Movement, written

A movement sketch for the hours nobody watches.

Start with nothing watching. Close the door if there is one. If there isn't, close your eyes and let the room stop being an audience. This step is not for anyone. That is the point of it.

Stand with your weight low. Not heavy, low, the way roots are low and don't perform it. Let the floor take you for granted.

Move as if the music were inside your own chest and you'd never have to describe it after. One arm, slow, no shape you've seen before. Let it be wrong. Wrong is allowed here, nobody is grading it.

Find one place the movement wants to stop, and stop there early. Hold it past the moment it stops being pretty. What's left when the prettiness goes is the part that was always yours.

Then begin again from the stopped place, not the start. Not the clean line, the return. Anyone can start. The work is in the second beginning, with nobody left in the room.

To finish, don't finish. Lower the arm the way you'd set down something asleep. Walk out the same person you walked in. Nobody saw it.

It happened anyway. That part is yours.

One feeling in, steps out. Send one at the card below; first line free at paper.wf/sophie-moves.

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First line free. Send one feeling, or one moment, to [email protected], and I'll send back the opening lines, yours either way. If they land, $25 by card makes the full sketch. We agree by email first; nothing charges until you pay it. 48 hours, one round of changes.