i used to frequently cry during shavasana, back when i did yoga. sometimes it was like i finally reached a well of sadness that i hadn't known was there; sometimes it was just crying. it was embarrassing, at least, as soon as the lights were turned on and i rolled up my mat. and then i started having parallel experiences in my piano lessons.

one of the first times it hit me, we were working on a mompou cancion y danza. my teacher stopped me partway through the first phrase.
"stop," she said, "you just need to stop caring what i think and play from yourself."

so i started again from the top, and starting crying almost immediately. i cried all the way through the piece, through the end of the lesson, and through my kickboxing class afterwards. but i played it really well. my teacher was very pleased.

about a year later, i was working with another teacher on the first movement of the bach concerto in d minor. she was playing the orchestra part and yelling at me at the same time. it wasnt until i gave in and started crying as i was playing that the sound changed in the right way. she immediately noticed the change and commended it. i cried to the end of the concerto and at the end she said, "that was very good, emily."

had another lesson, again, last night. a schumann song, without a singer. it is a technically very simple piece, we took it at a meditative 60% tempo and it was the same feeling again, this welling up. this time, though, i wasn't willing to give in and start spontaneously sobbing in front of my new teacher. (i'm pretty sure he already thinks i'm off my rocker.) (maybe i am.) so i missed the point.






i used to have frequent dreams about the end of the world or the death of everybody. they'd happen two or three times a week and invovle large bodies of water rising over a city, the climbing of mountains as refugees, the systematic slaughter of a community with poison, dogs, guns, what have you. in spite of them being really awful dreams, i was only ever watching them and would wake up feeling fine.

it was last spring that i think i stopped having them, and this week, they're back. i've had three of these in about as many days and this time i'm feeling them, too, the horrible nightmarish part.

the one from last night was populated mostly by children. those of us who had survived hiked to the top of a hill covered in black scree and sat in a circle. we posted sentries, who wore garbage bags over their heads. at this point, the enemy (whoever they were) set dogs against us and came and threw the bodies into a van. and then i woke up.




obviously there is something i need to be working through right now but i have no idea what it is.