Loneliness... A word that has in so many ways a really bad rep... It is something, a state we, as a people, Westernised people I would add, fear, are ashamed of, feel pity for and spend a lot of time in our lives trying to ensure we do not have to reach her shores, lest we come face to face with who we really are.
This dance piece, in fact no, let's start from the beginning, this song, Diminutive by Tin Hat (for it was the song that inspired the dance) has haunted me for a few years now...because it spoke to me at a time when I needed to hear it's message and gave me strength in a dark place.
The above video was from about 4 years ago and yes, I felt so utterly alone, as I have at many points in my life. But not because I had no one in my life; I had my beautiful children, my friends, family...but because I opted to spend my time (other than with my children) alone, dancing gently with myself in wide open spaces, because I felt unable to connect with the world around me. Yes, it is possible to feel very lonely, even in the midst of a crowd... Sometimes in fact, the crowd exacerbates that sense of isolation, because it makes you realise how disconnected you feel from the world around you. Many struggle through at points like this, make themselves engage. I personally believe that at points like this, we need to allow ourselves to withdraw and reflect. To purposefully choose aloneness.
Yes, I àm aware, there is a huge difference between the, slightly emo, soûl searching, existential solitude of someone choosing (if that is even the correct word) to be alone, and someone actually having no one close, someone, like my neighbour I went to visit last Christmas, who has lived alone for 40 years, whose friends have all died and his children live in America... He is alone and bitter. He is lonely and has been for decades. It was not his choice and he feels trapped by that. Yes, I accept that that is the sort of loneliness we all fear most...but our fear of that, often propels us to fill our lives with things that do not allow for at oneliness, for solitude, introspection and purposefully shutting yourself off to regroup. I am all for community; without community we are but specks floating free, and to ensure we create the kind of societies we want to live in, we have to compromise, collaborate and understand each other. We need the support of our communities. BUT... in order to be a valid and valuable member of any community, you need to know exactly who you are and where you are coming from, and that involves a) shutting off the noise at points and b) taking away the props that make you feel whole. What I mean by that is what makes a good, strong community is strong individuals, not sheep. And until you know yourself; your drivers, your fears, your hopes, your essence, what are you other than a sheep?
The dance piece is one I did a few years ago now in my favourite graveyard. I find the idea of dancing in a graveyard quite symbolic and thematic for me, because dancing is one of the things that has always made me feel most alive but also, the solace and at oneliness I find within dance is something I have never found elsewhere. Some say love is the antidote to death, I say freedom of expression, creativity (dance for me) is... So the idea of existing at that intersection between the internal and external, in a place that lies at the intersection between life and death, this world and the next, is kind of beautiful and resonant to me.
Dancing to this song, in this particular graveyard, as can be seen here, has become somewhat of an obsession to me... This was perhaps a year or so after the first one and in fact this year (due to my knee injury) has been the first time I've missed it, not gone there to dance, to this and other song... usually I go in Autumn and Winter.
Because yes, that shutting myself off from the world around me went on for quite a few years and to varying degrees isn't 100% complete. I think what I was trying to work through, in many ways, was that achingly human question of who am I? Yes, I know, many reading that might think, jeez, isn't that what self obsessed teenagers do, not women in their 40's, just get a grip. But this is where I think the problem is in this society, where many go wrong ... People are not encouraged, supposed to be so concerned with who they really are, because really, indépendance, individuality and autonomy are NOT characteristics that are seen as useful. How can people be socialised if they are all free thinkers and individuals, and if they can't be socialised, they can't be controlled. Best put the word out then that the search for the self, that that state of introspection is something to be demonised, that it is self absorbed and anti the idea of community.
I remember à friend, à few years ago when I was in the midst of this, asking me why I didn't come out for a drink at the weekend... I didn't have my kids, what was I doing. When I told her I'd been dancing, she was non plussed, and à bit angry. Her response was classic, "dancing? We went dancing, you should have come with us, I'm sure it would have been much more fun than dancing on your own"... Classic because she had missed the whole point of the function of dance, for me. Of why it was not a rejection of her, but me just embracing me and figuring myself out. Giving myself time for me. It, dancing, had ceased to be a social endeavour because it was a form of meditation and kind of sacred to me, along the lines of prayer for those who are religious. It was precisely about being on my own.
