Ginger Dendy

The truth is balance, but the opposite of truth, which is unbalance, may not be a lie.
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

She's been dead for some time now but recently I've been seeing her. Just glimpses. But regularly. When I'm turning a corner. Speeding past me on the expressway. Standing far away in a crowd for a second or two, Smiling as if she wants to reconnect, then disappearing. My dead sister. Waite. I tell myself I'm here now to recreate a picture of her. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that my aim is to rid myself of my own obsessions of desertion following her departure. In any case, I'm not here because of you, and though I'd like to say I'm here because of her, that's probably at best only an excuse. More likely I'm here for my own benefit. To remember her and at last put her and myself to rest. I'd like to think I can recreate an accurate image of her. But I doubt I'll succeed. Stories stray from the intent originally sought in the telling, a reflection found in the synonomity of the words "story" and "lie". So it seems that her story has become my story or a mystery. In part it was through Waite that I came to see the deception of a belief in a concrete objective but to incorporate that uncertainty into a notion of truth. To perceive that nothing is actually knowable but still maintain a belief that every incident has meaning is a position not easily reckoned with. Though I came upon that perspective early on, I obtained it secondhand. Waite was less fortunate. She had to live it out. Though she assumed an attitude of all encompassing uncertainty, I think she always retained some sense of clarity. Like most of us, a belief in a coexistence of immateriality and rational objectivity was ingrained as her original point of view. But even when she came to realize the disparities within this belief system, she could never completely move past them. As much as she lived her life out of balance, in a whirlwind, she was undeniably grounded in tradition. Perhaps that conflict brought on her early demise, became her tragic flaw, if you think in those terms. But mostly I'll leave the thinking to you. I'd rather just remember her.

So I begin with a story from our childhood, one of my most vivid memories of her. Maybe it signifies the emergence of what I've come to think of as Waite's essence. Maybe it signifies nothing. If you can make that call, you're obviously on a different wavelength from me. In any case, paradox being my most prevalent state of mind, it seems to me that meaning, like time, is indeterminate. And this story seems to have occurred a long time ago.

When Waite and I were girls, we spent a summer cultivating luna moths, those seemingly other-wordly Saturnine Lepidoptera. We began the project somewhat halfheartedly, but as time went by we became more involved in it. Under a mesh tent, we planted mullein which, which as it grew, provided sustenance for the caterpillars we gathered from the surrounding areas. Weeks into the first stage of preparation, the surviving larvae completed the cocoons that marked their chrysalid stage. Every evening we awaited the forthcoming of our first moth. By that time the night was flecked with many of them floating out of the woods nearby. Pale fluorescent green, large as bats against the dark sky. And finally the emergence of the first of the moths we'd cosseted. As it slipped its body free from its sac, I could feel Waite's excitement intertwine with my own. The anticipation of its first flight, enhanced by our conjoined hope for the flourish with which it would rise. This initial moth was to be our progeny, our own. And with that sense of possession, our expectations grew. And here the snag. As it struggled to release itself, it was caught, in need of aid to extricate itself from its casing. In my desire to help, I obtained a knife and we began the process of freeing what we thought of as our creation. A tiny cut, and all was well until with its final unfurling, the tail of one wing caught the blade, creating a slight tear. Not enough to cripple it, but to our initial dismay, its movement was marked by a waiver, a slight tremor, which, as we watched it float into the night, allowed us to recognize it as our own. It was fluttering to its own rhythm, Waite determined. Far superior to its fellow, ordinary moths. At the time I agreed entirely. That it was less fit for survival didn't matter to us at that point. Maybe it never mattered to Waite.

As time passed, Waite and I eventually went our individual ways, parting and reuniting periodically, but never entirely losing the oneness that had originally bound us together. From childhood I'd idealized her. An exceptional creature as content in her darkness as in her joy, she'd cast a long shadow over me. At times I'd run from her screaming for the light and my own voice. plagued by both an irreconcilable need to be both with her and apart from her.

I'd always suspected she'd die young. But for a time after her death, I gave little thought to her, put her away. Her leaving was no surprise but the peace it first left me with was. I'd mourned her loss long before her actual death. Still, I was unnerved in finding myself disaffected by the short-lived blank that followed her departure, this ensued by the anguish of the ultimate realization of the loss of her, and seemingly, the loss of my self.

