Dear Sarah,
I know I haven’t been good about keeping you in the loop with what I’m up to, and I’m sorry. You forget how quickly life can pass you by when you’re focused on reaching that next point just beyond your grasp. I will do my best to get you up to speed in the most succinct way possible, and hope months don’t pass us by between our next correspondence.
You know better than most that I have lived behind walls I built myself and guard them with a sharpened tongue… But is that so wrong? Really, who can be trusted more than myself? I’ll take this moment to apologize to you right now, because I know being my sister has not always been the best relationship of mutual expression or sharing, but I am working to change this. I am abandoning my old ways and calling upon myself to cast a spell: OPEN GATE.
Next Sunday I’ll be performing a piece that will combine aspects of performance I have always acknowledged but never fully explored, partially due to fear of vulnerability and partially because I wasn’t ready to look at the ways hurt flows to and from me. I have used performance as a form of protection, and now I intend to use it to heal.
As we grow older we seem to near in age, and I am excited to connect with you in ways we haven’t been able to prior. I’ll record this performance for you so you can watch it later, I’ll be blindfolded so I won’t have to watch the audience see me… Even after all the performing I’ve done I still get bad stage fright. Remember when we’d hide behind those heavy velvet curtains at Westminster and chug dime store lemonade before our solos? Hands sweaty and shaking?
You were always the better performer than I so maybe you don’t, but I do.
Talk soon, see you eventually.
Mia
Photos courtesy of Walt Pfau
