The sea was the colour of the sand. Hazy shades of browns. I had never seen it that way. Sometimes the sea disappears into the sky. But not into the sand.
There was so much wind that all sound was whisked away. The sea-gulls were mute, the waves broke in silence.
I leaned against the wind, walked into it. It brought silence to me as well by blowing my brains out. The sea spat up foam which the wind broke into little pieces. White bits of foam scuttled across the sand, like a flock of birds flying up to the skies. Startled by something.
I thought I was alone. But a man overtook me. He was much older than I am. He was wearing beige coloured trousers and a brown blazer. His hair was grey. He too looked like the sand. He had put one hand in his pocket. And his scarf flapped behind him. His legs were crooked yet he walked with ease, as if there were no wind pushing him back. I tried to keep up pace. Where was he heading? There was nothing to go to.
I stopped and turned back, the wind now pushed me forward. It wanted me to run. I didn't. I walked. Immediately the thoughts returned. As did the pain in my legs. I looked over my shoulder. The man had disappeared.
D.H. Lawrence. Peculiarly, I always remember one thing about his Sons & Lovers. It's the scene with the swing. And how in our literature class my teacher told us that scene was a symbol of budding sexuality.
What of the slide? Somehow, my son had managed to persuade me to endeavour a 20 meter climb to the top of a fake tree. There was only one way down: the slide. We had watched kids his age and older come out of the other end. Especially 8-yr-old girls screamed their way down, at the top of their lungs. My son took this quite seriously. He looked increasingly worried. I tried to explain they were just screaming for the sake of screaming. This is what girls do, sometimes. Would my literature teacher argue they were budding?
Anyway, we climbed up this tree monstrosity together. The second we reached the top, one of those screaming girls gravely stated it was a "vey very scary slide, and dark, and twirly and really really fast." My son rapidly changed his mind. He disappeared back down the tube we climbed up and there was no way I was going to fit through it that way. Leaving me onlye one choice: to take the slide.
I stood there contemplating this for a while. As a kid that age, there was no way I would have ever taken that slide. I was the scaredy-cat kid. I never climbed trees, or took any other physical risks for that matter. It took me ages to learn to bike ride and so on.
So here I stood realizing I have finally become the kind of person who takes a scary slide. It's taken me almost fourty years. Believe me, I was the only mother up there. Did I hesitate? No.
I gladly took the plunge into the great unknown. And yes, it was dark. It was fast. It was scary. And I screamed.
The next day she wasn't so afraid of other people's dreams anymore. She often had dreams herself. None of them were particularly comforting, but on contemplating this she soon realized dreams never were. Dreams were always unsettling. For example, she had never, ever, dreamed of making daisy-chains and drinking a cocktails on a sailing boat. The fact that she had been laying in the neighbour's garden without screaming and kicking, and that he could not reach her, said more about him than about her.
He could not reach her. Yet she herself was calm. Did she want him to reach her? Or did she just want to lay there for a while, maybe and think things over? See things from a neighbour's perspective? She could get up herself, whenever she was ready and wanted to, shake the dirt off her clothes, straighten her back and smile at him.
"Please don't worry" she could say, "I can do it myself."
Death is always a symbol of change. So then, she could make her way back home. It was up to her.
Her husband woke up saying he couldn't sleep. He had nightmares. One of them being that she had fallen off a balcony into the neighbour's garden. She hadn't really landed in their garden, but on a sun- roof of some sort. She lay on her back like a turtle. She wasn't really doing much, he said (at which point she thought that was odd as she'd imagine herself cursing and screaming like a witch). He couldn't get to her, he wanted to help her but didn't know how. He tried banging on the neighbour's door but they wouldn't let him in.
The next day, while her 4 year old son was walking next to her husband, she lingered behind thinking about life and whether she was happy. Her son grabbed dad's hand and said, "I had a really funny dream, dad. I dreamt that mum had died, and we lived in the church. Isn't that funny?" He couldn't stop giggling.
The lady felt sorrow at the thought that this may well be the end of her life.
... the next question being: is there a way of actually proving a woman is faking it? This - once again highly intellectual question - was what a colleague writer and I felt we needed to find an answer to. She had just finished giving a workshop to writers, and I had been on a discussion panel about ebooks.
"There is a way!" I suddenly realized. "While a woman is so-called coming, a man should quickly stick his finger into her."
My honorable colleague nodded gravely, "smart thinking," she said.
(in case you have been faking all your life, you might not know this: the pelvic muscles rhythmically contract during an orgasm and you can feel this in the vagina).
We sipped our coffees and thought a little harder.
"But what if his sudden withdrawing means the orgasm is abruptly interrupted?" (poor woman)
"Hm, good point," I said. "A-ha, but the faker doesn't know this right? And so she'll ignorantly continue oohing and aahing!"
