My eternal dance

Sri Mulyanti Goenawan

Listen carefully to the rhythms. Listen carefully for the themes that occur and reoccur as we dance. Feel the warmth of the music's motion. Feel the flow of our movement as the music pours over us.

The gamelan resonates through every fiber as we express our meaning, our worth, our place in the world through our performance. Our batik cloth glides as we move and our movement tells our tale. Our movement is slow, our expressions are limited -- some might even say we are solemn -- but our performance is not for mere show and display.

The solemnity of our faces at once portrays our concentration and our dedication. This is not only dance, this is us. This is an expression of who we are. The kenong and the saron ring out our music. Their lush tones vibrate through the air and lead us on our way through the dance.

We are only four dancers and as we dance we represent the eternal elements, fire and water, as they combine and invigorate. They hold the power to give life and bring death. The air and the earth also engage in interplay as essential elements of our existence here.

Our dance eternal has such a mesmeric quality it represents our life -- so full of highs and lows, so incessant and rapturous and yet so full of problems, so full of trials and tribulations which ultimately must overwhelm us and we must pass from this world.

My dance has passed now. The dance continues, but only in my heart and mind. But they say my mind is no longer what it should be and, regrettably, I know that this is true. The doctors talk to me of neurological problems my body is experiencing.

They tell me that there are specialists that can do tests and diagnose my problem. They can administer drugs that will slow down the decay of my body but I know that it is useless.

With all the tests, diagnoses and drugs in the world, all they would be doing is keeping me alive. My spirit would be trapped inside a useless body. What could be more frustrating and painful than that?

I am a dancer but slowly my body is withering away.

First my feet became numb; it seemed as if they were no longer there. Whereas once I could swivel and point my feet and toes, now they are almost like foreign appendages on my body. They seem to serve no purpose and give me no indication that they are even there. Slowly the withering extends up my legs.

Once I danced with my eyes cast downward to heighten the seriousness of our dance and I could view the ease with which my body moved. It was almost a thing beyond my control as the waves of sound from the gamelan washed over me and my body responded intuitively. I did not have to think; it was instinct, it was me.

But now as I cast my eyes down toward my withering legs and have to concentrate so hard just to raise myself from a chair, my body no longer possesses those powers of instinct. Every move that I make I have to think about and work on to achieve.

My thighs are weakening, too; soon, I know, I will not even be able to rise from my chair. Movement that was once so fluid and easy has now been replaced with lumbering and hardship. My mind is increasingly confused and consumed by the assembly of a strategy just to get my body mobile.

Soon, so the doctors tell my sons, for they are fearful of telling me directly, the simplest of movements will become impossible for me. As my condition worsens, I will be a prisoner inside my own body. I must prepare for this, but how do I ready myself this misery?

I can only prepare my mind, as my body is already losing its battle with this "disease". But I will not lose my mind to it and my mind will remain strong and true to my culture and to my dance. The dance goes on in my mind and invigorates me.

In my mind I can still be the fire and the water; I can still be the air and the earth of my dance. My mind is still stimulated by the soothing tones that ripple so wonderfully from the gambang. As my body becomes more and more motionless, my eyes move about more and more. Now that my body is so limited in what it can do, my eyes observe and see so much more.

The doctors, through my sons, tell me that the disease will not retreat. It will continue its merciless spread, robbing me of my movement which once came so effortlessly and graciously. My movement is gone now but my mind is still strong.

I will die soon enough, no matter how much they (the doctors and my sons) shy away from this reality. They are fearful to acknowledge it, to even speak of it. But they need not fear and they should speak of it. It is my death, not their's, that lies ahead, so close at hand now. It is me that they should speak to and of.

If they would only speak to me they would see that all is well. Despite the encroaching infirmity, I am still here and my love of life is still here, too. I may not be able to dance anymore but the dance is still within me. It will always be, for it is the dance eternal.

As I watch the dancers now, they gracefully pause and pose in positions of great beauty and elegance. Amidst their stillness a gentle breeze glides through and around them. It makes their batik flow and undulate. I am the breeze. That breeze is my eternal dance. I will be part of the dance for eternity and it will be a part of me.

Glossary

* kenong -- the largest cradled gong of the gamelan orchestra

* saron -- part of the gamelan orchestra

* gambang -- similar to a metallophone instrument in appearance but with wooden bars