"And Found"

I absolutely love listening to Sarah Kay perform her poetry. This particular one, while being the shortest and perhaps not the best in her collection, hit me. It is a subject to which I especially relate.

"And Found"

"Don't sit there; you might knock over the pile of confidence I took all day to stack."

Parody and Dancing, though Unrelated

I thought it had been a metaphorical eon since my last post. Of course I was pleasantly surprised to see that it has been just over one month. Sort of.

Anyway, I was severely procrastinating writing a paper and ended up starting another song parody instead. I was hungry when inspiration hit, so naturally I wrote about food. It is to the tune of "Baby Got Back" (I had seen a day or so earlier another parody of lyrics to that song so the tune was already in my head) and I only got as far as most of the first verse. Here it is:

I eat cheap food and I cannot lie
you hungry people can't deny
when your payroll's low
and you got no dough
you will go to any fast food chain
no matter the name
whether it's "The King" or "Micky D's"
'cause I'm broke but I can't stop eating
as I order from my car's seating
I'm sorry, that I can't show you
a more expensive menu
I act like it doesn't phase me
when in reality it makes me so crazy!
You wanna eat nice?
Don't you know there ain't no dice?
So, feed me, feed me,
please, nothing that's too greasy
I feel 'em closin'
my arteries, exposin'
my self, health
just because I ain't got no wealth
I'm tired of drive thru lanes
and speakers that don't hear a thing


And that is all I have so far. Once I stopped procrastinating the inspiration for this parody flew away. Quite a few times I wish I could fly away. Even ballroom dancing is becoming something I would like to stop for a bit. Maybe not stop completely, but Kevin and I have been so intent on practicing, improving and going for "it's perfect or it's not." I first fell in love with this form of art through motion because it was a way of having fun and relieving stress. Now I want that feeling back. On the other hand, I want to keep improving. I think a mental break would be a good thing. Along that note, the ballroom club had a Halloween social last night. It was one of those gatherings where people dance with random other people, and it is all about fun, and if someone messes up you laugh about it. It was awesome. The other Kevin, who is an amazing dancer, helped me with some Rumba and Cha Cha and even took me around the floor in a Viennese Waltz.

Seen here is the awesomeness of Viennese Waltz.

Kevin says I should teach Kevin Viennese Waltz. I guess I caught on quickly enough because the basic steps are not difficult at all. But me, a newcomer, teach my newcomer partner? Plus, we won't be dancing Viennese in competition any time soon. Surely not at Ohio and we have plenty to work on for that competition. We are just starting to dance in contact, which I might add is a lot harder than these professionals make it look. We have our good moments (not great of course), and while improving every practice we are still largely playing bumper cars with our hips. In the meantime, I have not been taught correct frame for dancing in contact. We have a friend try to help us out with problems, but she does not want to teach me incorrectly because bad habits are hard to break. I should know. I don't try too much to invent the frame, but I take what she has told me and attempt to fuse that with what I have seen and if Kevin tells me it looks/feels better. Keeping the frame while in motion is a whole other monster. 

Just a few things I have to constantly think about while dancing:

1. The steps obviously. This includes the rhythm as well. Are all the steps on downbeats? Are some on the and count or a sixteenth count?
2. Where I am going next. Not in the way that the leader plans the actual next step and direction, but in the way that the follower must maintain the same direction and step size as the leader without absolutely knowing where they are going. And most of the time doing this backward. A great leader minimizes the possible confusion immensely.
3. Frame. This includes shoulders down and back, arms in correct place, head turned right direction, not leaning back and stretching up through back, keeping toned but not tight, and remaining in contact.
4. Maintaining correct leg action according to each dance. Is this a swing dance? On one level like the tango? Should legs be straight or bent? From where should the action generate?
5. Be exact in quick turns and gradual with rising action. This ties in greatly with the next point of
6. Keep center balance! Balance is constantly changing and while the legs move they should never move without bringing the center of balance with them. Moving this balance helps the dance flow and movement becomes more efficient.
7. Be athletic about the movements. Going through the motions might be enough for someone casually dancing or just learning the steps, but in order to compete there must be a level of athleticism that allows for all the above points to actually be achieved.

And this list doesn't include the other aspects of dancing at a competition!

Happy Halloween, all. Tomorrow I will be watching our school's program called "Dancing with the Deans" that I expect should be a lot of fun. Dancing Kevin has been partnered with two guys for two different dances. It goes without saying (saying it anyway), I am interested to see what kinds of choreography they put together.

'Til next time.

The Language of Love

This:

My New Profile Pic?

This Armored Lady Won The Longsword Competition At a World Invitational Tournament:

This is seriously a dream come true.

