can-do.
in Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as body, brother jason, dance class, fancy schmancy, ground, jesus christ superstar, les miz, occasional dance, pop, recording, schmancy, soreness, sound of laughter, studio, tailbone, tips of my fingers, ukelele, wrist
The tips of my fingers hurt from playing the ukelele. They hurt so good. Cause I’m playing the ukelele! Oh, it’s great fun. And work. For me, those things generally tend to go together.
Ever since I came to New York City, I have been soundly beating my body up. I am not lying when I say that I am sore almost every day. I owe a lot of my soreness to capoeira. And yoga, too. And the occasional dance class. Which is $18 a pop and thus, occasional. But right now my right wrist is hurting due to my friend taking me down hard in class on Sunday.
It’s okay, it’s all a part of playing the game, see. In capoeira, you don’t call it fighting, you call it playing. And sometimes when you play, you get knocked onto the ground very suddenly. And you try to catch yourself with your wrist. But your wrist is a lot smaller than the rest of your body–or haven’t you noticed? Just trust me when I say that it is. So then your wrist hurts. Along with your ankle. And lately, your tailbone, too.
But all the hurting is worth it.
Which can also be said about living in general.
Today, I got to go to a fancy schmancy recording studio near my old digs in Chelsea. I recorded some vocals for the broadway warm-up, and I have to say, it was a blast. I LOVE to record. I love to stand in that booth with the earphones on and the microphone hot and sing. At one point, the producer had to stop me, though. “There was an interfering noise,” he said, all professional sounding. “Was there some sort of pop or explosion?”
And then I thought about it.
And knew just what he meant.
“Um, yeah…My ankle cracked when I did a plie.”
Enter: the sound of laughter from the control room.
And gosh, I am such a dancer.
I have always loved singing into microphones. I used to sneak down to my brother Jason’s room while he was at school and turn on the mic he had and just sing my heart out. I’d go from Les Miz to Jesus Christ Superstar to U2. And then since I was already being sneaky, I’d take out his prize collection of matchbox cars and play with them, too. The little porsche was always my favorite. The doors opened. I have a weakness for tiny doors that open, I guess.
Anyway, I felt lucky to be recording in that nice studio.
I have also been quite disciplined about my handstands lately. I do them every day, against a wall. I remember when I couldn’t even do that. I remember in college thinking that I would never be able to do that. And now I do it with ease. This makes me wonder what else I think I cannot do, but actually can, given the right dose of practice and courage.
It’s an exciting thought.
some of my thoughts out loud.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, photography, Thoughts and Feelings
as baking bread, dance class, dining room, drama, end result, everything, girlfriend, laughter, life, math, normalcy, paragraphs, percent, questions and answers, result, return to normalcy, show, situational, time, tv show, unpleasantness, yoga
I am thinking about yoga in the morning. I don’t love getting up for it, but I love how I feel at the end of it. There are probably a lot of situations in life similar to this. Situations in which the end result justifies the unpleasantness it took to get there.
I am thinking about a conversation I had recently. Man, it’s shocking how we can so easily get used to things. This is strange and wonderful; sad and resilient. In this conversation, I said that it was better that we are not together. I said this. There was a time when I never thought I would have said such a thing. But now I say it confidently. And in the same breath I asked him how he and his girlfriend is. Nope. I actually asked him how they are. Because, see, I might be terrible in math, but I am not so very awful in English to ask two people how they is. So right, I asked him how they are. And it’s normal. This is normal. What a life we live and it’s not a tv show that you can just turn off the drama and return to normalcy; no, all of it is real and, though it feels just situational, these situations are it. Like, it, it. They are the paragraphs that fill up the pages and, eventually, what you’ve got here is a book. And if you want to know what the book is about, then you go back to those paragraphs and you piece it all together and you find out what you wanted, because it is probably what you got. Not all of the time, but most of the time, I think (though I do not know everything or probably even one full percent of everything). But maybe it is like how when I was first learning to turn in dance class. The teacher told me to spot where I wanted to end up, because wherever I fixed my eyes, I would eventually end up there. So, I better make sure to fix my eyes on a place that is good–cause that’s where I want to be.
I am thinking about how much I have been baking bread recently. And how very Italian I feel as I proudly slice the loaves of bread and dole them out to my family. All one hundred (or so, give or take a few) of us, crowding the dining room with the sounds of eating and laughter and questions and answers. And I am happy to have made them something they like to eat and I am happy to be useful. Yes, so happy to be useful. See?
Useful.
And I am thinking about this quote from Story People:
There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other’s cooking & say it was good.
if I were to teach yoga, I would definitely incorporate the hippo.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as blank stare, brother jonathan, church, class, dance class, drama camp, frog, gazelles, hippo, Yep
For the past two weeks, my brother Jonathan has been running a children’s drama camp at our church. But please be specific about it. It’s a drama camp, not a theater camp. Not at all. Because when I asked my nephew Ollie how he was enjoying theater camp, he gave me a blank stare before [...]
