Tuesday, 31 July 2012

• Dancing and Costumes...

  I will actually post some pictures of some later, but not now. 

  Last night, as promised, I put on my latest dance costume (which I may never wear again) with it's appropriately bared shoulders and midriff and asked Jeb to photograph me in it with my new jewel firmly implanted in my belly button.  He said it looked good. 

  He needs new glasses!

  I took one look at the picture on my new super size computer flatscreen and totally balked at it.  Ugh!  I look pregnant!  Not a lot pregnant, but still... And, oh joy!  There's my lovely stretch marks!  Ewww.  Not posting that here.  I put a wrap over it just to get to the rec center in and wore it to class all the same.  It suited its function even if it lacked something severely in actual attractiveness - but that was only the wearer's fault.

  Rishi seemed on a mission to kill us last night.  The radiance poured off us all like mini-waterfalls trickling over faces, necks, arms, and legs.  The dance exercises were brutally energetic and nearly all of them on our toes for 10 to 15 minutes at a time with barely a flat foot break in between.  It was like wearing 8" high heels without the actual heel, much less shoe.  We were all barefoot of course.  The dance shimmy we were performing to a song called Yalla Habbibbi (Arabic, I think, for "Hurry Up My Darling") was cute though and, despite the grueling regimen, I think we all did pretty well.

  She ended class with a meditation: pushing the day's negative energies out of our bodies and pulling in white light.  This is new.  I honestly couldn't find any negative energy from my day to push out though.  I tend not to store that in my field.  I can feel auras, including my own, and to feel negativity there invariably makes me sick, whether it's from me or someone I'm too close in proximity to.  But I went through the motions all the same.  Can't hurt.

  Then came sword class for the half of us that remained.  Rishi made sure everyone had their sword and then said it would be best if we put the actual swords aside and just practiced with our scabbards.  She'd injured herself with her sword last time so didn't want to use it herself.  Dang things are heavy and if you hit yourself with it, it HURTS.  Rishi had hit her little finger and it had turned blue and swollen up.

  I tried, but couldn't balance my scabbard so asked for my sword back.  I've bonked myself with it on my head, but it only hurts for a couple of minutes, seeing as I have a very hard head, and I can balance it... well, better, anyway, than I can my scabbard.

  Self Rating:  I did fine in my sword presentation.  No trouble balancing the sword at my waist while perched sidelong on the floor doing the requisite body undulations and foot shimmies.  No trouble in making the sword transfers anywhere.  No trouble rising or kneeling while doing the snake arms.  No trouble doing body and breast unulations and shimmies from my knees.  Had tons of trouble balancing the sword on my head.  I'd get it just right after a few moments of awkward adjustments (that I didn't need to do last time), feeling clumsy, and then losing it when we had to do our perched sidelong roll with it.  I couldn't keep it balanced long enough to complete a single roll, but didn't drop it either, always grabbing it just in time to prevent it injuring me.  I felt like a disgrace among the gazelles on that account.  Well, that and my ugly belly.

  At the end of it, Rishi said she knew we were struggling and probably felt overwhelmed (to put it mildly!) but that we were getting it whether we believed it yet or not.  She asked for our emails and said we'd be discussing our costumes soon.  She wanted us to put in our color scheme suggestions and said we'd all have the same skirts and gloves but could individualize beyond that.

  Skirts.  Was she kidding?  OMG she wasn't!  And she was oblivious to the incredulous stares directed at her in response to this announcement.

  I mostly prefer wearing wide, long, fluffy skirts when I belly dance... but not when doing the sword dance with all the time spent getting down to the floor, rolling on it, and getting up again!  I'd quickly learned not to practice it while wearing a skirt since it saved all the tripping on my hem and accidental pulling of skirt down.  EGAHD!  Now I'm going to have to practice in a skirt or I'll never get it right.  O. M. G.

  Anyway, I dreamed in the wee hours this morning of being back in Iran with Reza somehow and we were being passable tolerant of one another... in a passive agressive sort of way.  We couldn't undo what had gone before, so we were trying to make the best of a trying situation.

  We were in another home than the one I remember, with darker, deeper colors and more attached apartments.  It was in stark contrast to the brightly sunlit streets outsides.  It was also full to the brim with family members either living there or visiting.  They visit a LOT in Iran.  If you have to wear hijab, you're stuck in most of the time on that account.  I was refusing to wear it this time, despite Reza's many pointed suggestions that I should.

  "Gooshcone Peeshee Jon," ("Listen Kitty Dear") I finally told him, "You put that thing on my head and I'm going to share it with your neck.  TIGHT.  Farmedhi?" ("Do you understand?")

  He understood and left the subject alone for a while.  It was no longer required dress on the streets; just custom now.

  There were 3 children running wildly around throwing fake bombs at each other, yelling, and fighting, and being generally rowdy and badly behaved. 

  Reza said to me, "These are your children now."

  I answered in English with the sweetest smile I could muster, "The hell they are.  These little monsters are ALL yours.  You took my baby from me."

  "You couldn't have raised him by yourself," he said (and I thought immediately of the two I jolly well DID raise with no help from any man) and added, "Not as a proper Muslim anyway.  That was my duty, you see."

  "F*ck you and your religion," I retorted, still in English, still keeping my tone sweet for the benefit of the non-English speakers all around us.

  "Offiat boshei!" he responded as though I'd just sneezed.

  Maman and all her daughters were there, still referring to me as they once had as "Zen de Mohammi," which meant they still thought of me as Reza's wife.  By the strange divorce terms there, he could still have claimed me as such, but I wasn't going to back him on that if asked.  I just dared anyone to ask me.  But they didn't.  The women were all fretting over some business venture of theirs, making dance costumes for sale overseas.

  I don't know why I did it, but I suggested they make and sell them to my dance company in the U.S.  As if they could do that.  As if it would somehow be okay.  And they went into a frenzy of activity attempting to do just that.  I woke amused at this and the thought of "Suckers!" bouncing around in my brain.

  Bad of me.  I know.

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