I spent a few years dancing, slightly obsessively, through the streets, in parks, graveyards (the one in the above videos and others), outside prominent buildings, in my home, anywhere, everywhere, every moment I could. What it, and à few other key events in my life, taught me, is quite personal really, and too much to attempt to fully express here. It is also something I am to varying degrees still working through. So although no, I would rather not be living in a state of enforced isolation (because of the pandemic) I don't have the same desire many of my friends do, to go out, get trollied and dance drunkenly to music I haven't chosen ... I miss being able to dance, to music that has meaning for me. For me, due to my knee surgery, it will probably not be until the summer before I can start again, but I have to admit, I miss that more than the ability to freely socialise and 'go out'.
In these last few years, one of the key things I have learned, is that I don't have to wear that social mask. I spent many years, starting as a child, believing myself to be weird and dull and feeling the need to be extra, uber, loud and theatrical. Most people that (think they) know me in real life, have that down as my persona. The extrovert, the show off, the social butterfly and life and soul of the party. Yes, that has definitely become a part of me, because when you routinely put on a mask, regardless of the reason why, it becomes a part of you... I suppose the trick is getting back in contact with what lies beneath that mask and then coming face to face with the slightly awkward and dull version of yourself that you believe no one will like, so therefore you have shunned. The trick is believing, clichéd as this might sound, that what other people think of you, is NONE of your business and that you get to define your worth. As the saying goes, loving yourself (for yourself) is one of the greatest acts of revolution you can do.
Going through that intense period of introspection has definitely taken its toll, I won't lie. A) my knee 😂 ffs, I literally wore my knee out and into a fine paste with the amount I danced and hence now, I'm in recovery after having to have surgery. B) I have less friends... The more comfortable I have felt being me, being unapologetically me - which involves speaking my truth, being intensely passionate and allowing myself to say no to things that I know I can't do - the less people there are that feel comfortable being around me. It made me realise that too many of my connections with people were based on a lack of depth and that people needed me to be that willing reflection of themselves. It's that old cliche of someone saying how are? And the other person actually tells them, and they go, whoa, I didn't actually want to know!! I have realised how uncomfortable it makes me feel to make those kind of weird, socialised concessions. I am not on the spectrum, but my inability to engage in that kind of meaningless conversation - where people are trained to not be honest about what they think or feel, for the sake of things being nice - maybe is a slightly ASD thing to feel. It's not that I don't understand those nuances, the reasons people engage in this way of communication, it's that I find it stifling. And yes, when I find myself in situations like that now, I have a tenancy to just switch off and either think of nice words, music, dance steps/series of movements or something altogether more obscure, like how a certain smell is affecting me, or way the wind feels as it caresses my ears.
Basically, the me of old would have joined in with those conversations, because I felt that I needed to become a member of the pack to be valid, and to hide what I saw as a dullness (sensitivity, wanting to unpick words, a need for honesty) I became this very weird, larger than life caricature, whom although I am pretty fond of (because she is now a part of me) I will no longer allow to dominate.
Getting back to the song and the dance and my stage (the graveyard)... I think for me, there is a difference between being alone and being lonely but the world in which we live makes it very hard to accept solitude for the gift it can be. Again, I state, living in abject loneliness is not a mere trifle and is to be taken seriously, especially when it is an ongoing feature in someone's life. But periods of solitude are necessary for our mental health and self development (the 2 in my mind being inextricably linked). I know many people currently struggling with the isolation that the pandemic has forced upon us, in some ways I have too, but for many, they have never known how to spend time in their own company, and actively don't want to engage in the introspection that comes with spending time alone, without the sounding board and validation of others. Don't want to come face to face with the version of themselves they have spent a lifetime avoiding. I know people who stay in relationships that don't serve them, out of a fear of being alone. People who, pré lockdown, would go out and be sociable, and/or work, every chance they got, because spending time with themselves was not enjoyable. For me, dancing puts me in direct contact with a part of myself that is real and essential, reminds me of who I am and works as a channel for my true feelings. And so, what better place to enact this Intimacy than at the intersection of life and death? A place where wordlessness takes the place of noise and I can inhabit movement and solace as one. This song, Diminutive expresses all of these feelings in its words and the music... And my goal currently, is to be able to go back to this graveyard, this coming Autumn, and dance to this song here again... There is joy in répétition, Prince once sang, because once you hit upon something that really resonates, fills you with joy and freedom, why on earth would you let go of it?
