Monday, April 27, 2020

C19: Swimming Pool/ Rain/ Zombies/ Frogs/ Rain

Last night (or was it the night before?), I had a dream (or more like a nightmare?) that I was in a swimming pool. Or maybe something more like a lazy river. Either way, I was peacefully floating until I noticed how many other people there were in the water with me. When I noticed that, I started freaking out inside and flailing outside, trying not to fall into the water where the virus might be floating around too.

No matter that my feet, bottom and hands had all been lazily dripping in and out of the water for however long I'd been in it, and that'd surely since touched my face: the idea of my head plunging into the water was unbearable. Needless to say, the flailing did not help, and I fell into the water anyway. That was the end of the dream. It seems flailing wasn't the right response. But how did I get there in the first place?

I've been having a lot of bad dreams, or perhaps nightmares, lately. I'd say every two to three nights or so, I have a night of sleep from which I do NOT wake up recalling a bad dream. Apparently I am not alone in this. I heard a sleep expert speak on one of the daily news podcasts I listen to, and she noted that research has been showing quite the uptick in nightmares.

Some of this may have to do with the poor habit I've tried not to develop, but have anyway, of reading a little news before I go to bed. I've been trying to contain my news intake to certain sources and certain times, but sometimes I'm just not successful with that. Perhaps some of what I read before going to sleep seeps into my subconscious and manifests in fucking weird shit in my head.

I suppose the pool example wouldn't so much qualify to me as "fucking weird," maybe just disturbing. There HAS been some "fucking weird shit," but I honestly cannot remember what it was. I think I've maybe blocked a lot of it out. I know a couple days ago I had one surrounding prom, from which I woke up and asked Kris to prom. He said yes.

Maybe it's just felt like I sense of control for me to try and interpret my dreams. I've been looking for metaphors everywhere these days, sometimes consciously. Yesterday, Kris and I went for our daily evening walk and got caught in a downpour. We'd been walking for maybe 45 minutes when it hit, quick and increasing in intensity, until it began to ramp down and then all-together disappeared. The rain lasted for about 20 minutes, and by the end of it, we had about another 15 minutes to walk to get to our house. That trajectory sure felt like the pacing of a novel: development and ramp-up for the first two-thirds or so, climax of conflict, the ramp down and conclusion.

When we were caught in the rain, I turned to Kris and said "Maybe this is a metaphor." It wasn't Pina Coladas and then getting caught in the rain, it was a downpour we didn't see coming (we meaning him and I, our federal government excluded), a rainstorm we had to weather in order for things to balance out on the other side. It feels worth mentioning that while continuing our walk to our story's conclusion - home - it took awhile to dry off.



Here's some weird shit: Zombies. I love zombie movies. I hate blood and guts and horror in general, but for some reason can suspend that for zombies. I love all the metaphor possibilities embedded within a zombie storyline. This morning, while out for my walk to start the day, I didn't see another person or a moving car for maybe 15 minutes, a highly unusual thing for my neighborhood at 7:30am on a Monday morning. There is usually a plethora of folks walking their dogs, kids waiting for the bus, cars driving by on their way to work. When I realized I hadn't seen another person yet, I was right in the middle of a usually busy street.

I stared up into the sky, and then up and down at the parked cars, starting to think that maybe there had been a warning to stay inside completely. Thinking maybe there had been a warning issued that neighborhoods were going to be sprayed, from helicopters, with some sort of agent that would knock out the virus on all surfaces outside.

What if I got caught in it? What if being caught in it meant turning into a zombie of some kind? What if people had already been caught in it, and the next person I encounter tries to eat my face?! Typing that last sentence made me laugh out loud, and the couple previous sentences kinda made me want to try my hand at writing some fiction . . . then I got my wits about me :)

As "fucking weird" as that little tangent might have sounded (or maybe it didn't - zombies are super pop-culture these days, and I admit I wasn't really exposed to the genre until relatively recently), there are things to be said - metaphors to be imagined - for the fact that my quiet street elicited thoughts of zombies for me this morning.

