29.12.11

Now it's certain!


Existence vs. nonexistence


I sometimes wonder how much of a life to live over the next 7 odd months. I find that there is so much to be done that I being to sacrifice pleasures. Empty things like, should I buy myself that new, insert some item of use like clothing etc, do I need one? Should I dress myself in rags till the day comes to hit the road. How do I balance in the material world as I shed layers of ownership.

26.12.11

the days are taking themselves out



I feel like my extra time is almost done, and the real crunch time is about to begin.

There are just a few more "icing on my cake" days until the New Year. Then the mad dash will really begin.
My goal in the next few days is to speak as little as possible, and stare at the wall as much as I can. I feel a need to embrace my silence, to quiet my ego so that we may truly hear what it is the New Year has to say to us.
Thank you all for your continued love, I hope you found your Holidays lovely and your New Year joyous!

Sending you love from deep down in my heart.

18.12.11

the ol bait and switch

I feel most comfortable on the shooting end of the camera, a hunched cyclops as sensitive to light as a vampire. Hunting for the subtleties of verse in the contour of your lines. Shadow, shape, intent as my prey.
I decided to bit the bullet and visit my uncomfortable zone and let this magic maker take me for a ride.
I have to say I am honored by his interest in my travels and in raptures of anticipation to see his finished project.


5.12.11

what I've done today for the trip

I've spent the last 6 hours on emails...

This is not an exaggeration.
You know it's that old truth that when it comes to working on your own stuff it's like molasses in winter, suddenly I don't even know what a computer is.
Honestly at this point I don't even know my own name, few more emails to go!

Here is a little something for you:


my little quirk



When I get overwhelmed I pull everything out of my closet and then put it back in. When I am on the road this manifests as dumping out my backpack and repacking. I don't know why, it's just an odd quirk of mine, and no I won't come clean your closet, it doesn't work that way!

1.12.11

just some clarification, a time line

So I am launching this amazing endeavor with my first class in Mexicali being hosted by the amazing
Alejandra on Aug 20th 2012.

Previous to this I will be hitting the road with the FCBD crew!

So here's my next few months as a rough outline:

December:

It's the holidays! Work my little but off trying to pull in as much money as I can and stock it into my savings, sorry friends this means no presents this year!

January 2012:
I'm going to Russia! I've been invited by the Russian Tribal Mafia to teach a workshop with the lovely Kae Montgomery, and I am so flipping excited I just don't have the words. It's gonna be cold bt I am going to LOVE LOVE LOVE every minute of it!

February:

Looks like I'll be doing something fancy in the East with the big "T" but not letting the cat out of the bag yet!

March:

Cues and Tattoos Seattle WA!
Troupe fun and working on a new matching tattoo for the troupe!

April:
I will spend this month in the deepest grip of fear as I try and sell everything not sold yet and to get ready for the last month in my apartment!

May:

This is the last projected month in my apartment(I feel sick even typing this), Tribal Fest is this month, yeah for out of town friends, also it is my birthday month, and I was thinking of throwing a big fundraiser, bday, goodbye etc party....the epic-ness is in the details.

June:

this is the month to tie up loose ends, I'll be couch surfing, thank you SF friends in advance, working as much as I can and praying to the giant gummy bear in the sky that I am pulling it all together.

July:

Something here dance wise is in the works, keeping my fingers crossed that it comes about and will be letting you know more when I can.
About mid-July I will say goodbye to SF, to my lovely co-workers and amazing bosses in the dog world, selling my car and catching a flight up to WA where most of my family has migrated to.
There I will spend time with the parentals and the sisters. I will drink wine and eat food and sleep for days at a time and bask in the presence of people that still treat me like a 5 year old. There's nothing like family to make you humble.

August:

From there I will jet South to my amazing Auntie and my Poppo (my grandfather). I'll spend some lovely down time with them in sunny San Diego, see my SoCal friends and then grab a ride from the lovely and loving Sooz across the boarder and to Mexical to the loving arms of my first host!
WHEW!

