Life is a poem,

A musical,

An Alice in Wonderland carnival,

If that stops, all will be lost.

It saddens me

to think people have stopped

seeing,

thinking,

breathing

m e t a p h o r s.

When we stop finding new ways of

seeing

understanding

experiencing

the world around us

I believe the very essence of life is lost.

The day I wake up

and don't have a new thought,

a giggle,

a day dream,

The day I settle

for the same old cliche,

the easy word,

the things I already know,

that will be the day that I've given up on me.

Breathless

When I think about what could have been, my breath runs away from me...

Your face smashed into my mind a few days ago, after a long and quiet absence.

He sat there at the bar, your friend, another face from that time, and I fell fast, back into that swirling, slippery space that I thought I left behind.

And, immediately, I was lost again, breathless again

about you.

"Famous" by Naomi Shihab Nye

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

--From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems

From a poetry/drama workshop, a year ago...

**I am the color---PURPLE---a smattering of passion, curiosity, heart, and mystery. Solid in who I am, in what I am....but....still....with room for growth, for prettypunky magic. A little kid at heart in a young woman's b o d y. The girl next door with a royal air.

**I am the sound of a strong, blustery wind, whistling in and about the world. I am the sound of the sexy, soulful guitar, wailing and singing through the night. I am rock music, jazz music, acoustic, folk, and blues music. I am hip hop. I am classical. I am musical theater. I am music. I am sound.

**Change. Loose change rattles in my pockets, falls in cracks, jingles in various bags or jackets--a currency of overflow, evidence of money unused and forgotten. Possibilities remain dormant until that fateful moment or that last minute, frantic search for the change that will make my day. Change is the ever-possible something that lurks in the wings, the breaking dawn, the calm before the storm. Change is hope.is youth.is constant.is slow.is flexible.is coming.is happening.is hard.is necessary.

**If I could make one change...I would make an arts center--a studio, a performance space, a gathering space, a place where creativity, friendship, and growth happens.

Sigh. I'm nothing if I'm not consistent.

Joy is an inside job with outside rewards...

...if I stay put, my insides will eat me up and my happiness will burrow deeper within me.

...if I go, personal, wellness, and monetary rewards will come.

Freedom is...

...a barefoot girl, with bright paint on her toenails, walking, galloping, skipping, sitting through and in warm, summer sand. The salty, sweet breeze wrapping her up in a familiar hug, blowing her hair gently, making it dance around and above her face. A peaceful smile tickles her lips as she gazes, content, over the small and large, calm and crazy, rolling and crashing waves that make up the deep, complex ocean of existence before her. The sun has kissed every inch of her body, awakening her skin to the bright possibilities of today.

...swaying trees. Flowers drizzled with fresh, morning dew. Birds flying high, playing in and around air currents. Laughter. Open roads and fields and vistas from mountaintops. The feeling when you dance or sing without worry. Going on a walk alone, with your dog, in a quiet wood or by a peaceful river. Water. Of any kind.

A leash-free world is...

...a world where boundaries, and judgements, and harmful restrictions, and fear melt away to a constructive, supportive, interesting, loving community. A world where people of different beliefs, backgrounds, shapes, and colors...

bare a common responsibility

to protect and nourish everyone, including ourselves.

...enclave...a distinct cultural or social unit

Somewhere off in the distance

I see a strange little speck

Glimmering there, shifting and morphing

With uncertainty...

Or is it possibility?

A shape-shifter of astronomical proportions,

This speck is cHaNgE.

It lives within the misty.murky.mess

Of life,

Making the blurry lines of the future

The solid outline of this

EnClAvE where we belong.

"There are many different ways in which the new will be revealed. All you have to do is go along with it and not resist it. Change need not be painful. It is inevitable because nothing can remain the same; and if you look into your heart, you would not want it to do so." --Eileen Caddy

"What we play is life." --Louis Armstrong

Bringing the "Dance Thing" back to life...

Check this out.

Feel free to fill in

the ___________ space.

"Do only what only you can do." --the band director at my school heard this at a Teacher Burnout conference.