Another anecdote from a walk: yesterday, about 30 minutes into ours, Kris and I came through a wooded, swampy section of Roseville that was absolutely croaking with frogs. There must have been hundreds of them. It harked me back to falling asleep in my room at my parents house. I found the sound of frogs lulling me to sleep so comforting, and still do. I miss it. It was an utter joy to walk through that section of swampy woods, hearing so many frogs singing out. It made me want to pick up our house and drop it right there, just so I could fall asleep to the sound of frogs again regularly.

I'm not quite sure how frogs tie into this "dream-metaphor" post. Perhaps it's a bit of an opposite to the scenarios that have been scaring me in my sleep: it was a waking moment that felt dreamily happy. A reminder of sleep that was completely comfortable, that felt totally safe. Perhaps it was a reminder of how much I'm craving that right now, knowing that I'm likely to wake up feeling a little scared.

This morning, I woke to the sound of rain coming down the drains on the sides of our house. My house. I have started to develop a sense of comfort and security in that sound too. A sense of happy familiarity. I couldn't remember if I'd had any bad dreams, and I didn't try to hard to do so. Hearing the rain made me want to get up and get out, letting the rain drop down onto me and wash away anything that might not need to cling onto to my skin.



That's a metaphor.

Sunday, April 19, 2020

C19: The Conditions Have to Be Right

I think a big part of why I like kites so much is because there is a lot that can be learned from using them. From the get-go, the conditions have to be right. I can't keep track of the amount of times I've left the house with my kite in my hand, thinking I'll be able to go fly it successfully because I FEEL like it, only to trudge back home with no flight because there's no wind.



I used to think that I should start keeping my eye on the weather, so I could plan to go take advantage of the weather when it was right for kite-flying. Sometimes, best laid plans don't pan out. This is true with the weather, and really, everything else.

Sometimes, flexing to the direction of the wind is the best thing that can be done. But that is easier said than done. As a person who tends toward planning, it's taken me a long time to even recognize that being able to 'flex to the wind,' as it were, is a valuable skill. Yes, skill. Something that has to be practiced to put into practice.

This all comes back around to my centering spiritual belief in cultivating a lively sense of consciousness, and putting it into action in every day life. Sometimes lively consciousness calls for planning. Other times, it calls for flexing to the wind, taking cues from and responding to the surrounding environment. A kite can take a nose-dive if it is not consciously being paying attention - and sometimes even if it is!

Try as we may, it's not possible to change the direction of the wind, or how hard it gusts. What we can do is change how we respond to it.

I think it worth calling in again that if there is no wind, there is no kite flying. Sometimes, if an element at the very DNA of a practice is missing, that practice is not possible. In the same way, if there is no gathering together in person, there is no live performance. Some would argue this and say that "digital live" is live too, and to a certain extent, I agree. That said, it still requires a qualifier - live online, live streaming, live tv. LIVE, at it's heart, means in the flesh, in person.

Sarah and I got talking last night about how the energy toward adaptation and innovation of theater and dance performance and education has been both amazing and quite concerning. My feeling of the later is fueled by worry that too many people will come to think how performance artists have adapted is a good enough permanent way forward or even replacement for being together, in person to witness people dancing, acting, playing music.

Note I specify witnessing. People who dance or act or play music together in person, be it for recreation or as a profession, know on a cellular level that live tv, live streaming, live online will NEVER deliver the magic of witnessing and practicing together, in the flesh, in person. Sweating on the same floor. Making eye contact. Brushing skin. Picking one another up and rolling on one another. Giving hugs when things conclude. Even just thinking of these things makes the hair on my arms stand on end and my heart race and my mouth water a bit.

The conditions have to be right.

I am here for adaptation. I am here for innovation. I am also here for limitation when it feels important. I'm here for being willing to stand up and say, in the face of an innovation that just won't do my art form the justice of being able to deliver the live magic it does, that "my craft just isn't at it's best that way."

