cold feet diaries

no, i did not leave anyone at the aisle.
i did however, dance on the frigid mall betweeen the capitol and the monument on a brisk november sunday. i am so proud of myself, for pushing myself to go out and dance in spite of the cold and the wind. it was a blessed time, keeping myself warm in the winds of change. people passed by. rodrigo from portugal asked could he take my picture, and i said sure. he says he'll email when he gets back home. he caught me in the perfect sunlight that pours out between passing clouds. he captured moments otherwise swallowed up in the memory of time. he grabbed my dancing body with his camera, and so did some others, but they did not ask my permission.

i was wearing my special five-finger shoes one of my sponsors got me. so i wasn't barefoot, but my feet were cold by the end of my 75 minutes of OSA. and i was so happy, so excited that i had danced, that i didn't realize my feet were numb until i walked away and into the national gallery of art to warm up and put my other socks and shoes on.

whenever i go into the national gallery of art it's like returning to the scene of a crime. over 18 months ago, the OSA project as I've been presenting it to the world was birthed there, in the East Building. i was with a dear friend, Celeste, and we danced for two hours, without interruption. crowds of people passing by stopped to explore our movement with there eyes, including a group of 40+ middle schoolers. it was one of my favorite OSAs of all times. it was upon leaving (we were putting our shoes and coats on), that a gallery guard came over to us and said (and I quote) "you can't be doing no ballet in here"--and from there I was fired up to liberate all public spaces with movement.

i thought it was all so ironic, that all the guards had watched us dance for two hours. that they had repositioned themselves around the gallery so that even on their breaks they could watch us. i thought after all that, when we were finished, no less, a guard comes to tell us to "stop". how can you stop movement? would you be any more successful containing the ocean? and which ocean could you contain as all of them are connected and flow into each other, and if not into each other then to some gulf or river or something. see, the movement too is just as elusive. it is not something to be captured, rather something to allow to flow through you because it is bigger than you and me and everyone else. the dance is so big that any request to "stop" doing it is absurd to me. would you ask god to stop loving, would you ask mothers to stop giving birth, would you tell the clouds to only send down one drop of rain? the dance too is too big to control, and why would we want to? it's much more fulfilling to be a participant in the movement, than to attempt to be its obstacle. such efforts are a waste of life force energy. come now, my dear living beings...let's dance!