Dear Guy,
While we are still not done with the
retrospect on the important stages of your life till this day, I could feel,
these last months, how you’re longing to give sense to a foreseeable future
with the knowledge that your time left, is shortening.
A few years ago you took the
decision, with the support of many, to go to Rwanda to fulfill a longtime dream
to create a professional entity for dance over there. For some, it looked like it was your last
major undertaking. Probably influenced by the many obstacles you have faced, your
mind has, in its still never ending creativity, build a slight different
outcome of what is commonly known as retirement. The poor involvement of
certain first hour supporters has left you very disappointed and we all know
that no one can tell you to be patient and repeat it over and over when you are
convinced that there is no more time, neither for you neither for Rwanda’s
dance heritage. Patience has been probably the hardest to achieve goal of your
personality during all your life and someone telling you to be patient, is as
defying the devil personally! Fortunately, you have met new fellows and companions
and one in particular has understood from the first moment which are your goals
and he supports them fully as if they were his own for the sake of the cause. While your dream is far from achieved and many
hurdles are still to be taken we can be hopeful for the nearby future.
We both know and all those around
you, that you will not sit down and contemplate with satisfaction what you have
done in this almost sixty four years. Only at your last breath you will end to
make plans and frankly I’m not even sure about this as you will not take the
risk to arrive with an empty basket on the other side of the Rubicon.
Nevertheless you told me that
sometimes you would like to be one of those anonymous fans on a soccer game on
a grey icy Saturday, having a beer if your team won the match and also having
one if the match was lost and going thoughtless to bed later that night instead
of reviewing all the coming problems. Indeed it must be blissful starting the
night with the only thought that the next day you will have a lazy Sunday afternoon.
You hate the name bucket list as
it suggest that it contents ten thousand things you want to do before you
expire. Your arguments against are, that most certainly you rather wanna do
that ten thousand and one thing and that if you only achieve a part of the list
you will be left alone with bitter thoughts. Another argument is that the plans
for such a wish list never consider the mental and the physical decline. At the
end the longlist can become an unsightly shortlist. Despite that you became
very restless these last months as you really want to undertake some actions
that you have postponed because there was still time…
You want to see ‘Rigoletto’ in
Torino, ‘Peter Grimes’ in London, ‘Faust’ in Paris, ‘La Fanciulla del West’ in
Napels, Bellini’s ‘Norma’ in la Scala and taste the cocktail with the composers
name in Catania. You cannot die before
having seen so many places and not only Napoli’s bay. You cannot stop fighting before
your dancers have found a place to perform and you cannot leave this planet
without returning to Procida, or do you!? Neruda will never forgive you and you
would never forgive yourself.
You can’t imagine dying before
you were dancing Salsa in Cali, Cumbia in the Colombian Caribbean and Tango on
a square in Buenos Aires. You wanna visit the old conga master Alberto Cortez
in Peru. You have to smell the air and seeing the light of places you have been
before, at least to see the memory
confirmed. And once and for all you want to be cured of that unbearable
syndrome of not being able to say goodbye by paying a final visit to those who
have played a major role in your life during all those years.
After reading all this, you know
now, that this only can be achieved by giving you a second lifetime or by
making choices. Yes, I know Guy, this is the most difficult part of the job. It
is the essence of what you have said all those years to youngsters you have
worked with. It has been probably the most difficult task and yet you have to
submit yourself to this exercise again. You cannot postpone Guy because, as you
said yourself, there is no more time left.
So let me give you this last advice,
the one that you also gave to others on different occasions… a lot can be
achieved with a little help of your friends…. don’t forget to ask them.
Yours always,
Guy.
PS: Before I forget, there is that other moment
you have waited for, thirty eight years already, to wake up one morning next to
the woman you have always loved. But that brings us back to patience!
_
No comments:
Post a Comment