Do you still envy me?
So that is the basic plan, but life will do what life does best and that is run on a schedule of its own.

So I will do what I do best and hold on for the ride, but not to tightly because sometimes being thrown off is the most exciting part!

30.11.11

7 months give or take

time is a strange thing.

I feel myself racing forward and then suddenly stopping, then again, run run forward and stopping on a dime standing still.
What controls this? Is it tourette's of the body? An exercise in modern dance? Two emotions encapsulate  each action, excitement and its lover fear, they become intimate and intertwined, slippery with the sweat of exertion, they both rage at me so I can seem to tell who is shouting anymore.
Regardless of my inner workings the plodding of time is not phased, it is not fickle unlike myself and the time grows closer when this litte Dieter needs to fly.


7 months to go and oh so much more to do!

18.11.11

Theroux to Thoreau

There are many layers in preparation for change.

I was engaged in a death match with my "to do" list, but true to its hydra like nature for every one item removed two more appeared seemingly more vicious than the first, and despite my Herculean efforts the battle raged on.

So I have abandoned this labor for the moment and hunt for inspiration where I know it always dwells.

I find enlightenment in the concise smudging and squiggling found on a page, markings that brought me comfort previous to learning to decipher what the alien forms were. I am the possessor of one of the worst memories in the world, it's true, there is an art form to retaining information that I have yet to grasp, however one of my earliest memories is of words. Tales told to me by my mother, stories out of books and books and stacks of books. I loved them, loved them even before I had my own words. These stories from my mothers lips spurred me to read on my own at an early age and being the youngest of four children hand me down books had me reading at a level far beyond my years.
I will always love my parents for handing down this love of literature and imagination.

So in my time of need I reach out in darkness for inspiration and am engulfed.

I had these two men fall in my lap, Henry David Thoreau a longtime friend and fellow dreamer, and a new lover Paul Theroux passed serendipitously to me by my BFF Soy Pak.
There are times in ones life where all one needs to know is that they aren't alone. The wheel doesn't need to be re invented by my hands and I am not the only one with a dream.

I had finished The Elephante Suite by Paul Theroux via books on CD and was sliding in Thoreau's Walden with the opening chapter Economy I found myself hooting and holloring, banging on the steering wheel yelling out "YES! YES! YES" the words of Thoreau so thoroughly resounding with my spirit. The wisdom of the past so clear to my present day predicament.
I know you Thoreau naysayers exist out there, you may even be reading my blog waiting to commit on his vices but I am well aware of some of his unsavory actions and am not moving to canonize him just simply to meditate on the beauty of his greatness. Such as:





"But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before."

A crack and a slap across my face, of knowledge tucked away and buried with the dirt of my enervated labors. A buried treasure if you will of my mind.

"Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. Their fingers, from excessive toil, are too clumsy and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his labor would be depreciated in the market. He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well his ignorance- which his growth requires- who has so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."

Thoreau, a reminder that there is a me in here buried under what I construe to be my duty.
I could go on quoting Thoreau all day, Walden is a book I've picked up hundreds of times and always have this reaction. So I will spare you and let you take the journey alone. You can read Walden in its entirety here

With my new lover I am amazed that I hadn't meet him sooner. Paul Theroux, a well penned travel writer with both fiction and non fiction exploits. I fell so hard for him I started reading 2 of his book simultaneously The Elephante Suite and Dark Star Safari. I was his for life cracking into the first chapter of Dark Star Safari his nonfiction piece traveling by land from Cairo to Cape Town. I found myself in his words, pieces of me that have always existed but longed for a name and for a kindred spirit. 
So dear readers I leave you now with a few of my favorite Paul Theroux quotes, please to enjoy:

  “The wish to disappear sends many travelers away. If you are thoroughly sick of being kept waiting at home or at work, travel is perfect: let other people wait for a change. Travel is a sort of revenge for having been put on hold, or having to leave messages on answering machines, not knowing your party's extension, being kept waiting all your working life - the homebound writer's irritants. But also being kept waiting is the human conditon.”
Paul Theroux, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown 

“Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel narrative was the story of There and Back.”
Paul Theroux 

 “All travel is circular. I had been jerked through Asia, making a parabola on one of the planet's hemispheres. After all, the grand tour is just the inspired man's way of heading home. ”
Paul Theroux, The Great Railway Bazaar 

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown..”
Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel: Enlightenments from Lives on the Road  
 

12.11.11

boring.boring.boring

I am house sitting.
aka hiding out on a Saturday night researching proconsumer digital cameras that also shoot HD video, hand held field microphones, and travel insurance among other things.

