I've become one of those lap top typing, latte sipping, starbucks dwelling people

The thing I've realized is that none of us really, actually know what we're doing. We're all just fumbling around in the dark, making messes and complicating situations. And I don't know if it's a gamble, each of us painting on poker faces making attempts to win the game at hand, or perhaps we've succomb to the notions of make believe. We find ourselves caught in moonlit dreams, playing at life the way we imagine it, rather than allowing ourselves to exist within the consuming depths of reality. Maybe we're all Alices, falling through the rabbit hole, scared beyond all recognition, grasping at twisted felines and mad hatters for some spec of truth. Maybe none of us really, actually know what we're doing.

My life these past 22 years has primarily consisted of some sort of formal structure, educational systems, carefully controlled environments, a family tree demarcating my life. These have been 22 years transitioning between tiny squares and boxes, compartments, bubbles, a brick house with square windows, a red door, and a chimney for Santa Claus. I'm starting to wonder if all the things I thought were assisting in this path toward self discovery and growth have actually inhibited my individuality. What if all of this so-called knowledge and and room for experimentation has been nothing more than the inevitable result of a structure or institution? What if all that I am is nothing more than a reflection of the spaces having contained this body...this vessel, this soul, the somewhat random structure of muscle and sinew and bone? What if all this has just been some ridiculous test?

College provides one with boxes. Boxes within boxes to organize, categorize, and compartmentalize life. And we all know it's happening as we conform to routine or plans and a certain path marked by specialty or specialties chosen. This can only offer so much room for growth and exploration...maturation. And then you graduate from that world only to find a life void of such containment. Welcome to the vast expanse. Welcome to the "what the hell do I do now?" phase of your life.

I sat in Starbucks watching a little boy shoot blue sugar packets into the trash can- his arms darting upward with certain victory, a smile so pure and simple, the direct reflection of innocent joy. I envied him. Me: 22 years old. 2 college degrees. and unemployment set on by "challenging economic times." I envied that little boy and the profound thrill found in sinking sugar packets into the trash.

I once said that we're all fumbling. Falling through reality. Through space and time, and broken hearts. Broken clocks. Repaired frames and reframed pairings of ourselves and others. Through fiction. Through the moment when you wake up in the morning and still wish you were sleeping. Because it's within the solace of sleep you tread the purest stream of conscience. And maybe this has all just been a test. Maybe this life is nothing more than stories unraveling between our bodies. Between our fallible, complicated, tragically beautiful little lives. This is what happens in the vast expanse. This is what happens in the thick of reality, when you've hit the bottom of the rabbit hole and simply allow yourself to exist within it.

The truth is I'm lost. And even as I say that I'm not sure if it's me that's lost in the vast expanse of possibility and harshness of reality. Or did I somewhere along the way just lose myself? In the moments and experiences I thought I was so clearly coming into my own, honing my individuality and artistic identity...was I really just consumed by this overwhelming force of structure? Was the outside shaping me rather than me having some profound impact on the outside...because of who I am, and what I make, and what I believe in?

Sometimes I think there should be a handbook to life. A book of instructions like Angella Chase said, telling you where to go and what to do. And the macho men of our time would cast it aside, attempting to build the foundations of a life by themselves, whether through intuition or a natural, keen sense of 'how to.' While the careful few would take things step by step, only to ensure a lire constructed carefully, safely, in search of the most perfect product possible. Yet life doesn't work that way. I suppose because none of us know what it's supposed to look like. And we can pretend that we do, we can make plans and develop skills to try and realize the promise of a specific color and shape and classification of life. But in the end I suspect we'd only find ourselves disappointed. Because life doesn't work that way. None of us actually know what we're doing. We're all just little kids shooting sugar packets into the trash. Hoping to make shot after shot, but more often than not, failing, at a seemingly simple task.

anacortes

So I suppose this post is long overdue. I returned from Europe over a week ago. And I feel like I'm supposed to be all amped and looking to write about every adventure and story and evocations of emotion and thought... And I have all of that... stories and memories and moments reflecting back as these glorious images and sounds and phrases in my mind, but I just feel... deflated. I feel deflated.

