Etta’s howling on the stage. The crowd closes in — there’s the brush of an arm, the bump of a hip — the contact is fleeting and not at all unwelcome. I arrived with friends, but stand alone on the floor where the press, the heat, the music is intoxicating and swirls around in my head. I am anonymous; I am am moved by the beat. I close my eyes and sway under colored lights. I think of my solitude. I don’t think of my solitude. I drive home and crawl into bed.
Had a lovely discussion about embracing the turns in our paths, and of the process of discovering and holding onto our own center of gravity through the journey. Every couple of months (although more frequently as of late, it seems) one particular friend and I have these thoughtful, spontaneous conversations, and I am left elated/comforted by the experience. The instrospective nature, idealism, intelligence, and sensitivity of this person appeals to me so. And although I once wished that these talks would happen more frequently (how can you not want more of a good thing?) I have come to a sort of contentment about their randomness: they are happy packages I wasn’t expecting to find in the mailbox at the end of the day.
Late nights, tired eyes. I wonder where all of this is leading to.
Will I recognize it when I see it?
I ran across a television show which literally caught my ears: the public access station was showing the tape of a karaoke event from another part of the city. Some of the participants were, well, horrid, and my initial reaction was to cringe in mild disbelief. But the longer I watched the tape, the more I found myself admiring everyone who picked up the microphone: if they were afraid, or self-conscious, it did not show, and they appeared to be having fun. I came to enjoy their sheer enthusiasm for singing all out, albeit a la Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding. And really, isn’t that why we ought to be doing things: out of the sheer joy it brings us?
I’ve lived with pitifully high levels of self-consciousness for so very long. I’ll become preoccupied with how others judge me, and adjust how I behave or look accordingly, only to be left feeling miserable and small. There are days — wonderful days — when I go about my business with nary a limited sense of self and my heart so free and serene and unaffected by the opinions of others. And then there are days when I wonder where that girl went and how I’m ever going to completely rid myself of the boundaries I have constructed for myself.