But last night for the first time since her death I conjured her up. Or maybe I should say she visited me again. It was never in her nature to come to the beckon of any other's call unless it was a call she wanted to answer. She came down just like when we were girls and she was that beautiful androgen once more. As she was in the beginning. Before the pale, pale hair. Before the small breasts that finally emerged. Long before her short stay with the New York company. Dancing again. Pure. In turn, morphing through the progression of her days. Suddenly a trace askew. Then tattered. Yellow chiffon and cicada wings rimmed in the remains of blood hardened glitter. The costume musty but her movement as pure as it had originally been. The large flock of flightless birds that followed her was the only real reminder of her last days.

She was spinning hard in strain with the music. A sprite more alive in death than any living soul I'd known. Spinning. Faster and faster. "You can never get enough speed in a pirouette," she'd said when we were children. "If you could, you'd touch the faces of the gods," the remark followed by the obligatory smirk. On the stage at her peak she was nothing short of Ecstasy. Last night, in my vision, just as she finished her performance, I pulled her to me, compelled to touch the substance of her. To feel her smile. The joy of reconnecting, the smell of her, meeting of eyes. And to hold her. Too long perhaps. She was in one of her moments of sang-froid. But incapable of retreat, she wouldn't pull back. As always a comment on her performance. "The best yet," I'd said, feeling I'd lied, and she'd smiled knowing the lie as truth, letting me know that she was many steps ahead moving faster than ever and that she couldn't be here long. She'd never been anywhere long.

Technically the performance wasn't her best. She'd returned in the body of a child and it was at that stage that she'd danced. The movements inspired, but lacking focus. Not yet the self possessed dancer she'd later become, yet superior in ways to anything she'd performed professionally as wordlessly we'd both acknowledged. She performed with an abandonment she'd first found in her self in the dance, a state which years of classical training had stripped from her. The closer she'd edged toward the perfection of her craft, the further she ventured from her innate dance purity. It wasn't the aging process, but the precision required of the art form. As her technique perfected, a mechanical precision took its toll. She became only the dance and Waite herself was in part buried. A ghost en pointe. A wili groomed for Giselle.

When she danced intuitively, she danced for no one but herself and the spirits she claimed inspired her. She never bothered to perform for the audience, but to capture them, take then with her for a while. Her desire was to take the dance beyond entertainment back to its original source of mysticism. It was a notion that would not be long tolerated in the world of New York's classical ballet. Had she been willing to move to another form of dance, her life might have taken a different turn. So why didn't she? Her objective, she'd claim, was to bring substance back to the ballet and then move beyond that to accent the self-absorbed perversion of the format, but always to remain technically within the form. That obstinacy defined her as surely as her refusal to give up her belief in ancient mysticisms and a resurrection of the avant-garde, all the while maintaining a classicism branded into her.

At her peak, stardom insured. But she'd abandoned it with barely a shrug. It never seemed to bother her that something she'd striven for she'd let go of so easily. She'd smiled when I mentioned it to her. "Strife is not what I strive for." She was punning again, her way of revealing and avoiding her self. She'd laughed child-like when I mentioned it to her. Then her eyes went blank and she was on to something else.

Toward the end of her time in the Company, it seemed she was constantly dancing, often in full costume, off stage as well as on. You'd see her dance on the beach, working her way in and out of the water, in the streets, in parks, on rooftops, balconies. On occasion at the Theater even when she was unscheduled to dance there, stepping out from the audience and into the aisle to perform. Always a darling of the crowd. Her best performances often occurred when she wasn't scheduled to dance. Frequently, word that she'd be in attendance would get out and her impromptu appearances often drew the largest crowds. Performances remarkable even to the old guard critics who lauded her, though only when she was officially scheduled and in good standing with the company. It was astonishing that, even for a short time, she was given such privilege, an unprecedented act even for the director's favorite and a major crowd draw.

