Dabble in Dance

So you see, I haven't entirely given up on this blog! At least not the idea behind it. The past month or so, between scads of homework, work, and personal crises, I haven't had time for much, but I have squeezed in roughly an hour and a half every Monday for a hip-hop class.

This fact was greeted to shock and dismay by many of my friends and acquaintances as I am a) not into hip hop music, b) not into dance, and c) criminally uncoordinated. But in spite of all those things, I'M DOIN' IT! And you know what, it's really fun. I'm taking the class with a couple friends, which helps, but the moves and the workout are really satisfying in and of themselves. I was discussing with a classmate today how dance is stimulating for both mind and body. As beginners, criminally uncoordinated ones to boot, it takes an incredible amount of focus to remember the steps in our routines, much less execute them in a manner that does not look entirely ridiculous or result in the injury of ourselves or passers-by. So it gives you the opportunity to free your mind of all its current troubles, whilst releasing all those lovely endorphins from the exercise. Hello, stress relief!

I still have two left feet and sometimes it seems like an overabundance of arms flailing about, but I am learning the steps, I'm totally sold on dance, and I'm even starting to like some of the songs we dance to. Last Monday, we did a particularly satisfying routine, which was created by choreographers Napoleon and Tabitha for National Dance Day, and is viewable for your own learning pleasure HERE! It's upbeat, it's fun, and the song is catchy! I still cringe when I hear the title ("Club Can't Handle Me" - Flo Rida) but so long as I avoid the lyrics, I enjoy the beat.

I'm not gonna say everyone can do this, but I will say that there were more than 1 unlikely cases in my class, and we're all doing just fine. I think it's worth a try. Sign up for a dance class, or sign up for any sort of class or activity at a community center for that matter. There's a million more things I would have done if I had more time and money. One's a start, though.

The current session goes for another couple of weeks, and I've already decided that I'd like to continue if there's another session in 2011. I've also got a friend interested in ballroom dancing, so who knows? If I keep this up, maybe someday I'll be able to walk down a whole set of stairs without falling!

Screams in the valley

Why can't I just sit still?

This semester has possibly been the longest, hardest, most emotional and frustrating few months of my life. The whole year hasn't been for me, and it's been downright awful for a lot of my close friends as well. I can't help but get this feeling of impending doom.

I know negativity isn't the answer, in fact, it's probably a large part of the problem and something that I have personally drenched people in on many occasions. But I like to think that there's a lot of compassion in people, and how can you stay positive when day in and out, you watch misery after misery befall the ones you love? It's difficult, is all. It's easier not to care, but then where do you find yourself? Who are we but the imprint that we leave on others? There's so many people, so many problems, and we're lazy. I need to practice positivity. I need to get myself out of this funk, I need to get my generation out of this funk. I need to blow more bubbles, dance more, sing more, offer the cover of my umbrella to more people standing in the rain. Random acts of kindness change the world.

I often find myself trapped in a vicious battle between self-loathing and narcissism, particularly when it comes to stuff like "good deeds". When I feel I've done something particularly "good", I get an enormous amount of self-satisfaction and then feel extraordinarily guilty for my undoubtedly selfish reasons for performing said deed. Similarly, I think we all encounter situations in which we believe ourselves to be the moral/emotional/mental/physical superior of others. And even when something rolls along and reminds me how small and insignificant I am, I sometimes feel simultaneously shattered and yet smug that I should be so insightful as to come to this realization. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I see myself as if I'm not myself, and I just think, "What an ugly girl". On some nights, I cry myself to sleep like an infant for reasons I can't articulate, and tell myself that no one understands. But people do understand. I talk to them about it and it sounds petty and childish. Many things, when I finally get the nerve to talk about them, are petty and childish. The words begin to lose shape and integrity as they fall out of my mouth and 9 times out of 10 the statement has turned into a shared joke before I've reached the end of it. I think it's about perspective.

But falling into that pattern of self love/hate nevertheless puts an itch in my heart that only the strong winds of change can scratch. For as long as I can remember, I've acted out against depression. Many of these actions have been hair-related. I've chopped off all my hair several times and dyed it almost every colour of the rainbow to fight constancy. I've quit school to work. I've quit work to travel Europe and live in Germany. While in Germany, I chopped off my hair myself, for the first time. I also took several impractical, impromptu trips to Sweden, in pursuit of adventure and a doomed romance. After that, I bungee-jumped 180 meters off of a parasail. You get the picture.

Now that I've upped the ante, a haircut alone just doesn't do it anymore. But I'm at that place, the eye of the storm, the calm that follows the chaos and inevitably precedes more chaos, and I can't stand it. I want adventure, intrigue. I think we'd all be better people if we had a little more of it. But it just gets harder and harder to get that satisfaction. I don't have money. I don't have a lot of time. I need people, and a storyline, and a reason to keep turning the pages. I want to be excited about life again! My friend and I spoke a few days ago about how we used to have sleepovers. We would stay up all night talking about our lives, loves, beliefs (in elementary fashion) and whatever else the time called for. Now, if we stay anywhere together, we just sleep. For so long, there were things that could only be said in the darkness and quiet safety of night. What can we say now? What else can we discover? What else should we discover?

I think if we were all truly honest and frank with one another, then we could learn a lot more about people in general, but it's hard to be that honest. Especially if you don't know what you're being honest about. If you stuck any two people in a room for 3 days, what would they find out about each other? Would anything besides small talk even come up? I guess it depends on the people, but I've always been curious as to how I would react in that situation. I'd almost like to try it. I'm completely useless at articulating myself on the fly, and I'm a terrible conversationalist in any and all regards, but I would want so badly to take advantage of the opportunity that I wonder if I could overcome it. Sometimes I just think it would be amazing to have that chance to talk, really talk, with someone that you never would have been able to/thought to otherwise.

Realistically, I have a feeling that if I were in that situation, we might get as far as names of immediate family members by day 3. I can be cripplingly shy. Everything I've written here, just now... I wouldn't say it aloud to most people. I couldn't even read it off the page. I'm trying to be honest right now, and it's really difficult for me to put that much of myself out there. I'm always kind of worried about weirding people out.

Sigh. It's late, and I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore. I guess what I'm saying is, I want to cut my hair, take another road trip to the island and end up stuck somewhere with a friend/stranger for several days with no outside contact. That's totally normal, right?

Don't be alarmed. Goodnight.