I have to admit the Nikon site aside this is all very boring. Boring, boring, boring (said in my best Gary Oldman impersonation of him playing Sid Vicious in the movie Sid&Nancy)

I need to figure out the gadgets I need to bring with me to get the job done.
I like gadgets but am definitely not a gadgety gigity girl, and frankyl I am so stir crazy I'm making the rest of you, if you so choose to read on, suffer with me.
This blog is the good, the bad, the boring, but it's the truth.

Thankfully I know some pretty fucking awesome and talented people, and so I've roped in the help of my super talented gadget minded wonder-friends the amazing cinematographer Michele Sieglitz of lilblackcat productions, and the ever patient, always pulls me out of a pinch photo extraordinary Dyami Serna of Dyami Serna Photography.

These two cat's could teach a compass how to find North they are so savvy!

So here are my thoughts, and just an fyi I feel a kickstarter coming on!

What does one need on the road?


To make a documentary:
1. A camera that shoots movies, my editor has told me HD.
2. A field audio recorder to get some decent sound!
3. Laptop


To do a professional still photo shoot, yes dancers I am offering my services to you!
1. A great pro-consumer camera.
      ~I already own a great camera, Nikon d-200, but in the interest of fewer things to carry and upgrading equipment I can get a new Nikon body that will work for stills as well as movies!

2. A flash for fill...Dyami do you hear me calling your name? I love working in my studio with my strobes but it is time for me to grow!


To have fun and keep everyone updated:
1. It's looking like an ipod touch would be best, I can have my music to listen to while on a bumpy bus, the ability of a point and shoot camera, and a camcorder that can upload automatically to my blog or FB via wifi at cafe's etc without the monthly bill of a smart phone. I plan to ditch my phone, the only part that kills me is I've had that same phone # since the tender age of, oh I don't know, young.


2. Books! I am a voracious reader especially when on the road, and have always lamented the weight of carrying at least 5 books. Well now there's the Kindle and the Nook!
I know nothing of either so if anyone has any info I'd love to hear it!

Ah jeeze....
too much stuff!
I feel like I might be missing an item or two, feel free to pitch in ideas, you know, small tripod, external hard drive, one million cables, that kind of thing.
And just so you know I have to carry it all, and not get robbed along the way!Actually I just bought what I hope will be my dream day pack to squirrel all my gadgets into. I'm trying it out now to get it nice and dirty so it will be less conspicuous on the road. Once attached to my body come Aug 20th it won't be removed till the trip is done. My days to donating to the children's street fund are hopefully behind me!

Oh Lord but I'm putting myself to sleep and I haven't even touched on traveler's insurance!







9.11.11

Battling with my humanness while trying to be a demigod

It's true if not slightly narcasistic.
I mean it's not like I sprung fully formed from the head of Forrest Adams (my pops) or not as far as I know, but I'll double check with the folks.

There is something inside of me that battles to do, not the epic movements of an earthquake, the shake rattle of look look look at me and look what I can do! More as the cold battles drops of water falling from the sky to somehow pull it into the perfect icicle, the intricate non replicated snow flake; long beautiful, fleeting, the silent battle of beauty and subtly in every day life.

How to be a demigod with every breath. How is it possible, is it possible?
To try and infuse each moment with creation, fill it with passion, beauty and love.
I feel in this imperfect body it is a crap shoot, nothing reaches the heavens, nothing is eternal, nothing is ever yours to keep. Yet still we do, we create.

