stop, breathe, be

stop, breathe, be.

this was a little mantra that i learned in the mindfulness workshop i did in the fall. i have since forgotten all about mindfulness and have become particularly absent-minded and reactful (except that is a word i may have made up.... ) partially due to the hormone shifts in my body from pregnancy, but also because i have recently felt...overwhelmed (the work, the school the new dog?)

after having class all weekend (17 hrs of it) i was sort of looking forward to not having to work on monday. except that m woke up with a complicated mood and spent most of the morning crying and complaining and my patience wore thin. things improved as we approached the afternoon so i thought i would take the dogs for a walk as m enjoyed a nice post-lunch banana smoothie in her stroller. it was a lovely idea.

when we got home i thought i would be especially thorough and brush both dogs before releasing them back into the house since i had done a half-assed (but better than nothing!) cleaning of the floors earlier that morning.

i brushed buster and put him inside the house no problem, m decided to go in with him. then i brushed jett, and even though i noticed as we were walking back from the park that i mistakenly only attached her leash to her harness and not her collar, i forgot this small detail as i took off her harness on our front porch. she realized before i did that she was no longer tethered to anything. she took a couple quick steps away from me before turning around to look at me. panicked, but acting cool, calm and collect, i bent down and called her name as sweetly as i could before she turned and ran right into the street with her clumsy, energetic puppy run.

as she went down the middle of our street a truck turned onto our block. because of the stop sign at the corner the driver wasn't going fast and had plenty of time to see her run right in front of him before hopping onto the sidewalk to turn the corner. as i started to try and calculate whether i was going to somehow go after her and how that might happen without completely abandoning my two year old alone in the house (not to mention my inability to run at the moment anyway...), a woman with a stroller and a dog appeared on the corner.

jett quickly turned back before fully disappearing around the corner to say hello - she can never resist socializing with another dog. i called out a request to please grab the dog, that she was friendly, and the woman with the stroller and the other dog calmly grabbed jett's collar as i hobbled down the street toward them. as i did the truck driver rolled down his window as he passed me to let me know that i "should be more careful". thank you mr truck driver, what a helpful comment in this moment of frustration, panic and embarrassment.

for some reason i had dropped the harness and leash before going after jett so when i got to her, the only way to get her back to our house was to hunch over and grab her collar as i wobbled my 9-month pregnant butt back down our block. did i mention the pain my body is in as i am approaching due date time? none of this was helpful to my already crooked and throbbing right side.

when i got back to my house m and buster were standing behind the storm door having witnessed the whole pathetic scene
-did you catch her, mom?
-yes....sort of.
the good news is that when i finally closed the door behind me, i remembered one of the things i had learned about myself during my mindfulness workshop in the fall.
one of the ways i relieve stress in my life is to just cry, and i hadn't had a good cry in a while.
but today i did.
and i genuinely felt better afterward.

life is a beach

i have a lot of anxiety
about not finishing things that i start
or about not trying things i think about trying
but on a daily basis its about not doing something in the most efficient manner that it could have or should have been done

and sometimes that anxiety is self-deprecating or even paralyzing.
all the "if"s or "if only"s make me feel somewhat helpless rather than pushing me toward action

i was recently recalling a time only a few years ago when i was out doing a training run in preparation for a marathon on one of my favorite beaches in the world.
so i ran down the beach for 6 miles or so, but before i got to turn around, a storm had begun.

and without any time to have anticipated and worried, it was there:
thunder and lightening
and no one but me on the beach, six miles away from shelter.
and i remember feeling like i was trying to outrun the lightening (which is impossible for many reasons and trying impossible things can also give you anxiety) but it was only a moment before i suddenly felt a relief and a total sense of peace
relief in the fact that i knew i could not in fact outrun the lightening, and so the best i could do was enjoy that i had this whole beautiful island to myself for that time and that i was alone with the ocean and the big busy sky .

sometimes instead of fighting a current, you have to ride the wave.

improv - dance- life

in school i loved improvising but found it to be terrifying at times. there was something so vulnerable about putting yourself out there, unrehearsed.

the other day i took little m to a improvisational dance workshop. and again, i was terrified:

1. to be improvising again after so much time away from it 

2. to have no guarantees about how it would go (with m as a spectator). 

at first, all the things i could have imagined going wrong did. we got there late because i had written down the wrong address and don't have a smart phone to quickly look anything up. when we finally did arrive, the group was deep into a quiet and meditative warm up - everyone with their eyes closed and the second i put m's car seat down she started screaming. 

whoops. 

there was a lot of whining and crying during that first half of the class as i made attempts to participate in the various exercises. finally at one point m suddenly suspended her separation anxiety complex and got interested in exploring the space and checking out the people. i was finally free to fully participate in the class' culminating exercise: a group improvisation. 

this group format i find most scary because there is no way of anticipating what will happen; you are forced to be very much in the moment. and of course, this is the dance/life/child rearing lesson - the most valuable moments are happening in the present. you just have to show up, pay attention, tell the truth and be open to the outcome. it's scary and rewarding. 

