futurebird's Diaryland Diary
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the way of darkness
Lexington, drenched.
I have a lot of work to do today. I want to wrap up things at work with this huge project we�ve been working on for two reasons: my boss has been out of town and I don�t want to give the impression that I�ve been slacking off while he was away, and this weekend I�m spending some time with R and I want to enjoy it without having and work-related thoughts nagging me.
It�s 7 in the morning and I�m planning to go in early and hit the ground running. I feel very good today. I ran a bit last night, I also jump-roped for half and hour or so. I keep thinking it'd be hilarious to choreograph a dance piece for jump rope to the finale of the opera Carmen (sans libretto�) I�m thinking it be sort-of overly pretentious and serious and so funny, but also totally beautiful. Like piloblus. I really want to get out and see some dance again. It's been too long.
I had a good conversation with one of my co-workers about acting and playwrighting and how hard it is to find �serious� theatre people to work with. By serious I don�t mean self absorbed, or pretentious, just people who do the work for its own sake, not to be famous or for the money or whatever. She agreed to let me write a monologue for her. We might do a monologue play. We�ll see how it all goes.
As happy as I am to have met R, and as excited as I am that we�ve grown so close so quickly . . . it hit me last night that I�ve gone and done it again! I�ve failed to make a friend who not also a love interest. I�m really bad at making friends. Especially female friends. When I was terribly sad last winter I remember reading in a cheesy self-help books about the importance of a �support base� I scoffed at the idea at the time. What good could that do? (moreover, what do I have to offer anyone in the way of support in return!) "I don�t really need anyone!" I thought. But, I can see now that is completely untrue. I think I try to convince myself that I don�t need any friends since I�m scared of the deep and needy void inside of me. It's like one of those hollow caverns in iceberges that can swallow up artic explores whole. It's so deep and ominious it has it's own little biospheare of inbred monserts who have evoled over thousands of years so that they are adapted perfectly for my particular crevass! Crack the surface and they might die instanly from the change in pressure or the sudden infusion of oxygn... Why is it so loathsome to me to be needy? What is worse: the sense of �exposure� or the feelings of total weakness? or is it just some morbid desire to protect my pet monsters? Is it all three?
R challenged me to get back to the work of theatre. I�ve been neglecting it for so long�I pulled out �joe magarac� and worked it over last night. Suddenly, I wondered why I had not sent the script around earlier, it�s in very good shape and only needs a few changes to be ready to share. I could see how much I had lost confidence in my work. Fears of rejection, fears of finding out that I couldn�t simply write and expect it to work every time, fear of the hard work.
�If you give up on something because it causes pain, or because you fear pain then you follow the way of darkness!� (from satyagraha, tolstoy scene 3)
Follow the way of darkness! Who? Little old me? (bwa-ha ha ha ha!)
"O why did I go to the Yamuna river? There the moon apple of Nanda�s eye lay waiting under the kadamba tree. The honey of his look, the radiance of his body --these were the bait and the snare he laid: and my eyes lit there like birds, and at once were trapped, and my heart leapt like a doe into his nets,� leaving the case of my breast empty, and goaded by his glance, my pride, that wild elephant, which I had kept chained night and day in my mind, broke loose and escaped me!
At the first note of his flute down came the lion gate of reverence for elders down came the door of dharma my guarded treasure of modesty was lost. I was thrust to the ground as if by a thunderbolt Ah yes,� his dark body poised in the tribhanga pose shot the arrow that pierced me. No more honor,� my family lost to me, my home in Vraja lost to me. My life is only mine now --and in life there is only darkness leading me."
(from In Praise of Krishna: Songs from the Bengali)
Ha! 'darkness' is not so bad always, I think! But the fear? That should be fought. To be brave I must feel afraid first. It's not any sign of braver to avoid everything that makes me shake in my boots. Here's to rattling knees!
Oh, here is a drawing I made that everyone seems to like:
I�m working a few more �letting go� drawings. I�ll post more soon.
dharma.html - 2002-08-29
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