I want to pledge to myself, during this time and beyond, that I will be honest about this with myself and with others. I know it's going to take practice to build my muscle for this, and it's practice that feels worth pursuing.

I also wish to pledge to myself to assess the wind when I head out the door for my (better than having a porch to drink my coffee on anyway!) morning walks during this time that is becoming even more flexible for me. If the conditions are right, I'm gonna grab my kite and let it fly.

Friday, April 17, 2020

C19: See It To Believe It

Got thinking this morning about the idea that "you have to see it to believe it." Shortly thereafter, my mind wandered to the opposite: belief in things we cannot see. I got there via two - now related via Covid-19 - topics: medical care and meat "processing."



I try pretty hard to not be a militant (mostly) vegetarian-vegan. There's no way you can be when you occasionally eat meat for a special occasion or because there's really not much else and you didn't plan well that day, and eggs and cheese rotate into your diet here and there. That said, I do care quite a bit about keeping my consumption of animal products, particularly meat, super-low - I'd say I eat meat once every month or two - amidst concerns about my own health, the health of the environment and the health/ treatment of animals.

It's that last point that got me going today, and connecting my thoughts in this arena to what's presently happening at hospitals. What I'm getting at is that it's pretty easy for humans to not have to face what they do not have to see. I recognize that I am far from the first person to think such a thing, it just seems particularly pertinent consideration to me at the moment. While I do keep up on the news day to day in a way that allows me to continue feeling healthy mentally, it's not often that through that, I am asked to really grapple with what's really happening in hospitals.

When I do have to grapple with that, it makes things real in a way that nothing else can. From radio segments with EMTs in New Jersey (NPR's "Up First" program this morning) to vlogs by health care workers (the likes of which I saw last week on the New York Times website and this week on the Rachel Maddow show), seeing what's happening in hospitals makes this thing real in a different way.

While I definitely believe this kind of journalism should be used in responsible doses, as too much of it can cause unnecessary fear that would be counterproductive, I do think offering an amount of it is the responsible thing to do. How can we grapple with something we KNOW is happening but can never see? While I consider myself an atheist when it comes to religious beliefs (while having strong spiritual beliefs with the principle of 'consciousness' as my guide), I CAN understand why belief in something/ someone that cannot be seen is a central tenant to the faiths of many. That said, there is a difference between our present pandemic situation and faith practices.

With faith practices, it is not expected that one would be able to see their theistic figure. With our present pandemic, it is known that acute care is happening all over the world, most of us just cannot see it unless media outlets can and choose to share it with us. I'll come back to the idea that I really do think a responsible amount of "seeing it to believe it" is important here for folks to really grapple with what's going on, from as small of decision-making as how often to go get groceries to as big of decision-making as when to begin holding baseball games again. My own performance work falls somewhere in the middle there, as my decision-making has to do with the gathering of large groups of people.

Back to the topic at hand: seeing it to believe it. How exactly do I link the pandemic with meat production and consumption? Well, the Smithfield meat processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota provided a pretty clear picture this week, one that I'll use to arrive to the crux of my thought process. In a state that STILL has no "stay at home" orders, this meat-packing plant went from detecting 80 cases of Covid-19 one day to over 500 the next. In making an allegory between the pandemic and meat processing plants, there's a concerning connection point in the topic of human welfare.

From hours to compensation to how tightly folks are packed in to do their grueling work, human welfare often seems a scant consideration in the way many of these plants seem to function. In fact, I don't believe it's a stretch to compare how these human workers are often treated to the way the animals they "process" are often treated in these scenarios. Beyond the "tightly packed humans" aspect, I've been thinking about how meat processing and the pandemic are related insofar as, to a certain extend, they have to be "seen to be believed."

