on staying present.
in I Lift My Eyes Up, Thoughts and Feelings
as booty shorts, curly hair, dart, instructor, life, measuring stick, moment, mountains of north carolina, pain, preacher, prisoner, share, sharing the moment, South Korea, time, today, uncomfortable moment, uncomfortable moments, valu, yoga instructor
Um, today looked like this. 
At least, it did at Columbus Circle, anyway.
It was pleasant to feel the sunlit air warm on my shoulders.
It was even more pleasant to see my dear Betsy. We had a lot to talk about, you know. It’s weird, when we first met in South Korea (which is hilarious, because people assume that Betsy, who I met in Korea, is in fact, Korean. She’s not. She’s from the mountains of North Carolina. And she has very curly hair. The likes of which does not come from Korea, I’m pretty sure)–but when Bets and I first met, I was married and she was not.
And now it is reversed.
There is no pain in this; not now, I mean. It just is. And it’s also interesting how, no matter which one of us happens to be married, our friendship remains largely the same. That’s a comfort.
And now today my yoga instructor said something that provoked an audible, “that’s good,” from me. It was like I was in church, agreeing with the preacher. Only I’m pretty sure I’m never gonna wear booty shorts in church. Or sit in splits. But my instructor was talking about breathing in the moment. Even if it’s an uncomfortable moment. And believe me, yoga, like life, has its fair share of uncomfortable moments. But he said this:
“Don’t simply wait for the moment to be over; if you’re waiting, you’re not present.”
Have you ever spent time with someone who’s waiting for someone or something? They’re very distracted. It barely even feels like they’re sharing the moment with you. Their eyes dart to wherever it is they expect whatever it is they’re waiting for to arrive and they keep an eye on the time like the clock is a prisoner they are charged with watching over.
You don’t want to share anything of substance with them, because, well–it’ll be lost. They aren’t there to even receive it.
I don’t want to live my life like that. Even the uncomfortable moments have value. And if there were such a thing as a measuring stick for moments, perhaps the uncomfortable ones hold even more value. Can unlock growth and grace–the likes of which we can never know by just reading about them in a book–in our hearts.
It’s like manna, right? That food that god provided the israelites with while they were wandering towards freedom. The one proviso was that they couldn’t store it away for the future; they couldn’t keep it in their back pocket to rely upon later. Just in case. They had to be present.
Let the future sit; let it come when it comes. But now, I will eat the bread that is in front of me. I will be here. I will breathe.
I understand that we do have to wait sometimes. But maybe if we fill up the waiting time with living, we will forget that we are waiting, because our hearts are full to bursting with the here and now.
“if I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.” -emma goldman
in Performance, Thoughts and Feelings
as dancing, emma goldman, grip, grocery, grocery stores, home, hotel lobby, idea, korean man, lobby, misunderstandings, one of the guys, random places, restaurant, revolution, seoul, smooth surface, South Korea, surface, way
I know this might come as a big shock to some of you, but I really love to dance.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve embarrassed my sister by dancing in random places. Like grocery stores. I mean, that floor is just so perfect for turning, how can you not dance on a checkered and smooth surface like that? But sometimes my random dancing can be dangerous, like when I danced my way out of my hotel lobby in South Korea, only to give some drunk Korean man the idea that I wanted to dance with him. I suppose he got the point, though, when, after having to forcibly remove his vise-like grip from my arm, my friends and I all ran away from him. But that sure didn’t keep him from chasing us for a while.
Oh, and this has nothing to do with dancing, but the hotel where we stayed while in Seoul was called The Human Touchville Hotel. And no, I’m not even joking. Also, what quickly became our favorite after-show hang out was a restaurant called Our Place. This made for lots of fun misunderstandings. Like when one of the guys who played in the pit and who I didn’t know too well came up to me and asked me if I would like to go to “our place.” And I would be confused for a bit. I barely know this guy, I’d think, Why does he think we already have “a place?!”
And then I’d remember the restaurant. Our Place. Oh right, and oh sure, and oh man, I’m glad this guy doesn’t think we have a place he fondly refers to as ours.
But dancing, there isn’t much else like it. Sometimes I wonder if drumming might be a little bit like it because you seem to use all of yourself and you ARE the rhythm. Kind of like dancing. You throw all of yourself into it. You become the score; there’s nothing between your body and the music anymore. It’s a grand and old connection and I’m grateful to be able to tap into it.
One time, a while ago, I had to go to the city for something–the city being NYC–and a certain guy had been telling me that he was planning some great big surprise for me. That I’d get home and I’d be happily shocked by something great he’d done. Well, I’m all for happily shocked, so I was looking forward to this mightily. I got back from the city, opened the door to the house, and saw…nothing. At least, nothing that was different. I looked around for a bit, confused. And then I found that this surprise had not happened because the surpriser was still asleep. And it was evening now. He’d slept all day and hadn’t done a thing and I was so sad and disappointed and yes, even mad.
So I told him that I couldn’t talk to him right now, that I needed to go…dance, I decided. Yes, I need to go dance. So I jumped in my car, exhausted from the trip I’d made to New York already, but now I was more mad than exhausted so that beat all. I knew there was a modern dance class happening nearby and I had my leotard with me, so bam.
I danced.
I danced hard.
I felt quite a FLOW.
And that felt good.
And by the time I got home from this dance class, I could talk to the guy. I could listen to his apology and I could say that’s okay, I guess.
All because I got to go dance.
I cannot imagine life without dancing.
And I just got called in to an audition in which I will have to dance, which I am excited about.
But (GULP), the casting agency was all, “and bring your tap shoes.”
(Gulp, again.)
But tapping is dancing and I love dancing, which is what I will keep telling myself over and over again as I search through my stuff to actually find my tap shoes…the ones I hardly wear…the ones I am privileged to wear for an audition soon. And by privileged I probably mean scared.
But the point is, I do love to dance.
conversations.
in Funny Stuff, Thoughts and Feelings
as badminton, coed, day, divorce, Don, getting a divorce, girl, married couple, Miss Jessica, resident expert, South Korea, time max
Life is sad and it is beautiful and it is strange and it is normal. This week I am teaching a dance and theater camp and working exclusively with six to nine year olds. They are adorable with their recently acquired grown-up teeth that have not yet quite settled and so still seem too big [...]