Getting Back in the Saddle

This is an excerpt from a proposal I just wrote. I'm hoping to get involved more in my dancer and artist side. I think--I hope--that will reunite me with myself.

My personal mission:

I believe in the healing and growth properties artistic endeavors provide people of all backgrounds and levels of experience—but I especially see the relevance of and necessity for the Arts during childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood.

I’ve always been fascinated with the real world applications of a production process, whether musical theater, dance, music, or drama. The act of learning new things, practicing them, working through and around them with other people, young and old, is invaluable to any human out there. Through collaboration and overcoming artistic challenges, we can all become better performers and better people. And when young and old, novice and professional, come together to encourage and inspire each other, magic can be made.

Ultimately, I hope to continue learning about and expressing myself and my world through the various artistic media available to me—choreography, dance, theater, poetry, prose, song writing, etc.—and I hope to involve myself as a lifelong role model and mentor to young people.

Some things I could offer:

• Workshops (which I can use to offer exploration and expression through collaboration with me, their peers, and other artists):
• Writer’s workshops—where we explore aspects of creative and personal writing processes, as a method for self-awareness, healing, and expression.
• Choreography workshops—where we explore elements of space, movement, and composition, culminating in either one or multiple dance pieces.
• Viewpoints workshops—where we explore the various ways an actor can utilize his/her body, fellow actors, and the existing performance or practice space to create organic and dynamic theater. (I am by no means an expert at this training, but I have attended a workshop by a student of the creators and I do use elements of Viewpoints training in my drama classes, as well as the shows I direct.)
• Dance classes (although I feel out of practice, I would be willing to throw myself back in as a means to whet my appetite and get myself moving again):
• (Primarily) Modern/Contemporary dance—my choreography style melds together elements of ballet, jazz, and contemporary styles, all combined to create movement pieces which tell a story or evoke emotion.
• I could also offer beginning and intermediate Jazz or Musical Theater style classes, as well as beginning and intermediate Ballet classes.
• Directing (again, this is a new realm for me, but I love it and the possibilities it provides):
• I’d be happy to help explore various real-world topics.
• I’d also be into the possibility of writing and creating original theater.

The Walking Wounded

We are all so fragile: little feathers floating in the breeze, coasting in any direction the wind chooses, stopping, going, fluttering every which way. Some might say aimlessly, while others say purposefully.

But whose purpose is it?

Have you ever had the sudden urge to open a car door as it speeds down a freeway? Or to not take that step to solid ground as the escalator reaches the top? Sometimes I stare off the edge of a cliff or over the railing of a balcony and wonder what would happen if I took a step over, if I tumbled down from safety to something else entirely.

I am not crazy. In fact, I think I'm more sane than ever.

But sometimes ghosts make their way back. Sometimes people you thought you put to rest find you again, haunting your dreams. With an innocent song or smell. A picture. A flower. The sound of his voice. A car that reminds you of his. Any one of those things can steal the air from your lungs, stop the beats in your heart, and bring you back to a place you thought you left long ago. And there you are, in a pool on the floor, a puddle of your old weakness.

I think every human has those moments, and is susceptible to them every day of his or her life.

Every day, we walk the line, tightroping our way through our lives, following a path either precarious or predestined. We gamble with ourselves about the decisions and the actions and the questions of our lives: one more look and I will never look back, one last kiss, one last call and then I'll let it go.

We wonder what it would be like to jump out of a plane, to sabotage our safety, when we really should question the importance of intact limbs and unbroken hearts.

I am not crazy. But every once in a while, I wonder. Is staying on the rope the best thing for me? Is walking that wobbly safety-line really worth it? Or should I take that temptation, and leap away from the known path, the expected path, and finally let myself live?

Well. I took one step off, and his face flickered back into focus. He is back in my mind. My heart flutters through the memories of our fiction, that feather resting for a moment in possibility and quickly flying away for good. I know it was not real. But then why am I still shattered apart at the thought of him?

Nearly two years ago, I said goodbye and meant it. Sometimes, though, I picture that path--in that tenuous moment of what-might-have-been, I see a whole world, a life we will never live. It is a glimpse, a flash imagined on a movie screen, a whim there briefly and then gone.

