This week’s #writeme30 photo has been supplied by the beautiful and super talented Lynden Nicholls. Lynden was our movement teacher every Wednesday during 1st year Acting at the Ballarat Academy of Performing Arts back in 2006.
I loved movement class – I’d easily say it was my favourite class that year – and Lynden was a fabulous teacher who really suited my learning style. And I love that through the power of facebook we’ve stayed connected and I get to see little updates from Lynden popping up in my newsfeed every now and again.
I have really bittersweet feelings about my year at BAPA,
I loved it.
I loved the classes, the community and the learnings I was having but I was also personally (and with family) going through a really difficult time, which led to me leaving at the end of first year. I continue to feel that my performance studies are an unfinished business – and yet leaving led me to some amazing opportunities and experiences in the Riverland (not to mention meeting the beautiful man who is now my husband) so I certainly don’t regret leaving, but it was difficult and I do feel like I lost a fantastic learning opportunity and community by not completing my studies.
*bittersweet *still trying to articulate what it means to me *sigh
With all of those connections and memories these are the words that spring to mind when looking at the photo Lynden sent me for this week’s post:
- Ripples
- Movement
- Life
- Moving on
- Transparent
- Vulnerable
- Skin
- Flowing
- Earth
- Connection
- River
- Home
- Hope
- Promise
The Photo:
Photo supplied by Lynden Nicholls
The Response – Moving:
These ripples behind eyes,
the sting.
The shift.
Into,
weighted skin,
waiting dreams,
The hall is too large for the small group that waits there fidgeting. Some familiar. Some new. The walls catch our words and bounce them into smallness as we greet the familiar. The new shift self-consciously on the edges of our smaller group within a group. Jessica, our facilitator arrives in a wave of sound and energy, pulling us into the comfort of a workshop circle. We play a name game. We laugh at ourselves. We twist our bodies into shapes. And then.
A new exercise. A movement moment. Find a space by yourself. Feel the music. Respond. Don’t censor. If you find yourself in close proximity to another person, allow yourself to be changed by them. Move with your whole self.
Jessica dims the lights.
Fingers, dig in. Deep into this skin I wait in. My head bowed. Breaths shallow, but ready. Ready. I’ve always been ready. The sound opens beneath my feet. Welcomes my limbs to unfold. My feet to spring into empty space. Tied to a beat I cannot hear. A fear I cannot reveal.
Bodies move beside me. Around me. In the darkness between our beating hearts. We are lost. We are found.
The lights blast on again. The music ends. Chests heave. A woman’s voice speaks. Jessica. I do not hear her. I hear only the sound of the hairs on my arms reaching towards HIM.
The group comes together again into that safe circle. Still huffing. Not unfit, but so terribly, deeply, painfully open. None of us can look at each other. We are too open. Instead we focus our energy onto the floor, in the centre of the circle and fill it with our fears. Jessica’s voice is subdued. She feels our energy and how fragile it is.
“I’ll see you all next week. You’re all beautiful. Be kind to yourself.”
We all exit out into the cold night air. The other bodies drift off. To their own spaces. Homes lit ready for them.
HE lingers.
We stand awkwardly by the bumper of my car, words tumbling easily into each other’s hands. Our bodies are awkward. Our words are perfect. We skin history. We skim the future. Weave possibilities unknowingly. Lose hours. Eventually fallen silent in the face of what we find.
HIS fingertip brushes my arm as he turns away to head home. Deliberate, but gently.
My arm stings all the way home.
I lay in bed.
Thoughts.
Floating. Stinging. Moving.
*This particular piece is entirely fictional though it was inspired by some real life experiences. *cough* Nic Tubb…
** I will be a few weeks short of photos so if you would like to submit a photo for me to respond to, you would be very welcome to. Email it to me at: pressurelandsATmeDOTcome
** Note – #writeme30 posts are published ‘as is’ without any editing or curating as the project is about exploring my responses to the photographs supplied. Some posts may plant the seeds for future writing projects but each post itself should be considered a raw and unfinished piece.
creating art in the desert 