I have problems with my physical self. Do not misunderstand this. I am not taking about my weight. I think my perception of my weight is pretty ok in that I am not illusioned to thinking mine is ideal but looking in the mirror does not traumatise me. In fact I often get distracted and linger to admire.
I am taking about my body in its completeness. Movement. The ability to manipulate my movement and persuade the air around me. To adorn the space. I am mad that I cannot adorn the space.
I laugh at myself sometimes, I tend to take myself too seriously. But humor me for now.
Until quite recently I have been far too flexible for my size or age. I noticed. I like to stretch and stuff. I think I could've made a great dancer, if I had started early. I still dream about it. In my head I dance. I get upset about it so I usually opt not to think about it at all. How my body has become dumb. Do you believe in physical intelligence? I do.
When I was about 6 I fell in love with ballet and ice skating and gymnastics. I once saw ice skating during the Olympics and my eyes were glued to the screen every time I came across it on TV.
When I was in grade two I started going to what was considered a "white " school and became one of the few black children there. In my class , Vuyiswa and I were the only two black girls. I found out that the school offered ballet and gymnastics. All the girls in my class took either ballet or gymnastics or both, even Vuyiswa. I asked my parents if I could join the classes but after finding out that I had to pay extra for it, my dad told me we could not afford it. My heart was broken. Its so silly being a child because despite my broken heart I would go watch them after school, everyday peeking through the glass door admiring their elegant little pink tutus, wishing I was in there too. Dreaming that someday soon my father would say it was ok now and that I could join the class. Hoping. Ducking from their instructor so she wouldn't see me and tell me to go away, I would quietly cheer them on. I would ask them about it afterwards.
I think for a long time I have been mad at my father for not paying for those lessons because, that wasn't the only thing he couldn't afford . After a while as my English improved I found out there was music lessons and swimming lessons too. Dad said he had no money so I couldn't take piano lessons or guitar lessons like my friends did. I took the swimming lessons because those were free and after drowning and chocking for four years, I finally cracked freestyle in grade 6. Practiced twice a week for an hour, no other swimming pool access besides school and I was competing by grade 7, however without winning.
I made the most of what I had but I never got what I wanted. This sounds dangerously too close to my life right now. I am now aware that my father was the sole breadwinner in a family with four kids while funding his own university fees and balancing that with a job and other duties at the same time. It was a luxury we couldn't afford.
When I was 20, doing second year at University, studying Drama and Music (does this seem natural to you? ) one of my lecturers started a ballet class for adults. I went to the first lesson. When I got back at my dorm that afternoon I cried and cried and cried and then never went back to that class again. It was too painful. Physically not as painful as the girls were complaining about. Just painful in my heart, deep down. How do you start ballet 13 years late? It amazed me as we grew up a lot of the girls dropped ballet, one by one, dropping gymnastics. I was appalled actually. My best friend dropped karate just after she became a blue belt in grade 6, I didn't understand why or how people just quit.
I learned how to quit, however. Im not so proud of it anymore. In high school I joined netball and I quit. I joined tennis and I quit. I joined basketball and I quit. I joined squash and soccer and athletics and cross-country and I quit them all! I joined field hockey and my father made me quit claiming that the sport was too rough for girls. Eventually as it took a toll on my permed hair plus I was getting strange migraines after practise, I quit swimming. In my matric year I quit debating too. My teacher got so mad she didn't speak to me for a month so I wrote an apology letter and went back. I didn't want to be there though. It felt good not to be tied to anything, not to be committed. To have choice, the litte that I had. Besides, neither of it was what I really wanted. The one art class I took after school was cancelled because I was the only student there and the teacher was not staying extra hours for just one student. I joined the Art Club instead and painted a huge portrait of a woman outside the art room. It was a copy of Jeanne Hebuterne I by Amedeo Modigliani.
In university I picked up keyboard studies as an extra subject and I was thrilled at it! I was the second best in my class. None of us were previously trained. However by third year I had too much work and already taking English as an extra subject, I had neither the time nor the money to take it so I dropped the class. Once again my funny budget defied ny dreams.
Since then I think I gave up on my physical art. My dancing, my singing, my music, performing my poetry. Yet its not dead within me. I have a friend who dances and choreographs and she started at 20. Every time I see her on stage I want to cry. She is so naturally aware of her physical self and beautiful at expressing it! I'm blessed to have friends like these. I have a friend who recites and sings and raps and chants like she was sent to wake me. I have friends attached to their instruments like they were limbs. It is through these people that I realise myself now.
And maybe someday soon I will find my presence.
No comments:
Post a Comment