I still gamble with myself. I still look over the edge, flirting with disaster. Maybe next time I jump out of a high-speed vehicle, the flesh wounds will be more than the illusion I suffered with him.

Again

Amiga, amiga.

Good price for you.

Almost free today.

Bonita.  Guapa.  

Whistles.  Kiss faces.

Honking.  Waving.

But then there is 

The poor woman, 

sitting demurely

outside the church.

Skin dark, wrinkled,

like leather,

curled into the rough, rocky wall, 

her hand quietly cupped,

silently asking for help.  

Can this be called begging?

She utters not one word.

Not one sound escapes her lips.

She never raises her eyes to meet ours.

But, then again,

mine never stooped to meet hers.

We were both there, 

in that moment,

quietly avoiding 

the other's

eyes.

Both

crying inside.

Wondering why Fate

placed us together in 

this moment

on opposite sides.

I am haunted by these images,

by the outstretched hands, 

the crumbled humanity that

surrounds us all.

I am paralyzed by my brain.

By the thinking-too-much-

syndrome.

Will they use this money for food? 

For drugs?

Are they truly poor?

Is this just a front for greed?

For laziness?

I hate that I dare to think these things.

How dare I assume anything about 

anyone. else.

We all have our own issues, 

our own challenges,

our own demons.  

Here I stand, again.

Plagued with guilt, again,

Because I turned a blind eye.

I looked away.  

Walked away.

I kept my bleary eyes up, again, 

when Need sat quietly below.  

Tiny little microcosms of life hide around every corner, alley way, side street, around every nook and cranny.  

Textures and patterns scrape across Mexican landscapes, engraving the story of her legends, life and love stories.  

...Souls soaring...

Flocks are flying overhead, 

little pockets of collective consciousness,

floating and flipping,

flip-floating,

fly-flying,

effortlessly.  beautifully.

They know nothing of the murky, madness

down here.

They cluster together 

with ease,

by necessity.  

They are free from 

the plague of adolescence

raging rampant

in and among our supposed

adult democracy.

Who are we anyway,

but a synchronized group 

of kindred spirits

screaming our way through 

the middle of it all?

Daily haze.

Mist.haze.humidity.moisture.molecules.

nestle into the sometimes cozy,

sometimes rocky

curves and crevices of 

Mexico's landscape.

Daily this haze

comes and goes,

hiding sometimes,

and revealing sometimes

the beauties,

the maladies,

always the realities

of the land.

In one look it is there,

and the next,

it is gone.

What is writing to you?

The physical manifestation of my inner voice.  It is the questions, the taboos, the mistakes, the discoveries that happen all the time, all at once, in my mind.  It is the deafening white-noise that needs silencing.  It is the phantom pain that needs treating.  

It is the hunting and gathering, the trapping and holding of these ideas.  

It is also the planting, nurturing of a beginning, of an itch, and the watching it, helping it, encouraging it to grow into a developed and complex being, ready for harvest, for consumption. And then it is ready to compost and begin again.  

Writing is a way to make real, to make tangible, the invisible--but paradoxically, more real--existence that is all around and within me.  

Culture

I am worried that this is lacking, in this country, but more importantly, in me.  So many times I find myself and those around me looking to OTHER cultures to identify with.  We are fascinated by THE OTHER. 

Latino cultures seem to have such vibrant color, such spice, and that steaming hot salsa running through their veins.  Black cultures--African Americans, people from the Caribbean, and sundry other places--have blues, jazz, and hip-hop; slavery and repression fueling them, pulsing through them.  The gay culture has banded together under a flag filled with rainbow colors and togetherness.  Some bigot calls them a fag, and the community owns it, turning that defamation into an affirmation.  

I am white, really white, blue-eyed, upper-middle class, and I grew up in Small Town, CT.  

Boring.

I long for a culture to call my own.  Culture, which seems, in so many ways, synonymous with color.  Flavor.  The spice of life.