We humans who live in countries with highly-developed economies are often spared having to really look at the core of both "meat processing" and acute health care. These things have developed to the point where they are cordoned into specific areas and handled by specific people. I am not saying any of this to suggest that I think we'd be better off if we reverted back to times in which both slaughtering of meat and emergency medical care had to be handled on an individual scale. I am suggesting that by not handling either of these on an individual scale any longer, we've become pretty disconnected from what their realities really look like.

In the case of acute health care and health care in general, the increase in safety and effectiveness due to professionals handling the field has certainly been incredible. I think I just mean to say that the rest of us who do not work in acute medical care could stand to benefit from having to look in on it here and there. Doing so helps us remember why we need to prioritize our health and safety in the first place. And right now, looking in at it here and there serves as a sobering reminder as to why we are continuing to stay at home.

As for "meat processing," also known as the mass slaughtering of animals kept in facilities meeting the bare minimum of what is considered "humane" for the majority of their short existence, there is a correlation here too. Again, we humans who live in countries with highly-developed economies are often spared having to really look at the core of "meat processing," much like how we often don't have to see the core of acute health care. By being spared from actually having to see increasingly massive amounts animals raised quickly just to be pulled apart for us to eat, we don't really have to grapple with what has to happen in order for us to enjoy that chicken breast on the plate.

These animal welfare issues, paired with the extremely detrimental health and environmental issues ignited by high levels of meat consumption are to me excellent reasons for anyone and everyone to keep the amount of meat they eat to a minimum. It's beneficial on an individual and societal scale. Nutritionally, there are many ways to take in protein and the other nutrients that can be gained from meat, so that isn't a great counter to my arguments.

There are also arguments about cultural reasons for eating meat that involve preservation of tradition. I think those arguments definitely hold some weight, and preservation of cultural traditions is important. That said, I'll return to the point that we have become quite divorced from the actual processing of the meat we eat. Most cultural traditions surrounding meat consumption began during times in which meat was not "produced" on an industrial scale like it is today. Meat used for such purposes often had to be hunted for and prepared by those who ate it, and therein it was consumed far less because of how much effort had to be put into actually procuring it.

I'm not suggesting that cultural traditions involving meat should not longer be practiced because the vast majority of us do not hunt and prepare the meat we consume for these purposes. I am suggesting that observation of such cultural traditions is often tied to holidays or particular times of the year meant to be special, significant, different from the everyday. By their nature, they are not daily custom. Nor should be eating meat.

It's about time I come full-circle on all this, so I'll return to the centering idea of "seeing to believe." Much like we need to see meat being processed on an industrial scale to believe the animal welfare aspect of how detrimental it can be to eat a lot of it, we also might need to see what's going on in hospitals right now to believe in the gravity of the pandemic situation we find ourselves in. In the right amounts, seeing to believe can be a powerful thing.

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

C19: High of 35 Today

And the weather's lookin' fine.



Really though, how strange that the highest the temperature could get today is 35 degrees. My age arrived there today too. The beginning of my 36th rotation around the sun. Actually doesn't seem like a lot, when put that way. Perhaps putting it into days would feel different . . . 12,775 . . . definitely seems like more. How do you quantify 'a lot'?

A different kind of 'a lot' is the amount of gratitude I feel today. The thanks I'm giving. Last year (yeah, it took me way too long, I think), it occurred to me that one's birthday really is about giving thanks for the time you've had on this earth so far. Even in a pandemic-induced quarantine and with snow on the ground (usually a rarity on my birthday, besides last year . . . and the year before, when there was a fucking blizzard!), I feel so fortunate for my lease on life.

Beyond the big things - a pretty sweet earth, beautiful family and friends, and a partner and work I'm really in love with - the small things are a HUGE part of what make up this feeling today, and always. For example, I love how my neighborhood always smells like hashbrowns in the morning. Even when I get as far away from Key's Cafe as Como Lake. Makes me wonder if it's really just Key's, or if one of my corner's of the universe is just kind enough to me to help me always feel at home.

