You Feel Everything Inside but You Can’t Tell

by Alessia Mancino

Dear reader,

I was born under the name Alessia, but I like it more when people call me Alina, it feels more special to me.

If you’re reading this page, I would like to offer you a little journey with, and into, me. I will try to pour down some feelings into words.

I highly suggest reading these pages with some background music, it should be a calm, relaxing music, some piano songs or any playlist that you find emotional. Let’s be clear, I don’t mean to make you cry, of course, but sometimes in order to feel to the fullest, you need to make some adjustments to your environment. It’s like when you enter a cinema, you need to turn off your phone and switch off the lights to really enjoy the movie. So now I’m asking you to focus on some nice music and switch off everything else that creates any physical and emotional noise.

If you accept to have a little walk through my thoughts, you can start by trusting me, I can hold your hand, start walking and at some point I will maybe even take you inside.

It’s almost winter in my thoughts, it’s chilly but not freezing, our hands are cold so we clasp them together. There are colourful leaves on the ground, it’s that time of the year when the trees are getting undressed but are not completely naked yet. We walk for almost an hour, you smile a lot, I find it beautiful and a bit intimidating. You’re wearing black pants, a brown vintage jacket and a fascinating blue jumper. It has some yellow lines and grey squares on it. You tell me it’s your grandfather’s and we start talking about our families. Such a complicated topic to start knowing each other, right? Or maybe the simplest? How would you describe your family with just one word?

It’s my turn to reply but luckily we’re now standing in front of the door of my house, it doesn’t have an address because I change it almost every year, sometimes even twice a year. The door is closed but it’s never locked. I let in mostly strangers.

I make you a warm cup of tea, it smells like cinnamon and honey. It’s four in the afternoon and we eat a chocolate brownie. We both change into comfortable clothes, because they are the warmest and I refuse to wear uncomfortable clothes at home.

It’s almost sunset time, it’s getting dark fast, so I turn on some of those little orange lights you see in the movies, those that you can find only in young people’s houses because they are cheap and create a nice mood in the room. I light some candles, I have a lot at home, especially in the living room. Some smell like gingerbread and some like lilacs, I don’t know if it’s a good combination but that’s all I have.

How do you feel when you stare at a candle in the darkness? How does that little light make you feel? If you close your eyes, can you still feel its warmth? Its smell?

And how do you feel if we put on some music and turn up the volume to our favourite songs? You’re in this room, the candles are there, moving, but still in their little nest. The music slips from our ears to our stomach, you shiver, but you feel warm. You stand up, slowly moving your feet, you start twirling around yourself, very very slowly, small steps, one after the other. Your arms embrace you, you hug yourself, then you open them up, your twirling speeds up, your head hangs looking at the ceiling, you’re open to the world that the room contains. Have you ever realised how many things can happen between four walls, between a floor and a ceiling?

I ’m sitting on the floor, on the big carpet that covers most of the room. You ask me to dance with you, but I like to watch you, so I stay where I am. Your stomach is getting warmer, you see me disappearing, a dissolving figure, you close your eyes.

Your arms start drawing little waves, small streams running through your limbs. Your shoulders and chest are slowly opening, you feel a flame between your collarbones and your lungs, you keep moving your upper body at the rhythm of the music, to let the flame sink in and expand further and further inside your body. Your shoulder blades take over and start controlling the direction of your arms and head and pelvis and legs. Every movement you’re doing starts from the back, a little bit like in life, the past decides your present, that determines your future and so the flow of your direction keeps changing according to the part of your body you’re choosing to move first. You are letting go of control by choosing what is leading and what is following.

It reminds me of something my therapist told me last week, about loving and being loved, about giving and receiving. I see you having that continuous compromise in your own body and it is giving me so much hope. How communicative can someone be, when they’re dancing alone. Not performing, just dancing.

I have a feeling that sometimes people rely so much on the aesthetics of dance and don’t really understand how much of an inside work it is to be expressing yourself through dance. The continuous permission you’re asking yourself and not knowing what is going to happen the second after, but also choosing it all the time. To let go of your own judgement and connect to the deepest desires your body and mind have. How many impossible scenes are you seeing?

Are you still in the same room I am? Where is your mind wondering? It is probably not here, probably not with me. What landscapes are you seeing? Which colours? What thoughts are influencing your body? Will you ever stop moving and start crying? Or laughing? How does your mind shape your body, how does your body shape your mind.

I can see your legs getting heavier as they open up, your roots are so deep and yet you’re so free. Do you realise how much physical strength you need to have, to look so light and graceful? To look beasty and disorganised? To collapse on the floor and stand up in a split of a second? To create all the images you portrait when you think of a dancer? All the strength that comes from the vulnerability you’re showing me, is leading you to the floor, you spiral, you caress the air, you push the floor and the ceiling, you push the walls, your sky is everywhere and you’re swimming it with every inch of your skin. You’re running in an open field, arms open, shiny eyes, naked skin, it’s cold and it’s warm, it’s sunny and it’s raining, it’s every feeling in the world and you’re creating it. You feel nature all around, the presence of all the living beings, you feel powerful, you feel long, you feel like you belong.

You bounce repeatedly on your legs, you’re in a rave, the colours keep changing in the dark, your friends are there, you wear sunglasses because that’s what people do now in raves. You gotta look cool. The music bounces back in your bowel. Minimal moves, minimal feelings, you have a little bomb ticking inside, it will never explode and you know it. It’s there and you keep it warm with your polite bounces, you feel everything inside but you can’t tell. Continuous set backs on your chest, keep it chill but keep it going, small changes of directions, arms going up to catch some air, and then back on your sides, flying around like mosquitos, to twirl better, to add flowers in the woods. You’re a beast in a baby’s body. You feel everything inside but you can’t tell. You feel everything inside but you can’t tell. This is your world. And sometimes you want to scream it, sometimes you want to mute it. It’s always your call. It can be painful. It can be the most joyful moment. It can change in a split of a second. And you’re not in charge of it.

I don’t know for how long you’ve been dancing, it could be five minutes or two days. You’re sweaty, tired, energised. You open your eyes. You look into mine. You know I can’t see all of it, but you’re smiling and you’re confused. Your eyes are wet, you feel emotional and you know I can understand.

You take me to the rooftop, we fall into a hug, we have a slow dance in front of the whole world, yet no one can see it. I fade, disappear again. The only thing we need is knowing we exist, even in different places, in different moments. And we dance for the world. It’s an unseeable act of love. Go to your safest place, and dance for yourself.