Judging by my hometown and my skin, I am the nutrition-less, flavorless, over-produced and empty slice of white Wonder-bread.  

But if I identify with my italian culture, my irish culture, I can be feisty, worldly, culturally rich.  It doesn't matter that, in truth, I am mostly English--and my blaring, white skin shows it--I want to be more like my spicy side.  

It has more depth.  More flavor.  More color than the bland little ol' white girl from Little Town, New England.  

When I can't see myself sitting down to write a real, written-just-for-this-purpose, post, I look through random notebooks and scrap papers to find some snippet of my thoughts.  Here are a few recent ones, until I can get my act together.  For real, for real.  

I know this place too well.  All of my doubts and my mistakes haunt me.  Whispers of heartbreak and ambiguity follow me everywhere.  Songs and memories decide to arrive at my doorstep at this moment of uncertainty, taunting me, reminding me of possibilities lost.  These ghosts precede every step and echo every word.  The strength that defines me is draining out of my core.  All of the certainties are broken into a million shards of worry and doubt.  

Who is this person?  This timid, meek girl?  Who is that?  Part of me knows that all of the decisions, all of the mistakes, all of the hurts have made me stronger, have made me more ready for the future that awaits.  But loneliness and guilt are tough adversaries.  They seem to have taken up residency in my brain, and they are going to be difficult to eject.  

I know this place too well; it feels like home to me.  

But I don't want to live here.  This won't always be my norm, my touchstone.  This won't always be me.  

In another moment of weakness, one of my other weaknesses said, "You have more going for you than anyone else in this room.  At least you have options."  Then he asked me, "How can you regret a decision that was right for you?"  Out of all of the things he's said to me or not said to me over the years, this was one of the most poignant.  

I think he's right.  At least, I hope so.

I've been trying to sit down and write, for days and days.  

Some part of me is stopping the other part of me that wants to get. going.  

I'm sick of that part.  She sucks.

Free-writes with my students....

In preparation for their college essays, I spend a class period offering free write topics, encouraging self-reflection and exploration.  This semester, the activity fell directly in the middle of my own personal disaster.  In some ways, I feel like I am at a similar place as many of them, on the horizon of a change, of a new direction.  Through this brainstorm, I reminded myself of some key elements that comprise who I am.  I'm not sure exactly what I will do with this information yet, but I'm thankful to have generated a beginning of a new direction.  

____________________________________________________

What is your strongest personality trait?

• My go-to attitude.  I am a doer.  I don't sit around and wait for things to happen to me.  And when problems occur, I like to think I jump to action and help drive a situation to its conclusion.  I believe I get this from my mother.  I get much of my drive and determination from her.  I am the living, breathing result of a 1970's feminist child. 
•  (Interesting, I now feel frozen and indecisive.  Will I be able to make a change in career?)

How would your friends describe you?

• She is driven.  She is a bubbly person.  She always tries to do what is right and helpful by everyone else, which can sometimes be detrimental to her sanity.  In the process of doing what is expected or asked of her, she sometimes loses sight of her own needs.  She is someone who has a lot to give, but sometimes doesn't know how to balance the pieces of her life to allow for that generosity to truly take effect.  She doesn't know the meaning of the word, No.

What is a favorite book, movie, piece of art, etc?  Why?

• Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Dreams.  I'm not really sure why this is a favorite.  Maybe I just read it at the right time in my life.  Maybe I liked the relationships between the characters, the sense of loss and rebuilding of a life.  I also really love the importance she gave to the place, its healing properties and magical, dream-like qualities.  
• In general, I love things that make me look closer, once, twice, or twelve times.  I love pieces that have an immediate but lasting emotional effect on me.  Sometimes these effects and these pieces are unexplainable.  I just want to be made to FEEL.  I want my gut to respond.

Have you ever reached an epiphany in your life?

• Yes.  RECENTLY.  I realized that I have a tendency to get stuck in INERTIA, in a pathway that was my choosing and is respected/supported by everyone in my life, but then I realize that it may not be the right pathway for me.  This is true in my professional and personal life right now.  But at the same time, these questions fly through my mind:  How dare I stand up for me?  For my feelings?
• I must begin paying attention to me.  NOW.  Or forever hold my peace.

