My new office is a sunroom. It is all light and air, looking out upon tree after tree although it is right behind the library and in walking distance to downtown. I really need this view right about now. I have been painting and cleaning and moving and painting and setting up my new life and painting. Did I mention I have been painting? Wait until I get the before & after pics up! This new apartment is the opposite of what I'm used to. I am accustomed to rental companies that insist on pristine white walls. They give you keys to a pristinely clean residence and expect that when you move out, you will return it to the condition in which they rented it, or else they start docking money off your deposit. This place...well, it is the opposite. The duty of cleaning falls upon the incoming resident, and I tell you--I have MUCH different standards of cleanliness than the previous occupants. BUT I have gotten to paint this place in the colors I want and when I move out, somebody else can repaint if they don't like it.

My office was inspired by Mediterranean seascapes. I went through a few AAA travel guides of Europe and found the colors...the deep blue of the sky on my slanted ceiling which houses my newest meditation collage, the terracotta of the rooftops for my shelves and trim (remixed myself because it came back more pumpkin--ack!) and the rich cream that so dominates the hillside homes. The wooden floor is that deep sea blue and the furniture is painted a lighter shade of the terracotta. Outside, the breeze wafts the leaves and it floats in on the windows, brushing past my legs. Also brushing past my legs is the tail of a certain feline who is my oldest friend.

The one breaking my heart right now because he is in stage 3 kidney failure. He's 16. Spider (who we call Bider for his constant love bites) is taking well to the IV and even put his beta-cat-buddy Dart in his place. (The pecking order of The Eternal Alpha is being challenged now that I have to help him up onto furniture and he would rather sleep than play) I've never had to do this before. He and his brother Loco-Bunny were my first pets. Bunny just didn't come home one day and I told myself that one of the neighbors he loved to visit finally took him in. I told myself that he was just as happy where he was than with me. This one...he is the most lovable, personable, laid back cat I have ever known. And he won't play fetch, he won't attack my hand while in the bathtub, he won't chase his tail. But he still purrs. Even when we poke him two times daily and cram a pill down his throat, he still purrs. (yes, sometimes while we poke him) And he is extra cuddly these days. I'm glad, because I know my time with him is limited, so I take advantage of the fact that he is biting my hand as I type this. I know it means he loves me.

There are other things breaking my heart. Other health problems in my family preventing much longed-for visits, the simple fact of going through a divorce, the fact that I'm so exhausted that I don't have the energy to dance. I'm sure that this post would be more well-suited to a blog post, but this tribe is about me and my art and well...this is the sort of stuff that will all come through in my next dances, that has been fueling and hindering my most recent ones.

I am the relentless, tenacious "The Show Must Go On" Girl. I have never had a problem putting my worries and woes aside when I get to a gig, dancing my heart out, and losing myself in the music and the moment. After all, the crap will all still be there when I come off the stage. But I finally encountered a block a few weeks ago. When I go to Janet's the week before the Durango show, I usually skid in with my hair on fire because it's the spring frenzy. I usually spend Monday and Tuesday twitching & drooling on the hammock for hours, absorbing as much of the canyon and garden and mesa as I can soak into my being, running katas on the deck and dancing with the hummin'birds, and rejuvenating. I also usually finish my choreographies those days, then practice the snot out of them on Wed., go for a shopping trip and massage sometime in there, and then chill on Thurs & Friday before dancing my heart out in what is almost always one of the best shows of my year.

That didn't happen this year. I flew by the hammock on Monday and didn't touch it again until Thurs. I didn't even dance until Friday. I finalized my choreographies on Thurs. but didn't have it in me to move. I spent the majority of Monday afternoon on the phone with Quest, setting up my new cyber and telephone life. I tried desperately for 3 days to catch up on the hundreds of emails in my inbox. I spent a great deal of time on the phone with my vet and the friends who were taking care of my cat and generously donating their time painting some more of my apartment to help alleviate the chaos of my life. Finally on Friday, I ran my katas on the deck, using Mesa Verde as my reference point. VERY needed, sturdy, unmoving rock for a homing beacon. I ran my dances too. Finally. Thankfully, this was my 5th annual time at this event and the people I worked with know me well enough to allow me to be human.

