C19: New (and Old) Systems

I'm one who tends to thrive off systems. I have a system for when and how I peek at our finances. I have a morning routine. I have a way I make a schedule for myself on days when my work is flexible.

I knew at the beginning of this thing that I'd need to make some new systems for myself, not only to keep some normalcy, but because it makes me FEEL GOOD. While I've already been discovering there is a limit to the usefulness of 1) my existent systems and 2) the new ones I'd make (see "Loosening My Grip" post), I still find comfort in building and trying routines.

I feel like I need new routines for the following:

• Wake-Up and Morning Routine
• News Consumption
• Social Media Use
• Take-Out/ Food Delivery Use
• Video Consumption for Entertainment
• Bedtime

Wake-Up and Morning Routine:

I've historically been quite good about getting up early (which I like) and at what I deem a "reasonable hour." That said, that's understandable been sliding quite a bit during this time. While I am trying to be gentle with myself about this, I also really do wish to reclaim those precious morning hours I so enjoy.

While I've currently got a pretty solid morning routine that has been built by many years of trial and error (it's become simpler over time - make coffee, go on a walk, write), I do think it needs a bit of a tweak during this time. My body has been hurting pretty badly during all this, between not being able to move as fully in my basement movement space as I would in a studio and the fact that it's floor below the thin carpet is concrete. I've long found, and now is no exception, that when my back hurts the way it has been, I should actually move and stretch MORE. It helps me loosen up the tightness in my muscles gained by the lack and restraint of movement I have been experiencing. Therein, I plan to make a little edit to my current morning routine as well.

C19 Wake-Up and Morning Routine Plan:

• Set (and respect) your alarm each day for between 6 and 7am, dependent on when you went to bed
• Retain your current morning routine of making coffee, going on a walk and writing before jumping into work for the day, but add in moving through some internalized yoga prompts in the kitchen while the coffee brews

News Consumption: 

Prior to this debacle, my daily news consumption routine included listening to NPR's "Up First" podcast each morning, catching the local WCCO radio news at the top of the hour when in the car at those times, and reading a couple headlines from the Wall Street Journal (app), for which we have a subscription. I've had to work to keep from listening to "Up First" immediately, instead trying to keep it to after I'd made my coffee, gone on a walk with it and done a little writing. This routine was working well for me in trying to keep informed by legitimate sources while not overdoing it in a way that would harm my mental health. Now, with so many scheduling restraints gone, I'm finding it hard to be as purposeful with how I take in news, so I'd like to revisit this topic and make some systems. 

My C19 News Consumption Plan:

• Morning:  I'm going to keep the "Up First"  podcast after my coffee, writing and walk part of my former daily system, as well as to add NPR's "Coronavirus Daily" podcast at that time. 
• Lunch: For some local coverage, I'll allow myself to listen to Radio.com's stream of WCCO or the MPR radio stream for a bit at lunch, as well as to read some MPR articles.
• Evening: I'll read some articles from the WSJ app BEFORE we sit down to watch a little TV before bed/ whichever "before bed" activity I/ we choose.

Social Media Use:

This is a tough one. I've oscillated between various systems for this. At one point, I'd removed the Facebook app from my phone (this was before I started using Instagram too), and liked that quite a bit! While I've got the app back on my phone now and am using both it and the Instagram app quite a bit to hold myself accountable to creating and to connect with my professional community, I still don't have the messenger app on my phone, as I prefer to keep that from becoming yet another way I can be reached quickly. 

While the Facebook and Instagram apps have both been very useful to me professionally, they ARE creeping back into the in-between-moments a lot more now, like they used to. I'm really hoping to keep those in-between moments more grounded in my physical location, in my body, in whatever I'ma actually in the middle of. Therein:

My C19 Social Media Use Plan:

• I think I'll actually tether my scrolling through for professional means and personal enjoyment to the same times I check the news, and I'll give myself 20 minutes total for each of the morning, lunch and evening slots. This will not include the time I use Facebook or Instagram Live to take dance classes. This plans amounts to an hour of news and social media each day, which in a way seems REALLY minimal and super-ambitious. I suppose I'll just have to be gentle with myself.
• When I feel the urge to look at the news or social media outside these times, I will either 1) read the book I'm in the middle of or 2) sew a mask.

