lightening up

wow. it's been a loooooong time since I hit a stage in a dance piece. i mean a long long time. before Sophia was born in fact. Sophia and I are going to dance in a flash mob performance here in Santa Barbara in the coming weeks, and we've been rehearsing every night. i have many observations.

1. First, I am watching myself in some of the videos and I am twice the size I used to be when I danced. Not kidding, I literally wear double the size I used to wear. I realize how much more I carry around with me and how that affects my posture and the accuracy of my movements. I am slower and I look less sharp, less crisp. I look at other dancers in the video and in my mind, I think I move like them, think I look like them, but when the camera is on me, I now realize, in watching it, that I do not look or move like them. Woah. It's a major wake up call for me to get into shape. The elliptical machine has been dusted off and plugged in. I am going to start working out again. Please blog followers, help keep me honest!!

2. Teaching the moves to Sophia is hard! I already have my own personal frustrations with how hard it is for me to learn the piece. And poor thing, she has them too, her own insecurities, but then mine are layered on top and she is learning to stress about not picking it up fast enough by seeing me do it. I used to use dance as a cathartic therapy, where I faced my self-doubt demons and fought hard with my dad's voice in my head and found myself near tears at the most unexpected moments. And right now, for the first time ever, I am going thru all that with a little witness watching me, soaking it all up like a sponge. Not sure it's the best thing for her. Or for me. Maybe I need to reserve dance for it's own special medicine that it is for me and not do this together with her. Or maybe I need to suck it up and step out of myself and just do this for her. But since we both are performers in this piece, it's very hard not to go into my own process around it. Let me point out that all of this is internal, not much of it shows on the outside, but my girl, she's pretty in tune with me, so she's feeling it. Not sure if it's better to make this all about her, and then be inauthentic with myself, or to just be real and be me and maybe that's better for her.

3. Poor thing, she has a lot of stress around getting it right. She always has. I gotta learn how to support her in that...but sadly I have that too and haven't really learned how to support myself in it, let alone someone else. How do I make it fun for her, and not all about working out our neuroses?? When and why did she develop her own neurosis/es in the first place? I thought I've always tried to instill self-confidence and playfulness in her, fighting hard to not raise her with body issues, self-consciousness and perfectionism. Are those things just contagious, so she got them from me subliminally?

Well that's pretty much it. Tough stuff for what is supposed to be a lighthearted fun experience. Working on lightening up in so many different contexts here. Hopefully it will just end up being fun!!

Here's a video of our piece so far:
http://www.flipshare.com/view.aspx?nRecipient=&nFrame=QjkxNTE3QkEtRDEwNy00RTQxLTg3MDItOTAyMzU5MUFGM0M2&nMedia=QkU4NjY2QTgtOUY2MC00QUI5LTkyN0YtMDgzQUFCRjg0NjM5&nT=

Pretty cool, right?

blog spawn

Woke today around 6:30 am to the sound of "Mom, Mom, MOM, come in here!!!" I come running in, bleary eyed and half-robed, expecting blood or fire. Instead I find Sophia beckoning me to get in bed with her and look out the window. "Look Mom, you can see evaporation!"

It has been raining hard here for a few days and our patio furniture cushions have gotten soaked. This morning the sun broke out but it was still super chilly out. Sophia noticed the steam rising from the cushions and got so excited, since they are studying weather and water cycles at school right now. She wanted to know if I could take a video so she could show her class. So I pulled out the iPhone, we threw on boots and bathrobes and went out in the cold to film it (couldn't see thru the window so well).

Then she asked if she could make a few more science videos on her own. Happy for a few minutes to jump back under my comforter, I showed her how to work the phone and let her at it. The result was 8 videos she made all on her own. After showing them to me, I suggested we make a blog with them, since she's been wanting to make a website for quite some time. Apple fall far from the tree much?

So one day after my own blog renewal, here is the spawn of my blog, er the blog of my spawn, um the daughter of all blogs...well ok my puns are drying up so here's the link, if you wanna check it out!

http://anothersciencevideo.blogspot.com/

Enjoy and feel free to comment or post, she'd love it!

purifying

What is it that cleanses our psyche

the way a long, hot shower

washes away the sweat from a hard run?

Sometimes it's a good cry

or months of crying

that washes away the residue left behind

from one experience to the next.

Some people shop,

shedding last year's skin

for the fashions of a new day.

Me, I move.

I pack it all up into boxes and put it away again

into new cupboards and closets and shelves,

touching each of the objects in my life,

one at a time,

deciding whether to keep it

and if so, where does it go now?

Transferring the dust

gathered from one chapter of my life

into the next,

watching it wash down the sink

in little gray drops

every time I wash my hands.

fast forward to 2011

Thought I'd drop back in here and write something. It's 2011, February. I moved to SB originally in Feb 1993, so something about February always gets me to reminiscing. Just in the midst of a house move, moved into a lovely place and am buried under boxes, slowly but surely unpacking them under the drizzle of rain and distant rumble of thunder in the hills. I wanted to write something and thought to myself, where do I write these days? On paper? On Facebook? I looked at my friend Pema's blog (www.storycharmer.com) and then I remembered, oh yeah, I have a blog!

So here I am, back on the blog, with somethin' to say. See next post!

I claim this day for joy

Been harping too much online about the crappy things happening. wah, whine...but no more! today I stake my love flag in the ground, I claim this day for joy!!