Chronicles Of Q

Sucks

Big Time

I hadn’t realized how integral dance was to my identity until now

I mean I knew it was important, I know I loved it, I knew it gave me a sense of… something

See that’s the thing about dance for me, it gives me “words” for my emotions. My first blues workshop was down in San Diego instructed by Damon Stone. It was held in a studio whose walls displayed quotes reflecting the beauty of dance. This is paraphrased but it was something to the effect of “Dance is the source of expression for the emotions we don’t have words to express” that IS the first time I realized that dance gave me a voice I had never used before, one that could express things in my life, things in my experience of this world, that words never seems to accurately describe.

I grew up believing that the display of emotion was weak and I, of course, wanted to be strong.

Everything about this process seems painful and brings to light my half-hatched way of living.

Physically, physical therapy is kicking my butt. I always use to think I was so strong. I mean hell, I walked on a sprained ankle for 2 blocks before turning around and walk those 2 plus 3 more back and only started crying after I saw my ankle had swollen to the size of a tennis ball and only because it looked scary. But my striving for toughness helped put me in this predicament and it’s most likely the reason why I was able to be pleasantly informed by the PT doc that I have all kinds of alignment issues with my hip, knees, ankles and all the muscles and tendons associated with BOTH my legs.  I haven’t respected my body’s limits

Emotionally, without dance I have no words. I have no release. I have no grounds for exploration of my emotional state. In an effort to be tough I have stunted my own emotional growth.

Socially without dance I’ve been feeling very alone. Very Alone. Without dance I don’t really have any place to go, to hang out and to interact with human beings. I mean I have my kitten and she’s great and all but her conversational skills are SEVERLY limited. though what disturbs me more is that in all those months that I did go dancing two, three times a week I never worked to establish deep, real connections that probably would have help me weather this rough patch. I chose to stay detached, to remain, politely, at arms length. The fear of rejected, neglected or abandoned has kept me from experiencing a social network with any kind of depth.

Spiritually I have grown bitter, angry and depressed. I have distanced myself God and others. My love for humankind has dropped off along with neglecting the pursuit to create a meaningful relationship with God. My ability to impact others based in love is severely impaired by poor attitude and lack of connection to Him who is the source of love. My attempts to live this life as a self-sustained island have left me powerless to experience fullness in this life.

Now, I wish I could be as insightful as Aesop tying up this fable giving you some gleaming brilliant moral but all I have for you is all I know right now not having seen the other side of this tunnel

Bruising a bone and spraining a knee sucks

PT is hard

Life can be lonely

Emotions don’t seem to fair well bottled up

and

Sometimes the only way to glimpse what’s even in your own heart is to sit and write it down

Anxiety

Swirling Misery

Lost in the thrashing wave of overwhelming lacking ability

Hands scratched and bloody from falling down

Knees ripped and shredded from attempts at crawling

Grinding through

A world of paralyzing fear that my ignorance will be made evident

Gasping for air but my lungs become full of salty sea

Struggling to stand upright but the steep snowy mountain steals my balance

Fight to speak with intelligence in a boardroom full of Harvard grads

Salve flosses over my hands and knees

Breath fills my lungs and HOPE chases away my fears

I gain my balance, stand and breath, reaching to the storm chasing sun

A raft comes to rescue me in the salty sea

Unexpected buoyancy of a floating red balloon helps me stand to my feet and fly over the mountain

A chalkboard turns my words into pictures multiplying them by thousands letting my speech become dancing images

HOPE glosses over my body resting on the raft

My breath is taken away by the view from the sky

I balance my ideas on the end of a piece of chalk

My soul opens up to the storm chasing sun

you know when your mind is racing a hundred miles an hour with the analysis of life swirling around you and inexplicably your hands are helplessly paralyzed to express what’s going on inside?

or is that just me?

this may not be the venue for this. in a way i feel like a little child lost in the sea of a churning world with hands to the sky crying out “look at me! look at me!”

but don’t we all want to be seen? even those of us who hide? dont we hide because we are afraid we wont be seen? for who we really are?

if we dont put it out there we wont be misrepresented or misinterpreted.

all my life i’ve rebelled against the system, skewing the world around me just enough so that the rules cant apply.

