i had the weirdest dream....i took my mama and my aunt sabra and some of their friends to church in a small southern baptist style sanctuary that was supposed to be in haiti...upon walking in i became aware that joseph kony (the ugandan leader of the LRA, a rebel group that enslaves and exploits children as soldiers and sex slaves) was in attendance. other than the presence of this church in haiti and this terrorist's presence in it, a couple of other things were kind of strange...
he was white...with an entourage made up of middle aged men from india and pakistan...who i apparently knew well.
in the midst of all this all my energy was going to trying to convince my mama and her friends to stop being silly and whispering in church, which they saw as highly uptight and hypocritical on my part...because they didn't recognize kony and know that our back pew antics could exact a severe penalty from him and his cronies...which i was apparently painfully aware of and hence...
nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs...
i have no idea what i expect to come of sharing this dream...but i couldn't bring myself not to...its just too weird...and i would just love to hear what cory brooks thinks about it....
Sunday, January 16, 2011
mama t
1-13-11
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
I bought mother teresa stamps today. Im still not sure how I feel about it. Wish I could ask her how she feels about it. Which leads me to wonder how she would feel if, given the chance to speak with her despite space and time, life and death, I chose to ask her what her feelings are about being put on a postage stamp.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
kompa
1-9-11
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
by now I am supposed to be pulling into my driveway at the “north forty,” the farmhouse we call home in new hampshire...but the weather had other plans so I am spending the night with beautiful and gracious friends and trying again tomorrow...well, in a few hours...
thanks to their generosity and hospitality, I spent the 12 hour plane delay visiting and then dancing in my red high heels before getting a few hours sleep in a cozy bed...all of which totally beats at night on the floor of the atlanta airport :)
in a group of people I had mostly never met, dancing a style very new to me but known intimately to them, to music in a language I am still learning but spoken since birth by most everyone else in the room...at first I felt very awkward and a little out of step, which was both funny and humbling as a dancer and dance teacher. Part of me was so drawn by the music and the desire to move but another just wanted to hide. I studied the movements of those on the dance floor, their arms, their feet, their hips...the effortless way their bodies interpreted the music and conversed with their partners. I tried to compare it to anyting I knew of dance, whether I had a dance in me as fluent as the kompa was the bodies of the men and women I watched.
My face must have betrayed my deep concentration because eventually a gentleman I had been introduced to earlier came over to ask if something was wrong. Laughing at myself I told him no to which he asked “then why aren't you dancing?” It WAS a dance after all....I told him maybe later, to which he responded by setting down his drink and reaching out his hand. I haven't been so nervous to take to the dance floor since the 6th grade when girls were all a foot taller than boys and no one knew what to do with their hands! but being a dancer and dance teacher, letting someone else lead has always been a challenge for me even when I know what they want me to do...and here I was with a man I didn't know and my only kompa lessons had been in the streets and salt flats of jubilee blanc, given by barefoot haitian children!
We got off to a decent enough start but I could feel myself working to hard at trying not to make it feel (and LOOK) like work.
I suddenly remembered my trip to driftwood beach earlier in the day, my last minute stop to soak up some georgia ocean magic before heading back up north...while walking with kathy and shelby we had closed our eyes and let the beach tell us where to go and talked about all the times where closing our eyes had helped us find the rhythm, to find the way.
I decided to try something.
Hoping for no disasterous fall...i closed my eyes.
It was like someone had turned up the volume. Not of the music or the sounds of the party, although I could hear the nuances of both much better. the thing I could suddenly hear so clearly wasn't a sound at all, it was the movement. The moment I closed my eyes, I was aware of exactly where and how I was being touched. I could sense from the pressure in one finger of my partner's hand how he wanted me to lean, move, or turn. I could feel his next move come from his shoulders and be ready to make it with him. even without seeing, I could feel his head tilt or his feet shuffle in the air near mine, drawing me to come closer or sending me back.
