Hey there beautiful people. I miss you so much and think of you often. I am enjoying the fruits of a new life and I hope you are too. All of us who have been through the fire of WCS these last few years, or that of my other writings, can all say that we've changed - and we've grown - and we're happier, healthier and more hopeful.
I want to thank all of you again who are playing true WCS music and dancing pure WCS in blues clubs around the world. Your videos and your letters make me so happy. I myself have been dancing WCS again, and it is like traveling back in time. No one plays Abstract music where I am, no one dances Abstract where I am and I can tell - it once used to be there. But it's gone now. I can hardly believe it.
You guys did it. You saved WCS. And I am ever grateful to have it back. This Weekly Note is for those of you who are still struggling to make sense of what just happened to us - what we've just survived.
Every time I think about going back into the war, I remember the name of what I really escaped. I didn't escape WCS. I escaped a cult within WCS. And that makes my decision so much easier. It makes my pain go away - or easier to bear.
Because I am intelligent - because you are intelligent - we were deeper in than most. They say the intelligent are most often targets of cult leaders - their charm, their games, their skills - they are best played out upon us. You'd think it would be the opposite, and it is hard to accept, but it is so.
Yet now having that name - cult - a label that I understand, it stops me from going down again. It helps me break free from the pull - and I break through the surface of the deep waters I'm tempted to dive back into... I now understand that they will swallow me whole if I do.
I won't lie. Dancing WCS doesn't feel like it used to. It's not as shiny - it doesn't glitter. I have applause after every dance, but it doesn't feel like the applause did of the conventions I once attended, or the hyper-charged dance nights I used to attend.
I once thought that's because we were "bigger" or "growing," but now I know different. The sweet of my first days had turned into a deep thickened molasses - and their applause was different. Instead of pure joy and celebration, it fed some ego or some drive deep within - and it's what drove everyone else in the ranks below mad. It was some empty promise that they worked so hard to attain in the cult of points and champions.
Free of it now, I think of when it turned - the years it went from joy to drive - and I mourn it, but accept it. I remember over and over that I tried to leave, but stayed instead - and after I start to spiral at the memory, I remember that I wouldn't know you, my husband, my studio or my writing if I hadn't.
So let me say this to you, as one who is living out your own pain alongside you, even though we haven't talked in a while: give thanks for what we gained on our way in and out of the darkness within WCS - for though we lost much - and we suffered much - we gained each other.
I've learned how to live and live better through writing to you, and I hope you are taking all that I've learned and using it to live a life of joy, freedom and understanding. If you can, try not to let your years in the cult be your sorrow, but let them be a reminder instead of what a few decisions made for others instead of yourself can lead.
For in the end, no one wins that game. We all lose. And I think we've all lost enough.
Let's go dancing, or swimming, or biking or running - and relearn what freedom actually feels like.
Love,
Katherine
PS - the main article will arrive later this week as Part 2.