Don't get me wrong, I had the time of my life. Truly, I saw and felt and experienced and tried and ate and drank and sang and wrote and... and... and. It was phenomenal. But I guess it's like any major event in one's life, that when asked to talk about it or explain it to someone else, it seems nearly impossible. And it all feels like it was yesterday that I was night swimming in Cinque Terre watching shooting stars, or eating pesto and drinking wine while watching the sunset, walking along the Champs D'Elysee, Eiffel Tower in clear sight, or finding myself in awe of The David, strolling the streets of Venice, eating pancakes with Australian friends in an adorable flat in Lyon... And yet, it all seems like a million years ago. Like I was someone different then. Or rather, the time warp and transition back to the US stripped me of this person I had become while travelling, this person I was excited to be and try on... but now due to timing and circumstance and lack of decent pain au chocolat, she's gone. And I want her back.

I feel deflated.

I'm back here, in Maryland. I'm sitting at this little white desk, in my room, in my parent's house, surrounded by yellow walls, feeling small. This room feels too small. This desk, this bed, these ridiculous buttercup walls making all attempts to confine and smother. And I know it's this transitional period. This 'post college- what the hell am I doing with my life' phase. And part of me says that I should just recognize where I am and how I feel and just embrace it... accept it... allow. Allow, allow, allow. Well, as always, easier said than done, right?

I hate the transitions. I believe in them. I understand their purpose. But I hate them. I hate this constant feeling of being in between, of limbo, of uncertainty. I hate the perpetual trap of applying for jobs and searching for new homes and coming up with nothing, all the while wondering if want you think you want is actually want you want... or even, need. And second guessing every decision of every thought and action or hypothetical notion about your future... about the course or direction of your life.

I get that we're supposed to be "growing up" now. That we've entered the "real world" and all its responsibility. But I just don't see what it has to be so hard... why we should have to struggle so much, and get stuck in this place of essentially losing who we are. Losing the strong, confident, independent people we became through college- a challenging transition itself. Yet here we are. Grasping at straws and making grand attempts to simply get our feet underneath us, failing to understand why, after 4 years of formal education and degrees later, we can't seem to get our feet underneath us.

I'm leaving tomorrow for Seattle to attend my grandmother's funeral. My grandmother passed away on Tuesday and that in itself has sent this household into an unexpected frenzy. And while I wish it was certainly under different circumstances, I have to admit I'm looking forward to being in Washington, seeing family, surrounding myself with water and mountains and my aunt's delicious cobbler. There's something about the Pacific Northwest that's restorative in its peaceful calm and radiance of positive energies. Maybe this simultaneous grieving will find itself accompanied by a release... of all the frustrations and sadness and anger and fear... and I'll return here a week from now, ready to really get my feet in place.

Wish me luck.

Red Cloud and Blue Coyote greet the Old World

Well it's getting late and I need to head to bed, not to mention repack this backpack of mine for the umpteenth time. It's always a challenge when I pack, and even more so when all I'm carrying for a month will be on my back the entire way.

So, it's here. Eurotrip 2009. We leave tomorrow afternoon making our way to first stop: Athens, Greece for the beginnings of what I have no doubt will be the trip and experience and adventure of my life to date. I don't know what else to say except that I finally feel ready. I just want to get on that plane tomorrow and let the universe take it from there.

I'm hoping to maybe put up a few brief updates from time to time. Let you all know where I am, what I'm up to... that sort of thing.

So for now I'll say goodnight. See you in September.

that single fleeting moment

Merce Cunningham passed away Sunday. Seems like this summer has been one of many losses, particularly in the world of dance- first with Pina Bausch and now Merce. It's strange to imagine existing and creating within this form during a time when more visionary artists like these will be gone. Come Paul Taylor, David Rousseve, Doug Varone... I suppose it's like anything else, while history seems to be made and marked by death and loss, it too sees its creation in the present as new work and choreographers present themselves today. I can only wonder what kind of dance history we'll be teaching decades from now, and what the worlds of dance and other art forms will look like. Whose work will withstand the test of time? What we will we come to value or appreciate about the arts- or will certain elements of the forms sustain themselves over time?