 

That's right. Women can develop skills and wear non-revealing clothing. Oh, and this picture is still sexier than all those hardly-clad "warrior princesses" featured in the media.

Your argument is invalid.

Powerful

Post by Loren Mallory.

My Reply

Dear A-----,

You want us to open up the conversation so we can heal from this? After your last two messages revealed the truth, there is nothing more I need to know. I may have been more hurt from your silence in the past but I have learned to move on. I am healed now. If you need to heal then feel free to keep sending messages. Sending them for my sake is moot. Now we can go back to being Facebook friends (since that's all we really are) and carry on with our lives as usual.

You're right; we could have had four or more happy years. The thing is, on my long road to recovery and in this age of reinventing myself I no longer look at "could have" and "what if". They have no relevance in the present. There are two things you can do with the past: run from it or learn from it. You cannot relive it. We are different people now. The person I am forgives the person you were for ignoring who I was. Now what kind of friends are we going to be? I don't know who you are anymore. I still care about you, but in what capacity? I don't know. We have traveled in such opposite directions since being naive undergrads in Fulton. I have learned a lot about myself since 2009 and some of it is because you stopped talking to me. Perhaps, in a sense, I am a little thankful for your absence. I like who I am now and if you want to be friends that's just fine with me. I am strong enough at this point to not let the past get in the way.

- Kerry

Love you.

So while we are waiting for that fantasy post to magically pop out of nowhere (since I seem to be having trouble writing it) we will be entertained by other "filler" posts.

Except this post is no filler.

Here is a message we all need:

Love you.

Look For The Next Post

I got a request for a piece of fantasy fiction. Be on the lookout for a future post hopefully this week to contain this (no longer) surprise. Plays-In-The-Park has ended their two-week showing of Les Miserables. This feels like an ending to my half a year long obsession with this wonderful work of art. My love for it, though, is timeless.

Enough with this little filler before my next real post. Time to start planning the story.

A Painful Charm

"It is comforting for [Hugo] to imagine that something still remains of what he saw when he was in his own country, and that all is not vanished. While we come and go in our native land, we imagine that we are indifferent to these streets, that these windows, roofs, and doors mean nothing to us, that these walls are strangers to us, that these trees are like any other trees, that these houses we never enter are of no use to us, that the pavement where we walk is no more than stone blocks. Later, when we are no longer there, we find that those streets are very dear to us, that we miss the roofs, windows, and doors, that the walls are essential to us, that the trees are beloved, that every day we did enter those houses we never entered, and that we have left something of our affections, our life, and our heart on those paving stones. All those places that we no longer see, which perhaps we shall never see again, but whose image we have preserved, assume a painful charm, return to us with the sadness of a ghost, make the holy land visible to us, and are, so to speak, the true shape of France; and we love them and call them up such as they are, such as they were, and hold onto them, unwilling to change a thing, for one clings to the form of the fatherland as to the face of the mother."

- Victor Hugo; Les Misérables; "Book Five: A Dark Chase Requires a Silent Hound"; "I: Strategy's Zigzags"; pg. 447

I imagine we can all relate to this quote. It is "high school goggles," or reminiscing about the good times when all you really wanted to do at the time was get as far as away as possible. Okay, it is not a perfect metaphor. I remember living in New Jersey and thinking how I would love to live somewhere else. When I spent four years in Missouri I found myself defending the stereotypically factory-overrun state. Truly, one does not appreciate what is had until it is gone.

Hell in Symmetry

"As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but the slaughterhouses, the city wall, and there a factory façade, resembling a barracks or a monastery; everywhere hovels and heaps of trash, old walls as black as widows' clothes, and new walls as white as shrouds; everywhere, parallel rows of trees, buildings in rigid lines, low, flat structures, long, cold perspectives, and the dreary sameness of right angles. No variation in the terrain, not a caprice of architecture, not a wrinkle. Altogether, it was chilly, regular, and hideous. Nothing is so stifling as symmetry. Symmetry is boredom, the quintessence of mourning. Despair yawns. There is something more terrible than a hell of suffering -- a hell of boredom."

- Victor Hugo; Les Misérables; "Book Four: The Old Gorbeau House"; "I: Master Gorbeau"; pg. 432

"And, in truth, the mysterious impression worked on Cosette, in the deep woods at Chelles, by Jean Valjean's hand grasping her own in the darkness, was not an illusion but a reality. The coming of this man and his participation in this child's destiny had been the coming of God."

