Thank you, Alison.
So your weather is a big surprise.
So I brought a little pink dress to wear today but can
you hear me here?
I'm going to begin with just the last part of a long poem
I wrote called "Fog," which was written in collaboration
with a Japanese-American dancer named Theodora Yoshikawa.
I use fog in it to think about the relationships
with people between people and the densities of it,
and here's the last part.
"They counted her more accurate and more inaccurate
memories as black and white stones.
The more accurate memories turned out
to be white on the outside, but they
were unconditioned by the desire to form story out
of her memory.
Continuing story the way we wish this space and light
to continue.
Therefore we appreciate the fog as the power
to make the space continue beyond the single perception,
into raw material or youth of the body like a body of light.
It deserves now at the top of her head.
Now five lights into her heart.
Now it dissolves into her body.
Her friends dissolve into light.
They dissolve into her family, which
seems to dissolve into clouds that
were already full of light.
It is not so much the quality or brightness of light
or her understanding of this light as the number of times
she dissolves.
The faster she can dissolve into the space, the better.
It is almost as if the complete dark would be ideal."