This morning, the smell of hashbrowns in the air, I gazed out over the lake from the dock, my breath frosting into the air and drifting over the reflection of the sun. I felt so content, which sent me pondering the continuum between that and . . . not discontent. I think the other end of that spectrum, for me, is curiosity. I love the oscillation between contentment and curiosity, between feeling happy and comfortable within what is and feeling propelled to uncover something different, beyond.

I feel very grateful that I'm privileged enough and have worked hard enough to find methods that help me uncover my own differents and beyonds, in hopes that doing so will help me connect to other humans just trying to do the same in this life. I've got words. The things that begin to form in my mind while out on my morning walks, by the end of them nearly desperate to be poured onto a page (or screen, as it were). I love and turn to words when my brain is turning ideas inside-out.

Sometimes I worry my love for stringing together words to illuminate my mind's insides eclipses my love of movement. Clearly, I'm skilled at inventing things that don't actually need to be worried about! This morning, I got thinking a little more clearly about it. I think stringing together words is one of my brain's best mechanisms for sifting through all that's happening up there. Their immediacy, I believe, is actually what propels me toward movement.

It's so default for me to turn things around in my brain so much that it drives me into my body. I think I love dance SO MUCH because it's my escape from my brain. Don't get me wrong: I love my brain too. And I don't believe in that Cartesian split bullshit, like my body is just a vessel for carrying my brain around. But I DO think it's very easy for our human brains to take over the navigation of our whole being in steering us through our lives, and the rest of the body deserves some time in the driver's seat.

Those lungs, that draw in precious air, stingingly cold and sultrily humid. Those legs, that flex and extend to travel us through the beautiful spaces we traverse. That heart, pumping the life-blood that allows feeling into the rest of us. That nose, detecting olfactory delights (and less pleasant wiffs - they are a part of our experiences too). I could go on. I think I just mean to say that I feel so fortunate to have forged such a close relationship with the whole of my body, as it reaps such great benefits in a more complex and holistic experience of being a human on this complicated and beautiful world.

Within my words to movements continuum, I think words are the concrete to movements abstract. In this, I find great joy in realizing that this though process just solidifies what I already know innately - that I have little to no interest in trying to get my movements to really mean anything concrete. If I wanted to offer the world more concrete thoughts with my work, I probably would have tried to be a writer by profession. I've come to find that I think I serve the world better by offering movement to do and to view that inspires feeling. Presence in the body. Joy in the moment, connecting to self, music, others. That's my kind of abstract.

Wrapping up this post of gratitude, I'll say that I set out from my home this morning in hopes of flying my kite. While I'd say it's ironic that the last couple days have been windy and today still, I don't think it's irony. I think it was just another chance to shift my plan to respond to the moment, stoking my curiosity about contentment.

Alright sun. I'm runnin' around you again!

Monday, April 13, 2020

C19: Anxiety

I'm starting to think forward to the forest for the trees. The big picture (for the small picture?). Insert other analogies here for considering beyond the immediate.



Kris and I often talk about how he tends toward "forest" thinking and I toward "trees." That's neither here nor there, bad nor good, it just is. We've both been putting a lot of effort, over the past several years, into balancing that sense of small and big picture thinking within ourselves, and I'd like to think that I'm bettering my ability to simultaneously tend to both the details (micro) and the whole (macro - see, there's another analogy for ya). That said, in the context of this Covid-19 novel coronavirus pandemic, I'm beginning to realize that part of my decently balanced attitude has been owed to my "trees" thinking.

In the short term of this thing, I've been extraordinarily fortunate, both in the arts sector and in general, from some of my education work being able to shift online to much of it being paid even if it doesn't happen (thank you, reasonable education granters). Yes, all of my performance-related work is in an absolute holding pattern right now, but on the (immediate) whole, I'm pretty fortunate.

