The sky is white and the mist is so thick it feels like rain against my cheeks and eyelids as I run down the hill toward the Scantic River on this Easter Sunday. The tree branches are still bare, but there are new patches of spring green on some of the open expanses, and a few yellow flowers are starting to appear.
At the bottom of the hill I turn right and take the path into the woods, thinking I’ll head to my favorite spot next to the Scantic River, where I dance every time I’m here visiting my parents. I hear the rush of a rapids section where there will be just a languid current later in the season, and pause to watch the water dance over the rocks.
Instead of settling into my favorite spot, I decide to continue further into the woods, running along the edge of the river in its same direction. A giant blue heron takes flight as I approach and glides around the riverbend until it’s out of sight.
I planned to wake up early to run, but it took me hours to fall asleep, so I slept in and got a later start. I’m a little worried that Easter dinner preparations
are happening and I should be helping, but I give myself to the moment and vow to work hard once I’m back.
Before I left, my mom shared that she found the straw Easter bonnets my sister and I wore to mass when we were small. There is a faded photo of us in the hats in front of the house in pretty floral dresses, along with my brother and cousin in their tiny navy suits. St. Catherine’s church, where my parents and grandparents were married, where I was baptized, and where we went to church on holidays like Easter, is just a mile from where I’m running now.
As a kid, mass seemed like something to be endured, but on Easter Sunday, my senses were fully engaged. The giant stained glass windows would be tipped open, and sharp early spring wind would be pouring in with the sunlight. When mass was finally over, there would be groups of new purple and yellow crocuses and daffodils quivering a spring greeting beside the church walkways.
Back in the woods, I run around a loop that will be hard to access by late May. I decide to finish the loop, then continue through the first stretch to come back again to a sandy beach.
I descend down a little trail, and create a circle to dance inside of on the river beach.
My mind drifts back to when I was a young teen and first got into distance running. Maybe because I was interested in pushing my limits. Maybe because I wanted my body to match the bodies I studied in Sassy and Vogue. Maybe because it was a way to feel more alive. Or maybe because it was a way to outrun the difficult feelings I didn’t have any other way to manage.
My Dad drove with the odometer on to help me map the distances I was covering; and I’m pretty sure I had just completed a ten mile run.
I loved feeling my feet slap the pavement, the time with my inner world, and the routine of relating to each different stretch of the route.
But what I remember most from this day was the bath I took after my run. We had an old claw foot bathtub and the bathroom was in the eaves with a sloping ceiling. For the first time that year, the window was wide open and the eyelet curtains were flapping wildly. The sun was bright, though there was still a winter bite in the air. I knew I had just pushed my limits and given my best, and I felt relaxed and happy–elated even–with this first rush of spring.
Anxieties pull at the edges of awareness, but I shift attention to my feet and the give of the sand as I drop my center of gravity and set my hips and shoulders to circling, comforting myself with the thought that I can always go back to this crowd of anxieties later if I still want to.
Memories pour through as my body continues to circle.
During my last winter of college, our upstairs neighbors in Jamaica Plain lost their boa constrictor. They told us they weren’t too worried since the same thing had happened the previous year. They shared that the giant snake had burrowed into the walls to ride out the winter, then had re-emerged once the weather warmed up.
At the time, I was in the process of extricating myself from underground club culture – a deeply unsettling process where I lost all of my friends, sense of purpose, and identities all at once.
That winter, the winter the snake disappeared, I had vivid nightmares. Sometimes they would be of demons. One was of a club kid with slitted cat eyes who kept trying to get inside my apartment.
Color oozed out of the edges of everything, leaving me grey and dim.
On the first warm day, the Fugees version of Killing Me Softly drifted in with the spring wind from a passing car. Something in me thawed; and long-frozen tears started flowing.
Despite everything, spring had once again arrived.
And sure enough, the boa emerged from the walls soon after.
Back at the river beach, Staccato snags my attention on a tree across the river. Exhales get louder. My hips drop and carve as another spring memory emerges.
When I was fifteen, my boyfriend and I had a half-day and went to his house afterward, thinking we would be alone.
We were upstairs in his room when we heard the backdoor slam.
His father’s planned flight had been cancelled and he was downstairs, banging in his suitcase and opening cupboards. I leapt into the closet while Jacob–who was to be my last light-of-day boyfriend for many years to come–went downstairs to greet him, probably in boxer shorts. For seventeen heavy minutes, I waited in the closet on a pile of dirty clothes, gazing out through the wooden door slats, tensely watching the illuminated red minutes change on a bedside-table clock, trying not to breathe too loudly, my heartbeat exploding despite the tiny clipped breaths I was taking.
I heard Jacob’s father enter the room. Without stopping, he walked directly to the closet, pausing with his hand on its doorknob while I fully held my breath. He yanked the closet door open and found me there, naked, my clothes somewhere in the tangled bed. My breath rushed out in shock and I said something ridiculous, inappropriate, incongruous to the situation. I think it was, “Hi, how are you doing?” He said nothing to me, and instead hollered down the stairs for Jacob to come immediately. When Jacob appeared he sneered, “Well, take care of her,” with a tone of contempt. “Does she need a ride home or something?”
I dressed and ran down the street to the hockey rink, where Jacob had practice later that afternoon. When Jacob finally arrived at the rink he told me he had been kicked out of his house, then curtly turned his back, and walked away. I ran outside and flung myself down on the grass, rolling around and hitting my head on my arm. Yet I remember another strand, too. Though I was deeply upset, I think some part of me was also enjoying the drama, possibly even feeling alive in it.
I imagined that Jacob and I would have to stand up proudly for our love despite parental disapproval, but he broke up with me shortly after. In my mind, this episode, which made my sexuality so public, in some weird way both proved I was desirable and also proved I was unacceptable – strands of identity that came to be woven deeply into me, planting some early seeds (seeds I would continue to unconsciously water) for years of crushing anxiety.
My feet are carving up the river beach now. My elbows and hips sync up, dropping and twisting, and before I know it my head joins in, loosening my organized movements and setting them in a thousand different gestures at once. My hair is growing out after an actual styled cut, and it covers my face as my head drops down, and falls back as my head rolls around. Before long, it flies out wildly, blending with the spinning landscape.
Here I’m not trying to outrun the difficult feelings. I’m just letting them storm through, and moving along with them.
I wish I’d had this practice as a teen, or any practice, really. I think if someone had told me I didn’t have to always act on difficult feelings, that I could just stay with them and let them run their course things might have been easier for me.
When I finally found the 5Rhythms dance and movement practice, it gave me back what I loved so much about underground club culture: the creativity, the mystical communion, the intensity, the shared consciousness, the freedom. And it also gave me a way to deal with difficult feelings rather than always trying to outrun them.
Extended family is already starting to arrive for Easter dinner as I hurry into the shower. No one seems to mind that I’m rushing to put out the cheese I brought from Brooklyn; and I’m still able to do my part, be present in close conversations and playful banter, and help out with cleanup after.
With my hands in soapy water, I look out the kitchen window to where the river continues, unseen, beyond the trees.
At this point, I’m grateful for everything on my path that has brought me to this place. I’m also hoping this new spring will offer me a fresh start, and once again remind me who I am. Will remind me that underneath all of the temporal identities, I’m a dynamic moving being; and I can always re-invent myself.
April 6, 2026, Broad Brook, CT