Ah, insomnia, we’re starting to become good friends, aren’t we?
I still can’t really believe it that I’ve been here in St. Louis a month already. So much of my mind is still in South Carolina, living on a couch in the Circus House…
I have started this blog post countless times over the past few weeks, but somehow I haven’t been able to write down what I’ve been experiencing in any sort of meaningful way. Let’s just start at the beginning:
A lot has changed. My couch surfing has landed me in the abode of Ms. Lola van Ella while I attempt to figure out life here in St. Louis. I’m working at a diner in town. I’ve begun teaching classes at the Dance Co-Op on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 PM (my website will soon be updated with all the pertinent information). I got to take an incredibly rejuvenating Level I workshop with Suhaila Salimpour, one of my biggest dance influences and mentors. I got to work with a gifted local photographer, Tim Barker. I’ve had a breast make a surprise guest appearance at a gig, and performed at another (difficult) gig that taught me a hard lesson about making sure the places that book me understand what exactly it is I do.
But all of my experiences, positive and negative, just seem to keep circling back around to the same questions:
Who do I want to be, and what do I want?
It’s quite a jolting question when you start to realize that the universe is offering you a rare chance to redefine several important factors in how your day-to-day life is structured. All of the sudden, I need to think about what part of the city I want to live in. I need to figure out how I will make my income. I need to figure out what to fill the hours of my days with in an unfamiliar city with few friends. I need to figure out what direction to take my dancing with — what image to market, what material to teach.
I’m not trying to whine — it’s definitely an exciting prospect. I’m truly looking forward to living on my own for the first time EVER, and I’m glad to be in a new city. But I’m starting to realize that I am procrastinating (are you surprised?) really identifying what I want out of a city, dance… and life in general.
All my life I have wrestled with unrealistic expectations. When I was in Columbia, I dreamed of getting the hell out, getting to a new city, and starting a new life for myself. Now that I’m here, I realize that I was an idiot for thinking I would come to a new city and things would be different without a clear idea of what I wanted my life to be like. You have to know what you want before you can devise a plan to pursue it.
I think a lot of my indecision centers around jobs. I have been dreading getting a full-time job because I’m not ready to give up my focus on dance. I worry that a full-time job will prevent me from touring with the Happy and Humpy Traveling Medicine show. I worry it will hurt my dance education. When I think about the highlights on 2010 so far, all have centered around me traveling to study with some of the best instructors I’ve ever worked with. I really don’t want to give that up for a desk job. But I also want to be able to support myself, particularly now that I’m on my own.
And unfortunately this all-too-familiar indecision has begun to push my life back in a direction I don’t want to go in. I’ve become indecisive about everything, from what I should eat to what I should teach in class. When I start to think about a way to be financially stable while pursuing dancing the way I want to (traveling, taking lots of classes, starting on bigger projects here), the indecision and procrastination pull on either side of me to prevent me from committing to anything. The fear of “not getting it right” has begun to dominate my life.
I think we’re all familiar with how crappy day-to-day life feels when fear is your primary motivator. I truly believe what Amy Sigil says, that “Fate favors the risky.” With dance, I have taken a lot of risks — some which have panned out, others that were epic flops; all were totally worth it– but in my life off-stage it’s proven to be more difficult. I incredibly frustrated that my fears of failure have jolted me into this long, unsettled period, especially since this was the type of path I was hoping to avoid by leaving Columbia.
All of this stupid angst and fear has had a definite impact on my dancing. I feel unmotivated to dance at all, and when I do, it is flat and emotionless.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I had a really hard time writing this post. Part of me feels like a failure that I do not have these life questions figured out. Part of me reads this post and thinks, “No one wants to hear you whine.” Part of me thinks that it’s important that I’m honest when I blog and post about my experiences, positive and negative. Part of me is ashamed to admit that I have struggled so much with feeling unmotivated.
But writing has always served as a way for me to articulate everything that has been floating around in my brain and begin to make sense of it. I have noticed that many times once I get to this point of blogging, I often come out the other side with a better sense of what I need to do and where I need to go from there.
So, I’m putting this out into the universe:
I am going to find an apartment, where I can live on my own, have a dance space, have my cat back. I am going to find job(s) that allow me the freedom to travel but allow me to support myself. I am going to take more dance classes and continue to teach. I am going to make a goddamn try at this whole “living in St. Louis” thing. No more bullshit, no more excuses. I will take a risk, and if it doesn’t work, I’ll try another.
Fate does favor the risky, as I’m told.
Starving Artistry 