Dancing with the Rain; Excerpts from a Life

I need to be In Love - The Carpenters

It’s funny how the cold and rain tunes the wavelength of the  brain into a more contemplative mode, sharpening the senses. The sun brings drowsiness and tranquillity to the body and soul but the cold suddenly enlivens all the senses. It brings out the urge in me to walk and think and observe. The wind jabs into me like miniscule needles, but not in a bad way. I enjoy the way it keeps me on my toes. I observe the droplets of rain on the car roofs, the shiny pavements and the lights reflecting in the puddles. I get the feeling I’m walking through poetry rather than the same neighbourhood I stroll through; day in and day out. Every step I take is part of a bigger picture, completing a work of art that I’m unaware of what scale it exists on.

‘I know I need to be in love, I know I've wasted too much time. I know I ask perfection of a quite imperfect world, And fool enough to think that's what I'll find.’

Perfection is such a large term and so subjective, but I feel there are such moments when love and perfection intertwine and make life worth living. Like walking the streets, contemplating everything in the rain aftermath. Or cooking supper whilst listening to some Jazz or Blues. Meeting someone who until a day before was a complete stranger and spending a day together that exits the usual stream of time. Having a mental, physical and energetic ‘click’ only to part ways the next day and not see each other again. There is something to be said for leaving things like that, brushing surfaces and parting whilst the magic and mystery still exists. It’s a different kind of excitement. 

We are all the heroes of our own stories, giving life a film like quality and ourselves a sense of invincibility. The hero can never die. Rule of thumb. Sort of. Some authors take the liberty in allowing things to end differently, but those are roads I prefer not to let my mind stray down. Some days I have a clear perception of things, thoughts and theories come to my mind in a lucid fashion that can be written down properly and explained to others as well. But on other days, like this one, I just get this overwhelming feeling that’s too abstract to be precise. It’s a feeling of art and beauty, a subtle meaning to life that has nothing to do with me. I’m just the observer and experiencer but not the initiator or orchestrator. There is a poetic melancholy in the air, a necessity to express combined with a feeling of impotence. 

Words have always been my strong suit, a way of transmitting myself to others and others to me. But now I am unsure how to shape and mould them. How to fill them with meaning and be sure of their authenticity.    

Anthem - Deep Purple

One day before my 27th birthday. Very weird. An extremely intense morning, it rained more in a few hours than it has all winter, leaving the streets of south tel aviv completely flooded. On the way back from the deliveries I got stuck in a gridlocked junction as the traffic lights had failed and no one wanted to give right of way. I was sitting there in my little boat on wheels, enjoying the heating as it dried my wet feet and listening to Deep Purple’s ‘Anthem’. It was pissing rain and hail on the windshield. Thor beat his anvil there as thunder and lightning flashed in intervals. Combined with the instrumental part of the song it was all one big beautiful cacophony. I sat there in the driver's seat barely able to contain myself. I felt a tingling sensation all over my body and a swelling in my chest as the more animalistic parts of me begged to join in on all the fun. I just didn’t know how to be a part of it. All I could do was sit there with a crazy grin on my face, jumping up and down in my seat feeling like i’m about to explode. 

“If the day would only come, then you might just appear even though you’d soon be gone, when I reached out my…”

Peter Pan - Polo & Pan feat Antonin

I disengaged from the dance floor and surveyed the scene before me. I live for epic moments but now I'm starting to find the grand within the simple. In Ecstatic dance we gather just for the joy of moving. No alcohol. No drugs. Just the dance part of the party. The beauty is to watch people give themselves over to the dance, legitimise for themselves movement and play and fun without any need to cover it up with substances. At the end of the day we’re just a pack of animals, dogs jumping all over each other wanting to roll around and play. 

This time it’s an intimate gathering. 20 people or so. We’re at Nadav’s house. A rich 40 year old who made good selling stocks before making his exit and setting off on his a spiritual journey. He has a fabulous house for gatherings. A wide living room that leads on to an open kitchen and a huge garden full of beautiful trees and a swimming pool lit up with fairy lights. 

everything has been moved aside and the floor is covered with huge foam puzzle pieces. The lights are low, candles are lit in the corner and the windows have fogged up from everyone's breath. DJ Gonda is playing tonight giving the evening a more gentle, feminine energy. 

Only a second ago I was part of the dancefloor, part of the united heartbeat, completely ensconced in the dance and forgetting the world outside. But now that I've disengaged, I have a moment to observe. When I look out through the huge windows I can see the rain pouring down outside, the pool is lit and I'm mesmerised by the drops of rain hitting the surface of the pool. Nature is joining in the dance. When I turn my back on the windows to look at the dance floor I don't see individuals anymore, just a mass of bodies swaying and rolling as one, completely unaware for a moment of the bigger picture. Every so often lightning flashes, momentarily illuminating everything in a  white light, adding to the extravaganza of the scene. I'm feeling overwhelmed with the beauty. lucky to be here. lucky to be alive. Lucky to be apart for just a moment. 

Simple. But epic. 

Movement

Such an amazing world. All I can think about and all I want to do is dance. And do yoga. And move. Contact and gaga and ecstatic. I can't get enough of it. I'm not sure how to delve in deeper but it's where I want to be. My ego keeps looking for a ‘purpose’ within it, but my soul knows that the movement is the purpose. It's a place of connection and expression. Tension , discharge and release. It's poetry in movement. A wordless language. We're all such awkward, bumbling beasts but when we move we become elegant and eloquent, we shed our awkwardness and become ‘animals’. Everything is simple again. The anxieties and insecurities come from the brain but in the body there is a confidence and suaveness just waiting to be released. We can exchange with each other our true ‘core’.