What are your greatest accomplishments?  Why do you consider them so highly?

• Being a part of Samantha's life (my little cousin who ended up spending a year with my family, in a time of turmoil for her)--and I regret not being as strong presence in her life currently.
• Helping my grandfather and grandmother during his illness--I was able to be useful and caring and use my strengths to help them with things they struggled with.  And I regret not spending as much time with my Grams now that she is alone.
• Going to school and doing well.  High school, undergrad, and graduate school.  For so long this was all I knew or expected of myself, and I committed to doing well.
• Creating groups of friends and communities in various facets of my life.  I regret losing touch with some or many of them.
• Right now....the fact that I am actively and verbally admitting unrest.  This is a first for me.  I hope that I take this beginning and create the life that I really want.  The time is now.
• Next...I hope the next big accomplishment will be making the change.  Or, at the very least, beginning to make the change that I know I need to make.

What activities do you do outside the classroom that define you as a person?

• Directing/choreographing plays--I see these as vehicles for mentoring kids in an arena sometimes more meaningful than in a traditional classroom.
• ABC House--I am daily helping five boys in a very real, very tangible way.  I am helping to provide comfort, family, and support to inner-city kids trying to find A Better Chance than they might find in their home neighborhoods.
• Ballroom Dance Club 
• Advocating for a Theater and Dance program in a public high school.  
• (......all of these activities are directed towards populations of kids who don't have an existing outlet in their communities or schools)

In what areas have you struggled and succeeded?  Struggled and failed?

• BEST portfolio--to be certified to teach in CT, second year teachers face UNREAL pressures.  I passed this portfolio, but not without much turmoil.
• Directing my first musical at this high-powered public high school.
• School, through all the levels.

• I don't have as many failures, but I think this is because I've played it safe.  Maybe I need to stretch out of my comfort zone.  For once in my life.  

What are some difficulties you've had to endure and how have they changed you?

• This might be one of the most difficult things I will have to do--to break from INERTIA.  I fear that this decision will help define me and my life hereafter.  I just hope I make the right choice.
• I am proud of the difficulties I faced with Sammi and my Gramps--I love myself most when I do the right thing by me AND others.  

Where and with whom would you like to be?

• Outside, walking or running with my puppy, with a notebook and my ideas in tow.  Then, I would take a break, a long one at that, to play, bound, rest, and let my words flow.  I want to let the writer's life take over.  I want to commit to it, in combination with some yoga and dance.  The more I think about it, the more I realize it could be. the. most. perfect. and. powerful. scenario.

How do you define success?

• Happiness.  For me and for as many other people as possible.  In thirty years, I don't want to doubt my path.  I think I might if I staid in teaching.  At least in an artist's life or a writer's life, I would have the opportunity to change and develop my focus, what I am working on.  Could I go freelance?
• Success, to me, equals me as an old lady, sitting around a porch surrounded by my family (blood and gathered), laughing, telling stories, and loving life.  
• I want a world of options and inspirations.  A wealth of interest and knowledge and curiosity.  Always.  For my whole life.

The Pro-Con List

In trying to decide what is causing my discontent at work, I came up with the following list.

The positive parts of my job--

• Helping kids, being a positive influence in their life.
• Supporting a life of thoughtful consideration and curiosity, of awareness, of creativity, and of self-expression.
• I have the opportunity to participate and facilitate theater and dance, and to advocate for the arts in public schools.
• I sometimes have the opportunity to share and be excited about my passions and my concern for kids with like-minded people.  This is limited, however, due to the normal stresses of the job.
• The people in this working community are wonderful and supportive, interesting and challenging.  They never fail to bring a smile to my face, even when that might be a hard thing to do.  They have become a second family to me.
• I have a consistent paycheck with benefits.  I am putting money away for retirement.  This is stable.