The drive for this is so insistent that I spend hours alone, holed up in my house and in my mind. Fighting my duel nature of social butter fly and hermit crab. I am a wool sweater that after too many social hours I need to be washed on hot and then thrown into the dryer so I can be a concentrated version of myself, so I can concentrate.

How do you balance? Where is the balance?
I want to run and play and live my days full full full, and then dream and work and build the foundations to my castle in the sky. This is the God in me, but it exists with the humanness, the tired, cranky, moody me that thinks I can do it all, that I should be able to do it all, and boy when I don't do it all I better watch out!

At this point I feel as if I am all ramble and I have no solutions just observations and those will have to do for now.

15.10.11

The times they are a changin'

There is something odd going on in my life.
Now that the days are numbered and the count down begins it's almost as if I am dying.
To be more specific and less dramatic, it would be that life as I know it, and my existence in this time and place is coming to an end.
I feel it most keenly with my close friends, the ones that keep me whole and help shoulder all my merriment and strife.
There are these moments I find myself on fire with the love of my companions, the love I feel for them as well as from them, and then the knife. That cold twisting sensation when you feel as if your organs are being slit ever so abruptly from your body, but on further investigation you find your belly to be intact and rather it is your emotions being wrenched not your physical body. But somehow the word wrenched does not suffice, it is to simple, to quick to express the agonizing physical sensation taking place. The actual need to steady oneself in the face of this pain, this joy turned to ecstasy turned to...what.
What do you call it when your days are numbered?
What is that feeling.

Whatever this elusive catalyst can be called it has thrown me almost fully into the present.
It has become such an exciting time for me. The creating of memories, the making sure to do, almost  like making sure to tick everything off of my San Francisco bucket list.
Not to let anything be wasted, or taken for granted, or let opportunity to spend time with my friends be lost.

It is truly a brilliant time to be alive.

10.10.11

ATS in Mexico!

I'm working on my Mexico schedule!
Here's what that looks like, hand drawn maps and lots and lots of notes! Spread the word Mexican dancers and drop me an email if you want me to come visit!



 

7.10.11

the princess and the pea

There was once a prince, and he wanted a princess, but then she must be a real Princess. He traveled right around the world to find one, but there was always something wrong. There were plenty of princesses, but whether they were real princesses he had great difficulty in discovering; there was always something which was not quite right about them. So at last he had come home again, and he was very sad because he wanted a real princess so badly.
One evening there was a terrible storm; it thundered and lightninged and the rain poured down in torrents; indeed it was a fearful night.
In the middle of the storm somebody knocked at the town gate, and the old King himself sent to open it.
It was a princess who stood outside, but she was in a terrible state from the rain and the storm. The water streamed out of her hair and her clothes; it ran in at the top of her shoes and out at the heel, but she said that she was a real princess.
‘Well we shall soon see if that is true,’ thought the old Queen, but she said nothing. She went into the bedroom, took all the bed clothes off and laid a pea on the bedstead: then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on top of the pea, and then twenty feather beds on top of the mattresses. This was where the princess was to sleep that night. In the morning they asked her how she slept.
‘Oh terribly bad!’ said the princess. ‘I have hardly closed my eyes the whole night! Heaven knows what was in the bed. I seemed to be lying upon some hard thing, and my whole body is black and blue this morning. It is terrible!’
They saw at once that she must be a real princess when she had felt the pea through twenty mattresses and twenty feather beds. Nobody but a real princess could have such a delicate skin.
So the prince took her to be his wife, for now he was sure that he had found a real princess, and the pea was put into the Museum, where it may still be seen if no one has stolen it.

Now this is a true story.

I've been really sick for over a week now. It's so hard and frustrating to feel my body shutting down, refusing to work in the way it normally works. My mind becoming simple, fuzzy, dumb.

I haven't been able to do much more than lay in a bed and sleep. I feel like a princess in my warm bed with the comforts of my home and it makes me laugh. If I feel misery here, in the center of my world, than what about when I am out there...

