mitski + wonder

to think that we could stay the same

welcome back. if you’d like, you can check out the first post here and the second one here. thanks so much for being here.

for this week, let’s dive into the ingenious human being: mitski and her song two slow dancers.

this was the first mitski song i danced to. it was such a special, wonderfully sad and hopeful evening for me. it was bittersweet. i remember the feeling of carving out space, literally and mentally, for myself and for my dance. i set the stage. i moved the thrifted furniture - my cousin-sister’s green frayed couch, wooden side tables with gifted trinkets, the rainbow pink oval rug lovingly littered with sweet cat hairs - revealing the deliciously smooth wooden floors that any human being with a good pair of socks would appreciate as prime sliding ground. i dimmed the right lights so as to welcome in my shadow on the bare, white wall that was decorated with only a butterfly paper kite hanging in its corner, and that had been patiently begging me for weeks to please hold, support, breathe energy into, through my weighted body. we’re just two slow dancers. i relented with insecurity, but ended our fortifying dance pleasurably infused with all of her promises. we’re just two slow dancers. my body granted me hope for the creative future ahead of me, endowed with the naive idealism of a twenty two year old undergrad graduate; my mind let a sea of gratitude seep in for allowing myself to create this one, small thing for myself. i chose to ultimately love what we created. i had not danced in several weeks, and i was proud of myself for my tiny creative project. we’re two slow dancers, last ones out.

it was about nine months into the covid pandemic, nine months post-grad, and it had been four months since i had moved in with my friend from college. our friendship moved really fast: a whirlwind of excitement, creating, living together. i was subleasing the comfortably small alcove in her bedroom. our spaces were separated by a light pink sheer curtain that allowed us to still see our shadows when we moved around and wafts of sighs, soft cries, chuckles would draft in. there was someone else in the other room and we were not alone. she was renting a beautifully spacious studio-like apartment on the second floor of a very large gorgeous victorian family home in riverside, california. the remaining rooms were occupied by other local creatives. a narrow staircase led you to our apartment. a wider one led you to the room across from ours, where a scared cat would shyly scratch at the door if you walked by, unknowingly offering comfort at the thought of another living thing sharing your feelings of fear but curiosity. decrepit bookcases filled the connecting hallways full of dusty knowledge, elderly mirrors graced the paint-peeling walls and freely offered you your best reflection, dappling your cheeks with soft filtered sunlight, brushing subtle warm shadows on your collarbone, highlighting your bright eyes with an intentional glare of radiance. it was a house, a home, a small community that i found myself in.

spirits of creativity, promises of youth, energies of freedom swirled in, through, about her intimately warm home at a time in my life inundated with precipices of eager newness. tiny essences of past-lived lives trickled into the spaces of those inhabiting this home, coalescing into a web of past, future, present that could be felt, smelled, heard: in the abundantly green backyard with the aging community-shared gazebo where the sound of fresh laughter and the familiar smell of weed flowed freely when everyone came out of their apartments to enjoy the so-cal summer dusk, and the cool wind belonging to lovers would pull down their whispering conversations through their open windows and pollinate the earth, our ears, our hearts with their languages of grace, forgiveness, eternal essences imbuing our humanity with an unavoidable spark of: joy. this was a space for relaxing, for love, for mistakes, for changing, for growing, for acceptance, for bonds of womanhood, for a welcoming of safe masculinities.

and i was devastated to leave it only a few months after. to think that we could stay the same. after i had filled her living room with mitski’s voice and my shadow dance. after i had felt the very first inklings of what it meant to have a home. after i saw how a family is meant to be, to love, to keep safe. after her and i shared fears and secrets and mistakes. after we shared this space that was slowly starting to become mine too with friends and love and art. to think that we could stay the same.

i have met tragedy in my childhood and adolescence before. it’s funny how they’re all the same. it’s funny how you always remember. perhaps i was able to somehow keep her at a safe distance after all these years. it’s funny how i still forgot. this felt like running into her head-on, meeting her face to face, firm handshake, unwavering eye contact as she introduced herself, flooding my memory with every instance she had been with me all along. and we’ve both done it all a hundred times before. this felt like my first real young adult loss. the loss of a home, the loss of a deep friendship. we get a few years, and then it wants us back.