The negative aspects of my job--

• The correcting load, in addition to the other responsibilities.
• Because I am overwhelmed with additional activities (by choice, I admit), I feel like I'm not being as good or as clear in the classroom (and out of the classroom).  What good am I if I am letting my students down?
• While the possibility for a theater program exists on the horizon, I have no idea how long it will be before it materializes.  
• I am supporting the students' creativity and self-expression, but I am stifling my own!
• I've been questioning this career path THE WHOLE TIME I have been on it.  I went into it wondering, and it hasn't stopped.
• Leaving would be a huge monetary risk.  And I have my Dad's voice in my head...
• Teaching English was always the choice I made to be logical (here's that theme again...), responsible, to bring together pieces of myself.  But.  I am lost.  So I am worried that this is not working....................

Do I have the guts to do something about it?

Sometimes silence screams.

I could feel the anger and the sadness reverberate through the car.  Thank god I stopped to get a coffee…at least I had something else to do with my hands than grasp the wheel and the stick.  I could engage the sense of taste to distract from the other senses, shrieking with his pain.  

I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.  I sat there and let him go through his motions until we got home.  

I quietly got out of the car after his not-so-quiet door slam.  I stood in the grass, under the clear, starry sky, and watched as he tossed his bags into his car, took his parents' air conditioner from the house, said C-ya, and tore out of the drive-way.  

I stood there for a few more minutes, letting the cooling humid air swirl around me.  I listened to the sound of his engine get quieter and quieter in the distance.  Until it was gone.  He was gone.  

I could finally take a breath.  And I made it count.  I took a deep breath in, held it there, carefully, mindfully, and then slowly let the air seep out through my lips.  It seemed like I had air for days.  

My stomach churned a little bit.  But the tension in my shoulders went away.  The tears hung in the corners of my eyes, but they did not fall.  I looked down at my dog, who stood still at my side, staring up at me. 

“Come on, Sid,” I whispered.  He wagged his tail slightly and trotted, carefree, into the house.  I took slow, deliberate steps inside, turned around, and gently closed the door.  

I sat down in my satellite chair, hugged my knees to my chest, and let the silence ring in my ears.  I did it.  I just broke a good man’s heart.  

And here I am, sitting still, in a space somewhere between tears, nausea, and relief. 

Another goodbye.

________,

I want to write this to you in case I forget to say some thing or things in person.  I know this is going to be hard, and I don’t want to risk you not understanding, or at the very least, not getting all of my thinking.

Let me start with affirmations, which I hope you can remember and believe when it’s easier to focus on the negative.  I think you are the sweetest, kindest man I have ever met.  I am blessed to know you and to have you love me as much as you do.  I admire your bravery in making such a huge life change and the steps you’ve taken to grow as a person.  I can’t imagine the strength it has taken for you to cope with so many challenges, without asking for support or help from anyone.  I am so proud of you and happy for you about the positive experiences you’ve had during your recent training—you deserve to have a turn-around at work; you deserve to be recognized for the good things you are doing.  In fact, you deserve the very best in all facets of your life. 

Let me also be very clear about this:  I love you and care about you a great deal.  If you need my support, it will be there, without question. 

It is because of all of these things that I cannot wait to do this, to say this.  I can’t be your girlfriend anymore.  It wouldn’t be fair.  It wouldn’t be right.  I do not love you the way you love me.  My heart and my gut—my emotions, my intuition—are not in line with my logic.  And no amount of time or rationalization is going to change that.  I’m sure of that now.  In fact, although I am not particularly excited about hurting you, I’m more sure about this than I have been about anything in recent months. 

I have been trying to write myself into the perfect love story, the story we’ve been creating for ourselves.  This makes so much sense; WE make so much sense. We’ve felt drawn to each other, off and on, for years.  We have such a common background and have a deeper understanding of each other because of that.  Our families know each other and are supportive of the two of us together.  Our friends are supportive, too.  Everybody seems to see the perfection of the story, but that doesn’t mean it is perfect. 

I’ve realized that there is a disconnect between the experience I’ve been painting for myself and the experience I’ve actually been having.  I have worked very hard to try to make myself feel this, to want and need this gutturally, but it’s not there.  Of course, I have had moments of contentment and happiness, because I enjoy spending time with you.  You are a wonderful person, and I like being around you; I like having you in my life.  But that doesn’t translate to me being in love with you, to this being the right thing for me. 