Take-Out/ Food Delivery Use: 

Kris and I have never been big users of take-out or food delivery. That said, he is quite the aficionado of fast-casual eating for lunch, and we DO like to go out to dinner. I really love to cook and have been wanting to try new recipes I think we'd both like (now from the items we feel it important to keep on hand), so we haven't really needed to get take-out/ food delivery. It took until Day 16 of our quarantine (this past Saturday) to decide to go ahead and give it a try. What motivated us to go for it was the desire to have a "date night" - we even got dressed up!

We are planning to do more of this, but will likely use delivery, as the pick-up system at the place we tried take-out was employing much less than what it seems has emerged as best practices for this. While I love to cook and we are happy with the amount of money this is saving us while much of my upcoming work is uncertain, we DO also wish to support local businesses. That and "anything different is good" right now (thanks for the quote, Groundhog Day movie :)). 

My C19 Take-Out/ Food Delivery Plan:

• Keep a browser bookmark list of both favorite places and places we'd like to try (yeah, I know, old-school, but I really love the manual-ness of this, and use this system for organizing recipes and several other bits of information as well!)
• Order from a local business once a week
• Use delivery when it's an option, and take-out only as a second choice

Video Consumption for Entertainment:

I'm actually surprised at how little Kris and I have watched TV shows and movies across the various methods of access we have during this time. I'm talking cable (ugh), Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. I also have a YouTube habit, which I've managed to keep in check by focusing on mostly only watching the channels I'm subscribed to, which are few. Maybe we'll soon make good on actually cancelling our cable, which I've been trying to convince him to do for a long time. Now that Gopher Hockey is over, there's is only one more episode of Walking Dead this season AND we can get a lot of great local news other ways, I'm hoping this happens soon!

We've watched a bit of Frasier (he loves it and I'm watching it for the first time, which is why we even have Hulu), as well as about four movies and a couple episodes of Rachel Maddow in these first 18 days of our quarantine. I've also watched three other movies. All together not bad, considered we have expressed a desire to one another to limit the amount of entertainment time we spend on this, especially considering how much time we are now each spending in front of a computer for work. That said, I STILL feel my video consumption for entertainment could be more purposeful.

My C19 Plan for Video Consumption for Entertainment:

• Begin a section of bookmarks for movies and TV shows I'd like to see (which will include classic movie musicals, which I'd allow into the "work" designation!)
• Limit YouTube and TV watching to at most an hour of evening free time
• Limit movie watching to weekends, with a limit of three per weekend
• Select movies to watch first from existing "My Lists" on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video (until we cancel Hulu, that is! Then just Netflix and Amazon Prime Video) rather than scrolling through everything offered to find something

Bedtime Routine:

This is an area that I haven't actually ever had a very good system for. There are certainly elements that are usually the same: things like filling the water for the humidifier and turning it on, brushing my teeth and putting in my night guard (I've been grinding my teeth terrible while sleeping for a long time, and after years of trying to stave it off the 'natural way' - i.e. for me employing 'Active Rest' technique on the floor next to my bed before moving into it to go to sleep). That said, I think my bedtime routine could use better structure. 

My C19 Bedtime Routine Plan:

• Move toward the bedroom between 10:30 and 11:30pm
• Clear up clutter first
• Fill and turn on humidifier
• Change into pajamas
• Brush teeth, floss
• Set alarm for between 6 and 7am (depending on what time it is)
• 'Active Rest' technique on floor next to bed
• Bed

In summary, as structured according to what has become a typical weekday:

• Wake: To alarm between 6 and 7am
• Morning Routine: make coffee, yoga, walk, write
• Work Period
• Lunch: 20 minutes to take in news and social media while making and/ or eating. Approved sources: NPR, MPR, WCCO/ Facebook and Instagram
• Work Period
• Evenings: Are for leisure, almost always including a walk. Up to an hour of video entertainment is welcomed on weeknights. Approved sources: YouTube subscriptions, bookmark list and Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime lists
• Bedtime: Start between 10:30 and 11:30. Clear up clutter, fill and turn on humidifier, change into pajamas, brush and floss teeth, set alarm for between 6 and 7am, 'Active Rest' on floor, bed

From here, I've gotta set to work making those bookmark lists for food delivery and tv/ movies I'd like to see. I'm excited! I love lists! But they'll have to wait. Time to eat breakfast and do some work :)

C19: Loosening My Grip

What does it mean when you are an artist-human who thrives off groove, and you don't feel like it? So much of what propels me toward groove is sharing it with others. Even when focused internally while grooving, the energy of the others around is so felt. It feels heavy to admit to myself right now that I don't feel like it.

I don't feel like it because so much of what I love about it thrives off being in close physical proximity with other humans, a thing that just isn't possible right now. I thought I could be bringing myself some joy during a dark time by putting on some tunes and groove-improving around in my basement (movement space), but I haven't wanted to. I haven't wanted to improvise, really.

I think this is part of why I've been gravitating to practicing tap basics. It allows my body to feel groove without having to come up with it on my own, and without being reliant on others. There has been something comforting to me about the precision and repetition. I suppose there is an amount I've been seeking comfort. I hope it's more that and not that I wish to avoid really sinking into the moment and connecting with what I'm feeling, out of fear it feels far worse than I actually know.

Even writing what feels so negative to me when I pride myself on being a pretty positive person gives me a clue into what might be bubbling underneath. Perhaps I need to accept that I, like many, am just feeling the darkness right now. No wonder my most inspired moments have been when I am alone, taking pictures of the bleakness of nature in my neighborhood. Alone. Behind a camera. Not usually where I find my inspiration.

Perhaps the issue here is that "usually" concept. From the get-go with this dark situation (which I've mostly been calling "challenging," as a strange grab at optimism), I've been motivated to retain any semblance of past routine and to build new ones. I think this has been a grasp at productivity and normalcy, both of which are good things as much as they are feasible. Maybe they are both just a bit less feasible right now than I previously thought.

Yesterday, I loosened my grip on those expectations by not writing up a schedule for my day, choosing to instead trust that I would do well with my time. And I did. Today, I will loosen by grip a couple ways too: I'm going to drip back toward my M/W/F and 'when I feel like it' professional social media posting schedule, and I'm going to throw away my star stickers. As for posting, I've been quietly pressuring myself to post at least one creative thing a a day on at least one of my social media accounts. I was doing this  because 1) it was helping me cope and 2) I hoped it would help others cope too. It's now starting to feel like pressure I'm putting on myself that I don't need, so I'm going to back off. Patterns can be tried and changed.

As for my start stickers . . . I have these gold, silver, red, green and blue star stickers that I think have been following me around since middle school. Somehow, despite years of generally minimalistic tendencies with items, these have stuck around. There have been several occasions in which I thought they'd be useful, and they were. For a bit. And then they'd fade into the background and disappear for a bit.

Yet they'd continue to unearth. They've unearthed during this time as a method of tracking. Initially, I thought I'd like to make little videos to post on social media, handing out one a day to someone I'm connected with in those spaces who shared something creative or positive that day. The idea sounded kind of fun at it's inception in my mind ("Gold star!"), but didn't take off. I've been hesitant to be gratuitous in live-streaming myself (as discussed in my previous post).

Then, I decided to take the stickers and keep them more personal, putting one next to each C19 day in my journal. This was fun at first, and up to today (Day 12 for us, according to my journal). That said, there has been a nagging in my brain that something about this felt wrong. I realized on my walk this morning that I've still got a lot of stickers left. There is something kind go hopeless to me about thinking I've finally found a way to use all of them . . . marking all the fucking days we have and will be physical distancing during/ in this CRISIS. Fuck. There it is. Crisis. Haven't used that word. "Challenging time," she says. UGH.

