Clumsy and awkward. That would describe me to a tee. My ballet teacher LOVED me because I was 5'8" tall at 12. Fortunately for me - and also for the WNBA - I didn't grow that much after grade school. Unfortunately for her, I was beautiful, fluid, with movements that would make her cry one moment - then I was a complete geek and would fall over my own feet without provocation the next. No warning, at least at 12. By 15, I was winning regional contests, dancing 4-5 hours a day and basically proving everyone wrong. Later, I earned a living for a while dancing, and that is a rare and wondrous thing.
But I've always been a klutz at the bottom of my soul. Gangly, unsure of where my feet might be, unaware of my surroundings. My mom tells me today that I used to always be looking at the sky, like I was waiting for something from outer space. I'm sure I was just daydreaming - about love, no doubt, that was oh so elusive for me when I was young. A safe place to rest my head. Someone I could trust. I used to sit and watch the clouds go by, wishing for some secret code to be written there that I would understand and be able to follow, like a treasure map. "He's the one. Your heart is safe with him."
I sat in downtown Portland today, watching the faces of everyone that passed me by, just in case. And it was an odd sensation to think that out there, somewhere, is someone else like me, that just wants a safe place to rest their head.
"The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed." ~Carl Jung
Maybe Carl was right. I think it's time for another transformation.
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