In time her unscheduled appearances created a scandal within the world of high ballet. Her defiant choice of costume as well as the attitude and dress of the entourage she arrived with became more and more unseemly to both the powers within the Company and the audience that supported it. Of course you know how the story goes: a demand that she return to a more "acceptable" approach. By this time not even the director was willing to side with her. She'd taken matters into her own hands, strayed too far from his intentions. That her last discourse with him resulted in her publicly spitting in his face marked the end. Of course, like the rest of us, on some level he was in love with her. He lost her trying to possess her. Waite never lived under anyone's command but her own. Compromise was not a part of her make up. And the Company was built on compromise.

So Waite was let go and sent a legal document that officially barred her from any further performances in the theater. The choice of the word barred and its associations with the worlds of law and classical ballet intrigued her. More and more, the two worlds seemed synonymous to her. Barred became her new mantra. She spoke of it tirelessly to anyone inquiring about her dismissal, repeating the word, the story, until it took on so many meanings that it became nonsensical. But by now, this was not her only obsession.

The drugs, naturally, had long been part of her life. Amphetamine kept her at that emaciated state that the dance world embraced. It didn't help much with the pain of the craft, but pain was something that from the beginning had never much bothered her. In time, she'd grown used to it and even come to depend on it as just another stimulant. So it came as no surprise to me when I saw the first scars on her arms. Slash marks, not needle marks, though by then her drug use was out of control. Though social stratification had never had meaning for her and she was always an outsider even when she was publicly adored, she was moving in spaces and with people in many ways at odds with her own nature. Waite always maintained a form of traditionalism that was foreign to the people she now surrounded herself with. She had almost no interest in the rock or contemporary art world. But in part because of her single-minded rebelliousness, the fringes of the art/rock/underground/drug world as well as the drug dealers, junkies, whores and poseurs that followed them, were now her almost sole companions. But no matter how many people she gathered around her, she remained essentially alone. Though her nature was one of isolation, it was necessary for her to surround herself with others. For the most part, I think, this was not a manifestation of a need for connection or of companionship, but more of a reflection of a type of hive mentality she possessed. And Waite always in the center, the queen, with only one or two actual intimates. If questioned on it, she'd tell you she was living only for the spirit of herself and those of an other world which had always been her only reality. Claimed she was lying, cheating, piercing her way to the truth. .

I don't remember exactly when she left the dance as her focus to move on to performance art. It began with her gathering parts of herself for creative and sometimes cosmetic purposes. It was after the peak of the razor slashings. Before her dramatic performances that combined classical Greek drama with ritualistic torture scenes. It came at a time before any of this had achieved the trendy, fashionable status it now has. And it came from some deep, inexplicable need that she'd always had, to search out all aspects of the world, not from a desire to shock or make a spectacle of her self. Though she used her actual body--blood and later her hair, skin, nails saliva, and urine--and she meticulously shuffled bottles and jars of her self in and out of her fridge, labeling all samples and finding more and more uses for them, I believe the process only served one real purpose. To reflect her notion that her art required two elements: the use her physical self, and the expression of suffering. "My creative process necessitates physical pain. Without it, there is no art," she'd tell you staring you straight in the eye, no trace of irony. And though at the time I was maddened by what I perceived as a self destructive refusal to compromise, I now believe it was the only conclusion she could come to. Early ballet training had intrigued her specifically because it allowed her to use her body as vehicle. It had also led her to associate her art with physical pain. Though the form of her creations varied, they were consistently linked by that use of self as a medium in a process that was manifested through pain. Though it would be easy to say that the physical pain was a manifestation of psychic pain, that would probably be missing a nonexistent mark.