- Victor Hugo; Les Misérables; "Book Four: The Old Gorbeau House"; "III: Two Misfortunes Equal One Happiness"; pg. 437


So here we have God protecting a young girl in a hell of sorts. There is so much in this book that sheds light on the musical and provides much needed insight into the background and thoughts of the characters. There have been so many quotes I intended to post somewhere, so look forward to more of these! (She says to herself...)

Letter #2

Dear -----,

How have you been? I imagine you've been very busy. I have been thinking of sending you an email to catch up, though I know you will be even busier ignoring it. I would rather pretend I sent it and read an imaginary response than be disappointed in an empty inbox.

There is a YouTube account I watch regularly. It is one of the few accounts I actually enjoy enough to subscribe. Better yet, the videos cover a variety of topics. I must admit, I started watching all these videos because I saw you in them, and it was like you were talking to me. Mostly it was the hair, and of course the awesomeness emanating from the screen. I remember how I felt whenever you gave me attention. How I was ever worthy to take up space in that wonderful mind of yours I will never know.

I contemplate how we started and the many places where I let you down. I try to replay the situations differently. I say what I should have said and you act accordingly. And still you love me today. It is said hindsight is 20/20. No one ever talks about the emotional impact: how ecstatic you feel that you just happened to pick the right choices, how grateful you are when a few seconds of time save you from a horrible car wreck, how hard you fall when the knowledge of today cannot change the poor decisions of the past. The phrase "Monday morning Quarterback" is based on this principle. It is easy to say what should have been done in the football game the day after. No amount of "should haves" will ever make up for what wasn't. And so it is with me, calling plays long after the game has ended. I am that Quarterback looking back to that one game, insisting to relive that moment instead of playing current games. What significance do these games hold after losing the Super Bowl?

What small victories these games are compared to losing the chance of holding the Lombardi Trophy! Why should I care about them when I will never wear that championship ring?

What point is there in other people when I have failed you?

All the Best,

K----

I Should Have Slept at 5pm

Every once in a while there erupts an overwhelming feeling of worthlessness, of loss, of uncertainty, and of wanting a quick solution. The solution? Punishment with endorphins. This has not happened for a long time but tonight it seemed like it would. It still may. I don't know.

Comparing songs that make you teary-eyed with my friend has inadvertently led to listening to the beginning of an old playlist. These songs are not good for me. Granted they don't have the same effect they once did, but I am seeing an increase in the same feelings. I have also found these deep bouts usually follow short periods of euphoria, as if I cannot allow myself to be happy. Perhaps, somewhere, I think I do not deserve to be.

Want a taste of how this feels? Here is a preview from the Broadway musical Next to Normal:

The song is "You Don't Know/I Am the One."

That is all for now.

Letter #1

Dear -----,

I thought of you again today. That isn't a strange concept; I think of you almost every day. I think of the past, how I purposely broke "us", how I wish words or actions could change your mind today. Give us a chance to be something real. But that wouldn't be possible anyway, not with such a distance between. You have your own life now with plenty of dates to keep you occupied. I am stuck here, alone, lonely, trying to become something more. Someone you will want. Someone you can love.

There is not a thing I do now without a thought of you.

Someday this degree I am striving for will earn me respect and allow a financially sound future. Someday you may realize what you want is and always will be me. You see, I am different now. I can allow myself to be happy. I can help you be happy, too. All these little steps I take toward being a little more extroverted and confident are for you.

For now I must deal with your silence. That deafening silence. How I manage to concentrate with such loud silence is beyond me. What strength allows me to keep holding on I can only call Hope. How scared am I to await the day when you will pass final judgment. Will you take me or leave me? I have Hope, yet I anticipate your answer. I know I will be crushed. And that will be the end of me.

Please don't write me off just yet.

Always,

K----

Rain

Rain. Most people (rounding up I would say everyone) dislike rain for some reason. Maybe it ruins their plans, or brings on their dreary mood, or some just don't like getting wet, gosh darn it! Post-Tropical Storm Andrea has hit Florida and is marching up the coast, throwing rainclouds up in the NYC area. I sit here with the sliding glass door open, listening to the rain pour on the woods out back. A thousand little tappings on the leaves falling to the bed of pine needles below. A conversation between weather and nature. It's beautiful. I fully realize today, by way of a spontaneous smile, my love of rain.

Being in the rain is such a complete sensation. All of one's senses employed, standing, singing or dancing in the rain is a reminder of one's aliveness. Ever forget your connection to the Earth? Stand in the rain. Be surrounded by nature with the weather reaching down, kissing you everywhere. Just be yourself and know the Earth treats you like any other; just be yourself and know you are accepted.

Today I stood in the rain. Today I felt alive.

"And rain will make the flowers grow." -Eponine, Les Miserables