I consider myself a well versed traveler, I have had hardships on the road before and know I will have them again. These things always tend to make for exciting stories after the fact, blog posts that live on and on,  but with those times yet looming before me it makes me a little giddy.
In a demented way I am looking forward to those hard lonely nights in a foreign land, with a foreign tongue, in a Thai prison style room puking my guts out and wondering if this is the end of it all.
I can't wait to get out of the princess-ness of my life, away from the comfort that keeps me so emotionally and physically safe, away from the known, from the why and the understanding.
I am tired of the tiny peas in life disrupting my sleep.

27.9.11

one foot in front of another

Well it's been over a month since my announcement, and what can I say, it worked.
I am so thrilled.
I get lots and lots of emails from lots and lots of amazing people, and I've been trying to answer them ALL!
And then what...
Where to put my foot next?
I can see the start date far in the future, like a mountain peak looming and beckoning, but how do I get there.
I have no set path, I am walking blindly towards my goal. Where will I miss step? Will I know? Will I be able to make myself and all of you lovelies happy?
What is the true definition of this trip? It seems to change and manifest itself differently each day, a mythical Nagual perhaps.
I struggle constantly with this challenge, perhaps it is my dance, if it was a dance it would certainly be capoirea, myself and struggle never firmly in each others grasp but fluidly seamlessly making a balancing act of it.

So please keep me in mind, I am going in blind.
One foot slowly in front of the other, eyes on the lofty heights above and my heart full of love for the dream.
Don't lose hope, keep your belief in me, an above all keep your belief in the dance.





25.9.11

nights like tonight

nights like tonight break my heart.
they are the smooth elixir of life, perfectly blended.

they make my eyes sting with the thought of leaving.
the comfort of home, the closeness of family that I've found, the tenderness of kindred souls.
on nights like tonight it clearly comes into focus the amazing life that I inhabit, and there is nothing like an allotted amount of hours to make one mourn the slipping by of a single one.



20.9.11

layers of the onion

I have been obsessing over things.

What is this thing, why is it here, where did it come from, do I need it?
Mostly the things I have I don't need.
So I have been pulling them out, breaking the ties, and moving them along.
It isn't an immediate process, some things I fret over and cling to and  once out of my death grip I could care less about them.
They are gone and I am free.

I had my first garage sale,  one of what will be many to come, and it was a success!
There was sun and friends and coffee and a really lovely day out in the hood. Thanks to all that made it out!






12.9.11

the best fruit is on the furthest limb

ok just out of the shower from my first two dives in Monterey Bay CA.

wow...

like wow, and not in the "I'm so F%$@% happy I did this" sort of way but more the "I can't believe I F$%!$#@ did this to myself" sort of way.

I'm not gonna lie, that was hard, and scary, and I'm just happy to be half way through the certification, and that I survived it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I did it, I don't regret it, I enjoyed it in a fatalistic survivor way,  and I wouldn't trade this experience in for anything, but... it was hard.

In my defense at the end of the day our instructor told us it was really bad conditions, 3 foot visibility, lots of surging swells, and a strong current under the surface and if it was just him he would have turned around and gone home.

I always thought that learning to dive in the Monterey Bay is akin to learning to drive in San Francisco, a challenge but you would be better off for it sort of way. Well I know how to drive in SF  and now I feel like learning to dive in Monterey is a little bit more like learning how to drive in Cairo Egypt.
But I digress let me begin at the beginning.

The pool, I loved the pool, it was awesome.

Then yesterday finding the right wet suit combination...ah jeeze it was like playing vertical twister with my doppelgangers thick skin. Perhaps this is what a soul has to do before it is granted a body, tricky tiring business at best. At last a decent combination was found and the adventure begins.

