"dancing skeletons"

thursday
december 29th, 2011.

i recently went to see a christmas musical one of my coworkers was involved with. she and many other portlanders had long raved about the various shows the theater troup, the portland revels put on. knowing her talent and seeing all of her hardwork, i knew i had to buy a ticket and support her artistic endeavors, whatever they might be. sharing my opinion two of my other coworkers decided to join me. we all met for preshow drinks at our local after work watering hole, saucebox. after three or four of their famous ginger cosmopolitans and a plentiful plate of my favorite tofu pad thai in the city, i felt readied to attend the show.

as we walked up the concrete steps into a grand hall, i couldn't help but relive my own memories of my theatrical debuts. i was involved in many plays and musicals throughout my high school and college years and loved every minute of it. the feelings you experience in the last half hour before the show are unlike any other i'd had before: the tingling sensations budding in your stomach, the building of voices in the hall and all of the anticipations begin to rise. this is what your months of dress rehearsals, line memorizing, costume alterations, stage marking and set designing were for - the chance to entertain.

and that, the portland revels did with a musical reminiscent of a madrigal age with gallant knights and intricate headpieces for the ladies. all of the characters met the audience with bright smiles and joyous voices. i remembered the rise of nerves from my stomach to my throat as the curtain rose. and even now on the receiving end, i still felt the magic and allure of the stage.

as i'd learned on my first theater going experience when i was a grade school child so many years back, some scenes become etched into your memory. they are a single flash: the look on an actor's face, a specific line or song lyric that replays in your mind, a single moment between actors that touches your heart - it's for these brief flashes that the theater becomes tolerable for those that struggle to find its beauty. for me, those flashes aren't that few and far between. ever since that first play, i've been held in awe by the stage and all that goes with it, good or bad. and as it has before, for this portland revel's show, the king and the fool - one such scene has been looping in my mind.

it is the scene immediately following the intermission. you've come back from the bathroom, from outside smoking or have found respite from a screaming child. you're sitting in your seat, feeling refreshed, simply patient for the next scene to enthrall you and this particular scene, did just that. it is a scene preceeded by the main character, the hero, the king dying. it is a turning point in the musical just as it would be in real life, complete with the drama, heartbreak and sadness. the next scene, the first after the intermission, depicts the fool sitting lowly on the ground while the king's skeleton sits in his throne. they are there, sitting in the silence, he the living and he the dead. the morality of the moment comes to fruition and you as the audience member are aware that even in death, no matter where you stood in life, we are all the same. no one before the other. the scene continues on with the fool convinced that the king is still there, that he is his old self. the fool repositions the skeleton, mimics a waving motion, but the skeleton falls flat. there is nothing there to hold him up. he tries again, this time to stand him up and again, the skeleton falls. his next few motions to move the king are in vain as the king is dead and no longer there. it is a scene that reads more depressing then when it plays out, the actions live create a rather sarcastically humorous environment and following in fashion, the audience laughs. it is a scene held rather tightly in the character of the fool, the joker - so of course, his failed attempts are funny. the scene hits a hilarious high note when the fool attempts to dance with the skeleton. arms linked around his neck, feeting matching his own, the fool dances with a skeleton -- and again, the audience laughs.

i was not one such audience member. i was too wrapped up in my own thoughts, in the moment and what it meant specifically to me. i was filled with thoughts about life, love, loss and letting go because that is the climate with what my life has been surrounded with lately. these are the four l's that plague us all. the scenes where the fool idly tries to prop the king up, refusing to accept the inevitability, the simple fact that his king, his hero is dead: it's these denials that i witness myself dealing with (slash full out ignoring) in my own life. i know that some situations are lost causes, that some times the clock simply runs out. logically knowing all of this, there are still times this optimistic and naive heart still hopes against hope. there are times i refuse to give up, still times i find myself unwilling or unable to simply let things go. i see in my own life and riddled on the sea of faces i find myself in. as it's been said to me before, "life is a balance of knowing when to hold on and when to let go." this scene never more clearly depicted that struggle - and i found myself fighting back the tears.