I saw her again after a long absence. We'd gone our separate ways for a while. She was absorbed in a peculiarity I'd needed distance from, living transiently, wherever she could find a space, within a group but always somehow comfortably edgy. When we met again she was anxious to show me her bedroom. I followed to find her bed surrounded by a seven foot high wrought iron staked fence fitted tightly around the frame. It was entered by an actual gate at the foot that she kept locked. "Barring yourself once again?" I'd remarked flatly. "My kind of dream catcher," she responded, acknowledging her desire to turn the semiotic into action. Then she opened the gate, led me in and locked it. She demanded that we sleep the night together like we'd done in childhood. I'd refused at first, in need of distance, but as always she won me over. We held each other as a flash of childhood returned. For a few moments she was as she had been, her eyes tender, vulnerable and trusting, seemingly allowing me to penetrate her innermost self. Was it a lie, and if so who was lying? By that time I'd grown suspicious of any kind of resurrection of our former connection. Still, I wanted to feel the old peace of her dreaming, her inner flutter of joy, the flesh of her in my arms. But the drugs and maybe time had distorted her vibration into an irregular twitch which stabbed at my gut. And after we'd made some mutation of love, I cried at the immensity of her pain, the loss of her, and at the zombiefication process that had seemingly overtaken her. She'd held me softly, gently kissing my brow and hair. "I know," she'd said. "I know too," I lied. I've never known anything. Ever.

For a while after our night together, I kept up with her from a distance. Watching her actual disintegration close up was too painful. But when she called me late one night to tell me she was sick, I returned to be with her for as much as I could endure. I'd reasoned that If I couldn't be her sister, I could maybe be her nurse. It was a notion bound to fail, but it did somehow bring us together again. And though it was the most traumatic of all, her sickness and eventual death was only one of the many losses I've experienced. Somehow I thought the other separations would prepare me for this one, would blunt the pain of losing her. Perhaps in the long run, it did. But at the time, Waite's leaving manifested as the culmination of what at the time appeared to be a lifetime of losses.

When I think back, sometimes I wonder what portion of my life I'll live out in medical waiting rooms, waiting not because of my own illness but the illnesses of those I love. I fantasize that in the end, when my life flashes before me, the images passing by will not be events from my own life, but scenes of the deaths or losses of loved ones. I once told this to Waite and she laughed so hard that everyone around us began to giggle along with her. At that moment, we were in a hospital waiting room passing time as we waited for the results of her blood work. The irony of that circumstance, blood work, was not mentioned but lost on neither of us. At this point Waite wasn't much feeling her sickness. She was in the early stage of what she referred to as her obligatory AIDS, obligatory among her kind, she meant.

It was understood between us that she would not die a victim of her own body. Body control was essential to her. When she had asked for my help in filming her suicide, I'd refused. "Pick someone less involved I'd said. "Absurd," she'd responded, "Whoever goes through my death with me will become most involved in my life. Why should we alter the structure of our connection at such a late point?" Were her words true? I doubted them, but that's not why I refused the request that to me seemed a slap in the face. Her art/macabre witchy-ness was becoming a burden. Anyway, I'd lost her long ago. It seemed a bit late to try to find her. I didn't have her faith in the process of the conjure. Just as I'd refused part in her sadomasochistic performance dramas, I wasn't going to videotape her death. Not that I tried to dissuade her at that time. Though I was sure she was serious about eventually ending her own life, I thought she'd wait until she was physically sick. And, at this point, I didn't place much seriousness in the proposed theatrics of her plan. But as for the suicide, like it or not, her decision was her own. By necessity, I was prepared to accept whatever she chose. I just didn't want to be there for it.

I became aware of the eminence of her suicide when I saw her the last time that we met to once more discuss the videotaping. Though strong and otherwise in good health, she was in one of her itches. The initial sign of any major change Waite was about to undergo always first manifested itself on her body. Inevitably she would become covered in itchy sores, not hives or a rash, but actual papules. It seemed they marked a transition period, perhaps symbolic of a desire that could only be eased by whatever change she was contemplating. Once the decision to make the change was actuated, they disappeared, but this could be a lengthy process. She never acted impulsively. Though ultimately it seemed she always knew what she wanted, and her body made it known that a change was imminent, she was racked with indecision and struggled, seemingly uselessly, to determine her action. So sometimes the itch stuck around for quite a while until she gave in to whatever need it was her will demanded.

