It's been the kind of summer that I only thought existed in well written nostalgia novels and that blog my friend Olivia keeps.
The kind of summer where I was constantly marveling at the things I was doing - had the chance to do, to experience.

There has just been something special about this summer.

It was the summer of being completely without obligation except to the present moment, and to personal happiness.

The spontaneity of rooftop sunset wine tasting sessions, to shirking chores to haul upstate for some good early trail runs. A weekly (daily?) meeting of the musicians in my life led to great friendships, great music, and more than a few deceivingly fun, great soundin' all-nighters. And the dancing never stopped: waltzes written just for my pleasure, and blues dancing in the middle of a street in Bushwick, to impromptu dance gatherings in Central Park, and modern classes with some of the best companies and independent dance artists around. Summer Friday was everyday, apparent in the presence of watermelon, sun drenched naps in the park, and good books finished over the past few months. Brunch became the most important day of the week, because with it entailed laughter, copious amounts of food, trips to the farmer's market just for local flowers and a very hipster bike ride to the water, just to feel the breeze, see the sun glimmer on the water. The backyard became a fixture in my life again, with new roommates and housemates gathered around a party light lit community table, with a genius outdoor movie screen for movie marathon nights with the boys upstairs who happen to be CofC alumni as well, and reminiscing over candles and Star Wars felt good. I was introduced to real cocktails and the art of hailing a cab at 5am, to making it work on 3 hours of sleep.

It was a summer worthy of documentation, of snapping pictures and creating keepsake boxes and filling up page after page in notebooks.

It was the summer of being completely in the moment.

And now the thick, long days are shortening, the sun lingers less and less. Meanwhile my sleeves and hemlines lengthen out and watermelon is replaced by warm soup and sun drenched naps by afternoons browsing in bookshops. The evenings are content again, windows glow while bodies wind down, and a schedule is settling in. Fulfillment can be found at the library, where I have discovered a whole new world, where I have been spending a good deal of time lately.
 
I have been given the opportunity to share my love of knowledge and people.
And I'm thrilled it found me.

I am teaching reading and writing to adult immigrants twice a week, the most humbling of experiences full of struggle and triumph, of laughter and constant confusion. Misunderstandings lead to frustration, but perseverance produces the most beautiful smiles and dreams of possibility.

The daughter of a middle-class, well educated family, full of journalists and writers, teachers and thinkers, of explorers and scientists, sharing my love and knowledge of the English language and knowledge - this is what I have to share.

The stories I've heard are amazing. Inspiring, committed, brave individuals. There are goals of citizenship, helping with homework, writing letters to sons in Afghanistan. Mostly though, of employment and independence, confidence and a sense of accomplishment.

And there are so many times I don't understand. I am far removed from that life, a life with a loss for words, a compromised life. It's a new adventure, and we all know all I want is one good adventure after another, and I just hope that I can open their eyes and provide as much for these awe-inspiring human beings as they do for me.

I hope they look forward to Monday's and Wednesdays as much as I do - these intelligent, capable individuals willing to do what it takes to make it work. It's amazing the thought of spending 4 hours a week with them - the thought of what might be accomplished is daunting, and full of unrelenting respect. It demands discipline from all us and this is my responsibility I have taken on.

I'm scared.
I'm so scared of Mondays and Wednesdays.
I'm constantly scared of not being prepared, or focused, or relate-able.
And I'm scared that they will walk out, feeling like they have wasted their time, their efforts futile.

But in a few months we will have a series of celebrations - celebrating reading, writing, knowledge, and learning. And I'm already looking forward to it. Because everyone has a story to tell, one word at a time.

And I'm privileged to hear these stories unfold.


And here is a song, because sometimes when things (anythings) get rough (frustrating, humiliating, tiresome, etc. etc. right?) sometimes you just have to learn to shake it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7azjmmd3YyI

Shake it out, shake it off.
 

As things go, I met up with a long lost friend recently. The kind of friend where it never feels like you missed years of their life, and among dances and drinks, pictures and hours of straight up talking, we happened upon the idea of reinventing oneself.
Not an easy task but often times a necessary one.
At once liberating and extremely stressful.

So one has to ask, after all the bridges have been burned, what's the first thing to be done?

As you can maybe see, I’m attempting to revamp my blog into something more than just  a collection of random ramblings. And although I’m not sure how far I’ll get with that concept, I’m trying to consider this my new personal website - not just a way of communicating through writing and pictures what I cannot say out loud or through movement, but to develop and establish myself as both an artist and a scholar... A more professional way of presenting myself and the things that affect me personally and in turn, the topics I choose to pursue and the work I produce. But as I make changes and sadly, change my blog title, I wanted to give to you the poem that really changed the way I looked at life and the catalyst for how I now live my life.

It was because of this poem that I decided to no longer “measure out my life with coffee spoons,” and to truly understand that yes, there will is time.
There is time for you and time for me, time to make a hundred indecisions, a hundred visions and revisions - but that for me to live the life I want to live, I do not have the time.
I do not have the time to continue asking,
“And should I then presume? And how should I begin?”
Because in short, I do not want my fears of what I do not know, what I cannot presume to know, to stop me from discovering all that is out there.
Because what I do know, what I absolutely know, is that it is definitely worth it.
It is always worth it.

A Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock
    a poem by T.S. Eliot

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.  

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.  

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes.
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.  

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
    So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
    And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.  
    And should I then presume?
    And how should I begin?

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
    Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;  
    That is not it, at all.”  

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
    “That is not it at all,  
    That is not what I meant, at all.”

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.  

I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.  

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
 
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

A few words on change

It's that time of year again: a sneeze accompanies you on the walk through the backyard to the blooming cherry trees, the house is really starting to look like it could for sure, definitely, absolutely needs another coat of paint, puppies are born and flowers turn their colorful faces towards the sky. Desk jockeys push aside their Ion Light Therapy lamps in favor of open windows and students take to doing their homework on the lawn, ankles and shoulders peeking, and thanks to Franklin (Ben Franklin & Franklin D. Roosevelt) we have that extra magic hour where the sun lingers behind the buildings, over the water, beyond the mountains.

All of these changes heralding the arrival of the new season, a time of change.
A change of clothes, a change in sustenance, a change in mood - the change of seasons.


So significant is the change in seasons, and in turn, the change in our natural patterns that it has long been documented across cultures and mediums. Vivaldi's Four Seasons... the Greeks on Demeter, Hades and Persephone...The Chinese on Pangu... multiple Native Americans creation myths.

And despite the varied explanations on the patterns of the seasons, one thing is inevitable - change will come, and it is often for the better. Our very cyclical existence is predictable, for we know the sun will rise and set again tomorrow, but it's everything in between the rise and fall of the sun that makes the day, that makes us who we are, whether we welcome the change of the seasons and of crops and of afternoon activities or continue on as if life as we know it is the same as it has always been, and always should be.


As an advocate for creation myths, personal therapy, and living a constantly turmoil-filled life, I accept change. And certainly not one to resist such exciting things as mood swings, uncertainty, and constant personal fulfillment searches, I'm allowing changes, seeing as they were bound to happen anyways.

It seems strangely lucky then, that I work in an eclectic restaurant where we give fortune cookies with our ice cream desserts that provide me with oddly reassuring words of wisdom, such as this one, encouraging life as it presents itself, sunshine or not.

Ohhhh Arvo.
How?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8qg_0P9L6c


Here's to you, young violinist under Union Square off of the L train.

Thank you, young man, for putting feeling back into my life.
For reminding me how to feel joyous and heartbroken at the same time, protective yet vulnerable. If I could tell you of the world's past, present, future, of my past, present, and future in that moment, that moment you were playing for me because nobody else existed for all else had disappeared, and I wish, I wish I hadn't gotten on the train and left you behind because I'll never find you again and you, You were beautiful, You are beautiful, everything was, everything is.
Thank you.

the unbearable lightness of being

"Is this your first time in India?"

"Yes. Do you think we'll be alright?"

"It's going to be extraordinary."


It's times like this, as I test and buy beds from Ikea and put down payments on an apartment and search for a solid, long lasting bookcase, all items that one day will hold considerable weight in my life, that clearly are already extremely meaningful in a way that I can't quite understand, that the unbearable lightness of being is simply unbearable and I can't help but lament that I have put money down on an apartment and a bed and a bookcase.
And not a ticket back to India or some other wonderfully indescribable and exciting place.

"In India, we have a saying. Everything will be alright in the end. If it's not alright, it's not the end."

Life in a Day

What's your story?
What's in your pockets?
What do you fear the most?

3 questions, 4,500 hours of video footage, 192 nations, 1 day - July 24, 2010
An insightful, moving compilation of Youtube videos and footage obtained through cameras given to those in developing countries to "represent the whole world," Life in a Day revealed the world in all her many colors - concepts of war and of beauty, of fear and pure joy, of sadness and light, of greed and humility, of strength.
In short, 94 short minutes documenting this wonderful world through the eyes of her amazing people.

That said, it prompted me to figure out what I was doing on July 24th, 2010.
It was the first Saturday after the World Cup, and I was participating in field school in Gozo. It was nearing the end of the program and to remember the time spent in Gozo, my friend got this memento:

One year later, July 24th, 2011, I took this picture in Durham, NC where I was participating in the American Dance Festival. It had been a sad summer, and I was packing to go home - it was the only picture of the day:

With a day being the building blocks of our lives, its important to take each day seriously, but not too seriously, and recently a friend, who leads a notoriously non-stop lifestyle, said  "Seize the day my friends, because time only leaves dry bones and tombstones."

It's amazing what can happen in just one day.