A brick in your pocket

I haven't written in a long time, I know.  I've been busy working on a book and on a new ending for the play.  

This weekend I went to a dance performance and a dance last night, this morning I volunteered for a few hours at the Mastery at Friends In Deed, then I ran out to go to a dance workshop with the incredible Ryan Francois, a dancer and choreographer who's in town from England. And then I ran back to Friends In Deed for a couple of hours.  

Every time there's a Mastery weekend, there always seems to be a theme that emerges.  Often it's caregiving.  This time it is grief. I missed last night when everyone tells their stories, but I've gathered that a lot of people have lost their partners or parents.  They are in the throes of the sadness, although a few of them talked about feeling shut down emotionally.

Robert Levithan often talks about a scene in the play "Rabbit Hole" when discussing grief.  A young son ran into the street and was killed by a car.  The mother is talking to her mother, who lost her son about ten years earlier.  She asks her mother how she survived such a devastating loss and the mother says, "At first it feels like you are carrying an enormous boulder on your back.  But after time, it starts to feel less heavy and eventually it feels like you are carrying a brick in your pocket.  It's almost comforting."  

It's so powerful to be in that room with people who are in the early period of loss.  I remember that time, it was November 2009 when I took the Mastery and I was in terrible shape, having lost my mother, my marriage, my daughter moving away, my job and then later on, my beloved dog, Lola.  It did feel like I had a boulder on my back, but now I would say it's just a small rock in my pocket.  In fact, I'm thinking of looking for an actual rock to remind myself of how far I've come.    

These are the two teachers from the dance workshop that I took today.  This is how I would like to dance someday.