Dance is high on my list of obsessions, and I wrote this, in part, to have an excuse for watching all of the Baryshnikov videos YouTube has to offer. An experimental piece written as five letters, this gave me a new lens with which to look at my anxiety.

The piece begins:

“ACT I

Greetings, Mr. Baryshnikov:

Never before have I written a fan letter. Frankly, I know little of the form except that opening with “never before have I written a fan letter” is bland as boiled chicken, and you’ve likely already lifted your pale, Latvian eyes to the window before you, your vision hinged on the tangle of twigs that swing from the eaves of your neighbor’s brownstone, the cutting winter air finally here and you breathe, flooding your lungs with all of that earth and wet and the deep and smoky burn of peat, and I am sure this pleases you as you look so dashing in scarves.

Clearly, I am doing this wrong. Forgive me.”

To read the complete essay, click here.