And isn't that what makes a dance inspiring? The human component, the place where we touch each other in familiar places or inspire each other to grow in who we are? I am grateful that all of the people who have brought me to their areas over the past year are so awesome. They've been an integral part of seeing me through to this point. Because this year has been...well, it has been one upheaval after another. Granted, some were amazing upheavals and some much-needed changes. But amazing upheavals are still massively stressful.

I will use it all as fodder. As Janet said, before handing me all of her cracked and broken pots to hurl off the deck and smash into the canyon rocks--"Use it!" And normally I do. I take all that emotion and channel it into whatever I am doing. I don't know why I had such a hard time doing that this time. I was just stuck. Immobilized. It is an anomaly to feel absolutely and completely stymied, especially when it comes to dancing. Because dance is my life's breath. It is how I express everything I feel. I ended up relying so heavily upon those around me, leaning so heavily on them and then sucking in everything that the audience gave me just so I would have something to give them back. And teaching...same thing. Without the love and encouragement and patience and hoorahs of all those people, I couldn't have pulled it off. Sure, I would have been up there executing moves to the music and delivering my theories in class because I'm a professional and my body can go on auto-pilot. But that's not ME. I give everything I have and this time, my tank was on empty. But I suppose it is the exchange between dancer and audience, between teacher and student that truly creates the special moment, not just what is being delivered. I needed everyone so badly. And my chant that I've clung to in this whole process of taking such leap out on my own came true: "My friends and family won't let me fall." And they haven't. Since my car wreck, I have been dependent upon someone else to provide me with a home, food, transportation, etc. And this experience has reminded me--I still am. Now it's just a much broader, worldly reliance.

Interdependence. My karate instructor uses this word so often. I just tested for my brown belt this morning. Coming out of green--The Dragon--this word is especially important. The Dragon, bigger than life with brilliant wings and scorching fire, swooping down from the mountaintop to astound and overwhelm, then returning to its mythical, lofty--and solitary--perch. The transition to brown--the Snake--marks the return to interdependence. To humility. And of course, the Serpent is an ages-old symbol of rebirth. My instructor and many of my fellow students have been tilting their heads and raising their eyebrows of late. My training has made a marked turn and everyone is noticing it. "You are so Viper!" they say. And isn't it fitting that I am? After all, I spend much of my time doing snake arms and undulating. I have a long, serpentine torso that makes me a wonderful candidate for being a belly dancer. And the Serpent is such a huge part of this dance form.

It is a huge part of my life. I constantly shed my skin and overhaul who I am. I dreamed of snakes while I was in Durango. At first, I was left to fend them off--great big black & chartreuse vipers with huge, poisonous fangs, snaking up my hair, about to kill me. But by the end of the process, they were mine to wield and control. They were there when I danced in the show and they were with me this morning during a different sort of dance. One of my students came to see me test and at the end, she said, "Ohhh, now I see where so much of your movement comes from!" And those in my martial world constantly remark upon the dancer in my katas. My dance and my martial arts are intertwined, just as both are intertwined with my life, my spirit. I am shedding my skin again...

I sit here in my new apartment with partially painted walls and unopened boxes and a leaky roof that has caused my ceiling to collapse in 3 different places, surrounded by grief and love and determination. And the show goes on. Life does...and as I am a performer, it is a very public experience at times. Everybody gets to see my journey laid naked and pulsing on the stage. It is there in every dance and in everything I write. It is there in every hack and slash I make on that dojo floor. And it makes me the person I am...the artist I am. Last time I was in Durango, one of the dancers in her early 20s asked me how she could learn to dance with such passion and inspiration. I grinned at her and answered, "Get your heart broken a few more times." She didn't really like that idea, and right now as I go through it, I don't like it much either. But I do love it and I wouldn't change it for the world.

The breeze is still wafting the trees. The cats are still curled up around me. This room with all its light and air, that I have painted so specifically to invoke my favorite place in the world, is my safe harbor in the midst of this most recent storm. And I only have one room left to paint: The Dance Room. Almost there. I am reminded of one of my favorite sayings from Mira Nair's movie Kama Sutra...

"Knowing love, I will allow all things to come and go.
To be as supple as the wind and take all that comes with great courage.
...Life is right in any case.
My heart is as open as the sky."

I think you can't truly, truly dance without laying your heart wide open...or truly, truly live, for that matter.