then comes the dance. the fool striding side-by-side and cheek-to-cheek with the king's skeleton. you can almost feel his hope, his belief that the king is alive and that things will return to where they've come from. but as i'm sure you're already of, life can move forwards. sometimes it does slowly, like when you're in the middle of a boring lecture or sometimes it moves too quickly, like when you're having fun on a beach vacation. life can move forward, but it does not, cannot move backward. nothing can be undone once it is done. words cannot be unsaid, promises cannot be unbroken, deaths we've endured cannot be undead. what has been done cannot be undone. in this scene, i was reminded of all of the many things i have long held with inside myself. there are many things i refuse to let go of, because somewhere, some part of me longs to go back to that time before. hoping against hope, that from the ashes, life can come back from death. in the sea of laughter of the audience members around me, my heart began to break. i was reminded of the beauty and the overwhelming heartbreak when you finally begin to let go.

i will say this, the pain of letting things go is never an easy burden to bear. it shakes you, rocks you and utterly wrecks you. it is a beginning again and everyone is afraid of change, but i will also say this, that first breath after finally breaking away from the pain and letting it go is the freest breath you will breathe. it is truly worth it. and so, in the middle of that musical, on some idle saturday night, i began to let go.. and i will dance with my skeletons no longer.



*this post is dedicated to you, my monkey
a little less than a decade later, on our date
which has been etched into my heart, as have you.

oldies but goodies.

as many of you can tell,
i've begun to transfer old things
i have written on other sites onto this site.
this is a temporary stop-gap until
my website is up and running.

as always, i love you all
and hope you're doing well.

denial. (di-niel)
noun.
1. the action of declaring something to be untrue.
2. the refusal of something requested or desired.
3. a statement that something is not true
4. failure to acknowledge an unacceptable truth or emotion or to admit it into consciousness, used as a defense mechanism.

oh denial, my old friend. you've been coming 'round more often than i'd like to admit. but isn't denial just a drug we all need sometimes? a false belief that things are getting better, that the tides will turn. it's a similar drug to hope. it fills your head with subtleties, tiny dreams that you want to come true - and maybe, you're edging yourself off of a cliff, but what if it all does work out? ah, what if it does!

What though the radiance which was once so bright

Be now for ever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;

We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

 "ode.

intimations of immortality from

recollections of early childhood."

_william wordsworth.

there are these things that i have gone through,
i've had to try to put back together.
pieces of my self, my memory, lying scattered,
these things i have shoved into boxes,
scribbled onto black and white pages.
i have swept them under the rug,
trying to forget, trying to protect.

screams and haunts, around every corner.
you ask me to excise them,
but the truth is,
i find my strength within them.

sincerely, tiffany.

"i didn't want to tell anyone,
because the minute i do, 
it becomes real.
and when it becomes real,
people get hurt
and i always run from getting hurt
i don't wanna run away anymore,
not from you."
_from criminal minds
season three, episode 17
"in heat"


because sometimes a girl 
can't put her feelings into words.

ex-pend-a-ble.

expendable.
adjective; 
1. (of an object) designed to be used only once and then abandoned or destroyed.
2. of little significance when compared to an overall purpose, and therefore able to be abandoned.

i never needed you, never asked for you.
but there, suddenly, upon my doorstep you were.
i never asked anything from you,
never had any expectations,
but in the blink of an eye,
i was swept off my feet, enveloped in trust,
thinking that this would never end,
could never end.

it wasn't just one time.
if it were, i would have just walked in the other direction,
soaked my hands and washed it all away.
i could have admitted defeat,
accepted that i wasn't what you were looking for.
but no, over time, it just grew and grew.
well, mine did.
you can change your feelings.
i can't help mine.

so i'm the one left sitting on the road,
looking up to the stars, the heavens,
screaming out to some foreign deity,
one i don't even think exists,
but you told me to believe, to just have hope.
so here i am, drenched in my sorrow,
in the wetness of the sprinklers,
in all of my doubt, your lies.

what was it worth.
i can only be curious.
i hope replacement me feels just as good,
fills all of the holes you're trying
to convince yourself you don't feel.

it's fine, i'll be okay
i don't need an apology,
or even any pity.

i've got this,
i'm used to being on my own.
i know i am strong
and that i do not need you.

i just hope it was worth it.

there's this thing called love.
true, mad, passionate, all-consuming,
inconvenient, inspiring, no-holds-bar love.
and i've felt it once and it broke my heart.
i've held back and hesitated so many times,
and i'm just wondering,
if maybe,
i could open myself back up.

because every girl deserves to hear this:

"i've got to say something cuz,
i don't think i've made it clear.
i'm in love with you,
powerfully, painfully in love.
the things you do,
the way you think,
the way you move,
i get excited every time
i'm about to see you.
you make me feel like
i've never felt before in my life,
like i'm a man.
i just thought you might want to know."
_xander to anya.
from buffy season five, episode 10
"into the woods"