Sometimes
in life, whether virtual or real, things come together, that is, life
harmonizes as multiple entities converge to create an experience that one might
call, transcendent, divine, even magical. The feeling this sense of perfect unity
creates can be felt, but many times cannot be put into words. We try, but words
are inadequate in expressing these feelings. But I’m going to try to tell you
about just such an experience that happened to me in Second Life about a week
ago when I went to Cape Halcyon to listen to a live music performance. Cape
Halcyon is an outdoor music venue. It is described as “a new live music venue,
that opened in January 2020, featuring only the best artists in SL.” It was
very nicely landscaped. There was a small, square stage with a wood plank
floor. Light bulbs were strung up around the stage. It was close to a calm
river, with a sandy shoreline. A green grassy open area for dancing dominated
the space. A tree-lined border with rustic buildings was here and there. A
Black Lives Matter sign was atop a roof. A small herd of wandering sheep was off
to the side doing whatever wandering sheep do. In all, it’s an idyllic setting
for a picnic, or just relaxing on a blanket. So, this place was the first
aspect of my harmonious experience that was about to occur.
The musical performance was the second aspect of my
harmonious experience, and it was another one of those serendipitous
occurrences I spoke of in a previous article. I accidentally caught The
Colorful Quiet after another performer finished. I hadn’t gone there to see him
perform, but a friend told me that this was his first performance since returning
after a fairly long hiatus from Second Life, like four or five years away, I
think she said. So, I had to stay and
listen. And I’m happy I did because he sounded wonderful. Indeed, this guy was really
good! Great guitar playing. Picking notes and strumming chords. He sung Loser
by Beck, Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground, Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins, Basket
Case by Green Day, Polly by Nirvana, Norwegian Wood by the Beatles, Man in the
Moon by REM, and several others. His voice matches his name, colorfully quiet,
in fact almost a whisper with quavering vibrato. A sense of mystery came to
mind. My partner, who is well-versed in music, especially guitar playing said
this:
misty Metaluna: a lot of acoustic guitar players play a set
pattern of chord sequences and sound repetitive. He doesn’t do that. Yeah, he
has skills.
Fynn : you are so knowledgeable!
misty Metaluna: . . .
like say Nickleback they are good but you hear the same chord phrasing in a lot
of their stuff.
misty Metaluna: lol, I’ve been around music my whole life.
Fynn (fynnyus): You just schooled me on guitar playing J
And so we
come to the third element of my harmonious experience: Misty. She and I became
partners not too long ago. With her, there was a connection almost immediately.
Have you ever had that happen? It’s a sense of, “I want to know this person
more.” Then, as you get to know them more, that wanting feeling turns to a feeling
of need for them. The need turns to a desire. You miss them when they are not
there. You start to fall in love. But she is smart and resisted at first,
having been burned by love before. Heck, we have all been burned by love in
Second Life, haven’t we? I mean, if you have spent much time at all in Second
Life, you have experienced a broken heart. But damn, if love is not a powerful
thing! And if love is there, it is a very hard thing to resist. And love was
there. And neither of us could resist. The funny thing is that she and I are so
different in many ways, yet those differences have made us more compatible than
one could ever imagine. It’s as if our differences actually cement us together
because we can talk about them, accept them for what they are, and get past
them. Anyway, I digress. I could go on and on about Misty, but let’s just say
that she is the catalyst to many special moments, the current one under
consideration being one of them.
And we come
to the fourth and final element of this perfect experience: dance. Now, dance
in and of itself is or can be, a transcendent thing. It is an ancient art
form. Some would call it a form of communication. Indeed, dance has emerged as
one of the more ubiquitous forms in Second Life. But why dance? Why has it
become such an important part of our virtual existence? Perhaps dance is a way
we express ourselves when words are insufficient. When we watch our avatars
dance, we feel a sense of joy. Dancing is a way to express love. Perhaps we
dance to show that we can overcome great sorrow or adversity, perhaps dancing
reminds us of our youth and its passions, or it reminds us of the peacefulness
of our softer and more graceful years. A
waltz, a foxtrot, or a rumba might be the best or only way to express ourselves
more fully. We all want to be understood, and if we could truly speak the words
that describe our feelings, how deep and powerful they would be. But alas,
those words sometimes don’t seem right. So, maybe dance is simply how we
translate what our heart is trying to say.
Waltzing in this place, to this performer’s song, with my
partner, was special. Indeed, the waltz itself is significant as a ballroom
dance style. It is a dance born in the suburbs of Vienna and in the alpine
region of Austria. As early as the seventeenth century, waltzes were played in
the ballrooms of royalty. Despite its social acceptance, the waltz was also
criticized on moral grounds by those opposed to its close hold and rapid
turning movements. Religious leaders almost unanimously regarded it as vulgar
and sinful. In 1816 the Times of London condemned the dance in an editorial
that said,
“We remarked with pain that the indecent foreign dance
called the Waltz was introduced (we believe for the first time) at the English
court on Friday last ... it is quite sufficient to cast one's eyes on the voluptuous intertwining of the limbs and close compressure on the bodies in
their dance, to see that it is indeed far removed from the modest reserve which
has hitherto been considered distinctive of English females.
So long as this obscene display was confined to prostitutes
and adulteresses, we did not think it deserving of notice; but now that it is
attempted to be forced on the respectable classes of society by the civil
examples of their superiors, we feel it a duty to warn every parent against
exposing his daughter to so fatal a contagion.”
Fortunately, the waltz survived the various oppositional
forces that attacked it throughout its history. Today it is one of the most
popular forms of dance—even in the virtual setting of Second Life.
And so, these four elements, person, place, music, and dance
coalesced into a singular unforgettable moment. There was a confluence of the
music and the motion as we connected in this virtual setting. These primordial
forms of communication transcended time and space. Indeed, they showed
themselves to be quite important elements in this emergent medium of digital
time and space called Second Life. Misty and I are one node of the whole of dancing,
of dancing history, if you will. We were a singular point as we waltzed to the
singing of The Colorful Quiet. It is moments like this that renew your faith in
the feelings another can have with you a thousand miles away. It felt like a
rebirth of faith in the unboundedness of love for another person, indeed for
people in general. How differences can be reconciled with a touch, a kiss, a
word, or even a visualization of two people dancing as their corporeal selves
watch in wonderment at each other’s digitized beauty.
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