Broken Cars, Fast Trains and Love

"The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved,

but a reality to be experienced."

Aart Van Der Leeuw

My accelerator cable snapped in stop and go traffic thursday night on my way to rehearsal. I think angels blew at my car to get it moving while I was sitting and contemplating how to push my car and get it to the side of the road. i was lucky to find some rare shoulder on the 405 just south of sunset blvd. Car trouble in Los Angeles rush hour in summer steamy heat. Wonderful!

I didn't get to dance rehearsal. It was 7pm and the tow guy didn't get to me til nearly 8pm to say that something about his truck wasn't right and that he needed to get another truck. We finally got my car to the car shop by 10pm... after he missed the exit and we had to take backstreets... after he had to stop the car to readjust my car, after he had to stop off the freeway to resecure his cables. To say the least, it was an unusually bumbling night...

I'm on a train heading back to Los Angeles right now after spending some time with mom in San Diego. It was nice to enjoy having my mom to myself... no brothers to share her with. We stayed home, made smoothies, made meals, sat in the garden. We talked a lot and I played for her. We had a beautiful time. I was present to fun, love, honesty, authenticity.

So mom and i talked of many things this weekend: my transitions at home, boys, building a business, my music, her hobbies... I listened to stories of my father, who passed away when I was young. She told me about dealing with her in-laws and the life my father came from. We talked about health and how we can optimize our habits. I want her to be active and healthy for a long time yet. We spent time with a friend of hers who was sick and wanted to learn about how we can help her. And then we prayed together and did the rosary.

I don't remember the last time when I last did that with her. But it was nice to participate and it was okay that I kept messing up my prayers.

My bestfriend from childhood reconnected with me, serendipitously sending an email that I read on the train ride going to San Diego saying that she was thinking of me and missed me. It's been a couple of years since we've seen each other.

I really appreciated the time we had to catch up and I felt very happy and sad. Happy because we speak the same language, have similar upbringings and values... Kin spirit, is a more fitting word. She was born in America. Her parents are German and Portuguese. I was born abroad... my lineage comes from China, Philppines, and Spain.. both our families are Catholic. Both our parents are Landmark graduates and I think we both enjoy very close relationships and good communication... Growing up with space.. growing up with defined parameters... we didn't want to do anything to undermine the bonds we had... We both had our rebellions and have done some crazy stuff together and separately. But coming from good families, our acting outs were rode out with patience and a lot of conversations and emotions on the table....

And so seeing CB... I was flooded with a lot of memories and became very present to a strength of love and respect that had been there alive and growing; pronouncing the eternalness of what is not tangible yet very real.

"My friends are my estate."

Emily Dickinson

"It is with the heart that one sees rightly:

what is essential is invisible to the eye."

Antoine de Saint - Exupery

POEM: The Curves of A Cloud

i gave myself up today and found that i loved being revealing
in naked vulnerable strength
and i mused over my given biology and conditioning
actually, i daydreamed at great length
over the mechanical process
of being stifled by modern inventions
of constraining thought
a force giving me angles of domineering edge
suffocating the softness, leveling the curves of a cloud

finally hearing my soul sing out loud with quiet color
a cheerful sweep of sequential thought
i notate my thoughts of flourished moments
over why i am, why i'm not and why not

Copyright ©2005 J. R. Hollyday


It's great being a girl. It's hard being a girl..

To live powerfully and yet not relinquish grace is difficult in a world that looks at femininity as weakness, meekness, emotional and naive. What I am learning from dance is grace, control, strength, beauty and clear self-expression. I am also learning a lot about anatomy, endurance and humility.

I struggled thinking of someone I know as a girl... She lacked girlishness having the demeanor of a football player. Imagine a swearing sailor that spoke with the tone of Tinker Bell. It's a bit of a mind puzzle and I felt confused and guilty that I struggle with relating to her. And then womanly wouldn't fit either. My vision of someone womanly is someone who is mature, sexy, confident, nurturing and articulate. Since I couldn't think of her as a girl nor a woman, all I could come up with was barmaid...

What an awful thought. I think she must have given up being a girl somewhere in high school. And I see degrees of resigning the feminine side in order to be an all-american standard bulldozing tough chick in myself and my friends. I know a girl who calls everyone "Dude".... and she sometimes presents herself as someone with bigger balls than her man. I know another girl who talks to her male friends down as if they are children in a pseudo mother-from-hell-mother-knows-best tone.