I have accepted that peaks and valleys, in all parts of life including this one, are real and need to be respected (or at least not made a source of guilt). Acceptance DOES make it/ things easier, but doesn't solve them. And that's ok. Sit with it/ things. Sit with the feeling, even though you seem to be doing just as much work as you would on another day (albeit different work than you've been planning on from day to day), that you often just don't feel as accomplished. That's information for you: often accomplishment, to you, seems to require shared experience. That's ok. Sit with it/ things.

Farewell, star stickers. I'm loosening my grip.

C19: Adaptability

I got creative making my basement into a live video-teaching/ recording studio of sorts this morning. It was fun: it reminded me of when I'd frequently rearrange my room in middle and early high school. It also got me closer to being comfortable with teaching via live and recorded video from my home.

I've been surprisingly hesitant about this. I find this strange, because 1) I've been teaching via video technology for the Cowles Center for five years, and 2) I'm not a private person. At all. I'm a pretty open book, actually. I'm realizing that what gives me pause is not so much teaching live from my house, but recording something permanent. I think I'm worried about the final products being good enough. Ok fine, I'm worried about them being perfect.

I recognize this is totally ridiculous. Sometimes, that's how feelings are. I'm glad I have a little time to work on rerouting my mind on this. It's helped to create the space and accept that the lighting will only be so good. It's also helped to realize that I don't need to "reinvent the wheel," as is said. In fact, I'm coming to believe that my "greatest hits" of sorts, the ideas and exercises I always come back to when teaching residencies, will actually be my BEST material for the short, recorded lessons I'll be making for the Cowles.

All of these thoughts lead me to this: processing why I haven't jumped on the "teaching live from home" bandwagon to begin with. I've been a little surprised, because I've always thought of myself as someone who enjoys trying new things and isn't shy about putting myself in front of others. I still think those things are true, they just crossed my mind in my attempts to understand why I haven't yet given the livestream thing a try.

Again, I think it comes back to desire for control over the "final product." I think, as an artist, I've developed an amount of respect for what I choose to put out and share with the world, as opposed to what I choose to keep close to the chest. There are so many little things I create that never make it past my journal, this minimum-impact blog, my camera roll. Not all creations are meant to be shared widely: many of them come into fruition simply to stoke the creative fires, and that's a good enough reason for their fleeting existence.

"Live teaching," in person and in a classroom, has come to feel like that: fleeting moments of connectivity, physicality, in the moment-ness. Livestreams can and do get recorded. For example, it looks like anyone can record an Instagram livestream. and I'm realizing I find that intimidating. I found myself wanting to type just now that "my feelings about this really have nothing to do with privacy," but I'm not sure that's true. Is it a form of privacy to want to have as much control as you can over where your creative output goes and gets used?

I also realize that anything I put out there as 'Public' on YouTube and Vimeo can get downloaded, and really, used however anyone would decide. I'm choosy about what I upload and share publicly, though mostly because I don't want to 'give away all my creativity for free.' Just enough to be a good citizen and to drum up interest (yes, sometimes PAID interest) for my work. While I have put a teeny modicum of thought into where what I put out there goes and how it might be used, it's been exactly that: a teeny modicum.

I suppose this is a juncture at which I can actually be grateful for the relative locality of my impact: given this, it's unlikely many folks are downloading my professional/ dance videos at all, much less using them for nefarious purposes (nefarious . . . fun for that word to feel like the most fitting choice :)).

I think I'm glad that it seems GoToMeeting and Zoom meetings can only be recorded by the host. That said, they have sharing features. Writing about this has helped me realize that I'd like to ask what plans are for recording/ redistributing: I want to know so I can either object or get my head around potential future uses of the material. My Cowles contract notes that they retain the rights to use photos and videos obtained in any way they choose, so I suppose this also applies to these situations. I may just have to work on becoming comfortable with the idea that sessions in less-than-optimal conditions may be shared wider than their original intended audience.

