Tuesday, July 7, 2015

Friday, June 12

6:45 - Woke, showered. Two separate health issues which have been bothering me all week have come to a point.
7:20 - Sitting in cabin
8:00 - Breakfast
9:30 - Staff Meeting

Gave short, private AT lessons to Julian, John, William, and Igor

12:30 - Personal Meeting

I frequently lack an emotionally clear response to being thanked. Where the polite thing to do would be to acknowledge it, thus acknowledging the person giving it, I am sometimes uncomfortably-speechless instead.

A flight back up to the cabin. On our way to the dining room MB and I spy Michael Hendrix, shoeless, hot-stepping it through the grass back to the ballroom. He looks like a wood nymph. I find out later he runs without shoes. This is a thing.

1:00 - Lunch

I'm asked to join a ladies circle outside where a song is being presented. It is a spiritual. The idea is to sing together at dinner. An intention for the performance is suggested.

Gave Frank a table turn. Despite the wide gap in our experience, that he puts me at ease.

Ran into Glenn and begged a little 3rd Relation help. We worked on it briefly in the Ballroom, both of us dripping with sweat. 


3:00 - BNI Kids Jam

The kids bring a smile to my face and many others who stand with me in the circle. It's difficult, as an adult, to be free in the right way. The kids demonstrate it for us.

I don't feel great about my circulating and mess up on Eye of the Needle. I'm a little surprised. I feel awake - as though my attention is alive, but somehow outside of myself. Disconnected.

The kids exit in a line up the hill and we stand in silence for what feels like a long time. For the first few minutes our standing in silence is, to me, beautiful, welcome, even human. Eventually though a slight awkwardness seems to creep in. We're not sure what to expect. Are we waiting for something? Perhaps there has been some miscommunication? The kids do not return and we disperse from the circle.

I nap through Tea and Hideyo's circle.

6:00 - A ladies' meeting with Tom has been scheduled at the same time. I decide to honor my commitment to Joe's lesson. A long turn for Joe. A thunderstorm arrives halfway through. Sheets of rain. The trees bend. It moves over quickly and leaves us a bit cooler than we were before.

A silent coordination of movements with Tom in the Ballroom to open windows now that the rain has stopped. I take a seat in the back of the room near the open door.

6:30 Sitting/quiet time before dinner

I notice SBC and a few others in a circle. I join them. The song is let go of.

7:00 - Dinner

A moment of silence arrives with a recognizable quality of benevolence. A response within me, an opening of sincerity. I renew my wish, my prayer for remembrance, for closeness, for the next step no matter what. A bodily sensation. Holding it, I realize this is "fear". Tears come. Moments pass. The tables begin to stir again. I get up and walk out to the porch. The lake is there before me. Ripples across the surface. The density of the trees around it. Gratitude comes, then a sense of calm.

After dinner, I make my way back from the dining hall across the field to the Ballroom porch where I teach. It is dusk. There are robins. The rocks in the grass ahead of me look like a whale breaching the surface of the ocean.

Private AT turns to Nikita and Alex

Hurried up the hill to the cabin for a quick shower and change.
Hurried down the hill to the Ballroom and took a seat in the second row on the left-hand side behind Mary Beth. Aileen and Glenn are to my right. Nikita is standing in the back.

10:00 - The Intro's concert. They are greeted by an enthusiastic audience. I receive an invitation to dance. There's a hesitation in me, but I accept. Dancing, a moment arrives when I realize I have lost touch with the rest of the room, specifically with the performers. I sit down again.

There is an encore.

I have an impulse, receive a nod, and make my way to the green room. When I arrive I realize I have no real plan. I think back to my first Intro experience. What I have to say is poorly articulated, but well-meant. I suspect the performance has gone at least three different ways for our intros. Some have decided they liked the performance, others that they did NOT(!) like it while a few others seemed to be in a process of digesting the experience.

The concert concludes. The Ballroom is returned to order.

I run into Patrick White and Rico outside. They like my voice.

Walking up
the light from the Ballroom
in the forest
through the dark
my shadow.

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