It’s always weird to come out and say, “my husband and I lived in a van for two years,” but perhaps that weirdness is my own hangup about how American life “should” look, or it’s a lingering memory of raised eyebrows and hesitating offers to use a guest bedroom when we brought it up in conversation. It might even be a recoiling from the precariousness of life on the road, a fragile feeling so familiar to me as a lifelong dancer. Over the last five years I’ve seen what felt like our own private whim grow into a whole class of digital nomads, retirees, road-trippers, and folks who simply have no other choice but to make their vehicles their homes. (P.S., director Chloé Zhao absolutely deserved the Golden Globe she won for Nomadland, but the activist nature of the book upon which it was based was basically lost. Amazon’s labor practices were looking pretty good in the movie version.)
I bring up the van because in BP the last two weeks we’ve discussed Identity and Imagination, and I’m reflecting on the ways in which that experience linked the two. We often hear, “what you can imagine, you can become.” I suspect that more frequently it’s, “you will become the furthest thing from what you’ve imagined.” Or possibly, “you are this, so here is what you can imagine, which determines what you’ll become.” Either way, we imagine, we act, and then we shape and reshape our identities based on those actions.
Living in a van was never what I imagined for myself, until suddenly it was. Dreaming about it required imagination; pulling it off demanded suspension of disbelief and probably a bit of delusion. Eventually the project, which was of course on wheels, led us to opportunities we wouldn’t otherwise have had. We chose a place to build a life, at least for the time being. Constantly needing to coordinate, our relationship became stronger and more intimate. Arguably the van led me to this theme of Boundaries in the first place, because I had stripped away my walls and finally sought to make my own — less sturdy, never level, and poorly insulated, but mine. I think of the van as my last great “reset” until the pandemic.
This idea of a reset — personal or systemic — is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I see it as a node I can trace a good portion of my current life back to. For me there was the pandemic; before that, the van; moving to California; meeting my husband; starting college in New York; changing schools in the third grade. It could be a major breakup, a job, entering a new circle of friends, meeting an influential (to you) person, or following a particular line of inquiry. The reset is a point in life at which the cards are allowed to reshuffle and fall into place differently. It’s not a matter of reinvention but rather changed circumstances that force adaptation and growth.
Some resets happen by accident or through the actions of others. 2020 showed us a global pandemic and the killing of George Floyd and others, to give examples of each. Other resets are intentional, but even with intention and planning you can have no idea what’s in store for you. That combination of intention and unknowability are Imagination; what the reset enables are shifts in Identity.
Of course, not all imagining leads to actions or outcomes, but I’d argue that how a person imagines still shapes who she is. In BP, we talked about improvisation, a physical form of imagination. Within improvisation there is saying yes and no, possibilities and impossibilities, unseen forces and structures that might play upon one’s choices and which we constantly construct in our minds. I’d love to hear how you are living improvisationally, and what you’re doing to cultivate imagination. Or you can join us on Clubhouse this Tuesday when we’ll be discussing self-discipline.
The Weekly Stretch(es)
by Taylor Unwin
While seated, cross your left ankle over your right knee and take your left foot in your left hand. Using the knuckles of your right fist, begin pressing and twisting into the bottom of the foot, spanning the surface of the bottom of the foot. Then, interlace your right fingers with your left toes and circle the foot 5-10+ times, relaxing the ankle and generating the movement only with the right hand. Reverse the direction of the circle and repeat with the right foot. Come to standing, feel the surface area of your feet relax into the ground and begin reaching the toes and then pulling them towards you, as if you were scrunching the rug under your feet. Do this for 30-60 seconds, then stretch the toes long for a lengthened, grounded base.
Combining imaginative and positive thought processes, we can allow the tissue of our bodies to glide past our perceived boundaries. Begin standing, feet in parallel, eyes closed. Find contact with the floor on all points of the sole of the foot, allowing movement to echo up the body as a result of the continuous movement in the feet. Begin scanning the body from the feet to the head for any energetic blockages, allowing your body to explore movement that feels good. When you notice a pain point or an area that feels numb to your attention, find more movement in the area or bends of the joints and keep your attention there. Imagine that the stretch of the tissue you initiate through movement opens up the flesh to the air and allows a small patch of soft flowers to bloom. Let the fold on the opposite side of the area with your attention endlessly glide inward, while the flowers are allowed to expand and grow. Repeat this imagery for any areas that need a release, big or small, until you are covered in these small and sensitive flowers. When complete, return your attention to the roots growing down from your feet, take a deep inhale, then exhale your breath out of the crown of your head.
Boundaries Stories
A friend sent me this article about consenting to unwelcome touch.
In Clubhouse, we also discussed how imagination can physically animate people, with director Taika Waititi’s filmography coming to mind.