I’d wear shoes with that were chronically known to come untied during gym class so that I’d HAVE to stop and tie them at some point while we were running laps

I rarely become an official member of anything

Hell I don’t even write in this journal on any sort of recognizable pattern or consistency.

We… rather I am afraid to be seen for only what I lack, where I don’t measure up, where I don’t belong.

I am petrified that I will show up somewhere for which I was invited to join solely out of pity….
So sometimes… I just don’t go…

Recently I jacked up my knee, which sucked and still sucks

I had to stop swing/blues dance, right when I was really starting to get into bluesing too. And I loved it, I desired so much to be a blues dancer, I had a small hope inside of me that I had some potential to actually do well in something for once in my life and not just fly under the please-don’t-notice-me radar.

Dancing kept my soul from shriveling

It gave me a place to feel like my failings weren’t as noticeably shoved to the forefront and thus I had earned some right to existed peaceably in that space and time

I’ve had several situations give rise to the realization of how integral dancing had become to my worth, especially here in LA

LA is so different from Chicago, sooooo different and yet I’ve had such a difficult time defining that difference. Back home, everyone’s a badass, until you get to know them, then you’re their extended family. Back home, if you allow someone to be vulnerable with you there is a bond and a promise there that you are now connected in someway along this life’s journey, you got each others backs now. Back home, there is this interesting sense of family formed among friends. Back home, I could show up to a party knowing only one person and leave knowing everyone

I don’t know perhaps its me that’s changed.

I guess there’s a lot about this world and I about myself I don’t understand.

…iwishiweredancing

*aside* [i am writing to you now at a quarter to 12 due to my 9pm consumption of Dr. Pepper. ah caffeine, the drug that fuels America.]

“Not all those who wander are lost” JRR Tolkien

“I have a dream…” Dr. MLK Jr.

I have a dream, it’s not quite as noble and momentous as that of Dr. King’s, but it’s my dream.

I have a dream to wander

I’ve been meeting a lot of new people lately and inevitably this question arises “What do you do?” I’ve taken to answering them in the truest form I know how I tell them “I experience life to the fullest as it happens” One of the early responses I received to this statement was “That’s the best response I’ve heard to say ‘I don’t have a job’.”

Actually, I have a job. Just got promoted in fact, woot, woot.

*aside* [promotions seem wonderful and magnanimous when you're striving to acquire them, but a whole lot of work when the privilege is actually bestowed upon you, it's hard work being a post coordinator let me tell you!]

I’ve had a dream all my life to travel, to see the world, but more notably to see the people, to experience the culture, to hear the stories of others, to become part of their story. That I have found is a whole other beast from simply touring the world, or just the country for that matter.

My dream has taken on several forms and evolutions over the years the seed of which was most likely planted in our annual 8 hour family trek to see my maternal grandfather in Michigan. That’s a long freakin’ time when you have the attention span of a gnat… er, not that I’ve really grown out of that…

ah hem

from there it grew. I longed to take a cross country road trip from NY to CA the day I graduated from high school. I traveled to Panama the summer of my junior year and Guatemala the summer after my senior year. I never make it across the country East to West, but I did move from Chicago to Garden Valley, TX my first year out of HS.

During that year I spent time in Cambodia, beautiful country that grabs hold of the hearts of all who visit.

A few years later South Africa, best stargazing I’ve had the chance to see followed by Michigan and Texas

My senior year of college I met a boy who planned to travel the states in order to pursue his career. As his interest in having me by his side grew so did my excitement to share that kind of life with him. To see the expanse of my home country with a man I loved was such a joyous prospect that the fragility of it was always a looming concern

A well founded concern turns out to be.

But still I can not shake that this dream was in me long before I met this man and so it seems will remain until I am able to dream no longer.

I finally made it out to California and throughout my first two years in this desert city of Los Angeles my dream has continued to permeate those quite moments when my mind is free to wander and dance with the wonderfully ridiculous frivolity found in the mind of a dreamer.