This has buoyed me, though I've been starting to realize that I need to interrogate this word in parentheses - immediate. A couple days ago, I started doing a little more "forest" thinking, which lead to my consideration that the work I have right now really might not be there in the Fall. Granters could go a different direction. Host organizations may have to shift programming or close all-together. Leads I had with potentially more stable institutions (in my case higher ed) may slip down the drain, as energies in these places may need to be completely put toward digging out and getting back on track, not bringing in guests.

Thinking beyond my work in education and into my work in performance, again, granters may be going in different directions for awhile. Performers might need to take other jobs to get financially stable again. Venues may close. It sure makes it hard to do things like "Apply to grants for Rhythmically Speaking" or "Research potential CHILL venues," as the list I made on Day 1 of our quarantine (32 days ago now) suggests I do to make my time 'productive.' Is false productivity even worth it? Another question I've made a lot of effort in the last 10-some years to consistently ask myself, as a measure of not "doing tasks just to do tasks."

Holding pattern. Before this on my walk, I found myself grabbing video of my feet walking. Shortly thereafter, after my mind got wandering a little better (along with my wandering body, that is), I got thinking about "holding patterns." This was not the first time since this all started that my mind wandered to such a place. It was just the first time it'd done so while I was out walking. The next video I took was of my feet marching in place.

This morning, I allowed my mind to entertain the idea that I might have to be open to work not related to dance after this. I might have to accept that the programming I've been building for Rhythmically Speaking might have to adapt. I might have to get my brain around building a new model for what my professional life looks like.

This is an upsetting thought. It makes me anxious. I have worked SO HARD to build my current model for my professional life. I feel fortunate right now that model does not include lease or ownership of a building.

I'm trying to sit with these feelings of anxiousness, worry. I know that disregarding them or burying them will not help anyone, least of all myself. I also know that fixating on them with not help anyone, least of all myself. There is a balance in there somewhere. I know I'll find it, I just feel fortunate to have not had to seek that balance yet. Up until the last couple days, I'd kept pretty optimistic.

Another aspect of this that causes me anxiety is considering the fragility of the systems that surround me. How fragile is a household that cannot handle an emergency that costs more than $400.00? How fragile is a business that cannot handle a dip in or cut off of business for a month or two? How fragile is the brain that melts down at the very thought of change in pattern?

I don't say any of this to suggest that the household or business or person at hand is at fault. At least not completely. I think our collective status quo (and I'm not sure how far 'our' extends here) has become a pretty fragile one. In finance. In physical health. In mental health. In the health of the environment that surrounds us and we impact. We've been coasting along in a status quo that clearly cannot sustain emergency.

Businesses are shuttering quickly. People of color are being disproportionately medically affected by this virus, not because they are physically more susceptible to it, but because of long-standing health disparities caused by long-standing income and access disparities. People's mental health statuses are quickly careening due to abrupt disconnect from a 'normalcy' that oftentimes was not supporting that aspect of their health to begin with.

The leaves on the shrubs outside my window that I'm peering at right now are shuddering from the cold and the wind. Inside, I'm shuddering a bit too. For different reasons.

And so I sit with the shudder. Not to punish myself, but to allow it to balance my initial reaction of optimism. To feel ALL the feelings, not just some. To allow the cultivation of some sort of equilibrium within this 'new normal.' Even saying that feels passé at this point. But it is what it is. Some things have to be deemed as such to be dealt with.

Equilibrium.

Thursday, April 9, 2020

C19: Is "Creation" a 'Manifestation' or a 'Value'?

It occurred to me the other day, and I've been wanting to write about it, that I may be placing "Creation" into the wrong 'place' for myself in my thought stream. I think for me, 'Creativity' IS a value in itself. I literally value creating things. So it could be said:

I | BELIEVE | in Consciously living out my | VALUES | of Vitality, Curiosity, Creativity, Kindness, Simplicity and Purpose, | MANIFESTING | them through my interactions with Nature, Movement and People via Dance, Music, Food, Style and Travel.

There's a sentence version of what I suppose is my personal mission.


Creativity as a value. Not a vague descriptor. A value :)