Post-Pregnancy thoughts

I never lost myself while pregnant, though it was one of my biggest fears. I always felt very much me, even more than usual perhaps. I did not feel occupied by the fetus/baby. I only felt his personality, his desire to move -- but do we interpret these moments through our own frames of reference: I felt his particular desire to move because I am a dancer and do not sometimes, refine the kernel of an idea if it means stopping moving for a moment?

I do wish I could have corrupted that part of the physiology that obliterates the memory of being pregnant and of labour. I remember labour -- what it felt like, details of the pain, the attitudes of nurses and doctors and anaesthesiologists. But I have little recollection of the sensations of pregnancy. This makes me sad. I remember looking in the mirror at my belly in a yellow t-shirt at Canadian Children's Dance Centre during a rehearsal with Peter Chin about a week before baby was born, but I remember this as one remembers a scene in a movie or a play....perhaps because I was looking in the mirror.

It is sad because the pregnancy was largely pleasurable, pain-free. The baby was snug and rather content most of the time. Only the last week or two were uncomfortable and that was because of the heat and swollen feet. My belly and baby were still fairly comfy.

I am lucky to have videos and photos of my dancing, pregnant body -- but even still these are 2-dimensional reminders of 3-dimensional sensation.

Sweetly, whenever my heart rate really gets going, I can feel the pulse of blood in the vena cava which bears a distinct resemblance to the kicking of Pablo as he swam his way into position for the big drop.

Now that he is born, I am finding myself recognizing, appreciating and sanctifying (?) the non-physical, sweat-free aspects of the creative process. Type A personality balks a little at all this, but at the same time cannot deny the intense ( and Type A Lucy loves intensity) usefulness, the reflectivity, the deepening that this time allows. It is what I've written in every grant application ("I need more time to develop my work to its deepest artistic potential") but the first thing to get cut from the budget once it demands its inevitable trimming. This is integral, this time, this non-physical part of determining what it is that I have to say that is worth saying. and it is important, now and then, to bring reflection from the recesses of creative process (the unconscious subway-riding part), to let it sit way out in the light, lazy as it may feel.

It is not.
My greatest fears are to be misunderstood or to be perceived (self-perception included) as lazy.

A major principle in the work I've done with Theatre Rusticle is perpetual motion. To find it in perceived stillness. That old saying that still waters run deep needs to be looked at again. If waters are running, even deeply, they are not in essence still, though the appearance is of inertia....