m sure that, at the very least, I’ve got talent.”

(Text written on 1 October 2018.
Title: taken from Charles Aznavour’s song “Je m’voyais déjà”.)