all I want to do is...

All I want to do is to lie down on the floor and notice my breath.

All I want to do is to open the windows wide to the rain, the sound of the birds, the water, turn the heat up high, and listen.

I want to do that, turn the heat on, and also keep the windows open.

I don’t though, turn the heat up high. I am in an old building that is cavernous and meandering, and it absolutely inefficient to open the windows wide AND turn the heat on. 

So I open the windows and I turn the heat off.

I put on all of my sweaters, I brought three, and all of my pants, also three, consider as well the summer dresses, three.

I’m thinking about warmth and also air, so I put the summer dresses aside, and instead put on my rain jacket, tie the hood tight.

Yesterday,
I bought yeast instead of butter.
Spam instead of tuna fish (or something like Spam, I don’t actually know what I bought).
Yogurt instead of milk.
I put the yogurt in my coffee because the yogurt here comes in the same kind of container as milk.
And it pours in a thin stream, like milk, so I thought it was milk.
It was not milk.
It was yogurt.
I sprinkled the yeast on my toast.
I ate the spam, the whole can, and I drank my coffee, with yogurt.

I tried, this morning to explain Dog Dance to those I am sharing the house with this month, here in Norway.

What it is, where it comes from, why I care.

The blank stares were a little hard, but also not, because all I want, all day long, is to lie down on the floor and listen to my body, guiding me into movement and stillness.

All I want to do is to be here right now because it is grey and cold and the water, the Fjord outside my window, is a lush green and it is moving. 

Coming toward me, the current is.

Also, I want to be home because that is a place I love.

Also, I wish I hadn’t brought the three summer dresses and the strappy sandals. Instead, I wish I had filled my suitcase with flannel, more beaten down dance pants, and socks that are thick.

All I want to do is to dance all day, without shaping anything for anyone to see, comment on, or have an opinion about.

I don’t know if it is okay to fly across oceans, take trains, planes, and busses to dance like this, all day long.

I grapple.

When I arrived, the man stamping passports said,

“You’re coming here to dance?
From the United States?
You’re flying from the Unites States to Europe, to dance?
On your own?”

Yes, I said.
Yes.

He shook his head and stamped my passport.

Part of me shook my head too.

All I want to do is to forget about the world.

But I cannot, because a young transgender woman from El Salvador, Johana Medina Leon, desperately trying to get to us, died on Saturday, in Texas.

All I want to do is to lie on the floor, listen to my breath, and see where my body leads me.

How it twists and turns, finding its way into the world.

My body, your body, our bodies.
In the world.
Each moment, I understand a little more.
And also less.

With Warmth from grey and green, gorgeous Norway,

Joanna 
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannaandtheagitators.com

PS:
A friend recently reminded me about the Dance Missions I used to sent out in these newsletters. Since that reminder, I've been thinking about bringing them back, so let's try one now:

Lie down on the floor and notice your breath.

Open the windows -- what do you hear?

And listen to where your body leads you.

10 minutes, or 20.

Notice where you go.

PPS:
The tiny little people…many of you have asked after them. Yes, they are here. They have followed me all along. They help keep me warm, hidden inside the sweaters.

xo