Machines with breasts whose humanity has been compromised by who knows what are taking over the world. Forget the robots and AI overwhelming humanity. The curves of the clouds are turning angular. Patience, subltety, refinement, grace, discernment are qualities of power that is becoming scarce...

Maybe it's obsolete and out-dated and guys love the barmaid, tough as nails, sexy chick who is part-man and part cowgirl who shoots and spits straight.

I'm finding myself wanting to be alone than hang out with girlfriends because it's not fun being part of a trash session of why-the-world-is-not-fair-that-life-really-SUCKS. Stories can be entertaining sometimes but when the game of life starts to seem like a wrestling match rather than a dance, a song... I choose silence, solitude, putting my head in a saner place than participate in a session of impatient ranting.

A world where listening diminishes, where encouragement is like finding flowers in a desert. It's a tough world but I hope to never lose the curves a cloud that bring a bit of respite to a crazy world.

JNET

The Haze of Thursday

It's a steaming hot day and I only have one student and then dance rehearsal.

I am moving so slowly today. I don't know what's come over me. I've practiced on and off for the past few hours but the heat is distracting and well... after I hit that final note of zooming through Debussy's Doctor Gradus, my brain melts.

I broke down and made myself an ice coffee... I wanted something cold and I was so good taking my vitamins and now I just feel jittery.

So I am writing now to see if I can focus some brain cells to do something creative. I should run a few errands and pay a few bills but the thought of being outside is uninspiring and paying bills I can do between thinking of what to write next...

Today is one of those days when being a free-lancer isn't as sexy as that office job with the AC, co-workers, and salaries. I feel like I am barely thinking that I need someone to tell me what to do and think and get paid while I hustle someone else's agenda.

Today, I feel like such a drip. I am writing for the sake of writing and doing something. I have a project to tackle and I am having trouble getting into the right mental space. I have a website to build and the software is intimidating. I have calls to return from prospective students. I am looking for my sparkle.

Where is my magic wand?

That's it.. I feel like a wizard who's batteries have juiced out.

The Heat Is On

It's summer.

Life will be looking different in 30 days. Which way to go? I fluctuate from feeling creative to feeling stagnant. I bounce in my head... Fear is the useless and easy door... But amusing positivity and expansiveness and the many balls in the air, is not an simple task.

Just how fun and great can life go?

"You need to dream and not stop. What do you want? Name it all!" E said in a very playful moment. How absolutely fun and interesting that someone with such a restrained posture is so boundless... To know and love E is to do tandem skydiving, switching over who jumps the edge of the plane first every so often.

I keep finding E in the air and the space called my life. It's strange and sometimes I wonder if I imagine things but just when I feel cozy in a secret corner, E. shows up as if it were home to him.

It's a dynamic that's intriguing and boring. Just when I'm ready to call it typical or confusing or complex something happens that makes things make sense.

So summer is gorgeous so far and is having some interesting turns. And with a sink or swim mindset, I'm showing up to my commitments and yet creating new connections. Began a new student in Beverly Hills which a family from Bel Air connected me to. Very sweet people. A new student's mom that I began a few weeks ago gave me a gift of strawberry jam that she made herself. A teacher on summer break is studying with me and her enthusiasm is fun. From our lesson last week, she's planning to continue her study with me when she resumes with her school schedule. A parent told me that his daughter was now one of the best math students in her school which is a huge turn around from a few years ago and he attributes it to his daughter's study of music. Great results. My teaching practice is full of fun, enthusiastic and committed people.

Just how fun and great can life go?

"You need to dream and not stop. What do you want? Name it all!"

Dance rehearsal is going very well. I'm feeling more like a dancer and less awkward with the choreography. I am in half a dozen of the numbers and not all the dances are choreographed yet. I'm in a space where I look forward to rehearsal; I have friends that spend their free time introducing themselves to me and helping me learn the sequences. Six straight hours every Sunday and a midweek rehearsal. C. who owns a vintage clothes boutique down the street knew I was looking for petticoats for dance that she dug them up and displayed them on the sidewalk rack so that I would come in and say hello. I thought that was nice. With life going on this graceful and friendly... How great can it get?

I'm hanging out with M. today. We've been busy with our respective schedules that I hadn't spent a lot of time with her in months. