The story so far...

I am afraid this blog has turned into a, "What's up with G. today" sort of account more than anything else...

Hmmm.

But there you are. Sometimes it's easier to talk to a computer than to people. And...well. That's how it goes, I guess. So... What's up with G. today?

LLC. Limited Liability Company. How do I become one? Why SHOULD I become one?

I came here to dance. And I have done hardly any dancing since I arrived. I feel as though much of me is transitioning back from a corporal outlet into an intellectual & verbal one...but that could just be my brain chattering away. More painting. More writing. More... to say. But less substance & direction.

I think perhaps I have hit the point where I am tired of being afraid. And tired of being distracted & whining. (Finally).

So that leaves us...where?  Well.

Dance. I seem stuck in all my exploits, all these fragments of thoughts, actions & choices surrounding me. All pulling for my attention. But I am standing here staring trying to give them al my focus & at the same time, barely moving:

  -  Do I learn to take care of myself first? Have you had enough water today? (No). Sleep? (No). (Why does that take up so much attention & energy...oh!)

  -  Writing? Scripts are due. Deadlines are passing. Cannot write? Or don't WANT to write? Who is making you DO this?  (Well...Me). How do I even find things to submit to? What's the point if I cannot complete even ONE project?

  -  Art & Design? 12 pieces of half-finished clothing......does not equal ONE finished item. But to really do it justice, I need to become friends with my sewing machine, take a class, find more fabric...on & on & on). Painting? 3 finished paintings & some half-made drawings with the INTENT to do a few series, does not make you an ARTIST. (What am I waiting for? Where will I get the canvas? When is a piece ACTUALLY finished?!)

  -  Dance. Well. Dance. Auditions. But I do not go to classes. I want to. Money is a huge deterrent. Choreo? (But I need dancers! No-- I need training! I need....school? I need...I need... a studio? I need....ugh!)

So.....let's find all the things KEEPING you from doing what you want & let them occupy your time & thoughts, standing in your room, staring at your projects...instead of DOING them. Let's focus on boys & your weight & cry...shall we? Much easier than facing yourself in the mirror & committing all your energy to pursuing your endeavors.

I think not. (Not anymore, at any rate).

I feel lost & confused & overwhelmed. What to do?

It feels like someone should have taught me this... How to organize your time. How to be your own motivation. How to look past the fear. How to...just DO.

I feel like I am back in grade school, being yelled at by my parents for not practicing the violin. Crying. Unbearably uncomfortable in my own skin; my throat tight, wanting to hide, feeling like a failure...  While somewhere in the background I remember LOVING the sound of the music, the feel & shape of the instrument, the drive to keep going past hurting fingers & callouses, past the wretched squeaking, the 18th time I hit the wrong note, past the strain in my neck & arm from holding it up, the pinching in my chin, gritting my teeth-- driving through, until I get it right! Into the satisfaction afterwards...until I force myself to play it a second time & make a mistake again; (telling myself at 9 years old, "When you egt it 3x through without a mistake, THEN you can stop!"). But I cannot feel it now. I cannot figure out WHY I can't seem to practice consistently for 1/2 an hour each day. What's wrong with me? Where's my progress? While my parents yell at me & lecture. (You know, you'll never be a first chair violinist).

The story is the same. Always.

Here I am. Writing in a blog. Wanting the world to disappear. Wanting to have time stop: be left in a lovely, peaceful vacuum, where I can have silence. Not speak for days....time just holds it's breath & I can think slowly & clearly...Ok.

One...   

Sit & write my screenplays & poetry. There IS no Facebook. Friends & family & noise do not exist. Neither does the refrigerator. Your back doesn't hurt. You are filled with water & food & content-- there is no need to stand up...for the equivalent of next few hours, all you have is the writing. The words. The story. Words flow easily & the story weaves itself. You can see the characters, there is no worrying  about the climax of the story or where she got that idea, or if it's cinematically possible.

It is. It...is.

Two...

Stand up, and suddenly your room is large. You have enough floor space. Your back & knees & feet are not shooting with pain, you just have you & the floor & the music. When you need them, a dancer appears. You can see yourself & you are completely in the moment. If you need to stop & focus on warming up & building yourself & your own strength, you do. You can. And your body & mind remembers what to do: you need no teacher. You are grounded & turns happen and your core is strong while the rest of you reaches, expands & fills the room, gracefully like water. You have NO trouble remembering your choreography.

You know what to do.

Then you film it & submit it to 20 different schools & festivals. You raise the money. You have shows. You shoot a film. It....is good.

Three...

Eat dinner. And f*ing enjoy it. Go outside and breathe.

Four...

Come back & spend the 'evening' in your suspended world painting on & on & drawing to the music. Create 20 different pieces...they are full & empty you of the ache you feel & the need to show the pictures in your head to the world.

Canvases appear. There are no mistakes. Put them online, call 3-5 different galleries and 100 different coffee shops in the city.

Your work is being shown. Your work is being sold. (The fear & loss you suddenly feel about letting one of your pieces go forever...is minimal. And spurrs you to create more).

Five...

You go into your sewing room. Look at all the half finished pieces. Ingest the manual on on how to run your machine. There are no screw-ups, you break no needles. Your lines are straight, you understand the ways of cloth, the secrets & intricacies of how it falls, how it's made & made to last...the shape of the human body.

Subtleties & detail.

You finish an entire line to be put online. You finish half of a new wardrobe for yourself. They are...beautiful. And unusual. And lovely.

Six...

You sing. And it is...good.

Seven...

Somewhere in between...you are outside, and calm. Serene. You take up your bow & arrows...focus for hours, only on the target, dancing & shooting, over & over. You are not afraid of horses. When that is done, you lift up your sword & run through thrust after thrust, parry after parry. You are like a water dancer, moving gracefully & grounded, drop the sword & a staff appears. Drop the staff, and there is the whip; a part of your hand, made of circles...like Tango...like you. Always moving in circles.

Drop the whip & use your hands, until your muscles ache with happiness & the incredible feeling of being.........well-used. Of strength. And grace. And moving well. Focused & calm.

You remember how because it is ingrained into your muscles and your bones. And spirit. As though these arts had always been a part of you & who you are, in this life & every other.

 Eight...

Tango. You go to Buenos Aires & dance with all the people you dream of being like. Dance as though it were always part of you, as though you understood the moving art of connection, seduction, passion & pain. But most of all...the connection. And grace. And beauty. You live there. And every person you meet, every dancer you dance with...you understand & can hold close for the space of the dance. And feel.

Nine...

Somewhere....within all these things....in your week-long, month-long, year-long suspended 'day'....you go outside & are free to wander the world, travel...your body filled to brimming with the knowledge & completion of all you have done....ready to make more. You meet new people...speak new words...learn new languages, and somehow the languages are already birthing within you. Language after language, aware of the customs, accents & nuances. Free to travel ANYWHERE, a part of the geography of EVEY country you visit. You love many deeply, eat well-- so many foods & spend days & days seeing this beautiful world, climbing hills & mountains, bathing in waterfalls...fallowing the moon & stars & sun. Alive. And in love with life.

I...want to be the best at everything. Play instruments. Create, create, create...act & be asked to act in my own works & in stories that change the world in beautiful ways. I want to help create them. I want to be of use to people & help the world embrace life; travel far & wide. And....live.

So...how do I arrange my thoughts? How does one take the first step? next step?

I guess....an LLC license...and....dance. Just, dance. Dance.

.................................(sigh). 

    Maybe I need Aderoll. So many thoughts. So many steps. So much confusion....but if I could just see through it. Maybe I need a drug. (They never said teaching yourself how to live in this world would be so hard, so challenging). But.....I really want to do this on my own. I really want it to work. Guess I'm going off Facebook & e-mail & boys for a while. Can I please do this, now?

The parapet

I have...absolutely no idea what this means.

...but apparently it's poetry.    (Or what comes of red wine on a Tuesday night).



PARAPET:

Step by step, brick by brick…

Building an empire;

Building a wall.

A higher place, to climb up & over;

To rise above,

The fall.

My ink is all that makes the mortar

I sing another line

Of pebbles.

Hands full of stones

And pictures and twine,

Somewhere, the Autumn is calling a memory..

Remember I’m only.

Remember I’m fine.

If two & two is four,

So surely,

Than why am I left standing with three?

These figures, I’ll crush them

Until they fit

So solidly, making

A sculpture

Of me

And a little bird told me…

So many things. 

The truth unravels, if you pull 

Just...one...string...

But high in my castle,

I am full, like the wind

And through all the ruins,

I’ll sing…

Rambler...

I am anxious.

Probably because I have a meeting with financial/government related business in the morning. Anything related to either of those always makes me nervous, and both?! Well...

I am drinking red wine. And eating some strange oat-trail-mix-bar-type-thing I found in the pantry. Nutmeg & orange zest & cinnamon linger in my mouth. Lovely.

But my pulse is racing as though I'd just ingested multiple shots of espresso...

It's probably because my room is clean. I realized some time ago that having a completely clean room makes me panic. I have the urge to run to the kitchen and stuff something in my mouth (hence the orange & nutmeg bar...things) or do push-ups or ...other things I will not mention here....hmh. It's quite comical, actually.

I think I need a larger vocabulary.

When I was a child, I had an extraordinary eloquence, not just for my age, but in general. On occasion, it decides to re-visit me, and suddenly I'm spouting sonnets, not on purpose...just...how I'm made. I surprise myself with the words and phrases that come out of my mouth. (Often surprised because they are true...often, because I did not know they were the thoughts I thought or feelings I felt, but hearing them aloud makes me aware of their resonating truthfulness & existence within me ). I have, on a number of occasion, had strangers or friends turn to me and say "You should make what you just said into a monologue!" or "Did you write that? Is that a quote from something?" ...and my response is usually... "...uh...what...did I just.......say?"

Like comedy, I can never call on it on purpose. It comes out...or it does not. (People often laugh at me, but rarely ever is it something I said or did, on purpose).

I have not written poetry in quite a while, I realized tonight. Laying on my bed.

I am lonely. And for some reason, that makes me terribly angry at myself.

 "A healthy & well balanced person should not be lonely!"  "A person worth being close to needs nothing!"  So angry. So much hatred for myself for feeling...human. But something in me thinks that........well adjusted people must not feel this way. Are not needy. Are not...

I don't want to be.

I want to be happy. And I am. I am also.........restless is the word tonight. But...I don't know.

I wrote a short story on a whim, the other night. About an actual event that happened to me a long time ago. As is often the case, it concerned love. The pathetic & unrequited sort.

....It is bothering me. This story. Being open of late........is bothering me. With anyone. I have chosen to be open to a few different people of late...showing things. Actually, even in the dance show I presented in February...it filled me with this odd sort of hatred. Or...impatience. Something.

Why show this? Why tell this to anyone? Are you an exhibitionist? 'Oh, poor me! Look at my pain! See it crawling on the floor...? Poor you. Poor little white girl, who has a roof over her head and food in her mouth and the love of friends, even if the first two are sometimes hard to come by...you have never really had to be without.'

...'Be grateful, Anya.'

There is such a polarity in the way I feel and the way I am in the world (and I am overly aware that all I have been doing is talking about myself...in this post and in most of them). I feel like I am on repeat: there are only THESE stories to tell, over & over...new faces perhaps, new names, slightly different choices and scenarios...


But of course, in the end, the world's stories ARE all the same. And are incredibly different. It feels like everything in the world must be that way: only a certain number of choices, but within that, infinite complexity... But... But...   It feels like there must be something I am just barely missing; some great answer woven into that, that is hovering in the undercurrent and just outside my periphery...

I think it's funny. I looked in the mirror just now and thought...  I want to be loved.  But I have been half-purposefully pushing everyone away, of late.

I have been feeling like what I want is for everyone to go away. And at the same time all I want is to embrace everyone...and myself. I suppose that means I DO need solitude & meditation or...something. Nature sounds refreshing & replenishing right now. But so does life & city. The handful of times I have finally left my little nest here to travel into one city or another in the area for auditions or excursions have proved to stir me up and awaken so much of what I'm longing for. So who do I listen to? Me...? or....Me?

Silence, I guess is best.

Part of me wishes I were still going North to teach this summer. Not because I do not want to teach here. I do. And I like the people I will be teaching with and the job. But...

Ashland...is a place of quiet. And nature. And a place to hide. Even my stillness here, further south, seems like it's on speed. And...I want so much quiet. I want to hide. To breathe, more. To slow time down......just for a while. But I also want accomplishment. And that...I was not finding there. (Though I am not satisfied, remotely, with the amount I'm accomplishing here...as someone said to me recently, I guess it's harder, because it's a longer timeline to see the tangible outcomes of the kind of life you're leading and the sorts of work you're doing.... That almost made me feel better)...

   ....(almost).

Aderoll has been on the brain, of late. (Not literally). I keep getting so frustrated with myself. I see how much my mind wanders. Going to the kitchen to get a glass of water is ridiculous, sometimes...But I wonder how much of it is lack of sleep. And I wonder how much of it is nerves. And how much is really me.

I took a half a pill, once. I hated it. I wanted to cry. My thoughts slowed to a gel-like pace, crystalline...hanging there in water. I could see one, after the next after the next, so clearly. And I was absolutely miserable and the furthest thing from me I have ever felt in my life. I did not actually accomplish much more, though I did accomplish something...a step above the fear that made me panic at having so much to do. I couldn't swallow food for a week.

But sure enough, 3 days later, I was begging & pleading my friend to give me just one more. He refused, thank God. But now, I wonder...was it really that I had finally found something I could be addicted to? Or simply the utter fear I have always felt of the consequences of being a failure or getting nothing done...?

Some people don't understand. It's absolute terror.

But here's the thing I keep thinking...when people tell me there's something 'wrong with me'...  I was born different, as I think we all were. Some people were made to thrive in this society & work within it's rules..............but for all the pills that are out there to 'fix' us, all the diets, all the schools, all the plans telling us how we ought to be...how many of us actually FIT the mold? If this world of ours disappeared, this f*cked up society, with all it's problems...

........could you still look at me and tell me there was something wrong? If I didn't have to adapt to computers & deadlines & all these things we now consider 'normal' would I still seem so different? Would it still matter?

But I am supposed fit fit in here. So, by all means....... give me a pill. And another & another. Until there's nothing left.

- I'm told I should be open and loving. I'm told I should not be needy; I should play hard to get and not pour myself into another's lap.

- 'One should not want.' But...'You must know what you want, to obtain it.'

- 'Desire nothing but what you already have.' But...be sure to 'Follow your dreams.'

I am surrounded by slant-contradictions. I'm sure they all make sense together, but I suppose some nights a girl just needs to b*tch.

....on nights when she's lonely. And she's...not supposed to be lonely. Not supposed to be open or closed.

Not....supposed to be...  

         .....Me.

(And the stupid poetry just doesn't come).