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In the company of others I like it that people look at me and I like to be liked, but beyond this I'm silently hoping they'll all just go on about their business. It's not that I'm lacking in social skills. I know how to be sociable, I just don't often want to be. It's my own difficulty in relating and communicating. Small talk is a waste of time and conversation is an art, but for most of us it's never mastered. I'm in that majority. I blame it on my childhood. Here's why.

My best friend growing up was my dog. I took the Swedesboro ferry with my family, in the summer between first and second grade, to pick him up from the breeder. He was the biggest in the litter, three times the size of the runt. He wasn't so big riding in the back seat with my brother and me. He was sniffing around, a little off balance on the seat. Then he dangled his front paws over the edge, only his paunchy belly keeping him from doing a nose dive. I helped him over. He sat down and swayed a little. So he came closer and leaned against my bare leg. Beneath that deep puppy fluff I could feel his heart beating. Puppy eyes looked up at me and my seven year old heart thumped too. It was love. Then he puked warm slimy yellow vomit on my foot. As he licked it off, I knew the feeling was mutual.

And then, what better method is there of learning total self-absorption than in a room walled in mirrors? Eyes trained on the reflected image of my pointed toes, craned (swan-like, of course) neck, perfectly rounded arms - no elbows, no wrists - in one elongated line, turned out hips, knees, feet. Studying form and motion from toe to fingertip. Concentrating on my own every movement; perhaps glancing - jealously - toward the dancer being praised at that particular moment by the ballet master for the extension of her last arabesque. To synchronize with my sisters, and then to dance as a counterbalance to my male partner. I learned to worship both the male and the female form...to respect the strength of the male, but above all, to revere the equally powerful grace of the female. My own...and theirs.

Going on long walks with my dog, till, at twenty, I held him while he was put to sleep; and dancing the classics using movement and gesture to tell the stories, words were never necessary. My friends are those who know my mind, and get it all in the silence.

Watching (again):

Europa, Europa - writer/director Agnieszka Holland,

before that

Days of Heaven - writer/director Terrence Malick,

and before that

Cinema Paradiso - writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore (bellissima!)

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