So I would like to say I am not a panicker, not normally. In fact I can't recall any occasion in which I've panicked.
But here we are, geared up, thick wet suit (2 layers) a swim cap, a hood, thick gloves, thick boots then the heavy stuff weight belt, BCD, tank, everything. It's all piled on, I feel strapped down, trapped under the weight, I cannot walk properly with so much, all I can do is simply waddle to the shoreline.
I now have deep sympathy for the sea turtle, or any poor creature carrying it's home on it's back. I will never dream of riding a giant tortoise again, poor dear.
We waddle down to the water, flippers in hand so we can walk in past the break water, float on our backs and pop those flippers on! Simple right.
Yeah it sounds so simple so lovely until you are being beaten and battered by the under tow. People are knocked over like bowling pins tossed upon the sand banks to flounder in the shallows trapped below their scuba gear and it is every man for himself.
I take my fate clearly to the front of my brain and concentrate, it goes something like this "don't fall, don't fall, don't fall, float, float, fuck, fuck, float, float can't get my $%#^%&^$*#%$##%#@!^#$&%$*%^$*&(^$& flippers on".
This continues on for some time as I struggle but I persevere. Once said flippers were on and I was buoyant then things really started to fall apart.

I've never had a panic attack before, but I have been informed that this is what befell me.
I was buoyant, barely, my regulator in (it lets you breath under water) and the whole world started to shut down with its fingers locking around my throat.
It felt as if my wet suit shrank, I swear to God it did,  to about 10 sizes too small and no matter how much I tried to inhale there was no air. Oh air moved in and out of my lungs but it did no good, my brain was convinced that there was nothing. I tried to slow down my breathing, long deep inhales, long strong exhales, I tried to calm myself and it just wouldn't work.
I found myself hovering in water 40 feet from the shore unable to breath, unable to float very well and trying to convince myself that it was all ok.
Tom one of the dive masters there to help us asked if I was ok. Perhaps the look of terror was apparent on my face, I'm sure as a dive master and instructor you grow accustom to seeing this look.
I found myself treading water wanting to say "yes" while my mind was screaming "NO" and my body was getting all fuzzy like it wanted nothing to do with me. Instead the words out of my mouth were...honestly I don't remember what they were, something noncommittal as I tried to buy time and pull myself together refusing to have a melt down in the cold choppy water.
I was fooling no one.
The other students were making their way to the float, my scuba buddy and good friend Tasha hovered near by with Tom both of them looking at me with concern, and then I found myself saying it.
"I don't like this I want to go back"
As soon as the damn was broken the words wouldn't stop. A litany of "I don't like this I want to go back" erupted and repeated.
Tom checked in with Tasha if she could make it out to the others or not, there was consent and she headed out and I headed back to shore.

I am a believer in doing things that frighten me, that challenge me, but I am not used to things being stronger than me.
I don't remember the swim back to the shore.
I had Tom and he took good care of me.
I sat on a rock next to him, all my gear off watching the waves.

Tom asked why I want to dive, and I told him about all of you amazing dancers and that I was going on this amazing adventure to amazing lands to meet my extended family and that I wanted to be ready, just in case I wanted to go diving.
He asked me if I was afraid to travel, and I said no, there was no need to be afraid because I have a global family.
I became so calm on the shore, and so happy thinking of my life and the all the amazing people like you I will soon be spending time with.
It gave me strength and courage thinking about all of you, and then I was ready to swim out and try it again.

So Tom and I went back out. The Bay tried to intimidate me, it pushed me and pulled me and threatened me with its mighty strength, and I was afraid, I humbly bowed my head to its superior power but I didn't give up. I had help from Tom to get my flippers on, and he encouraged me like a good loving teacher, talking me through the torrent, reminding me that I could breath. Oh he also took 10lbs out of my weight belt so I could actually float and not sink like a rock like I was doing before.

As we neared the float marker out in the bay the other students were done with their first test and began to pop up at the surface, Tasha popped up to my right not 5 feet away from me. I turned nervously towards the familiar face and was surprised when a quick moving sleek sea dog dashed through the space between us. It was an otter!
It rolled over on its back and paused as it reached me, it was so close I could have touched it. It looked at me with its magical little face full of curiosity and a mischievous sort of glee, and it reminded me that the best fruits in life are sometimes out on the farthest limbs of a tree.

