Reading The Tea

I have made a big, terrifying, exhilarating, life-altering decision.

I gave notice at my job. “Job” is doing paperwork at a big academic institution here in the bay area. I’ve learned several things during my year here. 1.) I hate doing paperwork. 2.) I love teaching, research and writing. 3.) I know what I want to do. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but been too scared to really pursue.

So, what next? I’m going to pursue dance, music and theater. I love teaching. I love performing. I love choreographing. I love researching. I love writing. Is this practical? No. Am I going to make it work? Yes.

I have a plan, but I’ll spare the gory details. (At least for now…)

I’ve been on a hiatus from dancing. It’s been just over a week now. I’ll start dancing again tomorrow. I realize that in the normal world, a week and a half might not constitute a “break,” but in most of the dance worlds I’m involved in, three days has people gasping for air. So why? Am I burnt out? Actually, no. Even as I write this, I’m longing to go dance. I think that’s part of it — every once in a while I need to make myself stop, take a break, go through withdrawal so I can start again. I also needed a bit more time to think than “normal” life allows. Do you ever wish for a reset button? In college there was one built in — make it to the end of the term, through finals, and poof! you start over. It’s really hard to figure out balance in life — how much time do I spend with each dance (tango, blues, lindy, contact improv, modern dance, middle eastern dance…), on artistic projects, reading, with friends, not to mention pesky things like sleeping, working, exercise. How do you find balance?

People see my tattoo, and always ask. So, what does it mean to me? Here’s one answer of many:

It means duality and multiplicity — I don’t have to choose. It means that I’m defined by my interests and I define them. It means I don’t have to pick one way to be. It means that I drink tea and whiskey. It means that I read Jane Austin and I go to crazy all-night loft parties. It means that I am a dancer and an intellectual. It means that I love Dustin and care about other people. It means that I can be snarky and caring. It means that life goes on. It means that there are endless possibilities, and that what I’m doing right now are just some of many. It means that I can add interests, add friends, add dreams. And, and, and… &

No, I’m not waiting for the right names to fill in on either side (I’ve been asked this several times.). If you were wondering, it’s Octavian, 72 point.

Blogs range from sensational tell-alls to posting links to other people’s sites. Over the years, I’ve done pretty much the gambit but I still haven’t decided what the best approach is for me. Why read blogs? Information? A new way of seeing things? Voyeurism? Then the other side: Why keep a blog? Am I hoping to influence people? Have a large audience? Keep my friends and family up-to-date? Provide amusement? Have a place to get stuff out of my system? Keep a record? In recent years, I tend to shy away from anything too personal in blogging. But then, what’s personal? I feel like there are a few ethical guidelines: it’s up to me if I want to make my own private thoughts public, but crosses a line if I reveal too much about other people without permission. But what is too much? There’s the obvious, then the blur. Recently I’ve gone to a rather extreme point, where I minimize the “me-ness” in my entries. But then I wonder… Couldn’t some of my photos be rather personal to me? If I remove the “I” from a blog, why use the blogging medium. What is a blog writer’s responsibility to a reader? Should I ensure that an entry has a certain degree of interestingness? Quality control check the writing? Why do I blog? Why do other people blog?

I spent a while walking around the cemetery on UO campus today, talking to myself out loud. I don’t think that anyone was within earshot. If they were, they probably assumed that I was talking on a cell phone ear piece. Little did they know… I find that graveyard to be a peaceful, clarifying place. By now it’s also full of tons of memories from my past, since I spent so many years living near it, as well as basically living at the music school right by it. The drizzle, the sloppy squishy leaves — all comforting and familiar. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about future life directions recently. Today I was hit by peace. Oddly, by the realization that it doesn’t matter. Not the past, not the future. Not to say that I don’t want to learn from the past or work for the future. But just letting go of it. Life is play. Even the really unpleasant, icky things in life definitely have taught me something. Every once in a while I am in a joyous detached state and can look back at myself with clarity. What matters to me? I definitely do want to have a rewarding, fulfilling career, but at a point, I have to say, “give me a break.” That’s a pretty crazy luxury. I also want to keep in mind that my family and friends mean the most to me. Can I have both? I think so. But I don’t want to mix up my priorities.

It’s always a bit odd to completely uproot and move across the country. Here I am, three years later, experiencing the disorientation again. It’s hard to feel settled. It’s also hard to believe in the last three years. There are many things about being back in the west that I’m enjoying — getting to see much more of some of my family, reconnecting with old friends, starting connections with new friends, rock climbing, hiking, breathing clean air, more dancing. I also miss a lot of my friends in NY like crazy. I also miss the centrality of NY culture. When you’re there you can at least believe that you’re in the nucleus of everything that’s happening. I have a bad feeling that no matter which side of the country I’m on I’ll be homesick for the other.

I’m also in a weird transition place where I’m trying to figure out what direction to head next. Hitting that late 20s point many of my friends seem to ask “Ok, what next?” Well, here I am, asking. I was talking to someone from my calculus class (Yes, taking a college class right now feels weird.) and we were discussing her full-time school, full-time job situation. She’s getting tight on money, and was wondering if she should load on an additional job, or take a term off of school. The overload reminds me so much of myself at her age. I remember thinking that it was just for now, just for college, then life would start. What a shock when I realized that a magic gong isn’t set to ring at a point, announcing the beginning of “real life.” Life is now. I’m once again at a cross-roads, waiting. But no matter what point I’m at, I need to remind myself that life is now. So there, self.

I get to have a bit of a jump over most of the rest of the population for the resolutions game… Since I have two New Years, I feel like I get the first as a two-month trial period.

I resolve…

To let go of those I should let go of, and to stay better in touch with the others.

To dance more and stress out less.

To learn Spanish and forget how to do marketing statistics.

To eat less unhealthy food, and to relish it more when I do.

To figure out my priorities, then figure out how to live by them.

The Manhattan skyline used to mean promise, adventure, endless possibilities to me. The other night, strolling along the soon-to-be-completely-obscured-by-luxury-high-rise-buildings river bank in Williamsburg, I realized that, while I still see those things, I also see a place powered by people locked up in florescent cubicles, spending the majority of their waking hours pursuing a career that they don’t really want.

Now I understand why people grow bitter about New York.

(But don’t worry — I’m not quite there yet.)

After a rather all-round difficult week, I found myself considering how I spend my time, how I want to spend my time, and how to get closer to the latter for the future. If I listed various aspects of my life (family, friends, work, dance, exercise, etc.) into numeric priority order, how closely would that mirror the weight I give each in day-to-day life?

I was just reading through some of my old blogs/journals. It’s interesting to watch characters ebb and flow from my life. Some of them make reappearances in unexpected ways, and some of them just disappear.