Don Quixote's Performance

I am performing with my American Tribal Style bellydance troupe, Shekinah, tomorrow night at Don Quixote's "International Music Hall" in downtown Felton.  I think the show starts at seven.

I have had two shows now since the "bad thing" happened at Don Quixote's (I've written extensively about it elsewhere in this blog).  The first performance was with my folkloric troupe, Dancers of the Crescent Moon, a year or so ago.  The whole show redeemed that place for me and purged it of all sadness and fear.  There is a picture I really like of myself (and those of you who know me, know I am not vain by any standard), singing at Don Quixote's with my troupe.  Now I will go back tomorrow night and be in my fourth performance with Shekinah.  I want to work harder on this style in ensuing months.

I have only a week to really exchange courtesies on Facebook with a friend from whom I have been estranged too long.  I would like to see this person, I think, maybe over coffee, but the ball is in their court and I realize this may be asking too much.

 I am prepared to just say, "It was nice talking to you," and walk away if I feel this person has any malign intent towards me at all, or if he's around just to manipulate some other poor woman (and whoa, does that say something about the character of a man who would do this?) They never thought I was anyone particularly special a couple of years ago or anyone worth fighting for (if I were, I never knew it), so what might have made them change, even a little? It seemed like I was just some chick with no money who wrote some books and some poems and published in literary magazines that he had no idea were important in any way, though  they were, and did not know how hard it is to get published in literary magazines at all, much less the ones I have been in. I feel that I was some crazy, insignificant chick who fell apart when she got hurt one terrible night, and took her granddaughter in, and danced some.  That was about it.  If that was different, I don't remember it.  What has changed on my account is that I will NEVER be treated as "less than" again. 

What has changed?  I nearly passed out when he expressed some desire to help me find sources for learning Polish, in the possiblity that I might be able to speak to Asha's family (something I still have no idea how to approach). I was surprised because if he knew at all that I was writing about Asha Veil (which he sort of magically did...uh...how did he?), he knows I am going into very shadowed places with my writing: something he certainly did NOT encourage in the long-ago, for a good reason: the fear of what might happen to my psyche if I strayed too far.  Yet he's encouraged me to learn Polish, and has tips on how to travel overseas.  He has to know that this book touches the incarnate shadow, and yet he is supportive of my writing.  He sure didn't like me straying into the waste places back then (though for good intent...often he was protective of me).


But I have to say: if I try to be a happy little lamb prancing in a field, writing frou-frou romances and science fiction (fun as those are to write)--THAT'S when I go out of my mind.  When I try to push the shadows of life away, those shadows rebound on me.  I write of the shadows because in that way, I can try to understand and master my own. That is who I am.  I have all my moments of light and fun, but I have to find courage also, to write of the injustices in this world, and put my whole heart into it. Not everyone can light their lantern and walk in such darkness.  I do not fear it.

So who knows? The future is not known.  There is only the now, and I am willing to stand in the "now" without fear.  People change; they feel sorry; they come to know another's worth.  Whether this will happen in any way is not known, and it is good, in many ways, that it remains to be seen. The future does what it does, and is always so differently from every expectation.