Gesture Dance
It’s been a year and a half since my neighbors and I had to flee from a fire in our apartment building at 4 A.M. The fire took two lives, a mother and her son. I still think about their family; I hope they’re doing okay.
The days following the incident were bleak. Not long before, Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was losing too much weight and looked unrecognizable to me. I kept asking God why this was happening all at once, but I never got a response.
It was nearly summer in New York and my anxiety was crippling. Every rhythm I knew shifted; I felt like I was floating in mid-air— just this head and this body and a bubble around both, suspended with no strings attached while metropolitan minutiae played out below.
I asked my hairdresser not to cut the length of my hair ‘cause I wanted it to eventually sweep the floor; really, I just needed something visible by which to measure time—I knew the longer my hair grew, the further I’d be from this darkness.
When life seemed most flat, I’d cook with lots of butter to remind myself that richness still existed even if my joie de vivre did not. When normal tasks felt colossal, I’d focus on the corners of a room to affirm that the smallest points can shape a whole structure. Day by day, I kept telling myself.
Months passed: my lips cracked and smoothed and cracked and smoothed. I cycled through bouts of melancholy and elation and rage and overwhelming gratitude. Now I can feel the weight of my hair touching my lower back. I’ve since realized I can count increments of whatever but there’s really no unit to measure the process of grief. I’ve found acceptance rebuilds the spirit— not some blind optimism, but understanding that hope and sorrow can exist together. I’m still unsure why things unfold the way they do, though maybe God will answer me when my hair sweeps the floor. . .
Ugh! so beautiful