The other reasons I haven't yet jumped into the "sharing yourself teaching via livestream" trend include 1) desire to leave space for folks who need the income more than me, 2) I'm a little overwhelmed by all the offerings that have popped up and don't necessarily wish to add to it, and 3) I've needed some damn space/ to take a pause or two or ten. Beyond not really being a very private person, I've also generally considered myself one to jump right in. That said, in the last at least five years, I've been working pretty intentionally to be more conscious and attune to the moment. I feel like this work has caused me to perhaps take pause more often. To spend a bit more time considering before trying. This is not to say that I no longer consider myself someone who likes to try new things, but it is to say that I'm perhaps thinking more before I speak/ do.

I'm glad that I've given myself some pause and only explored what has felt immediately right to me, both in terms of coping and sharing. It's felt right to write. It's felt right some times to share (i.e. here), and other times to keep it to myself. It's felt right to take advantage of the resources I have in my own home that I've been desiring to use (tap board, Terpsichore's deck, free weights). It's felt right to share those efforts sometimes, both as a method of accountability and potentially creating some positivity both for and beyond myself.

It hadn't felt immediately right for me to livestream myself teaching. I'm glad I have the opportunity to dip my toes in this water quietly and through organizations for which I've already been working. Feels right to me.

As is said, this situation is ever-evolving. I will try, conscientiously and in all things - including teaching work - to keep adapting to it.

C19: Physical Distancing

Kris came across a social media post yesterday that suggested we shouldn't call it "Social Distancing," but rather, "Physical Distancing." I like this.

Photo I took yesterday of the "friend" I found on my walk :)

I like this because I find I've reconnected via video chat with several people in the last week or so that I haven't seen in months, some in YEARS. Do I think video chat can completely replace physical, in-person meetings? Certainly not. I am a dancer after all, and place a LOT of value in in-person, embodied experiences. That said, I have to say that I am quite grateful right now for the level of connection that communication technology currently allows us.

I've been thinking about how people's experiences during the 1918 "Spanish Influenza" pandemic must have been UNIMAGINABLY different from what my own experience of this Covid-19 pandemic has been. Admittedly, I haven't thought TOO hard about HOW much different and in what was, as I feel it might depress me more than I have room for in my soul right now while not accomplishing much.

That said, I have found it interesting to lightly consider, as a measure of gratitude and of gaining knowledge. If I think TOO hard about it, the water-works will begin again, and I've managed to only cry twice in the last week. I'm trying to strike a balance between feeling my feelings and managing my feelings. I'm trying to be in the here and now in a balanced way.

One of the ways I'm keeping in the here and now is re-engaging with friends in the ways technology allows. Ones I see a lot. Ones I see a bit. Ones I never see.

Physical distancing, not social.

C19: Plans

Today didn't go as planned.

Hell, tomorrow probably won't either.

I'm a person who likes plans. I'd planned to read the book I posted a picture of yesterday. I planned to read in general. I've read the physical newspaper, but haven't cracked an actual book yet. Ugh. I'd planned to devise a system for 'handing out star stickers' via the inter webs (they've been kicking around with me from move to move for years!), but that didn't happen either. I'd even made myself a little cubby in the living room filled with everything I was going to do.

I suppose this pandemic wasn't in my plans. It's almost like I'm not in charge of everything . . .

Yet, I feel this spark here at the end of the day. Day 2 ( . . .  and a half, really). I'm hanging up the towel for the day, but as I do it, I'm using the spark to set myself up for success tomorrow:

Cloud Appreciation Society "Cloud Selector" set next to my coffee mug to go along on my morning walk

Journal set in it's place for when I get back from that walk

Home gym set up in the basement, complete with tap board and tap shoes cuz I wanna get makin' some noise!

What I hope (at least!) to accomplish tomorrow :)

And with that, I head to sleep to hopefully catch better shut-eye than last night.

C19: Old as New

Old as new. Places. Songs.

This morning, I took a walk. I take a walk most mornings, but this morning did not feel like most mornings. The world is reeling as we work together to figure out how to beat a common, invisible enemy. What a weird and true way to think about it.

It's sinking in that this is indeed a once-in-one-hundred years (at least now) occurrence that we are living through. It has been beautiful to watch the "social solidarity" happening, as I've seen it put. Rather than wait for our country's government to clarify what we should really do, we've all just started doing it, even to our own personal detriments in many ways.

