I dance in my apartment alone for therapeutic relief. Quite often, actually.
My favorite time to do so is in the evening, when I can dance in this window of light.
Feeling the warm sun on my skin.
I do want to say that this is the first video I've ever edited using Adobe Premiere, and also the first one of myself I have ever uploaded onto the internet. I've had Premiere on my laptop for a while, but it was yesterday when I gave myself the mission of creating a watchable video, by pairing music and footage.
Last night, I was at a friend's house for a 420 party, and I wanted to finish rendering the video. I mentioned what I had made to my friend Chris, and he expressed that he wanted to see it. At the time, there were only three other people in the room, so I agreed. However, I realized I wanted to wait for the video to render out so it wouldn't look choppy.
An hour later, the video is done rendering. But more people had shown up.
I was hoping that they would forget about it.
Then Chris looked over at me.
"Hey Claire, is that video ready to watch?"
I look at him, mortified.
"Y-yeah. It is."
"Can we see it?"
(Intense feelings of nausea set in).
"Yeah." I say.
My good friend Liz senses my anxiety. She tells me it's OK if I don't want to show anyone. Then she goes on to say this:
"We really want to watch this because we support our friends when they make things. We care about you and your art, so you don't have to feel embarrassed! We love you."
I realized that all of the fear I was holding was just in myself. Why the fuck was I so afraid? It was only me. Doing what I love doing.
My friend Scott hooked it all up to their TV screen. He pressed play.
I was curled up on the ground, half-watching with one eye. I still felt extremely nervous.
After it was over, everyone was so receptive and shared a lot of positive reinforcement! I was blown away by how kind everyone was, how sincere it was to receive uplifting comments about your art by friends and some strangers. As someone who is TERRIFIED of performance, and being in front of people, the idea of showing a room of live humans a video of myself freaked me the fuck out.
But in some way, because it was a genuine self on the screen, I felt appreciated. I felt loved. And I felt seen.
I feel proud of myself. And quite brave.
It feels good to share expressions of oneself with the world!