My colleague gives me a thumbs up. That's it then. Yet again, we are silent. After a few long minutes my colleague looks at me and asks:
"Have you ever tried keeping your eyes open while sneezing?"
ps: there is still a solution to this 'test' for fakers. The greater intellectuals in our midst will surely figure it out.
Alan wasn't good in sports which was unfortunate because his father was. He could never kick a ball towards where he wanted it to go and he'd always drop the frisbee. He tried, though, as hard as he could. But the harder he tried the worse he seemed at sports.
There was a sports day at school. Much to the despair of the green team, Alan had been added to it. But something magical happened: it turned out he was good at one particular thing. Really, really good. As nobody in the team quite felt like doing it, Alan was chosen to perform this activity: to walk as fast as he could holding a boiled egg on a spoon. And boy did he walk. In fact, he was almost running with the egg-on-a-spoon. Left and right, competitors were losing their eggs, frantically grabbing after them in the grass like madmen. But Alan shot forward. His eyes and mind and will were transfixed on that one egg on the spoon, his arm in perfect control while only his legs moved under a body he knew to keep perfectly still. He won by about three full minutes.
The first thing he did was to glance at his dad, who - thank goodness - had filmed it all. Alan was so proud that he even cheered the way a soccer player would cheer after making a goal. Dad had gone purple. That's how hard he was laughing.
In the years to come, dad liked showing guests that video as it was always good for a laugh. And Alan? He wished he could disappear.
One day, they all died: the three wise men whose knowledge she had been destined to call on.
The first wise man gave her a soul, then planted the seed of will into it. She was no longer an empty shell. But neither was she carefree.
The second caressed her body, called it a temple that she was allowed to inhabit. Her shoulders could carry the weight of her world, he explained. But only of her world. Beware the woes of others, the greater world could break your back.
The third wise man gave her a voice. She could now share her thoughts with others, through laughter or through screams.
Yet each of these wise men withheld from her the ownership of these possessions. They remained theirs and only for her to borrow, whenever necessary. And so it was that she was to return to them, again and again. She had never considered they could die. Who could she turn to for her will, her body, her voice? It was then that she consulted the one wise woman. She wanted to hide her head in her lap. If only she could return to where she had come from, if only she could change her destiny. "My child," said the woman with a smile of relief, "they make you feel strong. But you have become cynical, your muscles are tired, and you do not hear any voice but your own. I wonder, sometimes, whether there is more wisdom in weakness."
I write a little something about the female orgasm and kaboom - my stats quadruple. This is highly addictive. More, I think, more. In fact, the mechanisms of that are quite like the orgasm itself. Right? Should I, therefore, be spending the rest of my days in quest of the Multiple Orgasm and subsequently writing about it?
After class yesterday, the owner of the flamenco school mentioned he had visited my website.
"You are a writer!" he said. Would I be writing a film about flamenco? Maybe even about their school? His demeanour was one of respect for my trait. As was mine for his. While taking off my dance shoes and rubbing my aching feet (they are purple by now) he clicked to my website.
"I still have to read what you wrote about dance today. You write so beautifully!" Before I knew it, he was staring in confusion at my yesterday's header "a note on the orgasm." I rushed off to the dressing room, pretending not to have noticed. And he quickly attended to other important business on his desk.
So, I suppose I won't be writing about the quest for the Multiple Orgasm after all. I'm sorry. But I won't drop the topic without one last piece of advice. The electric toothbrush. Potential multiples are right there, in your hands, while performing your anti-climatic bedtime ritual. Just make sure to cover it with a sandwich bag.
Have you ever wondered why some women get orgasms easily and other don't? Of course you have. We all have. Especially if you find yourself on the wrong side of the question.
I have finally figured it out. I had an epiphany last night. One of those highly intellectual insights that I simply must share with you. And here it is: there's a greater chance that women who are control freaks manage to get an orgasm during intercourse than women who are good at letting go.
Here's the deal. It's actually comparable to the muscle control that allows you to wink, or look cross-eyed, or wobble your ears. You need to focus and look for that one little, specific muscle. Concentrate. Try to single it out. That's exactly what you have to do when climbing up the ladder of climax. Do not, and I repeat, do not make the mistake of letting go.
She carries her silence within her, whispers as she tells us to bend forward, hands on the floor. One leg, then the next. Slowly, very slowly. At first my legs hurt, burn, pinch. And then, after a while, they soften. Because I have taken that time. Next, we stand on our toes in silence. The leather of my dancing shoes crack, audible proof that my feet are struggling to stay still.
The American girls walk in late. They do not rush, they are simply late. They sigh, take sips of their water, chew gum. They roll their eyes at each other when the teacher uses yet another half hour to explain how we are to move our hips side to side while stepping. It may look like a sway, but it isn't a sway. The teacher keeps making a pinching gesture in front of her ribs. Hold everything tight right there. And her hands forms a neat little box around her torso. A contained hip movement, therefore, within the perimeters of flamenco. We are not to let go, we are to hold back. And meanwhile we are to keep our shoulders still, stretch only the sides of our torsos. Our heads are not to tilt inwards, the way we think flamenco dancers look like. No the movement is up, up from our heels to the back of our heads, creating space in our ribcages.