Witnessing the outward signs of her intended suicide was what finally brought about my desertion of her. I couldn't accept the loss of her. And her end plan further alienated me. By this time my inability to reach her on any level was infuriating. She'd always been incapable of being insulted so it came as no surprise that my attempts to hurt and shock her failed. I'd idly hoped I might touch something that could change her plans by chiding her for attempting to live out her life as an underground fashion statement. No response from her, not a blink or flinch. Not even an acknowledgment. Just blankness. If my words hurt her, they were something she'd already hurt herself with. I left her only after erupting in the last bit of insult I could invoke, a half-hearted vituperation that expressed my shock at her creating a spectacle of her death and her need to live in melodrama. "Why can't you live in reality?" I screamed. "Reality is the biggest lie of all," she said matter-of-factly. It was the last thing I recall her telling me. She'd smirked as she said it, without pause or meanness as she moved away, leaving me once and for all. Empty. Absolving nothing.

I was aware of the time the performance was to happen, having said my good-byes to her earlier in the day. So opting not to be there for the act, why did I later choose to view the videotape mailed to me and to watch it so many times that it was as if I had actually granted her request and been there for her departure. Was it guilt? Morbid curiosity? Because she would have wanted me to? Undoubtedly Waite would have had a clearly ambiguous answer to the question. But it was a question she never would have asked. She was apparently without questions because she'd always understood the absurdity of any answer.

Now comes the time when I'm obligated to describe the videotape for you. Of course, she'd have preferred that you see it. Possibly some day you will. It's in many hands now. Copies multiply exponentially. Though there are many with audio (endless variations, some set to music--rock and roll, classical, operatic with an emphasis on Callas--in others the images run over poetic readings, assorted chants, noise/nonsense, or dialogue, mostly of "le bad cinema" variety) the copy I have is soundless, which I imagine is how it was originally meant to be. Waite always preferred performing with only her audience as background sound. To watch it any other way, blunts the power of it, which, depending on your perspective, may be a fortunate thing.

The tape begins with shots of flightless birds: emus, peacocks, ostriches. They run, occasionally flapping impotent wings. This followed by maybe forty seconds of blackness. The next focus is on Waite with her usual preparation for a performance. Street urchin thin, with pale skin and hair, she is sitting naked on the floor beside the fenced bed combing her hair, smiling and chatting animatedly with someone off camera. From the looks of it, there are several other people in the room watching, perhaps interacting. She moves to a dressing table and begins to apply stage make-up. There is no more talk from her. Her concentration is now solely on her work. The camera focuses on her face which she has made into a study of black and white. Her eyes are rimmed in deep black, which makes the pale blue of her irises appear almost white. The rest of her face is rice powder pale. She picks up a pair of scissors and begins cutting her hair. Locks fall around her. When she is done, only patches of silver blonde hair remain.

She turns to speak to someone off camera now that she is done. Then rises slowly, lifts a large flat black lacquered box from her dresser, and moves somnolently to the foot of the bed. She sets the box on a tripod stool that has now been placed in front of the closed gate. She turns, walks toward a closet and takes out her costume...an iridescent pale green full body leotard, covered with a collage of what appears to be hair, fingernail clippings, hardened strips of skin and splotches of a black crusted substance, possibly blood and other materials saved from her earlier rituals. There are two stretches of fabric of the same color as her leotard but with a more iridescent glow because they are void of decoration. The material is stretched taut across rims that provide minimal shape and at points buckle under the strain of the cloth. They end in tails each punctuated with a single black spot. Next she brings out the final pieces of costume, two thick black silken cords and a red satin sash. She moves back toward the bed, placing them over the bars at the gate. Her face is void of expression, her movements methodically slow. She pulls the leotard on and moves out of frame as the camera shifts to focus on the hand-painted Red Dakini on the lid of the lacquered box. The picture fades once again to black.

When she next appears, the cords have been put to use as restraints, her wrists tied behind her, her midriff bound to the bars of the gate, her eyes hooded by the scarlet sash. At first she appears to be asleep, her head slumped slightly forward, smiling faintly, contentedly. Then she stirs, and for some time strains to work herself free of the restraints. For a while it appears she will fail, remain captive, but eventually she frees her hands, removes the blindfold and her waist restraint. Free, she shakes her limbs colt-like, then opens the box and brings out a knife. The camera moves in for a close-up of it. It's an odd knife, an athame, fashioned like a lengthy oyster knife, the blade sharply honed on each side, its hilt an ornately patterned silver. She drops the knife to her leotard and slits it down the center. As the blade move over her navel, she cuts too deeply. Blood stains the edges of the fabric. She pays it no attention. With another slice, she's naked, out of the leotard, bleeding now in several places, but apparently happy to be free of encumbrance. She looks directly into the camera and smiles brightly, genuinely. But as the camera moves in for a close-up, it lingers too long before shifting out of focus. We are left with a vision of her face frozen in smile.