this dance, this song, continues to serve as a beautiful reminder of what was during that time. it would be a hundred times easier if we were young again. the acceptance of what was can often remind us to accept what is now: a grueling, difficult task. but as it is, and it is. it’s one of the rare times i look back on and recognize the beginning understandings of fleeting time, the whiplash of a change, and the emotions demanding to be felt that is often synonymous with our twenty’s.

and it was all so beautiful. but as it is, and it is.

life never felt as much as ordered, brilliant chaos than in that short year after college in my small alcove of safety with her, with them, with us. last ones out.

it would be a hundred times easier if we were young again.

back to it: the stage being carefully set, our dance could finally begin. my wall went first. her bareness became a vignetted vulnerability with her soft shadows and the allowing of a tender kitchen light on her skin. she chose raw stillness that i now see as pure strength. you could see it on both our skin. i could enter her dance because she had inspired the bravery of starting. i poured in from the bottom and filled her up with my seeking, reaching, expansive shadow and she kept her promise of holding me, supporting me, breathing energy into, through my weighted body. we’re just two slow dancers. my breath travelled through the stars: through starts, stops, flows, struggles. it was the main character in our performance, breathing through both me and my wall. it reached through my fingertips, strands of my hair, my sides, the lower back. present a milky flow through the arms, delicate careful fingers, present. calculated spin, milky side, pulse, pulse pulse. my fingers hold a hidden universe of my emotion. my hands can tell you the secrets of my heart. my hands can tell you the truth. pull it out, pull it out, faster faster faster, stop. caress your anger. my hands are my mirror. can i be beautiful now? can i be loved? how can i create an extension outside of myself using myself?

my shadow was a safe space to explore these expressions, questions, fears: i was both seen and not seen. i could remain anonymous yet relevant. it was a pouring. it became a pouring of me, a me i know well now but who i was barely meeting during this dance. this me splattered a mess onto my wall, and she held my mess with grace, patience, turning it into ephemeral beauty. clenched fists, hair flowing through fingers, reach, reach, reach, reach farther and fall, spin and keep spinning, stop. again. circle the torso over and over, stop. where is my center? fall, rise, quick come-up and the clenched fists stop. can my anger finally be healthy? and the ground has been slowly pulling us back down.

themes of flow, delicious milkiness, forgiveness, curiosity, anger, repression, questioning always questioning still questioning, and arrival pulsated through our dance.

the dancing shadow did become an extension of myself that came alive in ways larger than i felt at that time. my wall became witness and active participant to my coming alive. i saw her as she was: a powerful force of wisdom, still movement, resilient mirror. it reminded me that we are never as alone as we think. even in our loneliest moments, is there not at least a wall, a tree, a sky, a baseboard in desperate need of cleaning, a frayed couch in desperate need of being sat on, a lawn in desperate need of holding something that is standing witness to their human that finds themselves in a desperate need of being loved, being seen, feeling connected to something outside of themselves? you always remember. you will never be alone. it is not possible as long as kind walls and wise skies exist, and these will always exist for us. i promise you. many a wall and many a blade of grass have saved me from the throes of existential loneliness that seek to devour in the witching hour or in quiet afternoon hours. you are never alone. we will never be alone. two slow dancers, last ones out.

the movement i created this night stemmed from a questioning: how could i, for the first time, find myself? how could i, now that it is safe to do so, uncover the self that was hidden under dirt piles of trauma, abuse, self-doubt? how can i dig her up so i can hold her and take care of her and love her? where is she? who is she, truly?

it was in this safe home of love and wonder that i began this questioning and that i, very very slowly, began to theorize my answers. looking back, i can see how afraid of closeness, love, friendship i was. how deeply i mistrusted it: safety. this home that held me held my first steps into my healing journey from a life previously led by fear and anger. this home gave me memories, both sad and wonderful, that ultimately served as a mirror of self-reflection that i am still using today.

and i will carry memories of those times inside my heart, my mind with an intention of gratitude, wonder, joy for being able to have had the chance to authentically live my life and witness life authentically lived.

i created yet another quiet, resilient joy. here’s to you creating the same.