We are still talking about one single step. Just one step with one singular movement of the hips. In trying to get it right, my body has started aching all over.
One of the American girls leans against the wall, still chewing their gum. "I'm taking the advanced class tomorrow," she whispers to me, "I mean this is soooooooo slow."
I say, "I think this is really challenging."
"Oh but no. It's just like salsa!"
I can do salsa. I can't do this.
It is now the American girl's turn to move along the diagonals of the room, showing us the exercise. She sticks out her hips, her entire upper body sways along with it, her stomach is soft, her shoulders twist sensually, she pouts her lips.
"See?" she says to me, "easy peasy."
Once upon a time, a white woman laughed at another white woman who had taken up a course in African dance. The laughing white woman considered it insanely absurd to watch white women stomp around as if they were African. The other white woman suddenly felt ashamed and stupid. She stopped taking classes.
Belly dancing. Capoeira. Acupuncture. Pan-flute. Yoga. Tango. French chansons.
Indeed, how mad and confused are we?
Flamenco.
I can't remember ever not dancing as a child. Whatever the country we lived in, Ghana or The Philippines, as long as I could dance and swirl and twirl I felt connected with the people I was dancing with, and more importantly: with myself.
Salsa, merengue, ballet, jazz, street dance, tap dance, modern, samba, axé, waltz, rumba, vogue-ing (remember that?) - I have tried it all.
Then came flamenco.
It has taken me three years to begin to understand how difficult this dance is. I started out thinking "I'll throw my arms up in the air, stomp around a little, shake my hips and wear a polkadot dress. Olé!"
Since that first time, it feels like I haven't learned a thing. I have gone through various frustrations and been exposed to my limitations. I have - in fact - been unlearning everything I thought I knew. My body aches me, my feet throb, my sense of rhythm fails me. I look at the mirror and see someone who thinks her shoulders are straight but is reminded, continually, just how tight her shoulders actually are. Her neck. The lack of control she has over balance. I am - I conclude - a stressed out, unbalanced person.
Professional flamenco dancers see right through window dressing. As long as you haven't mastered the basics, it's no use trying to dance a choreography, let alone jump in and improvise the moment you hear a buleria.
And this, my friends, is exactly the same for writing. Deconstruction is key.
If you're still reading this then here's my advice to you: take up classes in African dance. Please.
ps: never forget Carmen. Set in Seville, yet written by a French author, who was inspired by a Russian poem about gypsies, then composed by a Frenchman. About Spanish dancers and toréodors, with Cuban influences. Why not?
Manuela is 35. Annemarie is 17. We are from Spain, Canada, Japan, France, Italy, America, Holland. We, the women, in our skirts and heels. We look awkward sometimes, while dancing. And sometimes we can look good.
The teacher, Felipe, asks "you got it?" He asks in Spanish. I answer in English, "sometimes yes, sometimes no." He looks concerned. Think about it a little this evening, he tells us all.
And what will Felipe be thinking about tonight? Surely, he will have forgotten all about us. He'll be performing somewhere. Besides, new faces come in every single week, then leave again as soon as they came. Yet he seems truly concerned about us. And when we laugh he laughs with us. How does he manage this? Doesn't it ever bore him?
Apparently it doesn't. The reason being: he loves to dance. The moment he so much as points a toe to the floor, his entire body becomes, speaks, breathes Flamenco. It is his purpose, it is why he is here. Even though his feet hurt. I know this because he keeps taking his shoes off and massaging them. But he keeps going, unaffected and entirely focused on teaching us.
Blossom snow. Swallows that dance above our heads.
"Last time I saw you you were pregnant!" and I moved my hands towards her in enthusiasm, ready to embrace her, or for her to gloat over a picture.
"Yes," she said, "I was." And it was clear to me. I didn't need her tears to tell me the story of how she had lost her baby girl.
"At six months," she said.
"I'm sorry," I said.
We apparently embrace a woman we have only met once before in joy, but do we also do so in grief?
I did. She allowed me to for a moment and then distanced herself by looking for a tissue We were silent for a while. So I asked, "what happened to her?"
She explained what had happened. Then we both lit a cigarette even though we both do not smoke, opened a bottle of wine, put our sunglasses on and stepped outside.
Outside, the world was still partying. On and on and on. Drunken, hysterical crowds that did not look up to the skies.
Another woman I had only briefly just met frowned as a stoned teenager asked to use her toilet. "Oh dear lord no, I'm not letting all those filthy bacteria into my home." I laughed because I thought she was joking. She gave me a forced smile. Later, when I asked who her children were, she pointed at a seven year old girl and said, "the bald one."
She did not cry, she simply stated: "chemo". End of story. Nice to have met you. Goodbye.
