Exciting. Scary. Overwhelming. Wonderful.

Hello dear friends!

I have an announcement to make, and some news to share: I hope upon reading it you will be understanding of my lapses in blogposts, or how rarely I've emailed you, or perhaps that long gap between phone calls.  As long as I can remember, I have been Busy.

Yes, with a capital B.  Working several jobs (even as a young teen, helping to keep the family business afloat) and studying dance and this and that and so on and so forth.  Coming to college hasn't been any different: I work somewhere between 2 and 4 jobs depending on the season, and take 8-11 classes at a time, and perform in shows and the shows I don't perform in, I work to gain tech experience.  Then there is my never ending parade of injuries (possibly made worse by my rampant business and utter disregard for my body's need of sleep).

And now. . . now I am in a position to see it all pay off.  Last week I went into a mandatory group advising session, where my advisor oversees all of her students as we select our course load for the upcoming semester.  I was excited to be heading in to select my classes for senior year - and my head was full of all the usual thoughts.  Where had the last three years gone?  Was I already about to be a senior?  How much would I have to work extra to start saving up for moving/loans/etc?  Would all the classes I wanted to take fit in my schedule?  What about the ones I had to take because they're required your senior year and you simply must do it?  And maybe most importantly would I finally have a semester without daily 8am classes?

As I started flipping through the course booklets and filling in my academic classes around my dance levels, I noticed how easy it was. . . how much time and room.  Filling in my theatre classes and the schedule started to look more crowded.  Thats when my advisor cheerfully asked if I still intended to graduate early?  As in, December?

Well ladies and gentlemen, that had never been my plan.  I've spent every course registration frantically jamming as many classes into my schedule as I possibly could so that I could graduate as my school's first double major in Dance and Theatre.  I didn't know - and neither did the faculty or the department heads - if it could be done at all, let alone in only four years.  And here I was in the middle of a group advising session with a little box in front of me to check off.  A single smudge of graphite across carbon paper would be enough - all it takes to confirm. Yes, it could be done.  Yes, I'd done it.  And a semester early, too.  Three college degrees in 3 1/2 years.  I'd have to take a massive number of credits, of course, and pay the credit overages.  And I'd need special clearance from the Dean of the Dance Department and the head of the Theatre Department and the President of Academic Affairs and probably Moses himself was going to have to come down and sign my damn transcript.  But it could be done.

And you know what?  I'm doing it.  I pressed the soft silvery tip of the pencil into the page with a hand I was surprised wasn't shaking.  I texted my mother and called Boyfriend and texted my big brother, and I honestly don't remember a word of what anyone said. What I do remember is walking out into the hallway and turning the corner, my huge messenger bag slung over my shoulder, a stunned smile painted over my lips, and almost smacking into my friend Jake.  I nearly burst into tears at that moment.

See, Jake is the first friend I made on this campus.  We met at 8am in our first college class, a miserably boring 100 level english class with a teacher we loathed (charming kids right?).  We're sort of an odd pair: ambitious, hardworking, good grades.  Make our advisor crazy because we take more classes than we're supposed to and bend the rules to suit academic visions only the two of us see.  We've done everything short of using an actual time turner to accomplish everything on our To Do Lists.  And this semester we had our final class together - another English class, with the same professor, in the same classroom.  The only difference this time is he was leaving early - graduating in December.  I was still going to be here . . . but not anymore.  I didn't even have to tell him what had happened.  He asked if I'd come from my Advising session and I nodded my head, willing my lead tongue to work, to not just stare like a mute - and then his face lit up in a grin and he opened his arms and I barreled head long into a bear hug that crushed my ribs and lifted my feet off the floor and finally pried a joyful laugh out of my stunned self.  We had done it.

We were leaving in December - heading into a world wider than my smalltown mind can conceive, more brilliant than I understand, harder, colder, crueler than I'll know what to do with.  But it's our world - the doers and the dreamers and the ones who push and stick just one toe over the edge to see if maybe there is something on the other side.

Getting Lucky

"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

Today was my first day off in ages and ages and ages.  As usual, it's been a busy semester full of classes, work (I got some extra hours this week!  Woo hoo!), and rehearsals which I love!  However it can sometimes be a little exhausting.  For example, here is my typical Monday:

7:00 am, I drag myself out of bed and into clean clothes, etc.  Grab my bags and books and stumble off to. . .

8:00 am Pedagogy class which goes until

9:30 am at which point I go to job #1 in Advising.  I file, make appointments, take messages, and otherwise hold down the front desk until

10:50 when my voice lesson starts.  Voice ends just in time for me to get to 

11:30 Modern 6

1:00 lunch with my roommate

1:30 twenty minutes at the gym before

1:50 Dramatic Literature, which is only an hour long so I get out by 2:50 giving me exactly enough time to go to

3:00 Physical Therapy for an hour and fifteen minutes, getting me out at 4:15 so by

4:40 I'm in Jazz 6 which ends at 6:10, which is convenient since

6:15 is when Hairspray rehearsal starts, which runs until 10:30

10:45 back in my room to start homework which takes me until 12:30ish to complete and call Boyfriend.

