The Book One Writes

The first 24 hours of a new year always feel more memorable to me than the actual New Year’s Eve. I think it’s because there is this assumption that something around us should feel different, changed…new. But to me, there is nothing new about still surviving. One way or another, we are going to be tied to something from our past (which isn’t as far behind us as one may think). These videos are a reminder that looking back and moving forward are two ends of the same pendulum motion; they are not separate.

The idea for this year’s video was a happy accident. I was having a brain fart and forgot the difference between an autobiography and a biography, and when I started to type it in google, I ended up writing the words “the book one writes after they die.” I did a double take when I realized that 1) this did not make sense and 2) what on earth did I mean by that? I think I assumed that biographies were usually written in 3rd person, in the past tense, about an important figure who passed away. But in the poetic, non literal sense, I think my brain wanted it to mean that it is a book that artists write about themselves after they’ve lost the plot, the passion, the vision. It is a book they write when they don’t know who they are anymore, and they need help remembering. I think we all write these chapters little by little. For me, I write them every time I dance. I learn a little bit more about myself, especially the parts that I am willingly in denial about, am shameful about, or that I have regrets about. The more I dance, write, and die as I live, the more I learn what this is all for. To dance is to write, to live, to be (and I personally hope there is much more left to be said).