Mirror Image
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Before I start on my topic of the “Mirror Image” the exciting news of the day is, I’m finally done with the text for Belly Dance Training from Home! Next week, I start shooting the first video which will be Monday’s curriculum. I was telling Daniel that I forgot that I have to first teach myself everything I wrote down. As I was checking out the text, I cracked up laughing because I was like, “Wait, what?” I promise to have it all memorized by next week because I have 5 days of classes to videotape. Cross your fingers and toes all goes well because after videotape them, I have to edit them. That means I have to make sure when I say right I don’t mean left and visa versa. Daniel laughs because he occasionally views my bloopers and he thinks I should keep them in. Not a chance! For more details go to www.bellydancevillage.com
So now onto this week’s topic. Mezdulene, Publisher and Editor of Jareeda an international magazine for Middle Eastern dance emailed me that the next issue was going to be about “body image.” It seemed right up my alley since I talk a lot about this in my blog as it is. I was intrigued by the topic needless to say so I buckled down and started on an article submission while I was doing the text for the videos. It was interesting going back and forth from article to text because some of the text gave me ideas for the article. I think it’s obvious that the combinations we come up with say a lot about who we are not just as dancers but as women.
Add in playing dress up and it’s no wonder that sometimes my daughter, Savanah tells me I act 16. There’s just a part of me that doesn’t want to grow up and belly dancing in a way became my accomplice. It doesn’t mean that age didn’t sneak up on me, I was so busy flying around on my magic carpet that when I stepped off, reality greeted me. My mirror image was older, perhaps wiser but she didn’t look like how I felt. Feeling younger can get us into trouble especially when we are in denial about getting older. I was walking with Savanah and her friends up this long trail that was a steep incline and they kept chattering away, laughing and I found that there was no way I was going to say I needed to stop. I walked the whole trail silent but the next day I woke up to my feet screaming at me. My body is no longer silent when I over do it. The interesting thing about being 48 is that my mind and body argue more. Feeling young in the mind is different then feeling young in the body. My mirror image occasionally frowns at me or maybe it’s my twin.
Diane Ackerman, Poet
[quoted in Newsweek, September 22, 1986] I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.
I title my article, “Second Act” and it pretty much summed up the outcome of my feelings about my life today. The second act in definition states that it is inferior or less important to the previous part. But I whole heartedly disagree. I see my second act as a way to do the things I didn’t have the courage to do when I was younger. This time around I plan on stepping on and off my magic carpet knowing who I am so that I don’t go into some bizarre denial state of mind. My “second act” is my second wind which just means I’m old enough to know better but too young to care! The two combined are the best of both worlds.
Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on our own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon. ~Denis Waitley
Growing up doesn’t mean giving up, it just means having enough experiences to support decisions that lead to better choices. A Friedrich Nietche quote really resonates with me because with age there is much to be said for our bodies that embody our soul, “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophies.” I don’t have a soul, I am a soul but I do have a body. I realize my body symbolizes my life and all the thousand upon thousand of steps I have taken on my path. This includes dancing from stage to stage. In the end I have come to the conclusion that the wisdom of both my soul and body are the autobiographies of my life. It’s easier to let other people read into things then to explain. It’s exciting now, I would rather the interpretation be implied by the observer then my explanation. So my mirror image is every ones guess. I guess I agree with Isadora Duncan when she said, “ No, I can’t explain the dance to you. If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.”
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