'So this is a tale of personal transformation, and of a young man recognizing himself in a great role. In 1957, Balanchine cast d’Amboise in the title role of his and Stravinsky’s “Apollo.” D’Amboise notes how the choreographer had already summed up this ballet in a sentence: “A wild, untamed youth learns nobility through art.”'

Learning ballet has helped in the healing process. It has given me perhaps not nobility, not yet, but confidence in motion and carriage, and it has started to nourish an artistic side that I didn't know existed in my body. As an instrument of expression rather than an end, the body's much more interesting to discipline towards an ideal form. 

"Vladimiroff always said you must practice, practice, practice, repeat, repeat, thousands of times, rehearse, and rehearse, again and again. And then, when you go onstage, forget everything! Just listen to the music and dance. If you’ve done your practice, your body will do everything required, and your soul and spirit will be free and spontaneous. Your dancing will be lifted out of the rehearsal room, out of the ordinary, and you’ll have freedom. If you try to make your performance a recreation of your rehearsal, you’ve lost it. But after performing, like a racehorse cooling down after the race, Vladimiroff would take off his costume, put on his practice clothes, and, keeping his fans waiting, go up to his favourite place in the theater’s studio. There, he would do a short, ten-to-fifteen-minute bare, a few plies, a few tendus, running through the alphabet of exercises to clean out any residue of performance excess and remind his body of the discipline and order that was the technique. The simplicity of the unadorned dancer."

Through the trauma of family drama, becoming an invalid, and watching my father die, I've managed to glean from these and other life experiences a sense of what really matters to me and how I would like to grow and contribute as a person. I used to be so afraid of losing sight of myself through opening up to new and uncomfortable experiences, and yet also so afraid of throwing myself wholeheartedly into a pursuit I cared passionately about, for fear of failure. Thankfully a stubborn, naive and perhaps sadistic streak volunteered myself for many of the former, and I was lucky to have met many people who helped me get up from mishaps along the way. Now, with a confidence borne of experience and growth, I hope to conquer the latter fear, without turning back or self-doubt. 

This world ain't all sunshine and rainbows

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't how hard you hit; it's about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. Now, if you know what you're worth, then go out and get what you're worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain't you. You're better than that!

Rocky Balboa
Speaking to his son in Rocky Balboa (2006)

IRONIC

i was so intensely focused on work that i didn't see the attack coming.

Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you'll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.


From THE SPIRIT LEVEL (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996)

"We should have preferences that lead us into one future over another. But when those preferences drive us too hard and too fast because we have overrated the difference between these futures, we are at risk. When our ambition is bounded, it leads us to work joyfully. When our ambition is unbounded, it leads us to lie, to cheat, to steal, to hurt others, to sacrifice things of real value. When our fears are bounded, we're prudent, we're cautious, we're thoughtful. When our fears are unbounded and overblown, we're reckless, and we're cowardly."

Dan Gilbert

turns out i don't have a weak knee from injuring it 10 yrs ago. there's a huge piece of bone floating around in the knee area, probably from when i "sprained" it (bloody hell! it was a fracture and the doctor didn't know cos he didn't xray me! lesson to all - xray suspected sprains). my fracture this year has become a huge blessing in disguise. all that pain and fear and consequent drama paid off - i'm going for surgery, will hopefully have a normal knee that can climb mountains and run marathons, after so many years.

i'm writing about this because there were nasty moments this year when i thought i wouldn't regain full use of my knee, and now, there's a chance of being stronger than before. argh i want to cry. but no expectations, still. surgery could go horribly wrong.

"May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in." - Mother Theresa

too much talking about nothing. so ready to focus youthful hungry energies.

I'd forgotten how nice it was to genuinely enjoy a book. Lazy Friday ahead methinks... (A tad undeserved)