Then it's off to bed by 1ish, so I can get up, rinse, and repeat.  The classes change, the length of time at the gym changes (someday I get in almost an hour!) but thats about it.  It's a busy and fulfilling life, to be sure.  I love it.  Which is why today, on my first day off, I spent it making sure I could continue living almost the exact same way.  I edited my resume and started sending off copies of my headshot, (adjusted) resume, and contact information to local theaters/playhouses/summer stock companies.  I researched different performance venues and internships - all of which is work I should have done ages ago, but couldn't because of this stupid hip injury.  I didn't know when or if I'd be ok enough to rehearse/perform this summer.  If I'm lucky, though, I'll get some performances and some additional work to go along with my day job!

Cross you fingers, blogging world - I'm looking for my lucky break, so I'm trying to be prepared.  How do you spend your days off?

I'm Supposed To Be Doing Homework

I really am.  But I just can't settle into it this evening, and I really don't know why.  So many different thoughts are buzzing in my head.  So many different feelings are competing in my chest.  I can't direct my thoughts in a practical, steady way.  They're mercurial and slippery, changing from here to there far too smoothly to focus on the construction of Proscenium Theaters or the correct way to build a flat.

Too visceral to analyze my pirouettes.  Too quick moving to select an outfit for mock auditions.  Too . . . much.  And many.  And varied.  Swirling in my head and my heart, until it is as though just my face and chest are under water.  It is peaceful and oppressive under here, all at the same time.

I'm in the happiest, saddest place in the world right now.  Today marks the end of any illusions of comfort, of safety, as the last legal barrier between the old dark and the new life for my family slips away.  The barrier for myself - the no trespass order at my school - stays the same.  But what is the use of being safe if you have no confidence in the security of those you love?  It's also natural, I suppose, for my mind to wander off into territory I generally try to avoid, like the dark thicket just off the safe trail you usually walk.  This tints me with melancholy.

On the other hand, today was a serene fall day.  I went to a later Mass than I typically attend, with a group of friends.  There are no words in my limited vocabulary to describe the glow in my heart as I reached out my hands during the Our Father and found the warm, secure, tight grip of kind people on either side.  The way my soul sighed as our voices joined the rest of the congregations, giving strength to my wavering will.


There were so many times I thought I'd just drift away with the golden leaves today, carried in the ice cold riptide barraging my spirit.  Then a friend caught my eye from across the room, or brushed my hand with theirs.  A hand has fallen on my shoulder, and like a rock dropped in a pond, it has settled right down to the bottom of me.  And I realize I have a bottom.  I am solid, and physical, and real.  I can't drift away.  There are hands to hold and songs to sing, and I must follow this trail of warm human contact so I don't loose myself behind my own eyes.

I'm so very outside myself tonight; I feel like when I lift my eyes to the moon, I could drift off and touch it with the tips of my fingers.  Hold it in the palm of my hand.

I'm so deeply inside myself today, I fear when my roommate walks by me, she won't raise her eyes.  Because there is nothing there to see: I've swallowed myself up, into the rattling in my chest and the whispering behind my eyes.

I am melancholy and peaceful tonight, and I fear very little homework will be done.

60 MPH Winds

60 MPH winds.  That is what is screeching through my bedroom windows (my beautiful, picture windows, larger that my armspan.  That are set in the wall of my second story room, on this three-story-plus-finished-basement colonial house.).  Whipping the trees all around campus into a frenzy.  Pounding into the speaker of my phone, so Mum asks if I am standing outside in the rain as I walk back from rehearsal.  It was 50 MPH winds earlier, tugging whisps of my hair from my neat bun.  Blowing against my bag-o-books and making it strain against my shoulder.  Driving autumn-gilded leaves and menacing clouds across the sky.

It's beautiful.  And loud.  And it feels so perfect tonight.  Because this is exactly how my life has been lately. . . gale force winds.  Everything blowing everywhere, and pressurepressurepressure.  Tonight I had rehearsal at 7.  And rehearsal at 7.  Two different choreographers, two different pieces, styles, and rehearsal locations. . . then I had rehearsal at 8, for a third somebody.  And rehearsal at 9. . .

Exams, tests, quizzes, journal entries, homework, reading, notes, notes, NOTES.  choreography, new choreography, dance journal.  Gym. Trainers.  Creating blogs, giving tours, maintaing websites, attending club meetings, sending club-and-business emails.  office work.  memorizing lines.

A whirlwind life.  But I like whirlwinds.  I like the music they make.  I suppose tonight could be described as having "howling winds."  Howling seems negative and frightening, though.  Though it is loud and tumultuous it's also natural, carry-you-away music.  And  I find it so intriguing, what a windy day does to people. . . who hunches their shoulders and tucks their head and scuttles along.  Who marches purposefully, scarf fluttering behind them, rain boots briskly chewing up sidewalk.  The ballerina's bun pulled piece-by-piece apart, until strands of hair tumble loose around her face.  The couples where one person walks slightly ahead, his body shielding hers as she presses to her side, neither of them cognizant of their positioning.

So to I find a melodic feel to this hasty, crazy life.  Rehearsal-to-rehearsal, meals hastily grabbed in between.  Showering while reviewing history dates, stretching with a script in my lap, always having my cell phone, id/room key, a pencil, and a highlighter before starting the day.  A few quite minutes, stolen in a corner of the kitchen as my roommate sleeps floors above, a phone held close to my ear, a stillness finally letting my tight shoulder lower.

For now I will dance in the wind.