…I guess it has been awhile since I have been here. Feeling the need to write again.
Joining a NaBloPoMo for fun, and as a way to write about different things. For myself, I am going to use the writing prompts to explore the place I find myself in my life now…yeehaw.
The writing prompt for today is: What magical creature would you love to meet?
Did not take me long to figure that one out – a selkie. Wonderful version of the Irish story here: The Selkie
More in depth info here: Selkie
I did a dance version of this story about 13-14 years ago, and we are re-setting it in Memphis for Project:Motion’s 25th anniversary concert in October (cannot believe it has been 25 years since Judy and I founded the company and even more remarkable that it is still thriving!) The story spoke to me then…it is even more relevant now.
The Selkie is a magical being that takes the form of a human woman on land and a seal in the sea. There are several different versions of the story/legend (of course), but what has always spoken to me was the idea that women are driven to find their own skin. We can shed who we are, our dreams, our strengths, our visions, our selves to do what is expected of us…and it is expected that we will do the shedding willingly and with no complaint. We are taught that we must do the shedding to be a good mother, a good wife, a good girl…no uppity women allowed! But when I first read about the selkie when my first 2 daughters were under 6, I understood that my longing for my own identity again was not weird or wrong! Looking back now, the dance I created was really just about that realization, about acknowledging that the drive was there, but I did not know how find my own skin again.
But now, this past year as I turned 50, I found myself breaking, disintegrating, shifting, re-grouping, and creating a new skin. My skin. I am beginning to understand the selkie’s elemental attraction to her skin…it is so powerful she leaves her children to take it on again. In the stories, sometimes the children are happy for her and wait for her to visit so they can swim in the moonlight together…the thought of leaving my children used to devastate me so I knew I would save my skin for later, but now I see that taking my skin is something my daughters need to see. I am not really leaving my children, I am coming back to myself so I can be more for them as well as myself.
The selkie legends contain the sadness of the times in which they originated because if a woman refused to be shackled to her husband’s life at the expense of her own voice and skin, she lost it all. But the selkie’s compulsion to save herself was stronger that her sadness at that prospect. I have felt that compulsion and thought it meant I would lose it all. My selkie, however, taught me that choosing myself was the only way to make everything better for everyone, me and my daughters. We are all stronger now.
I will go to coach the Selkie solo in a few weeks, and the piece will be different this time. The first selkie was young and rather uncomprehending…this selkie is older, wiser, and more aware. This shall be interesting.
We all need to find our skin and take it for ourselves! We really do. Good luck with your project.