time in the ether.

art, constantly restorative. i was watching a program while eating dinner, and one of the performances made me weep. the dancers cried, too, when they completed the piece . . .  art. chills through my viscera. it doesn’t matter what the emotion is; to be affected on a deep, cellular, spiritual level by art is my favorite feeling. ever. better than love. better than anything. is art not a high expression of love? love for an idea, love for an emotion, some part of oneself for which one cares so deeply that we MUST give it a life.

i love it when art makes me cry. something rips, and the sweetest blood spills out to soothe the raw edges.

i love it when i watch a show or movie, read a story, listen to music, (and)or have a complete experience of a fixed work of art, and it hurts, keenly, but feels good at the same time. those hurts make sense, and that makes them feel “okay.” almost welcome. a relief.

there is something contained in a nakedly-honest expression of thoughts/ideas/feeling that can stop my heart and flood my brain. a collection of notes, a string of events, the play between characters—fills the lungs and infuses each cell, making them sing. making them vibrate. affective. like a raspy tongue dragged lusciously over a place so far inside my chest that it must be in some deep fold of space & time.

i feel most connected to other people when i experience their most honest art. i feel like i inhabit the same space as them, and as other like souls who have such depths to share. those are moments i wish i could live in.

moments when all of me shifts to a different space, overlapping and blended in a baited-breath trance. an open channel. the art opens up the path between, is the path between, and is the common understood language: infinite complexity and infinite clarity. “why yes, of course.” “exactly like that.”

so many curveballs and slippery slopes, so many heart-busting joys and brilliant contentments; to share openly with other souls just how terribly, sweetly overwhelming it can be to move through life as an honest human opens doors to vulnerabilities. there is a relief that comes with admitting them, and in sharing them with others who can own, happily, such vulnerabilities in themselves. it’s the most un-alone i ever feel. it makes me want to celebrate with abandon how easily i bleed.