I guess it's just hard to think of an art form where revolutionaries like him are no longer, when I've grown up recognizing him, his work, and feeling inspired by them. It's one thing to read histories and biographies, to watch films and footage, but to see work of that caliber live, that's a whole other experience. It's visceral and intimate and alive. It's strange feeling a part of something so transitory and lacking permanence- which I suppose shouldn't feel so strange when our work is the same way. But it almost feels like certain voices and faces are meant to last forever- when you've only ever known them as deceased or existing in the past- their work being this piece of history, that's one thing. But making the transition from recognition of alive to deceased is something different.
...............

"You have to love dancing to stick to it. It gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive. It is not for unsteady souls."

-Merce Cunningham

one true sentence

Ernest Hemingway once said that you should never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective. I think that's maybe part of the reason why I want to go to Europe so badly. Perspective. I feel like I'm just crawling out of my skin here. I've been at my parent's house for the past few days. It's strange how this house feels less and less like my home. Maybe because I know this isn't permanent. Because hopefully in a short while, once I return from Europe I'll be moving to New York and living in whatever new space I'll be calling and creating to be my home.

And despite all of these thoughts dancing around, despite no shortage of sleepless nights and late night reading and recollecting, I find myself at a loss for things to say or write about. I feel like I just keep tossing the same thoughts back and forth- about growing up, and finding a job, and saying hellos and goodbyes, and trying to move forward with my life. More and more it just feels like I'm running in place, and this treadmill of a life feels tired and worn and dull.

There's that quote that says, "life isn't about finding yourself, it's about creating yourself." I love that concept, though I feel like I don't fully understand it. I feel like despite all of my best efforts and intentions, I'm kind of failing at creating myself. All I really want to be is a good person. I'm trying really hard to be a good person. What does that even mean? Should we really have to try that hard? I think that's kind of a lie. Yes, I want to be a good person. But more than that, I can't help this overwhelming feeling that we're all here for a reason. And it doesn't have to be connected to a religion or a God or some almighty sense of divinity or destiny.

But, there's got to be some reason I'm here otherwise this is all just random? Otherwise, we are all just atoms colliding in space, through time, and we only offer meaning and names to things to justify our existence and our connectivity. That's a whole other dialogue for sure. But still, there's got to be more to it than that. I can't help this overwhelming feeling that I'm meant to love. I just have this ridiculous capacity to love. And it gets me in trouble. It leaves me heartbroken and alone perpetually and repeatedly... but it's there. And I have to believe that some day I'm going to get it right, and this incredible capacity for love won't feel like it's being wasted or misused- but it will be met by another with an equally ridiculous capacity for loving and I'll have found my match and live happily ever after.

Okay, maybe not happily ever after. I know that's a silly school girl fantasy. But maybe all the day dreaming and belief in that kind of love could actually become a reality. And I could stop feeling like I was born in the wrong era, or that I was actually meant to be a fictional character in a Jane Austen novel... and I could just have this life that I want... the love life I want. Hmm, how did we get there?

Or maybe I'm just lonely. And I'm a 22 year old recent college graduate, moving back into my parents' house with no prospective employment opportunities and I'm in this hyper emotional state all the time. Maybe that's all it is. Maybe I've just really hit the lull of this ultra limbo phase of my young adulthood and I'm out of interesting things to write about or contemplate.

Man, I need to get out of here. I need some fresh perspective. I need some excitement, some charging energies.

Either that, or a really good kiss.

Come on, I am a girl after all.

I'm recently read A Moveable Feast again. Maybe that's why that Hemingway quote came to mind. And after all, in his work Hemingway does say, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." I suppose all I've written here tonight is true. So, that should be more than enough.

More than enough.

the Hello-Goodbye

Hello-goodbye.

It's an exchange we encounter daily. We welcome individuals into our lives, our homes, our places of work, and then extend a farewell upon their departure. A cultural ritual, perhaps. A mere exchange of pleasantries, okay. The hello-goodbye. It's this little dance we do to create a sense of beginning and end, or maybe in attempts of placing a parenthesis around the encounters of our lives. The thing I keep realizing is that this little dance is actually a really big deal. And at the risk of sounding all Angela Chase, it's like the biggest deal there is.