I made my descent to the bottom of the bay with Tom, feeling very serene under the surface of the water. I was rewarded with the beauty of fantastical creatures, very up close and personal, with 3 foot visibility how could it be otherwise.

After 2 days and 4 dives in the harsh and beautiful Monterey Bay I am a certified scuba diver. It sure as hell wasn't easy, and I almost quit, but I'm so glad I didn't. However it wouldn't have been possible without the love and support of my teachers and my friend Tasha Hudick, and the thought of all of you out there.
xoxox

~k






7.9.11

Wanderlust

Ever since the creation of my heart it has held a dream.
Encased in its depths.
Whispering to me so softly, so sweetly.
A fortune encased in a cookie.


I like to imagine that exact moment of creation. In the warm darkness of the womb, what is yet to be living coiled about itself, secretive and small. Where fiber was binding itself together into matter or matter into fiber, twisting and weaving the most important muscle of my being. Right then the wind blew and left a tiny parcel of itself trapped within the valves of my essence. Restlessness pushing ever so slightly against convention and mutating the  thawamp thawamp, thawamp thawamp of existence into a mutinous muscle of desire.

I do not try to own the idea of Wanderlust, it is a pull as old as time itself. I can't pretend that I discovered it in books read by others and found it so in vogue that it compelled me to keep up with the fashion.It has simply always been a part of me.

I view Wanderlust more as an invisible friend. A companion that is always pushing me out the door, goading me when I balk, comforting me when I am lonely and keeping me safe when I cry. It has no language and needs none to consul my heart, because it is my heart, it is me, and I have only two choices, refute it and live with a depth of sadness that never leaves, or embrace it.

It's clear to me now that my entire life has been culminating to this moment, this realization of a dream, this sojourn of sorts where I take my thoughts and my dreams and the talent that lives within this flesh and bone construct for my soul and I marry it all together.

So here we go, together, on this adventure.

I leave in less than 1 year.

Some of you may call me fearless, a complement I warm to but know to be entirely untrue. I think it was put best by Ralph Waldo Emerson "Do what you are afraid to do”.



Thank you all for your love and support, for your belief in dreams, in dance, in travel, and in me.


 

 


 

5.9.11

did you hear from me? Well why not!

ok i just wrote back to everyone!
i love you guys you know i do, how could i not, you're just way to awesome not to love.
but i wanted to say that if you wrote to me, and you haven't heard from me, write me again. please.
please.
things can get a little disorganized.AND if you tried to contact me any other way than my business email:
kristine@fcbd.com
i didn't get it so write to me again and remember you can reach me at:

kristine@fcbd.com
 
besos! xoxox

2.9.11

my house

I find that every waking moment has turned into a measuring moment.
In my house I pit one item against another, what will stay, what will go, and what determines the victor.

Should my Great Grandmothers old dish towel trump the story I wrote when I was 8?

A death match of memories and emotions in which only the tenderest survive. Those objects stored away that I can't bear to look at, to bring into the light of day, the old love letters mummified in the writers undershirt, no longer smelling of the body they came from.
A note in my mothers hand writing, a wrinkled page full of pre-pubescent girl scrawl, me and my best friend as we predicted the boy we would married and there for practiced what our new last names would be.

The house is full of it. Memories, ideas, emotions, reminders.







1.9.11

renounce and enjoy

I just got back from a lovely time in Milwaukee WI where I traveled and performed with the lovely FCBD™ ladies at the invitation of Tamarind Tribal Belly Dance. It was such a lovely whirlwind time, and Jennifer Nolan really knows how to make us feel at home! Harley rides with Beth and home cookin' by Kate, I didn't think the weekend could get better than that, but it did!

It was really great to meet my FB friends both new an old and reconnect and drink and laugh and talk about the upcoming ATS global tour!
There were so so many of you that shared your love and excitement I can't thank enough for the love and support!


While there I chatted quite a lot about the upcoming adventure and what exactly it entails.

