Do-Over
Sandra Levitt, in class: The Anatomy of Improvisation. Photo by Jun Akiyama, 2015
,,!
I wanna a do-over from last week’s newsletter.
I’ll start with the same first paragraph, but then take it where I tried to take it last week, and couldn’t:
“I have to remember to do more sky and less ground.”
This is what Glen Kalen, my partner
(I don’t like the word “partner” to describe who Glen is to me. But when you don’t want to get married, and when you don't want a husband - when you’ve been sharing your life with someone for 13 years - what is the proper word one uses to describe this particular relationship? Boyfriend? Significant other? The Guy I Shack up With? Yuck and yuck and yuck. Guess I’ll go with partner for now, and if you think of a better word, let me know)
said to me as he was contemplating the time-lapse photography he is exploring on his new smart phone.
We have finally capitulated.
We bought our first smart phones.
Surprisingly, Glen has had his phone out and about since we bought them in early December.
He is texting away, figuring out the methodology for using this latest technology to it’s full potential.
Mine is still in the box.
I’m not so excited yet.
I’ll let you know when that turns.
I’ll let you know when, and if, it comes out of the box.
On another note:
I have fallen into the abyss, and I’m not sure how to climb out.
Everything I know is shifting around and rotating to face a new direction.
This is not a calming sensation, by any means.
It is actually quite alarming in this bit of a life I am carving out for myself.
I am making mistakes I shouldn’t be making, shutting down more often out of fear, unsure of where my feet are landing, and struggling to catch my breath.
What the hell?
What happened?
Is this the beginning of menopause?
(By the way, I bought the THINX undies for when you get your period. They are amazing. If you haven’t checked them out, check them out. I like the high-waisted ones myself).
Is it all the dairy I’m eating?
(Colby Cheddar Cheese: YUM).
Or is it the PHONE!
I think it’s the phone.
But how could it be the phone, when someone says, after hours of fiddling with the damn thing:
“I have to remember to do more sky and less ground.”
How could it be the phone, when said someone makes a hysterically funny video, in the wee hours of the morning, on his new phone, about a coffee grinder?
Let’s back up for a minute, in terms of the coffee grinder thing, and then we’ll return to the abyss I have fallen into:
Glen and I have been very excited about coffee lately, so Glen bought a manual espresso press to grind the coffee beans more finely.
Sadly, Glen was disgruntled by the functioning capabilities of his new purchase.
At 7am in the morning, Glen takes his phone, goes into his shop, and builds an appendage that he attaches to the coffee grinder.
The coffee beans now get ground up, pristinely, in a much more effective, efficient, and timely manner than the original design of the espresso press allowed.
Glen makes a video of the this process on his phone, which is droll and brilliant.
As I watch the coffee grinder video, I shake my head at the wonder of this remarkable inventor I have the pleasure of knowing.
So, no, my falling into the abyss…it’s not the phone.
Is it the coffee?
Please don’t tell me it’s the coffee.
I think it’s the coffee.
On thanksgiving morning, I was in the car, getting ready to drive to town to pick up a few miscellaneous items for our thanksgiving dinner, when I realized I had forgotten my cup of coffee in the house.
I left the engine running, stepped out of the car to get the forgotten coffee, and saw that the car was rolling backward down the mountain and into the gulch.
I leapt back into the car, getting my body only halfway inside, as the car rolled down the hill.
My head and torso were on the drivers seat, my hips and legs were hanging out, and I was dragged down the mountain and into the gulch until the car bumped up into a tree and a rock and then stopped.
I won’t go into details, but we could have had a very different sort of thanksgiving dinner that evening, and a very different sort of life — because of the coffee.
But no, my falling into the abyss is not the coffee.
I wish it were that easy.
I don’t know what it is: I’m just falling.
I’m re-orienting and re-directing.
I’m undoing what I thought I knew, and seeing what is underneath.
And in this process of undoing, I’m remembering what it means to dance:
To listen.
To wait.
To attend to what is at hand.
And so, I am falling.
Into the abyss, yes.
But also into a new dance that I don’t understand or know quite yet.
But is it a new dance?
Maybe not actually.
Maybe it is a dance that has been with me all along, patiently waiting for me to fall.
,
Your Dance Mission for the Week is to imagine that a string, or a log piece of yarn, is attached to the very center of your being. As this piece of yarn radiates out into the world, it splinters, and attaches it’s tentacles to mountains, oceans, forests, prairies, cities, stars, and all the creatures on the planet (that’s a lot of tentacles - I know - but I have, high expectations of you and your capabilities, especially when it comes to your tentacles).
Breath into, notice, and wait,
as all of your tentacles, reach out and make connection.
When you are ready,
Fall.
Into this dance, that is connected to all of these things.
Fall.
And see what happens.
With Warmth and Jivey Vibes,
Joanna
of
Joanna and The Agitators
sweetly agitating/persistently upending
www.joannandtheagitators.com
PS:
1.
Goodnight, Courtney Love is happening on:
Friday, Feb 19th at 7pm
Saturday, Feb 20th at 7pm
Saturday, Feb 27th at 7pm
In the Leisure Swimming Pool at The North Boulder Recreation Center.
FREE and Family Friendly
2.
Dog Dance is happening on Friday, February 12th at Floorspace.
7pm, $5
3.
The Anatomy of Improvisation starts on February 2nd, and there are only a few spots left. I hope it is you who takes one of those spots.
xoxo jo