I used to think that it wasn't until you were without someone- until they left, that you realized just how much you loved them or needed them. A sort of 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' situation. But more and more I realize that it's not until those people come back into your life that you understand just how much you truly missed them, and how much you really love or need them. That it's not the goodbye, but rather, a return to the hello that welcomes the purest understanding of a relationship.

Most recently I find myself standing in between Hello and Goodbye. Not such a big surprise that I should find myself in between... oh how I love the gray. A dear friend just returned from Japan- where she's been living for over a year. And yet, while I've just gotten to return to hello, I'm saying goodbye almost immediately as she's returning to Japan come Wednesday. Another dear friend is headed back home for the summer. Her home... is Ecuador. And when she returns to Maryland and to this apartment, I'll have moved out, and things will inevitably look different. And then the question becomes, when will we be saying hello again? I'm not sure.

And it gets me wondering if the Hello-Goodbye is one of those polarities that only exists in this duet. For each hello must come a goodbye? Or are there those hellos that simply stay- and we never really have to say goodbye... or in turn, maybe there are those people to whom we say goodbye and never say hello again? I'm not sure. And maybe there are those who are destined to be in our lives- perpetually in the hello, and so the goodbyes we say to them in our lifetime are merely fake goodbyes- they're pretend- we say them as part of this cultural ritual, but knowing that we're destined to come back to the sweet comfort of hello.

Hello.

I'm headed to Europe in less than three weeks. And I think that's the ultimate Hello-goodbye... saying goodbye to the familiar and welcoming the embrace of all things new-cultures, landscapes, people, food, rituals... That's the kind of dance that feels sweet and comforting while simultaneously intimidating and a little scary. And spontaneous. And exhilarating. And completely worth it.

Or maybe we just shouldn't say goodbye at all. We should just always say hello- at the beginnings and ends of things... to just leave things open. To not close the parenthesis or put an end to things. We could just perpetually leave things open and ongoing and never have to feel the heavy sadness of saying goodbye- we could just live in this place of seeing the threads of the relationships in our lives extend on and on almost into a sort of infinity where the lines marking where this begins and that ends are blurred... hmm, I think I've said that before. Anyway, we could create this new dance. The Hello-Hello. That could be good.

So, hello.
More to come.
As always.

dwarfed inside its smallness

It's funny how small a room can feel. And in turn, how you can feel dwarfed inside its smallness. You empty drawers, uncover walls, and strip sheets to suddenly find yourself left with this skeleton of a room. A room you once decorated and organized to feel like yours, like home... it's funny how in seemingly no time at all a room can no longer feel like a room but an empty shell- a vacuum void of color and memory and life. And a month from now it will belong to someone else- perhaps even someone you know and love, but it will no longer be yours. It will be theirs. And kind of like the spaces and people who leave imprints on us, this room will leave an imprint on them- the imprints you've left and all others before you... so that someone else can make their own memories here. And maybe that's comforting to an extent, but somewhat sad in a way, that nothing feels like it truly lasts. Like we keep moving and fumbling through this reality, making and calling things our own until we eventually have to let them go and take on new things.

People keep telling me that change is a part of life. That we have to face it head on and move forward with our lives. I just keep wondering how that's going to happen. It took four years for me to feel like I had a home at school. That home- that little apartment and that perfect corner bedroom became my home. And I can open the door from my bedroom and walk mere feet to find comfort and hilarity and beauty in the people occupying the rooms near mine- the people who have not only become my best friends, but my family, my life lines. How can we move forward when we're leaving something... someone so precious behind?

It takes time to make something feel like it belongs to you. We're so complex and complicated that negotiating how a relationship or a space will fit us and work within our lives takes calculated time and effort. You start with this empty space and then you fill it. And there in it becomes home, a sanctuary- a place of solace and comfort. And then you leave it, you tear out the insides and leave the empty space for the next future occupants- may this be your living space... or even your heart.

And so I just don't understand how we're supposed to just move on. How we're just supposed to keep going forward with our lives like everything is fine when it's seemingly falling apart in our hands. How do we negotiate that? How are we supposed to 'grow up' when it feels like we're losing the things that help us define who we are?