(un)consciousness

i have been having awful dreams about little m. so awful i tell erk just to get them out of my system, but then never think about or mention them again. even when i am awake i worry about all the horrible things that can go wrong. what if i fall down the stairs while holding her?

already i am trying to find an equilibrium between keeping her safe and me sane. i have this unbearable urge to hold her in my arms and never ever let go (although this urge might not be as much about keeping her safe, as it is about finding her so delicious and irresistible.)

slowly we are learning to strike that balance.  she no longer falls asleep in my arms, but rather, lying solo in her crib. she has also begun to sleep in her own room through the night rather than beside our bed (although, my favorite time of day is still when she wakes up at 5am and i bring her to bed with us to feed her and snuggle her back to sleep.)

i am reminded once again of the umbilical cord,  and how many times it must be cut and re-cut through our lives. while little m no longer physically lives inside my body, sometimes i feel as though she does, like the phantom pain of an amputee. despite having become a separate being she still relies on my body for food, and therefore survival, and i suppose in some way that feeling appears to be mutual. but with every amazing development, comes more separation. and just as birth itself is an incredible joy, it is also an unbelievable trauma.

amazing how such a little person can break your heart while simultaneously making it whole for what seems to be the very first time.

can't see the forest because of all the damn trees (in one long sentence)

i've been having a lot of "what do i want to be when i grow up?" conversations the past couple of weeks with several different people - and not that i think i'm already living out my dream of being a part time teacher with no degrees indicating that i can teach, but maybe if i just followed that stupid, "life is a journey not a destination" psychology a little better i could save myself some deeply rooted anxiety.

it's a new year

i tried to think of a new year's resolution upon being asked and the only thing i came up with was running the marathon this year. not that it's a small feat, but it's not a particularly original one. not only because i have run before, but because i had registered to run this past year - and put it off till next year (currently this year)- recycled goals carry a different kind of weight than new ones.

in considering this year that has passed i realize that there were several things i finally did after thinking about doing or not doing them for an extended period of time. the list includes in no particular order:

becoming a spanish teacher (swore for years i never would)
getting involved in a serious relationship (had just assumed i was defective before now)
traveling to new zealand (most gorgeous place "on the planet")
starting to see a chiropractor (i am hoping he will change my life - because his fees indicate as much)
producing my own choreography post-college (i don't think it's done yet, but that can be a resolution for another time)
starting a blog (i always had funny little ideas in my head and no where to put them)

place caption here:

aggressively female

hitchcock's birds

i just came back from a showing of "the birds" at symphony space. i had seen this film dozens of times as a kid, but never in a theater.

there is something special about seeing a movie in a big dark room full of strangers (apart from the "special" prospect of acquiring bedbugs). the shared experience is a unique one. discovering how your tastes and sensibilities are similar to, or vary from, those of your neighbors when a laugh or sob (either yours or anothers') becomes audible.

the experience can also, unfortunately, be marked by someone in the front row standing up to go to the bathroom, leaving their silhouette on the screen, or talking, or texting etc etc

but one of the best experiences, and perhaps what hitchcock is best known for, is creating moments of suspense for us to share. no one has mastered it like alfred. it's what he shows you, how he shows it to you, but more importantly, what he doesn't show you that so brilliantly grips us, the viewers.

i'm surprised i didn't have nightmares about birds as a child, because even as an adult, and even recognizing that this movie is as old as it is, with it's limited (but pretty amazing for it's time) technology, and even though i knew what was going to take place in every scene before it started, i was still geniunely scared.

thanks dad for introducing me to hitchock - even if i was waaaay too young to see most of his movies at the time... i still remember them all fondly.

and thanks vio for inviting me to the screening. if you are interested in hearing what she had to say check out skip rip or play. here's vio's review.

perspective

a friend recently told me that i was responsible for changing the way she looked at dance - for getting her interested in it, developing her facility to approach it, and that the work i made and the way i performed somehow stood out to her.

all i could say in response was: "those are really nice things to say..."
i was embarrassed.
i don't always feel like i can/should identify myself as a dancer or as a choreographer.
in fact, several weeks ago someone came up to me at a party and asked if i was a dancer and i simply said "no".

she continued, "because i thought i saw you in a work last weekend in williamsburg...."
"OH YES, that was me..."

where does this inability to define myself come from? lack of confidence? fear of...something? i'm not sure, but sometimes i think it's not a bad idea to try and see yourself through someone else's eyes; they may have some perspective on you that you are unable to have on yourself.