And I think I’ve been using “the walls” and “the being emotionally closed off,” “the being scarred and scared,” as barriers to hide behind. I certainly have been hurt in the past, but I know I’m not this emotionally stunted.  It is not coming naturally to me, not because I’m not capable of it, but because somehow, subconsciously, I knew something wasn’t working. You’ve said that I’m “copping out” quite a bit lately, and you’re right.  But not in the way you thought.  I wasn’t listening to myself.  I wasn’t letting myself admit that this wasn’t working for me, so I kept coming up with lame excuses or reasons for the way I was acting.  I was trying to give myself enough time to MAKE it work.  Some things, though, you just can’t force.  This is one of them.  And it’s not fair to you. 

I don’t really know what catalyzed this bout of self-analysis and realization (or, rather, beginnings of self-realization), but I’m starting to listen to myself, to pay attention to my desires and my aspirations.  This is the hardest thing I think anyone can do, and for a long time, I’ve been putting myself second to what seems to be the “right” path or the one I have a responsibility to simply because I’ve started down that road.  But instead of staying in things that aren’t working, isn’t it better to be honest?  First, with myself, but also with the people I’m affecting? 

I don’t believe we’re as compatible as we’ve been trying to convince ourselves we are.  I am not going to make you happy in the end, because I can’t love you the way you need to be loved, the way you deserve to be loved.  I believe you will find that in somebody just as wonderful as you. 

I know you don’t want to hear, “I’m sorry.”  But I am.  I am sorry that it took me so long to figure this out.  I am sorry you’re hurting; you don’t deserve that.  I am sorry you made such a drastic move for something that didn’t pan out the way you pictured it.  I’m sorry you might hate me after this.  Believe me, I will feel badly about that for a very long time.  I will regret hurting someone that I care about so deeply and respect so much.

On the other hand, I am NOT sorry we tried.  If we didn’t try, we would never have known—you might not have proven to yourself that you could leave the comfort of home, that you could be on your own.  I might not have learned that there is a sensitivity and kindness that I should expect from a partner.  I might not have learned how to be honest with myself, to pay attention to the actuality instead of the make-believe reality. 

Thank you for loving me.  I’m sorry I’m hurting you. 

If there is any way you can keep me in your life, I would love that.  But if you need space, time, or a clean cut, I understand that, too. 

You are wonderful.  Please don’t ever forget that.

With love.

For the first time in a really long time, I'm being the selfish one. I'm putting my needs before someone else's. I'm trying to let the guilt roll off of me, just this once. Because the weight of that guilt might crush me like stone.

Don't listen to logic.

....Do what feels right.

....

--Star Trek

"I hope you will go out and let stories happen to you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom."

--Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Check our SARK and her beauteous way of living and loving abundantly.  

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(Thanks to my cousin, Liz, for turning me on to this.  It turns out that today happens to be a day of reconnecting, to inspiration, to self, to others.  And I am thankful for it.)

http://www.sarkjournal.com/

Well...Astrology.com says Libra and Leo are a perfect match:

Eloquent, artistic, and honest, these two signs share many touchstones and easily accommodate each other elsewhere. The Libran individual, incurably wishy-washy, will adopt the Lion's determination if it seems fair. And the Lion laps it up! Leo fulfills the Libran's desires, rubbing him or her the right way and expressing boundless love, especially in the physical sense. Friends and lovers, Leo and Libra derive strength from each other to parade splendidly, in dignity and grace, through the outer world. Their love is an intelligent device.

As did March.  And April after it.  

Time is slipping past me.

Or is it fermenting into something tasty?

Where did it go?  One day I blinked and February went away...

Good evening—

On behalf of the cast and crew, I’d like to welcome you to the GHS Drama Club’s production of Crazy For You.

