CLX: The Catch

I just watched an Argentine tango that set my pyjama pants on fire.

So You Think You Can Dance is on and I really appreciate the amount of trust involved in the process, especially on the girls' part. I've seen some pretty spectacular lifts each season but there were some crazy ones tonight, particularly one during a jazz routine that consisted of a girl diving into a circle created by her partner's open arms, somehow being caught and then flipped around. All in the space of a few seconds.

I can't begin to imagine what this maneuver felt like at its first attempt. How does one blindly leap into someone else's arms, ignoring all insecurities, before-, during-, and after-thoughts, and follow through with the confidence that he/she will be caught, especially when one doesn't have any prior experience with this person? And once (if ever) it happens disastrously, how do you start building this courage again?

My favourite movie of all time is Amélie, a French film that explores the imagination and reality of a shy, caring, and extremely thoughtful young woman. Near the end of the film, just as Amélie is about to let go of all her hopes in pursuing her secret love, Nino, she watches a home video made by her neighbour and guide, the brittle-boned recluse Raymond Dufayel, who says,

Voilà, ma petite Amélie, vous n'avez pas des os en verre. Vous pouvez vous cogner à la vie. Si vous laissez passer cette chance, alors avec le temps, c'est votre cœur qui va devenir aussi sec et cassant que mon squelette. Alors, allez y, nom d'un chien!

Translation: "So, little Amelie, your bones aren't made of glass. You can take life's knocks. If you let this chance go by, eventually your heart will become as dry and brittle as my skeleton. So...go and get him, for pete's sake!"

They say that "it's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all". I have never been in love and I must say that sometimes it feels like my heart is slowly dissolving to become the powder that fills an hourglass, the contents creeping up ever so slightly with no hope that a hand will reach over and turn the vessel around, thus reversing the untouched sands of experience and restoring my core to something solid again.

It's moments of weakness like this where it isn't the matter of feeling incomplete, because I don't believe that one should require another to find happiness. Rather, it is the feeling of being unador(n)ed. I am a locked door behind whose contents is unknown, not even to the owner, and whoever holds the key will shed light on it all. He, the catch, will be the one who catches me. And I will not be afraid to let him.