Pain is the Sister of Pleasure
heard this many years back.
and it's something i know to be true. well, if there was such a thing as truth.
but let's just assume.
as i found myself musing this subject of my enjoyment of expression- especially the expression of pain.
now, i do not like to see anyone or thing IN pain, as in watching violence in movies for entertainment. that kind of pain is NOT what i am talking about. nor do i condone or enjoy the killing of animals, and felt i needed to ask forgiveness of the bee i had to squish and kill that was buzzing inside my house just 2 days ago.
however, this morning i found myself weeping as i thought of the beautiful eloquent heart wrenching breath stopping SF Ballet that i attended last night. the ballet was of a painful subject, and the beauty of the expression in the story telling of dance was enough to make you want to wail and beat your chest and throw ashes on your head and go on a retreat in the Himalayas for a month just to feel it over and over and to finally assimilate it.
so this morning as i am happily weeping and drinking my morning coffee.. i begin to muse on the fact that i enjoy the expression of emotional pain. "ya think??!" my co worker said to me as i revealed this fact to her later that morning.
for example, years ago, as i watched one of the students of my sensual movement class, and her vulnerable curve of ample hip and the small of her backward arch- which caught a sob in my throat, as the purity of that movement and the offering she made to us the audience, was so incredible that i remember it still ....
another co dance student of mine who finally took the risk of dancing in a tiny black thong, risking the unmasking of her ass, after 5 years of covering it up-- whereas the teacher of the class and i looked at each other, realized the enormity of the moment, and burst into tears- yea, even now my tears well up as i think of that moment... while the rest of the class pounded the floor so loudly that the music, Fat Bottomed Girls by Queen, could not be heard..
it's why i go to cemeteries.. where i get in touch with pain....
i love the movie the Piano. intense pain in that one and expression. cry my eyes out when i view Out of Africa. for the 40th time. watch once again, Awakenings, bawl. all 26 times. Good Will Hunting. Dead Poets Society.... and the song Lacrimosa, by Zbigniew Preisner and Ava Maria by Josh Grobin, Seeing Things for the First Time, Black Crowes, Uninvited by Alanis M. and so on...
it's why i dance. and watch others dance. it's pure expression of pain. and when i danced to Lacrimosa (which means 'Tears' btw) during a photo shoot, tears running freely, i LOVED it when the photographer, stopped, showed me a photo, and said, "this is PAIN..."
it made me cry.