When we were choosing our shows for this year’s season, we decided to follow our hearts and our passions. For a transition year and for two directors’ debuts at GHS, we thought it best to utilize our strengths. We chose our fall production because of the director's infectious enthusiasm for Our Town. We chose this musical because it is a big dance show, and dance is what I know best. Looking back, however, I think both of us learned far more than we expected. We started in our comfort zones, and the magic of theater took us to a beautiful new place.

Crazy For You shamelessly celebrates the musical theater genre. It oozes dance, music, and laughter. It is over-the-top and sentimental. It breaks from reality and brings us directly into our characters’ dreams. It is often cheesy and cliché. But scattered among all of that shines a few simple messages: be brave enough to love, follow your passions, hold out for what you deserve, and let people give you a hand once in a while. And if you do that, your dream world might actually become a reality.

Like Zangler’s Follies and the people of Deadrock, Nevada, this cast and crew set out to put on a show, a big and challenging show. We didn’t do this to save a theater or make money, however. We did it because this is what we love. This is how we breathe, how we move through the stories of our lives with purpose and flare. This is how we learn to understand each other and ourselves. Through the production process, the fusing together of theatrical elements, we learn how to be better people.

Also, like the people of Deadrock, there were moments in this process when we found ourselves in the middle of everything, looking out, wondering how we’d make it through. In my life, I’ve often found solace in the messy madness of art, but I must admit there were moments this time around that seemed insurmountable. However, at each one of these moments, without fail, someone stepped up—sometimes it was a student; sometimes it was an adult; sometimes it was a friend or a parent. Regardless, we helped each other. We encouraged each other to keep a “stiff upper lip.” We “put on [our] dancing shoes and watched [our] spirits climb.” And the moment we collectively believed it, when we realized “we got rhythm” and “we got music,” was when it did come together. It was then we realized we couldn’t ask for a single thing more.

And that feeling is magical. It is the over-the-top, the dream-turned-reality. It is why we do this time and time again.

For that, I would like to say thank you to every person involved. To all of the designers and directors, students and adults alike—you helped actualize this vision. To the pit, thank you for providing the music that carried us through. To the crew, it is because of you that we feel like we’re “up among the stars.”

To every one else who supported us along the way, thank you. Parents, thank you for all of the rides and for supporting our crazy schedule. And thanks to the cast of The Complete Works of Shakespeare Abridged—your talent and time helped buy some of the instruments we are using tonight.

To the cast, you truly were a joy to work with. Every time you tap together, turn on the charm, or hit that last pose, I get chills. I feel like a little kid again. Never lose your passion and your energy. I am CRAZY FOR YOU.

She stands in the middle of the room.  But it is not just any room.  It is a room, like so many other rooms, that has defined so many moments in her life.  

She stands there in the pit, the lowest point of the whole place, the point where a piece of the magic begins.  She turns to the back of the room, looking upwards over hundreds of battered, worn seats, seeing shifty figures and faces that have occupied them through the years.  She sees the tears and the laughter, the intense attention and the restless boredom, the family, the friends, the faces of people who made a regular moment wholly unique and irreplaceable, never to be found exactly as it was again.

Her eyes travel up past those seats to the doors which welcomed those faces in, to the booth which controls other pieces of the magic.  She lets her eyes travel across the high ceilings and up to the catwalk, caging in streams of light which illuminate and inform the magic, hanging from above the pieces that will bring people and moments to life.

Then, ever so slowly, she allows her body to turn, facing a gaping hole--dimly lit, empty.  The floor gouged, splintered, worn.  Remnants of tape and paint and blood, sweat, and tears sprinkle the surface which so many have occupied before her.  Remnants of successes and failures--that she does not remember--haunt the space before her.  

And she is not sure she belongs in this room, like she has in others from before.  The pieces of the past do not speak to her here, the pieces of this room are still foreign, strange.  She stands there looking, questioning, hoping, that before too long that strangeness will disappear.  She stands there hoping that the various pieces of the magic she knows so well will come together for her here.  

Because then, standing in the middle of things will feel less daunting.

It is simple.  It is true.

It is the living, breathing mushy stuff.

It's a solid "me and you."

Two hearts pumping and beating together.

It's as simple as "I love you."