recovery...
hard-core, man. it's all i can do to get out of bed and actually try to re-immerse myself back into my "normal" life. what does it mean that recovering from a show feels like a nasty-ass hangover? i'm beginning to wonder if what i think of as being "enough" in my life is not. why should i have to learn how to recover from that high- the high of pouring yourself as completely as you can- like an exhale that sucks your navel back to your spine and makes your lungs feel flat- into a creative endeavor with people you have come to love and respect and be in awe of? maybe the answer is trying to make that experience a greater part of my life- focus on creating more, performing more instead of seeing it like the roller coaster ride at elitch's that we only got to go on a couple times a summer, and most of the time had to make due with car-rides. not that i don't want to work to find that same kind of bliss in teaching. ack, my brain is foggy. it's a down-trend kind of week. after a high like the past couple weeks, it's inevitable to come down below your norm. it's cool. i don't see depression as a bad thing, necessarily as long as the reasons for it are clear and it doesn't stick around too long. i could certainly use the extra sleep.
the past couple weeks have been amazing though- overcoming fears, being obsessed with and then going thru the birthing pangs of putting a creative endeavor on stage for anyone to judge, including people who's opinions matter a great deal to me. it was a time filled with so many intense emotions- including fear, extreme nausea, why the hell did i think this was a good idea?/ fuck, i can't believe i just fell out of that turn and now have to keep dancing even though i've been on stage for 10 minutes and feel like i might throw up/ my dancers are on stage and all i can do is sit back here and try to breath, cut the cord and let them own the piece as they should/that feeling of successfully making yourself entirely vulnerable to the audience and feeling as if you're becoming the movement that at one time was created by someone else entirely, and just the process of taking countless hours to piece something together, to let everything else take a backseat. the thing about that is that inevitably all those things have to come back and be a primary focus, and it's just no fun as you're transitioning back.
i have to call my credit card company, get my oil changed, plan classes, pay bills, go grocery shopping... i spent the day cleaning which oddly was not terrible. cleaning is weird that way. it's simple, straightforward, the goal is clear and easily attainable. i love the sight of a clean kitchen w/ all the dishes in the drying rack and the counters newly cleaned.
i still don't know quite what art as activism means to me, what it means in seattle, how to move forward in the best way. i know, though that it is time for so many reasons. i need to take some of this momentum from this experience and reinvest it in the future. i am taking the next step with this piece and spending the next 6 weeks expanding it with my dancers before we audition it for a work in progress show called 12 minutes max. thank god for that. i can recover, then dive back in. assuming we get into that show, it's only a month after it that brett and i leave for europe- that will be 9 weeks of all kinds of roller coaster rides, intense experiences that will keep me immersed and challenged and fulfilled. for now, it's one do-to-list item at a time.
the past couple weeks have been amazing though- overcoming fears, being obsessed with and then going thru the birthing pangs of putting a creative endeavor on stage for anyone to judge, including people who's opinions matter a great deal to me. it was a time filled with so many intense emotions- including fear, extreme nausea, why the hell did i think this was a good idea?/ fuck, i can't believe i just fell out of that turn and now have to keep dancing even though i've been on stage for 10 minutes and feel like i might throw up/ my dancers are on stage and all i can do is sit back here and try to breath, cut the cord and let them own the piece as they should/that feeling of successfully making yourself entirely vulnerable to the audience and feeling as if you're becoming the movement that at one time was created by someone else entirely, and just the process of taking countless hours to piece something together, to let everything else take a backseat. the thing about that is that inevitably all those things have to come back and be a primary focus, and it's just no fun as you're transitioning back.
i have to call my credit card company, get my oil changed, plan classes, pay bills, go grocery shopping... i spent the day cleaning which oddly was not terrible. cleaning is weird that way. it's simple, straightforward, the goal is clear and easily attainable. i love the sight of a clean kitchen w/ all the dishes in the drying rack and the counters newly cleaned.
i still don't know quite what art as activism means to me, what it means in seattle, how to move forward in the best way. i know, though that it is time for so many reasons. i need to take some of this momentum from this experience and reinvest it in the future. i am taking the next step with this piece and spending the next 6 weeks expanding it with my dancers before we audition it for a work in progress show called 12 minutes max. thank god for that. i can recover, then dive back in. assuming we get into that show, it's only a month after it that brett and i leave for europe- that will be 9 weeks of all kinds of roller coaster rides, intense experiences that will keep me immersed and challenged and fulfilled. for now, it's one do-to-list item at a time.