Aaron's thoughts from the 29th

Overcast and cold, I start with the video camera and am comforted by its lens. I am able to step back and see the experiment from a purely visual place, a place where rejection is often beautiful, where someone walking up the hill tells a story whether they are being "lifted" or not. I notice how much the way someone mounts a steep hill tells about them, the way they lean in to it, or limp to one side, or turn around and shuffle backwards, or pretend they are on flat ground.

I relenquish the camera after 15 minutes and am confronted once more by my fear of approaching strangers. I feel like a loner, hiding in dances and alleyways. I felt powerful in the role of watcher and recorder, I feel helpless in the role of generous soul. Still, we forge on, soldiers. I find myself alone at the bottom of the hill, daunted, promising myself to talk to the next stranger who comes my way and letting them pass time and again in silence. I trickle out a little dance to build confidence on the corner, and managee to get rejected a few times.

I move higher up the hill, trying for a 2nd effort technique of making sure people still don't want a lift now that they are starting to feel the hill in their legs. It doesn't yield any lifts, but does seem to change the timbre of their laughs.

Finally, after giving up on giving a lift and focusing on the various energies of the different parts of the hill, lo and behold, I give a lift, and from an unexpected demographic, a shy local man lets me push him the hill. Then, the wavelike structure of urban energy strikes and I am pushing another man up the hill, a friend of Juliets who is looking through binoculars on the way up and talking on his cel phone. Somehow he feels like a powerful success, I really feel his body learning to give me its weight. I feel at ease and spacious upon reaching the pinnacle. Since I prefer to leave on a roll rather than push my luck to the breaking point I call it a day.

Afterwords I notice that I am once again exhausted. This type of social interaction tires me out. Even though I have felt fear and rejection, the day does not feel bad to me. Starting by videoing has given me an outside lens to realize that whatever happens it contains the seeds of story and change. Even the fidgety awkwardness of waiting for someone to come along when my confidence is down is charged with energy and expectation. I am learning to put my reactions into movement more seamlessly.