Oh, to be Gwen Verdon in a Towel in a Cole Porter Show...

When I think about the Garden of Eden –
that twisted origin story of a felled Utopia
with its sinuous tangle of serpents and sin –
I do not picture rapture; I do not feel any elation at all.

But I have never been Gwen Verdon in a towel in a Cole Porter show.

When I think about the Golden Age of Broadway –
that inimitable microcosm of time and space
which, creatio ex nihilo, birthed art without precedent –
I am struck dumb by the talent; I feel myself yearn to perform.

And then I wish I were Gwen Verdon in a towel in a Cole Porter show.

When I think about my past –
that shit-show of discipline and classical dance training
defined by pointe shoes and Bob Fosse and rehearsal till I bled –
I wish I didn’t still suffer from an eating disorder; but I would still do it all over again.

Dancers know what it means to be Gwen Verdon in a towel in a Cole Porter show.

Because for seven solid minutes in 1953 –
that 420-second fever dream after the Garden of Eden Ballet
in the middle of the musical and the midst of a quick change –
the theater stood to applaud for a half-dressed Gwen Verdon; the theater demanded an encore,

That’s why Gwen Verdon was in a towel in a Cole Porter show.

And for those seven minutes –
during each and every one of those 420 seconds
after an entire lifetime of sweat and toil and blood –
everything was suddenly exactly as it should be; everything was suddenly redeemed.

There must be nothing better than being Gwen Verdon in a towel in a Cole Porter show.

So when I say my greatest ambition in this world –
that image that serves to give me hope
wherein I might someday be Gwen Verdon in a towel in a Cole Porter show –
it is not at all about the towel.

It is about feeling alive.