randomly philosophical, as it were
Jan. 20th, 2013 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floatingleafSo, I found this old journal of mine in a bedroom drawer in my parents' house. I had started writing in it while I still lived in Poland, and I took it with me when I moved to the US. It's rather angsty and depressing, for the most part, but it also mentions something magical I hadn't thought about in a long time. Something that happened during my first trip to Greece (in 1996). And I think it's a perfect topic for the next installment of the fabled 30-day meme...
Oh, I know this is cheating. Technically, it should be about a recent moment, not one from 17 years ago. BUT. I've been doing this meme for about three years so far, so obviously I have a peculiar approach to the concept of time. *smirk* Mostly, it eludes me, or I don't have a clue where it goes, or it seems to stop for me while it moves on for everybody else. ANYWAY... some magical moments live on in a sort of timeless void for me, and this is one of those.
It was late at night, and I was sitting somewhere in a tavern. I think I was alone at that point - the other girls from our group, with whom I was sharing the hotel room, had already gone back. I was just being my usual "silent observer" self, sipping wine slowly, watching the people around me, listening to the music. I was tired, but I couldn't make myself leave yet, because the music was seeping right through my soul, the way Greek music always does, and I was thinking, just one more song and then I'll go, and then just one more... And then this young woman stepped out onto the dancefloor (which was really just a bit of empty space between the chairs). She was beautiful - with very long, black, curly hair tied behind her neck, and a classic Greek profile that reminded me of antique paintings on clay vessels. And God... how she danced. Slowly, sensuously, totally lost to the music, bending backwards so far that her hair almost brushed the floor... It was infinitely seductive, but precisely because, as far as I could see, she wasn't "putting on a show" for anyone; she was just being herself, dancing with herself, perfectly comfortable in her own skin, letting the music carry her through the night. I was transfixed... and I think in that moment I understood - in a very visceral way - the roots of my fascination with Mediterranean culture. I wanted to be like that, and I never could. Or rather, some very deep, hidden core of me was like that, but I (let alone anybody else) hardly ever got to glimpse it through the endless layers of paralyzing self-consciousness and reserve. Which is also why I have always fallen in love with people who are like that - comfortable with themselves, free-spirited, confident - and felt piteously inadequate next to them. When I think about it in this context, the whole idea of me having been Greek in another lifetime takes on a different meaning; maybe I was this free, brave and limitless spirit in another lifetime, and I long for it even as I search for brief reflections of it in people around me. Or maybe it's my own private version of longing for the divine. Which is one and the same thing, really, in the end.
Oh, I know this is cheating. Technically, it should be about a recent moment, not one from 17 years ago. BUT. I've been doing this meme for about three years so far, so obviously I have a peculiar approach to the concept of time. *smirk* Mostly, it eludes me, or I don't have a clue where it goes, or it seems to stop for me while it moves on for everybody else. ANYWAY... some magical moments live on in a sort of timeless void for me, and this is one of those.
It was late at night, and I was sitting somewhere in a tavern. I think I was alone at that point - the other girls from our group, with whom I was sharing the hotel room, had already gone back. I was just being my usual "silent observer" self, sipping wine slowly, watching the people around me, listening to the music. I was tired, but I couldn't make myself leave yet, because the music was seeping right through my soul, the way Greek music always does, and I was thinking, just one more song and then I'll go, and then just one more... And then this young woman stepped out onto the dancefloor (which was really just a bit of empty space between the chairs). She was beautiful - with very long, black, curly hair tied behind her neck, and a classic Greek profile that reminded me of antique paintings on clay vessels. And God... how she danced. Slowly, sensuously, totally lost to the music, bending backwards so far that her hair almost brushed the floor... It was infinitely seductive, but precisely because, as far as I could see, she wasn't "putting on a show" for anyone; she was just being herself, dancing with herself, perfectly comfortable in her own skin, letting the music carry her through the night. I was transfixed... and I think in that moment I understood - in a very visceral way - the roots of my fascination with Mediterranean culture. I wanted to be like that, and I never could. Or rather, some very deep, hidden core of me was like that, but I (let alone anybody else) hardly ever got to glimpse it through the endless layers of paralyzing self-consciousness and reserve. Which is also why I have always fallen in love with people who are like that - comfortable with themselves, free-spirited, confident - and felt piteously inadequate next to them. When I think about it in this context, the whole idea of me having been Greek in another lifetime takes on a different meaning; maybe I was this free, brave and limitless spirit in another lifetime, and I long for it even as I search for brief reflections of it in people around me. Or maybe it's my own private version of longing for the divine. Which is one and the same thing, really, in the end.
