This is exhausting. Cailleacha Damhsa (Dancing Hags)

A hag gets tired.

Each session we open with a dance to warm up. A song goes on. Any song. We move.

And we did that this session as usual, however it wasn’t enough to set sail on an ocean of movement. So we sat and looked at each other. Really looked. No-one wants to hear ‘you look tired’. In fact this veeeeery phrase is banned in our house, replaced by ‘How are you feeling?’. Of course we know what it means, but tying it to feelings allows you to exhale before you answer. Often my answer to the now banned phrase was ‘this is just my face!’. But it wasn’t, it was alluding to the idea that what I look like in this moment I cannot change, even if I wanted to.

As Robyn and I looked at each other, intellectually wanting to achieve something, our bodies knew us better. We opted instead of movement, for an early coffee and talk. And it was so much more productive than if we had have ‘pushed through’ as women are so often told to do. We gathered the pieces and looked at what we had to date. Tried to categorise, connect and expand. I love patterns and hard copy anything so drawing stick figures and making maps of movements and plans was so gratifying.

Realising we were midway was both a wonder and a sense of having made something, even if we didn’t know exactly what it was yet we had the elements.

IMAGE CREDIT: Betty in a Blanket.

This post forms part of the dance journal for my PhD project. Not sure where its going just yet, and I’m grand with that. Thank you for reading along, where the way-finding will reveal maybe more way-finding. You can join me by subscribing to this blog Yum Wrap, or asking questions below or where there is a social media spill over – insta, substack and vimeo. @erinmccuskey