kayla joy’s Experience (Participant) [she/her]

What is it like...

To remember yet reimagine

To hold the past clearly in the mind’s eye

And to interact with it today

What new ways are there to say

What we wished we said

Or do what we wished we did

And oh, the newfound ways we can play

To make and re-make and create anew

What once we held too tightly as true

For meaning can be recast

Stories are alive!

If only we listen to how our bodies wish to flow

When not forced to follow our so-called ‘logical’ brain

For bodies have a wisdom of their own

Mine dances and sways

Shudders and shakes, flows and breaks

Moving and singing, all senses alive

Making sense of all that’s unsaid inside

And what better place for this inner work

Than this safe space at WOTS

A place to let our bodies

Reenact and respond to the past in the present

To interact with each other, fully present

As we feel and care, move and sense

Learning to get to the essence

Of what wishes to be said

Whether through sigh, sound or shout

With words, or without

Unapologetically, only honestly

Learning to state our needs

And embody our needs

This is not being needy

But being true

As we listen to the seed that wishes to emerge

And let it unfurl, and see it fully through

Every act, specific, intentional

Helps us understand

Where am I?

What am I doing?

And that pause, that intentionality,

Helps us move...

Aligned on where we want to be

Moving as who we really are,

All along

What a glorious dance and song

In this grand stage called life.

*****

A big thankkk youuuuuu to the WOTS Part 1 Monday Group, and the Part 2 group. I loved playing with you, learning from you, and journeying with you! And dayum we’re making a showcase out of it! In our cute costumes! Woohoo!

Thank you to the awesome facilitators — Aadya, Ying and Xinrui, for showing us the different ways to move and play. And thanks to Darryl — the director-riddler and teacher-who-doesn’t-want-to-be-a-teacher. Thank you all, each and every one of you, for holding such a fun and safe and strangeeee space for little me to show up and play :)