When we see her again, Waite stands in still frame all but naked. She has costumed herself for the dance. The wings are strapped to her shoulders, and she is wearing pointe shoes. The bleeding has stopped, but the blood has not been cleaned off. Instead it has been used as adhesive for gold and silver dust that covers her abdomen in a murky glimmer. All that is visible in the background now is an inky blue back painting which covers the entirety of the screen, patterned in abstract spirals but void of any other color. Against it, in her pallor and the iridescence of her costume, she appears to glow. She stretches her neck, rolling her head slightly. The light catches her face, haloeing the close-cropped whiteness of her hair. She is suddenly animated, impassioned, dancing eloquently, the death scene of La Sylphide. Then an extended curtsey until someone off camera tosses a bouquet of white lilies. She catches then. drops all but one, inhales its fragrance. When she throws it aside, the camera moves in once again for a close-up of her face. The pollen from the lily clings to her face, gold flecks across her nose and mouth. She wipes it with her fingers. It smudges to a happy orange. She gazes at the color on her fingers. Tears form but she does not cry.

She composes herself. Circles toward the gate of her bed, toward her knife, which lies uncleaned beside its lacquered box. She reaches for the blade, raises it to her lips, licks it cleans with her tongue. Fresh blood appears. She wipes it clean with her fingers, spreads it across her cheeks, rouge like. It brightens the pallor of her face only minimally. She begins a sort of pas de deux with the knife. Moving intuitively with it, arabesqueing into a pas de bouree, then a rapid pirouette that crescendos with her clasping the knife in both hands above her head. She gazes up at the knife as if entranced. Lowers it to her pubis, pointing it toward the floor, slowly raising it erect. In one swift movement of winged arms, she raises it again overhead. An expression of love fills her face. Her eyes are ecstatic. The knife is now her lover. She appears to whisper to it. Her lips move as if in prayer as snake-strike fast she plunges it far into her chest. Bent and bleeding, she makes her way through the gate and onto the bed. Her eyelids flutter, the eyes roll back in their sockets, then open once again into a piercing blue-white stare. Her body convulses, her lips part, her hands and feet curl. Her face goes blank. The camera remains fixed upon her as she bleeds out. Several times she rises forward, hissing as she apparently gasps for breath. Finally her head slumps sideways toward the camera. The eyes remain open, fixed, glazed. The film runs on like this for quite some time, goes to black for forty or so seconds, then ends.

So why, after my opposition to it, did I describe her death for you? Primarily because she'd have wanted me to. In some respects it may seem that she was of a temperament similar to those who appear to be alive only when viewed by an audience. Yes, she was an exhibitionist, but hat was far from all she was. She was a woman capable of choreographing and creating her own death as willfully as she had her life. Just as she'd wanted her regular performances seen, she wanted the performance of her death witnessed. Though I watched it first in dread, its effect was ultimately liberating. I believe this to be her intention, if there was any intent involved other than her instinct for turning the inside out. It seems fitting to me the final imprint that Waite's death left upon me is akin to that of a scar I've grown accustomed to, even fond of over time, perhaps suggestive of some ritualistic rite of passage, a symbolic beauty mark of some ancient sort. In time diminishing, but always visible under a certain light. An image fading in and out. Sometimes dimming. Occasionally flaring brightly. But somehow enduring. In telling her story, a story of one who was as much my self as she was my sister and loved one, I'd like to tell you that I knew her, that I understood her, that I'm speaking her truth. Though many times that appears to me to be the case, there are equally as many times that I'm aware only of the subterfuges reflected by her any attempt to define her. The only conclusion I can come to is an anti-conclusion, the only assumption that would have suited her. And with it, I can hear her giggle, trailing off to a smile, an evanescent leap into the rarefied air of shadowy wings.