18 Enero 2011

I would be lieing if I said the Peace Corps wasn’t an opportunity for me to run away from my past and find my future. In fact, I did lie. I specifically remember one of the questions in the interview process:

“Is there anything here that you are trying to get away from? Romantic relationships, family?”

“Nope.”

I did lie in a way.

I wanted to leave behind all memories of dance and every relationship I had during my short-lived dance career. It is true that the only deep meditation I can reach is while I am dancing, and now my body can’t allow me to do it anymore, so my coping method is forget it. As I continue to heal as time passes, there is still a pang in my stomach, lungs, and heart every time I think about movement to music.

While I have found another part of me that involves the mind and teaching, it will never be the same as art.

For Christmas my mother and grandmother sent me a care package with a bunch of little goodies that can be combined with the things I have access to here to make healthy food. For example, bouillon for gravy or soup because I have no refrigerator to keep meat in, and cans of tuna for tuna salad because I have eggs and celery. I am chopping the hard boiled eggs now for my tuna salad and suddenly I see my mother’s hands. Cutting a hard boiled egg is tricky because it is so slippery. When you get down to the bottom of the oval your systematic plaid pattern won’t work anymore because the egg will fall out of your hands. My solution was to just chop it in random little chuncks, and suddenly I could see my mother’s hands in the kitchen on Willowbend Rd. coming to the same conclusion. Perhaps, somewhere subconsciously, I just remember how she taught me, but, part of me believes that she is within me, even here, even now.

I have come to realize that there is no “leaving your past behind”. It is impossible. Just as I will forever carry my mother’s and grandmother’s hands within my own, there will always be a ballerina inside me. While my instrument can never be what it could have been, the artist continues to grow. Even outside the dance studio, even without a plie, even without a performance, ever. The artist can never be buried. Even if dancing is not my future, it is forever with my future no matter where I am or what I am doing.

My solution? I have been hunting for a piano. There definitely isn’t a piano within an 8 hour radius of my home, but perhaps in the city of Arequipa someone will be able to lend me a room once a month to soothe my soul a bit. Wish me luck.