Losing Center

Three weeks into the semester, I have determined I am doing too much. Something has to give. But how, when I am fascinated by so much, excited about new ideas and opportunities.

There are a few qualities in common among the things I want to be doing:

• spending time with children as we discuss what they are thinking, learning, playing, and imagining.
• listening to my husband talk with great brilliance about Shakespeare’s plays or new books he is reviewing and sharing jokes about anything and everything
• discussing creative processes and organization of habits with sophisticated students ready for deep reaching dialogue
• offering insight to younger students with great potential and the smarts to stop engaging in drama long enough to listen and explore themselves through the lens of dance
• problem-solving interesting puzzles relating to parenting, art, teaching….people
• continuing the self-care I harvested over the summer through Bikram Yoga and other means

The common denominator: Thinking and moving in honesty

There are a few qualities in common among the things I don’t want to be doing:

• others’ lack of acknowledgement of great change being necessary and the courage to make it
• the cleaning up of others’ messes before I can begin my own work
• having the variables of my environment be imposed upon me rather than a natural response to the needs of the work
• trying to figure out how I can appear on paper as dynamic as I am in the classroom
• worrying about decisions I want to make or anticipate making. As Brené Brown puts it in her brilliant TED talk about the Gifts of Imperfection, “making the uncertain certain”.

The common denominator: Feeling I am being asked not to think but to sell and/or do and following through

I am finding that in response to a specific vulnerability, I am trying to do more in order to be more and appear more worthy in specific segments of my life in which I want to invite change.

 

I am finding it goes forcefully against all the progress I made over the last year in terms of opening my mind and practices in teaching, in art-making, and in my self-care.

Today, I take pause to rethink how I am trying to stockpile experience under the guise of marketability and robbing myself of quality experience and most importantly, the time to make connections.

Time: slow, steady, rich, lasting

This weekend has felt absolutely indulgent. All due to time, or rather, our attitudes about time.

In reality, our schedule has been relatively consistent to other weekends. The change has come in our activities and our decision to ignore the clock.

• My husband and I had precious conversations much after our usual bedtime.
• We frolicked at Lake Michigan for as long as we liked. We left our phones in the car and took time as it came and went, just like the waves.
• And I husband and I each had solo time in the water to swim, bob, flow, and watch our happy kids from a distance- enjoying the sand, the sun, the water, and each other.
• We stopped worrying about every thing being even and focused on it being fair. Each child had time with each parent in the water until they, and we, were satisfied. There wasn’t a clock to track equal minutes yet we all survived.

So, of course, I am thinking of how this relates to how dance has conditioned me to approach time.

• Time is to be played with to make movement more compelling.
• Time is to be considered in making my body stronger, more efficient, more expressive.
• Time “off” hasn’t really been encouraged. In fact, the answer to most any dance problem has been dance more. Although, that is not exclusive to dance-isn’t this basically how Americans define “professionalism”?

I realized yesterday that we, as a family, need to schedule breaks to “train” our children to take time for rest when they are adults. To know it is ok to relax. It is necessary and it is good. To be able to recognize they need it and should give themselves permission to take it.

When I shared this thought with my friend she said, “Beach your children well.” I love that.

Rest allows for isolation of thought and applied focus.

When we stop moving and thinking simultaneously we can allow the connection of our minds and bodies to continue the conversation in perhaps a renewing way. It works the other way, too. Sometimes we just need to move and enjoy where we are rather than constantly striving for better.

This dedication to time makes me think of artists like Merce- taking time to investigate the potential for movement, for each part of the body. Allowing time for trial, deciding, crafting, creating.

What a concept.