What do I have to do to get ready? How do I change my life so that I can set out on the road and be gone for years? I have this amazing apartment, a great roommate, a great job, a car, money, Fluevogs, and stuff, I've got a lot of really cool stuff.
   
Anita Lalwani, my beautiful troupe mate offered me up a very apropos story about Ghandi, and it is this:
   
'Toward the end of his life, he was asked: “Can you tell me the secret of your life in three words?” Gandhi chuckled and answered: “Yes! Renounce and enjoy.” He was quoting from the Isa Upanishad
(“Leaving the transient, find joy in the Eternal”). It means that in order to enjoy life, we cannot be selfishly attached to anything—money, possessions, power or prestige, even family or friends—even life itself.'


Renounce and enjoy...
That's a tall order but with 354 days to go I'll give it my best try.


23.8.11

some fantastic news!

yeah so in some really fantastic news yours truly was approached by none other than THE CarolenaNericcio of FatChanceBellyDance™ and she offered to produce my book and DVD!
Yeah that's right!
Book.
DVD.
Pure awesomeness of ATS™ around the world brought to you by the pure awesomeness of Mama C!

sorry I am not currently taking any  pre orders, I have to get my ass out on the road first!
362 days to go!

22.8.11

the wow

I am reeling.
Absolutely taken aback by the love and response of the community.

I just wanted to say that, and tell you all that you are amazing, and that I love you and that I'm going to bed and tomorrow when I get home from my day job and from dance rehearsal I'm getting to work.

I want to keep you all as part of the process, and I have received an amazing amount of emails, some I've written quick notes to, others I've just have had to save, so the dent begins tomorrow.
If you wrote me, I'll write back, I am going to start organizing, but tomorrow, but now I sleep.
sweet dream friends! xoxoxox

20.8.11

Press Conference



See the post below for more information!

the plan: travel till the money runs out or the trip is done


as told by Julie Rea Taylor

The Basics:
Today launches my blog: www.fromthebellyofatraveler.com
This marks the one year point till my exploration begins.

The Plan:
In exactly 365 days I plan to leave San Francisco, the birth place of ATS™, and journey south beginning with Mexico. I will travel around the world, stopping in each county, in every ATS™ studio, and in every town I can find with an ATS™ dancer.


The rough sketch of my journey looks something like this:


"Now, this is just a rough outline of the territory I'd like to cover. Bear with me, I am a Gemini and rarely travel with a plan, so this is quite accurate at the moment!"


The Why:
To observe how ATS™ has created a global community.

The Process:
I plan to travel for at least a year or two, taking photographs, interviewing dancers, making videos of ATS™ around the globe so that after my travels I can produce a book and DVD about the international ATS™ community. And all of this will be found right here on this blog.
The Essentials:
It’ll be me, a camera, a backpack, a costume, my wanderlust, and that’s pretty much it.

The Blog:
Over the next 365 days I will collect my thoughts and figure out what it is that I need to do to start this trip. This is uncharted territory. I have no idea what I’m in store for and I will document it every step of the way.

My Qualifications:
I've been in FatChanceBellyDance (FCBD™) troupe member since 2005 and have trained with Carolena Nericcio, the creator of American Tribal Style belly dance, since 2003. I've taught at the FCBD™ studio in San Francisco for over four years and regularly travel and assist Carolena Nericcio in teaching national and international workshops and intensives.

What this is Really All About:
I want to learn, I want to observe, I want to document the fact that ATS™ is now a recognized improvisational dance form. The spread of this world-wide phenomenon needs to be documented and I intend to do just that: to follow it around the planet, to uncharted town where women and men come together to dance this un-choreographed community art form.

The fact is, within the moves and cues of ATS™, you can find a family in any country to which you travel.

*      *     *

I haven’t got much of a plan. What I want to do is travel around the world.

I’m relying on you, the ATS™ family, to lead me around the world and this blog is going to help me connect with you, the dancers, the community. If you're interested in dancing with me, learning with me or hosting me, please contact me here.

That’s it. I’m giving cues and waiting to interpret them.