On Beauty

I will see the Forsythe Company tonight. A friend who saw the company last night called me afterward to prepare me for the beauty.

Sometimes beauty, so intense and real and raw, pulls and even hurts a little. Sometimes, after watching a performance, I leave with a feeling of disquiet. I am happy and sad at once. I am coiled in a ball and also set free.

I think maybe it comes down to being confronted with my own potential for beauty and the limitations I inadvertently place on it. This is why travel is good: to view myself in another context, up in the air, or flying down the highway. There is possibility in all that space and motion.

And so I prepare myself for tonight. I’m set with my tickets, with my date, with my notebook so I can jot down thoughts as needed. I have a hunch words will not suffice. I’ll be looking at definable movement, sure, but then there will be the dancers, magnificent with effort.

Space and motion. Emotion and spirit. All these sit at my table; tonight they’ll be in my purse. I remember that I contain these at every moment. Tonight I play the role of witness.