Aunt Mimi is dancing. She is 19 years old again. Her unitard glows a bright mustard. The lighting on the stage is quite intense, but this is the only record I have of her dancing. She danced at Goucher in the early 80's, I believe. My mother says she was a beautiful dancer. I don't know how she moved. I do know she had great lines and form. She tips over like a teakettle about to fall. There is someone behind her, but I could care less. I see her face and I recognize it as hers. But the youth within her face is so soft. Over time her body and face have become tight and almost harsh. She's still lovely, but it is the beauty of aging well. My mother told me that my aunt was told by my grandmother that she was only pretty and not all that smart or talented, so dancing was all she could do. (I hate my grandmother) My aunt was a modern dancer at Goucher and after she graduated she never danced again.
I have fully realized why this photo holds a strange hold over me. I see her, I see what she was, and I know she could never do it again. Then, I worry about my partner. He is a modern dancer here and he is graduating very soon. My fear is that he will leave and just suddenly forget his talent. (He plans on living with his mom during the summer and getting a job) My aunt stopped dancing because she fell in love and got married. Will my partner cease to do the thing he loves best to help out his mother? If so, I will not forgive him for letting go of something so precious, nor will I ever forgive his mother. My aunt's husband is not a good man. He can't parent, he used to gamble, he used to smoke, etc. He really frustrates my aunt. I blame him for her loss of art.
The first time I saw this photo, I had to ask my mother what happened. I also didn't believe her when she said it was my aunt. I now see this punctum within the photo that has never crossed my mind. Her right arm tipping low, as if to signal a future decline or loss. Its hard not to cry when I write this. My idealistic nature makes me rail against the forces of reality. Within this object, though, she is frozen in time, forever teetering on the edge.
Barthes wrote, "Cruel, sterile deficiency: I cannot transform my grief, I cannot let my gaze drift; no culture will help me utter this suffering which I experience entirely on the level of the image's finitude (this is why, despite its codes, I cannot read a photograph)...when it is painful, nothing in it can transform grief into mourning." Though she is not dead, I feel a pang in my chest. It is the death of art. The death of beauty, endlessly alive and dying. And I want to turn away.
