Mostly not about dancing
7th June
- because I’ve danced once? twice? in the last four weeks, through no choice of my own. I have found the last month – maybe the last two months – very difficult. For seven weeks straight, since returning from America, there was something wrong with my body, one thing or another; jetlag and sustained exhaustion, a three-day panic attack, of sorts, a cold that dragged on for a fortnight until it transformed into a second solid fortnight of God-awful sinusitis, along with other comically horrible ailments I won’t detail here. As a result I feel extremely run-down.
And I’ve spent the last four weekends out of London. All for good, mostly wonderful, things: a four-day teaching placement abroad, friends and loves in the North, two perfect weddings. It’s very isolating; I’ve only seen three friends in London in the last three weeks; one week I only have two days at home before I have to leave again, still ill; I haven’t cooked (my most grounding and calming pleasure) for three weeks. And every time I get home and wish there could be something defrosting on the counter for me, or someone to help me unpack the same black hold-all I’ve taken on each consecutive trip. And, not having danced, or having had so little energy I couldn’t dance, I feel un-tuned from my body, out of practice and quite embarrassed about it. Maybe I’ll go tonight, though I have absolutely no will to.
I think it all probably has something to do with control; of there being no way to control my own time, or my health, or my energy. Where one of tango’s many delights, for me, has been in the control it affords you over your body, a control I had never previously tried to access or use. Having it suspended or stripped from you like this is demoralising, and demotivating; I’m reminded of my time working in retail, where – on days off – you had to pick between going out an Doing Something with your free day and going back to work still drained, or lying still and doing nothing for a day, just to recover. Now I want to lie down and recover for a while week, and hope the dance will come back again, before too long.