Spending so much time refecting

me, performing in the late 80's

It's July. Every year when July comes around I become introspective and do a review of sorts, of my life. It has to do with the death of our son, Søren. At the end of July, it will be 9 years since he was born and a short 2 and 1/2 days later, died. It seems so long ago. And not.

This week, my introspection has led me to my years as a dancer. After Søren died, I couldn't stand the thought of dancing, of hearing music, feeling musicality, of expression, of laying myself open as I had once done so easily and with relish. Joy was not possible. 9 years later, the dancer inside myself feels remote, brittle, yet memories still feed the flicker of the flame and I crave exploring the luscious purity of movement, even in my unfit and distant relationship to physicality as a stay at home mum.

I decided to go on a journey through the web and visit my past. I found this youtube video - Love Letter to Trisha Brown; Diane Madden and Vicky Shick perform an homage to Trisha Brown at the 2007 Dickinson Arts Award ceremony. Dianne is the smaller one with the blond pony tail. When I was dancing in NYC, I took as many classes and workshops as I could with these two incredible women, as well as with Lance Gries, Shelley Senter, and Irene Hultman. I hoped their wealth of movement clarity would rub off on me. God I loved them. Seeing this video brought back so many many memories and I've been thinking of nothing else since I saw it.

My life certainly took a very different fork in the road. Once in Australia, I couldn't really continue exploring dance beyond the first 2 years here. I needed these post modern dance movement masters around me. Sydney didn't seem to have them. I guess at that time my focus was on having a family and I'd hoped to return to dance afterwards. I hadn't anticipated that it would take over 10 years of rolling my boulder uphill to get to where I am now.

So today, I danced with my 3 year old son in our kitchen. We did our own version of Brown's, Spanish Dance, accompanied by our copy of The Essential Bob Dylan on the home stereo system. The bubster giggled incessantly and thoroughly enjoyed himself. "Again mummy, again!" I think Trisha has a 3 year old fan in Australia. I smiled - a lot.