3 posts tagged “dance”
We've got two lives
One we're given and the other one we make
And the world won't stop & actions speak louder
Listen to your heart and your heart might say
Everything we got we got the hard way...
--Mary Chapin Carpenter
Staring at my computer, in an office in downtown DC today I had an "A-ha" moment. Its one I have had before, but then I conveniently forget. Its so easy to forget it.
Life is hard.
Once upon a time, when I was just a youngster I truly believed it when my father said "The difference between a hard life and an easy one is all about choices." I interpreted this to mean that if only I made the right choice I would be rewarded with a life of bliss, ease and good times. I interpreted the struggle I faced as a young person in the world as a result of bad life choices.
And there was some truth to that. I made a lot of bad choices over my years. But I have also made some good ones too. But many times over I have been amazed to learn that good choices or bad, life has been no less hard. Good choices led me down some pretty difficult paths but ultimately took me in a direction I wanted to go. Bad choices sometimes were exhilerating but took me away from my true north. Both of those paths were filled with hard work and difficulty.
Sometimes, I get very grouchy when I am stuck in a hard-work kind of place. I want it all to be so SIMPLE so very clear cut and easy. I want to breeze through life the way I breezed through elementary school, without a care in the world and three steps ahead, and someone to solve it all for me when it got to sticky. I just want to do the one thing that will make it all fall into place. I revert to my childish notions that good choices lead to easy-peasy paths to joy all around. And then, when I realize that there is nothing that you can do to assure an easy journey I get mopey and disappointed,
Lately, I have made lots of good choices and I have to say the path I have taken has been laced with much joy. There are these moments I have, when life seems perfect. I am surrounded by a community I love, my job is exciting and we are healthy and well and then--BAM it hits me. My amazing and beautiful loved ones are human, imperfect people, just like me, and we sometimes struggle to see eye-to-eye. Or I make a mistake that needs to be fixed and fixing it takes everything I have got and more. Or sometimes life just throws a curve ball. And it takes hard work to set it all right. Or doing something fun turns into a ton of really tedious work and I want to give up.
Its hard to be a single mom and do it all alone. But I know its also really really hard to make a healthy relationship work and to keep it fresh, open and moving in the right direction. Doing a job I hate can be really hard. But as I am learning, sometimes, doing a job I love can be miserably hard too.
And sometimes when I realize all this I feel cheated. I am pissed off that there is no way around the difficult. But then, sometimes with a bit of grace,I have one of these aha moments.
LIFE IS HARD. Trying to avoid (or believing I can avoid) the difficult is what leads me to disappointment and sorrow. Picking up and slogging through the hard work with optimism, eyes on the lovely scenery and a sense of humor can make it all so much more pleasant--and joyful-- and fun.
Dad was right in some way. Life IS all about choices. Following your true north, making choices that ring true in your heart can lead to joy. But I have found I can also choose to rob myself of joy by mucking around disappointed and grouchy that I have to work through some hard stuff.
So, whats a girl who just had an aha moment to do? Crank up Mary Chapin Carpenter, slip on some boots, and dance dance dance...
Caught up in our little lives, there's not a lot left over
I see what's missing in your eyes; you're searching for that field of clover
So show a little inspiration, show a little spark
Show the world a little light when you show it your heart
We've got two lives, one we're given and the other one we make
And the world won't stop, & actions speak louder
Listen to your heart, and your heart might say
Everything we got, we got the hard way...
Yesterday dear dear Dolores and her cute guitarist hubby Morgan sent me this picture from their party.
(Deep sigh)
I am still buzzing from the music. I have a bit to write tonight but wanted to post this separately.
Long live Rock and Roll!
Last night, my new friend Dolores and her family brought together their whole tribe for a celebration to kick off their new adventure. They are picking up and moving west to Colorado. I am saddened and feel a little robbed--I have only really known Dolores for months not years but from the minute I met her she was nothing but true--the kind of person who elicits a deep sigh and instant relaxation into yourself.
The party was beautiful. A huge funky art space, good home cooked food, a tremendous cast of fabulous people. But more importantly, set up at the end of the studio, a stage full of instruments and an open mic. All afternoon and into the wee hours of the morning talented people drifted up on stage to play in endless combinations--songs I haven't heard played live in what feels like a lifetime: Not Fade Away, the Weight, the Joker, standard after standard by Muddy Waters, CCR, the Beatles. And me, I was square in the middle of the dance floor, doing what feels at natural as breathing.
Twirling and grinding to music strummed on a guitar feels to me like being home. Growing up was punctuated with my mom's guitar, my brother and a gang of friends banging out "Momma's Got a Squeezebox" my father singing into a wooden spoon as for a mic. As a teenager at forbidden parties, we gathered around the kid with the guitar playing Simon and Garfunkel and the Dead and breathed in homemade music along with smoke and beer fumes. In college our liquor soaked nights at the seedy Irish pub were whipped up into a frenzy as the Lapdogz (my friends' cover band) played and I sang along at the top of my lungs from the floor and danced my heart out.
Homemade music has been the soundtrack to some of the happiest memories of my youth. Magical first kisses in a parking lot with the music drifting down from the porch above. Music soaked lazy spring afternoons in highschool and college those days when possibilities stretched out like an endless highway.
Back in that day, everyone was a rock star in waiting.
Last night, long after my son had been packed away with my friend Jackie's dear mother for an impromptu sleepover, there I was in my bright orange shoes, little white Christmas lights a twinkling, dancing from a deep memory of hope, joy and silliness and unadulterated bliss bubbling through my veins. Touching a place inside me long waiting to be reborn.
