Island Jumping

It's like you've been stranded on an island, and you finally get the balls to believe you might be able to string up a raft and set sail for the next prosperous island over. So finally, after spending a lot of time of mulling it over in your brain, you finally decide to trust your vision of grandeur. And in doing so, you begin to abandon your life as you know it, and before you know it, everything has changed and you are surfing in unfamiliar waters, and while you imagine yourself getting over to the next island over, you stop paddling long enough to realize that you're too far from the shore to turn back, and to keep going means to basically exhaust all your efforts: mentally, physically, and spiritually. And then the terror washes over you, and I know how you feel - we're probably thinking the same thought... "Oh Shit..."

This is where I am at. I have done the unthinkable: picked up my life and moved to pursue the dream. But as the novelty from the success of my big move wears off, I am now at the point where I can see clearly how much fucking work I have ahead of me. And yes, there are now many times a day when I think to myself, "what the fuck have I gotten myself into?"

To be a dancer requires an extreme knowledge of what the human body can do. This knowledge doesn't just include understanding the muscles, it is much more intimate than that. Your job as a dancer becomes understanding what your muscles can do. Dancers ask themselves, how high can I lift my leg and with what quality of movement? (One day I will explain what quality of movement means.) A dancer's job entails knowing when and with what force they'll need to soar through the air. What does it mean to have the strength to this. It's a series of endless questions that eludes most dancers all the time. Throw another person in there, like a partner, and it becomes utter chaos as the dancer's job becomes to not only "get" their body, but the other person's body as well. Yep, it's as hard as it sounds...

So that's where I'm at. But it's cool, helps me realize I'm human. Helps me tone down all the excitement of all that's happening, and center myself and focus. I do have a lot of work to do - but that's ok. My take on living is this: we all have to spend each day doing something - generally working our asses off. I think it wise to work not for your job, not just to pay the bills, or feed the kids, but to really make the work about setting up yourself to be happy (and hopefully, paying the bills and feeding the kiddos also makes you happy). I think that at the end of this, I will have done myself a great service. And no matter how much works it takes... isn't it worth it?