I want to see the world through the eyes of its inhabitants

The plan of attack…

Pay off my loans

BUT THEN

Get on a bus, get on a train, get in my car, get on a plane or just pack my bag and start walking utilizing my networks in swing dance and church and my fellow TM alum I’d like to couch surf, work odd jobs, panhandle, sleep on a park bench, stay in a shelter, sleep on the beach, shower at a truck stop and meet everyone I can on the way, to do all I can to love them in that moment and to tell their stories to the world.

I had been finding as of late that I have become so discouraged with having to wait on this dream that I just started talking to whomever I began to come in contact with in the City of Angels.

The first realization that I didn’t have to wait to hear the stories of other people was when my car got a flat tire on the way to my paternal grandparents house in the Palm Springs area and I was greatly fortunate enough to stumble upon Cherry Valley Automotive in Beaumont CA.

I sat down to a kindly looking grandmother and casually mentioned my journey to see my own grandparents and I grateful to discover that her disposition was just as kind as her appearance and she began to share with me about her family and grandchildren.

After the kind grandmothers automotive needs where taken care of and she departed I began speaking with another woman who excitedly presented her anniversary addition Mustang to me after I expressed admiration for the vehicle. After a bit of chatting I shared with her that the young lady 76 station up the road had recommended this shop to me to which she unexpectedly responded to me that she was the owner of that gas station

life. dreams. I’m starting to learn how to live it out even before I’m able to get on the road

There’s Robin the aspiring actor who I offered a sit to in an over crowded Panera

The neighbors Zach and Drew who took over my old apt. #17

The recovering alcoholic who I met while getting my oil changed

and others.

I want to start keep track and telling there stories!

I want to make business cards to give to people I met and ask if I can share there stories on this site.

I want people to be able to connect with the lives of others around them in the world that they don’t even know the names of.

that’s my dream.

Mi Tesoro

A guy i had dated once told me I was this right after he said i was beautiful in Spanish (he grew up speaking Spanish in his parents’ home)

“My Treasure”

Treasure, people, TREASURE!

a rare find of great value. an item searched for relentlessly or stumbled upon by surprise. something that you don’t even really know what it truly looks like, even right up until the point that you find it. a thing wrapped in a mythical and tenuous shrouding. something you’re not even sure really exists, but you hope to God it does. a thing worth the searching just for the chance of finding.

Treasure

Treasure is not just a thing of value, it’s a thing of beauty. Adventurers/ Treasure-Seekers like Indiana Jones, Jack Sparrow and Rick O’Connell aren’t seeking out green paper bills, they’re looking for a goblet, gold doubloons and a legendary ship or a gold-plated book with the secrets of life (that unfortunately raises a mutant mummy from the “dead” which doesn’t really help my analogy, well maybe i can see if i can work it in)

Treasure often involves a lifetime. A lifetime discovery, a lifetime dream, a lifetime pursuit, a lifetime search, a lifetime seeking, a lifetime speculating, a lifetime of reveling.

It seems to me that treasure-seeking often comes to us in those starry eyed moments of our life. Times in our childhood, times when we are surrounded by people of great inspiration, times when we are invested in.

The hope for treasure germinates out of those life experiences that nurture our sense of wonder in this sojourn of life.

You remember it, you know it. When the firefighter came to you class kindergarten to give a talk, when your 4th grade student teacher believed you had a future in storytelling, when you English teacher told you that she saw your potential, when your college biology prof made you want to change your major because she loved science so much.

When Indy’s father traveled the world in search of artifacts and inspired his son to do the same, when Elizabeth Swann squirrels away Will Turner’s pirate necklace and when Jonathon is inspired to act courageously in response to the daring of his sister Evie and O’Connell’s actions.

This post is the result of several philosophical pondering coming into collision.

loneliness, inadequacy and questions about the future

Struggling with feelings of inadequacy i began to look back in my life in an attempt to devise from my life-long involvement with this world if there was any evidence my existence having value.

Those Spanish words sent in a text message months ago came to mind.

Mi Tesoro, My Treasure

Well prompting, encouraging and general pondering about the world has led me to start this blog. I had one, years ago that I steadfastly updated, but that has fallen short as of late. So here we are again giving it another whirl.