Even though I had a nice and profitable gig up in Estacada, I think the highlight of the day was getting home around 6pm, putting on a pair of sweats and dragging myself down to the Ecstatic Dance Jam that happens on Tuesday evenings at the Vets Club. It was a really grueling day, a 2 and a half hour drive in the rain, 3 sessions with between 70 and 85 kids each, followed by an all school assembly. Then I had to pack it up, drive back through the rain, drink a Pepsi, as I was pretty tired, and finally pull into Eugene, achy and a little worn out.
But I made it over to the dancing and as soon as the music started, I kind of poured myself onto the floor and felt my aches and pains. My hips have been bothering me lately, lots of soreness for some reason, maybe working out too hard, over-stretching, not quite sure why. So I flopped around on the floor for awhile, working out some of the soreness and eventually starting to get back into my body. What a great and medicinal ninety minutes it turned out to be! Little by little the aches began to disappear and I had some fun dances with different people and some large group stuff as well. I just love to move to music; nothing compares to that feeling, and in this case, there was not a better thing I could have done to right myself after a very high output day.
This morning, before leaving, I was stretching out in the living room and kind of bumming out about the fact that they were giving me these really large groups to work with, which meant that I couldn't do my normal classroom workshop thing. I can make that work for up to maybe fifty kids, but these groups were larger so I had to rethink it. I had an inkling of feeling 'put upon' or taken advantage of, but I wouldn't let my mind go down that path. That's not exactly true, but I reminded myself of the Thailand meditation to 'let it come and let it go', in other words, experience the feeling, but don't hang on to it. This was a perfect scenario for that philosophy to address, and sure enough, once I framed it that way, everything got much easier and less tense. Rather than stress out about what I couldn't do and how they were asking too much, I simply let it go and then started thinking about what I could do.
And I've been wanting to expand my teaching ability into areas where I don't get the kids moving around so much, but keep them more still and use some other methods of connecting with them. I was more or less a musician in residence today, and I shared some songs, some stories, some thoughts I wanted them to understand, including 'let it come and let it go'. I taught that song to the older kids, and it wasn't totally successful, but so it goes. They loved me anyhow, and they especially loved the new love song that I shared. It's really kind of a modern country tune, so that's how I framed it. It was sweet to just hold forth for different groups of kids, and I'd say that the day went very well.
Now at 9:45, I'm exhausted, the house is a mess and I don't care. I don't have anything tomorrow until 10:30 am, so that will give me time to straighten up, do a load of dishes, empty my car, and refocus onto the next thing. I have a little kids gig and a seniors gig and a rehearsal with Rob's band in the evening, so it's another of those fun musical days.
And I feel pretty good about the way I managed to ask a woman out this evening. She's someone who goes to the ecstatic dance scene, and I've thought she was pretty cool for awhile now. We've been dancing together a little bit and I saw her outside in the hallway and I said, 'Can I ask you a two-part question?' She said, 'sure'. I said 'Are you single, and if so, would you like to do something with me?' And I followed that up with 'smooth, huh'? She said, 'Wow, that was pretty direct' And she followed it up with 'Yes, I'm single and uh, I don't know' I said, 'wow, pretty indirect'... and we both laughed. She gave me her number and I said, 'I'll wait a day to call so I don't seem too needy'. It's was all quite easy and fun, and we'll see what happens from here. Perhaps just the proverbial 'cup of tea'.
I guess what amuses me is the 'meta conversation' and by that I mean the comments like 'smooth, huh?' which are comments about the comments. I'm very comfortable in that mode, because it seems to me that we are interacting, but also having thoughts about the interaction as it's happening, and I like including those thoughts in the mix. I find it entertaining and disarming in some way. It's just another way to be honest and not so uptight about stuff. And I find that people who are comfortable with that kind of dialog are easy for me to be around... So at the moment, I feel a little buzz of amusement and excitement, just a little touch of the boy-girl stuff that I've been missing. And I feel a little proud of myself for coming up with an impromptu line that felt right. 'Can I ask you a two part question?' That's pretty good... :-)
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