Sunday, September 19, 2010

I was reading The Guardian's profile on oh-so-sexy Jon Hamm and found out that he's not only attached (no!) but has been in a relationship with Jessica Westfeldt since 1997. Imagine my surprise once I realised that she's the same lady who co-wrote and starred as the eponymous lead in Kissing Jessica Stein, just one of my favourite indie movies ever.

For those of you not blessed enough to have stumbled across this gem of a film, it features a fantastic line from Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and is the same line which brings Helen and Jessica together:
It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.
And, for some reason, I'm relating to it a lot more today than I did when I first watched the movie almost ten years ago when it came out. Maybe it's because I'm older and wiser, and filled more with a sense of vulnerability as opposed to that sense that the whole world lay before me those many years ago.

Maybe it's also because I'm working on finding that girl who once managed to toss aside all her inhibitions and throw herself utterly and completely into one dance routine, causing her instructor to exclaim joyfully, "Yes! I knew you had it in you. You did it! You looked so fierce and so full of attitude, and that's what I've wanted this whole time!" That was also my last dance for a while and I've not quite been able to find that girl since.

You might wonder what dance has to do with anything of this, if that quote relates more to living than anything else. Well, for me, dance is an incredibly important part of my life. I've noticed how much happier I am when I get to dance at least once a week, even when the class is incredibly difficult and makes me doubt myself because I'm just not getting the steps. I remember just how much more confidence I had when I could nail routines, when I could pretend to be someone else - like Beyonce did with Sasha Fierce - in that studio. And I've been desperately looking for that girl who's so in control and so full of confidence that when the teacher instructs the class to improvise during a break in the song, she doesn't give a crap and dances, even when everyone else in the class is too embarrassed to respond.

Why? Because, when I find that girl, I'm hoping she'll inspire me to be exactly the same in every other part of my life. Till then, I figure if I fake it for long enough, I'll eventually become her.

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