“Well, like I said, all’s well that end’s well, isn’t it? I mean, it’s an ill wind. No such thing as a free lunch. Every cloud has a silver lining. His bark is worse than his bite.” 

Sarah was listening to her neighbour attentively. She realised she could learn a lot: about the efficacy of little traditional sayings, for a start. The old saws made you feel better (if that was what you needed). They gave you access to a living mythology, a world in which things were safe if you allowed them to run along predestined lines. They were the little filaments which held groups together and made a web. As long as you didn’t question their wisdom and the connections they made, all would be well. For some people. Not for her, alas.To feel better, she needed something else.

It was not just parables and words that held the world together. That was lexis: all very well in its way. But you needed praxis too. The body spoke, the bodily language and signs held groups together, or made them splinter apart. Sarah came to realise that everyone had a gestural repertoire, and that creativity in life depended on the extent to which your repertoire could be shared or understood. Your kin - whether blood or not - would recognise whether you belonged to them. And belonging was an important thing. It could bring - what? Not happiness, for sure. The more you chased that, the more elusive it became. But it could bring a sense of home, or of your tribe.

Accordingly Sarah began to learn the body anew. She had to match glance with glance: to return the gaze of others, not to look away (unless required). She had to make some parts of her body tense, some parts relaxed. She had to learn the smooth flow, so that the occasional jerky movement would take on its right meaning. She had to move like her kin, so that they would recognise her. It might be in secret: but they would know. 

Where movements are, thoughts will follow. That hip, that shoulder arc would say, “Trust me”, or “I desire you”, or “That’s just silly”. That glance, that finger, that toe even, would usher the performer into a world of shared wisdom. It was a strong callback into a world where parables were not just enacted in words, but in another language. Sarah began to think that this was an important component of mental revolutions: their ballast, their foundation, their bone.