The first time I found out about words and actions was in Theatre School.
It all started with “Character Breakdown.” Say we were working on “Anne.”
I would open the first page of the script: Scene 1, Act 1.
I would make two lists: “What Anne says” and “What Anne does.”
I would make a thick dark line between two columns. I would usually go over the line a few times. I liked to use an old school pencil so I could press hard see
The separation was important. By the end of the script, I knew a lot about Anne.
The first time I experienced betrayal was near the end of Theatre School. A beautiful blonde girl said she was my best friend then fucked the man I loved most closing night in a closet.
I really understood words and actions after Theatre School.
I remember almost instantaneously, my relationship to words changed.
Jaws moved, mouths opened but nothing more than sound came out. Sound resisted structure and letters flailed freely laughing at any rules of time and space. Words became sounds, stripped of any profound impact. “Forever” sounded good only when Ben Harper played it, “never” became a word that rhymed with “forever,” “I love you,” a pretty chorus of vowel sounds.
Ironically enough, the writer in me loves words. I adore them. I lust after them. I want to eat them, touch them, feed on them like walnuts. When I write, I read what I write out loud. It’s not just about the sequence, the order, but the way in which they crunch between my bones and (maybe it’s just because I almost always have something electronically sweet and slow and deep playing in the background that makes me feel like a New York City beat poet, but no) I like the sound, the feeling in my teeth.
I like words.
Words are not the problem, no. It’s that thick black line in-between.
Fastforward:
Years later, my lust for words and my distrust for words cause confusion between my headheartandbelly.
So I set out on a quest.
A quest to merge waters, build bridges. And
(because there is no end to water)
I continue to quest see
This bridge, this quest is never-ending:
I want to synch up “what I say” with “what I do.”
So I start a love letter to all of my parts:
Dear head: I want you to love sweet belly.
Sweet belly: I want you to love full heart.
And I continue:
I continue to write and I continue to gather all my love in one small fine point and I continue to press hard see the meaning is important:
Dear head, won’t you honour sweet belly and sweet belly won’t you listen to full heart. Full heart won’t you listen to sweet belly and sweet belly breathe peace to dear head.
To say what I do and to do what I say is hard. Coming from a history of childhood trauma, this link was broken early on. When I was little I became silent, scared to speak. My belly would know something but my head – too scared to speak it. Too scared to speak with my head so I’d do it with my toes but I’d almost always wear socks.
There is a difference between knowing something with your brain and knowing something with your whole being see,
If your head and your belly are not speaking,
Knowing something with your brain does not necessarily give you the power to put it into action.
If you peeled away our layers, you would find teeth and bones yes. But if you peeled away the teeth and bones you would find breath and blood. The depth of our body is not made of something solid and still, what is solid and still and made of stuff is not the essence of us.
The essence of us is what moves.
How could we possibly be measured by anything stagnant (how could I possibly be measured merely by what I say) when
The very core of me moves.
I am movement.
I am action.
I am my words only when they synch up with this action.
So, Past Moment:
When that
oldfriendroommateelementaryschoolmatestudentmatedoesn’tevenmatteranymoremate
asks you for a coffee date and you really don’t want to go
And you both stand awkwardly and make plans to meet for a food or a drink as you pray for your phone to ring or the bus to come or an elephant to appear and bend down before you and the Mekong River to appear and swirl round to you and the elephant for you and the river to carry you you say the words standing on the street corner with zero intention of making it happen. Every time you do this, you break a link in your chain.
You make a thick black line that separates who you are from what you do.
You make a thick black line that separates you.
You are movement, you are action.
You are not just your head, but your headheartandbelly so
Present Moment:
Maybe you start with this song (the most romantic song of all time),
Maybe you lie down and place one hand on the low of your belly and the other hand on the bones of your chest. Maybe you close your eyes and breathe into that spot between your eyebrows. And maybe your head, heart and belly becomes headheartandbelly and without any effort, any effort at all, you begin (quietly now), to
sarahbrose 