Despite this, I couldn't help but feel a sense of apocalypse when out on my walk this morning. The thought passed through my head that it's also easy to fetishize apocalypse. "What would we prepare?" "How would we fight?" "Who would survive?" Video games are made off lesser shit.

That said, I'm not immune. I love zombie shit. I love being organized, and being prepared for emergency has come to fall under that same propensity for me. Honestly, there are ways I have enjoyed having to plan for what we are all now grappling with. And when I say "we all," I think I can REALLY mean it. I recall learning, in college, how to be sure my statements don't overreach, and usually, when I find myself typing such a thing, I go back an edit to be sure I'm not doing this. That said, "what we are all now grappling with" seems to be a fair statement.

According to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center website, this thing is now in 146/ 195 countries. When I say "we," I mean humans. Assuming Earth is the only place humans are living regularly, this is pretty damn near "we all."

We are all grappling with this. We are all trying to stockpile supplies, assess our financial situations, make plans for physical and mental health during this time that we aren't sure how long will last.

One way I am coping is long-form writing like this. I have to admit that, while contagions of negativity, lame jokes and hysteria (as well as anti-hysteria, which I honestly find worse) seem to be sweeping social media, I often can't look away. I'm working on that. It's part of what's made me feel driving to produce writing of more than a sentence that I've simply regurgitated into slight different words from the last person who said/ posted it.

My plan after returning from my walk was to sit down and write. When I left for the walk, I knew I'd end up here on my public blog instead of in my private notebook. I'm feeling compelled to create and share things. I guess I'm usually feeling this way, and that's a thought that wandered through my noggin while strolling today. It was a comforting one. It made me feel like I really am an artist. Funny thought, that. One would think that getting to where all my work is dance-related would help me feel that way. And hey, it has. Doesn't mean I don't sometimes still feel like an adolescent maker.

Those self-doubts took a hit this morning on my walk when I COULDN'T STOP A) hearing the tunes on my Spring Playlist differently and B) taking photos. Our current state of affairs really just got me listening and seeing so differently. Each song I heard, from "We Are Trees" by the Big Wu to "You're Gonna Miss Me" by The 13th Floor Elevators became somehow related to Covid-19 concerns. Here's what the playlist shuffled me:

• "We Are Trees" by the Big Wu
• "You're Gonna Miss Me" by The 13th Floor Elevators
• "There, There" by Radiohead
• "Wonderwall" by Oasis
• "Jackson County" by the Big Wu
• "Cellphone's Dea" by Beck (which became a nugget of dance later :))
• "Resilient" by Rising Appalachia
• "Cut Right Through Me" by Hanson
• "Late Night" by ODESZA
• "Bloom" by Radiohead
• "Green Chimneys" by Thelonius Monk
• "Shame, Shame, Shame" by Lake Street Dive
• "Last of My Kind" by Jason Isbell

And isn't this what good music is supposed to do? Sing to you true regardless of the situation?

Each place in my neighborhood looked stark and apocalyptic.

But know what? It was kind of beautiful. I noticed myself REALLY LISTENING to songs I've heard many times, and hearing them in a new light. I found myself walking through areas near my home I've never tread upon, discovering little nooks I've never seen and rediscovering sights I see all the time through new angles of viewing.

It was an embodied reminder that we are surrounded by new ways to experience what feels old all the time. Sometimes it just takes having much in our lives postponed or cancelled to have the time to re/discover this.

I realize this might sound trite. I'm fully aware that I'm FAR from the first person to write about this. That said, my experience with these concepts was totally beautiful this morning, and I wanted to process and share. It got me breathing deeply. Smiling. Appreciating. I don't say this to suggest that I've magically bypassed all the anxiety and uncertainty this whole situation is making me feel. I fully intend to binge some news today. I think I know now that I'll just find it easier to rip myself away from it when the time I'm allowing for that is up. I'm reassured by the fact that I have re/discovery waiting for me.