The most amazing part, even with my dance movment therapy nerd hat on, I wasn't THINKING about this, it was just happening. His body was calling out instructions to mine and mine was obeying. Later as I danced with others, mine would do some instructing of its own and feel the response of a body that heard loud and clear--way more effective by the way than a warning glance :)
At the end of each dance, I would laugh to myself because I could tell both my partners and I were surpised that this white girl could kompa well enough to keep up with them...
it gave me a whole new take on the old brag “i could do that with my eyes closed!”
driftwood beach
god has told the ocean the secret, and the ocean tell it to me anytime I stop to listen.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
sway. flow. be. come. go.
stand, but not so firmly you cannot bend.
bend, but not so easily that you fall.
when you fall, don't fight the ebb and flow, use it to make your way up.
there is a place in the surf for looking out into the coming waves,
and a place where keeping your eyes on the shore is best. both horizons always have something to show you.
if you can't see it, close your eyes.
the truth
like the ocean
is a body so breathtakingly simple and yet unimaginably deep
at once the epitome of both force and surrender.
and like the ocean, clearly seen and yet tied so intimately with forces unseen.
the ocean is where I find the rhythm I was meant to move to. where I find the truth.
where I become true again.
today I closed my eyes and walked with you in the waves and began to find my way.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
can you have resolutions if you skip fake amish new year's?
so tonight was supposed to be "fake amish new year" which is a long story that is probably only funny to my family, or maybe just me, and it ended up not happening at all. it wasn't until i laid down tonight (which happened to be right a midnight) that i realized that in addition to missing out on time at "the coast," fireworks, seeing a lot of peeps i had yet to get to hang with on this break, and a midnight dip in the julienton river, by skipping regular new years in favor of fake amish new years and then skipping that too we never officially welcomed 2011....i realized this in a kind of backwards way too...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
first i decided that i should try to write, draw, paint, sew, or dance something everyday and that even still i should be writing everyday, there is just too much happening in my world and my head on a daily basis not to be documenting it for my own reflection once this school season of my life gives way to whatever is next...so next a thought that it was was too bad i didn't think of this at new years so that i could have started fresh with this idea at the beginning of 2011 (read: so that i could have turned this healthy idea for growth and living into the cliche and undue burden and pressure of a new year's resolution)....only then did i realize that since the 6th was supposed to have been fake amish new year, our new year, i was not late and was in fact exactly on time (it was 12:02am by the time i finished having this thought)
so at that point it seemed appropriate to get out of bed and make sure that day one of this venture is a success....writing every day means that sometimes what i write will be way more for me than for anyone else but for sanity's sake i think i will write it all here anyway, except when i don't, and except when i write really important things on envelopes, napkins, the cardboard from battery packages, the back of my hand, and receipts from damon's famous wings.
anyone who actually keeps up with this and notices that i am slacking at any point is free to whine about it, remind me incessantly, and otherwise give me shit about it and call it holding me "accountable" to my own desire and goal...you know...like we do....
ironically, this first writing is really just me writing about my intention to do more writing more than actually writing anything...does it count if i say the word "writing" an obnoxious number of times?
in the spirit of documentation...i did spend the day out at my house, the south forty farm, cleaning (read: moving all the stuff people are storing in my house around so i looks less like a repo warehouse after a tornado). i ended up taking my first baby steps in throwing away stuff which is surprisingly difficult for me in spite of my somewhat nomadic spirit for a number of reasons we won't analyze here tonight. i also ended up finding reminders of moments and places and people from my life that haven't rode shotgun in my thoughts for quite some time. i found reminders of times when i saw certain moments, places and people very differently than i do right now. i found tiny things i can't believe i have managed to hold on to all these years without even meaning to, and couldn't find large and important things i had diligently tried to keep near and i am still pondering the metaphor behind that. i found the strength to move big pieces of furniture by myself and to let go of pieces of my past. i found pieces of things that have been broken and grace for those who broke them. i found a great mix cd and listened to it 5 times through. i found the lyrics i had been needing to hear on time number 5 and i found room to dance around all by myself. i found great joy and satisfaction in finding a place in my home for everyone's stuff, including 4 couches. again, still working through the metaphor. after all that i found a way to leave the house i love so much thinking as i always do when i am there how cool it would be if i could find a way to just stay out there all the time for a while, fixing things and making art and stuff out of old junk. not now, but someday.
i also found a vitamin bottle full of bullets, a book called he-manners, a mysterious bag of meat, kasey kartwheel's pom pons, an unopened bottle of chianti (in the basket) from before 1969, a hand knit baby sweater, the sheet music for november rain, the keys to two churches, a swimsuit worn in the 1972 miss georgia pageant, a velvet robe with zebra print lining and fur trim...custom made for a dog, the receipt for a radiator i put into my first car, a giant wooden bust of a native american chief, and a spittoon.
i love the farm.
happy not fake amish new years everybody...
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