Rethinking the dancer: a new spin

When the previous dancer mentioned Valarie, I knew that she was the one for the role.

Valarie and I met five years ago during our senior year of college. She was a student at Stanford at the time, while I was going to Smith. My mother teaches in the religious studies department at Stanford, where Valarie was writing her thesis about post 9-11 hate crimes, which later turned into her feature-length documentary film Divided We Fall. It was during this same year that Valarie took her first Kathak class, which eventually inspired me to take up the dance practice myself. From the time we first met, we connected very deeply. Although our friendship was mostly long-distance, we would exchange extensive e-mails discussing love, life, art, and the universe. When we were able to meet every once in a while, we had long magical conversations. We would often bounce creative ideas back and forth and give each other moral support through the trials and tribulations of our various artistic undertakings. I had always considered her my sister in creativity, so of course it was only natural that she be one of the first to know about Sagar. I sent her a long e-mail as soon as I got the idea. It was several weeks before I received any kind of response. And when I did finally hear from her, it was not in answer to the e-mail I sent.

"You may have noticed that I dropped out of the world for a little while," she wrote. "I lost my phone, let email go, closed my ears to the news, and instead turned my attention to the sea. Every morning, I walk to the ocean so that it may teach me things. I am just beginning to listen, but I still have anxiety to work out of my body. So I dance and do yoga and stretch my arms to the sky."

"Wow," I thought. "What an amazing and bizarre coincidence. I have been envisioning a girl dancing out at the ocean, while she has been living it." But did she know about what I was trying to do? From the tone of her e-mail -- which was sent to a few different friends, not just me -- it sounded like she did not. Just shortly after receiving this e-mail, we spoke briefly on the phone.

"Did you get my e-mail?" she asked me.
"Yes," I told her. "Did you get mine?"
"I haven't checked my e-mail for a very long time," she said.

I told her to take a look at it when she got the chance. Hopefully, she would understand and appreciate my idea. At the very least, she would probably be intrigued by the coincidence. It wasn't too long before she sent me another e-mail:

"Karuna, I have chills. Do you know - for the past month - that I have been taking a wooden platform out to the sand in the morning, wrapping my ghungroo around my ankles, bowing in pranam to the ocean, and dancing? It has become a deeply spiritual practice for me. And afterward, I lay down on my beach towel, and imagine going out to the ocean, the waters running down my neck and back, washing away the pain, healing me. I imagine the ocean lifting me into the sky - and disappearing. Before I return again.
Karuna, your story, your vision, and what will soon be your film - is exactly what I have been experiencing.
I have no words. I take it as a sign. That you must do it. And we will talk about it."