I was sobbing so hard that I couldn’t sleep. 5 waking hours that I should’ve long been too tired to endure. But a single video I kept on loop I became addicted to. It was my childhood dance teacher performing a solo at the age I was back then.
The YouTube video was named (r)evolve. The egomaniac in me says it got taken down because of my behavior.
Using a turning board she would spin for minutes at a time. Fluid, weightless, billowing, deliciously savant-like movement.
There was one other dancer in that same studio that everyone looked up to.
“I’m no Christina Morrison…” I kept telling myself, over and over until the sun rose.
Just as one of my high school art teachers explained, beauty is the sole reason why we live and continue living.
To be overwhelmed by beauty actually puts me in crisis. That kind of beauty is not selfish, not sexy, nor self-conscious. It makes me frozen and immobilized in awe.
The next morning, police officers peeled me off the floor and dragged me out the front door.
How odd it is that enjoyment and sadness at its highest degree
are the same thing.