what's it's like to only count to eight

circles, all
inside of me,
leading me,
kneading my muscles
into orbs of distinct
pronunciation;
like balls bouncing
through my arms,
shot
out my sternum
making divots down
my spine,
winding up
up
up into hands
afloat with air
underneath, a
supportive nothingness
to my boneless
frame.
circles in, out
and through my skin,
into the green
of my eyes, slowing
as they float
down two thighs stretched,
as if in water, languid,
and slow.
they lead to be
submissive and
lead me again,
answering questions
inside me, all
around me...

k.

questions. i have always played follow the leader with my questions, allowing myself to run in circles instead of creating them for myself. it's a difficult notion, being submissive to the questions themselves. questions have a tendency to consume me, to allow myself to be jaded into thinking one way, thinking that there aren't any other ways of answering them.

all my life, i have had a hate-hate relationship with math. i see numbers and immediately begin to tense up, beginning with my eyes, moving down to my throat and into my stomach, this feeling of dread. complete and absolute fear of having to add them, divide, or god forbid do anything more complicated such as finding the square root of, or throwing in a positive or negative somewhere along the lines. i have always been like this, and wondered in amazement how the people around me could solve these problems in less than fifteen or twenty minutes.

we had this competition in the third grade called top banana. we all had to decorate our banana and then we would have weekly multiplication contests to see who society thought was more valuable to the system. though my banana was adorned in intricate designs and ornate lettering for my name, it was the only one who moved only one space forwar. everyone else's bananas left mine in the dust to rot and fester like the artist it was on the inside.

i couldn't seem to pull ahead. i would look at the test and freeze. well, i guess really, i would lose any concept of anything i had been taught from any math class, ever. there was a literal hole in my mind. and forget the questions. in math, there was only ever one way to do anything. i hated it more in my later years when i realized that not only did you have to come to the correct answer, but you also had to show the way you got it, and were graded on sticking exactly to the plan.

just stick exactly to the plan. that's all you had to do. learn the way you were taught it and do it in the exact same manner every time you did it. the probem was, on the rare occasion i would actually remember the pattern in which to do the problem, i would usually get the answer wrong. so i was fucked either way. and this was, and has since been, my math career and i.

the problem is, it has extended into other aspect of my life, aspect that i began because i enjoyed them. laurie was talking about the path to the problem today. it's not about being there, at the right answer. it's finding your way to it, finding the possibility that exists within the path. because unlike math, movement has capability that exists out of anything. there is not one right way of doing something, there is every right way. the answer doesn't even have to be the same every time. it's asking the questions like these and interpreting different ways of answering them is what works with me. there's not a sould in the world that can take those options from me.

unless, you're a math teacher, and you are giving out top banana's in the class. in that case, i'm as fucked as i was when i started that journey. thank you thank you thank you... that dancers only ever have to count to 8.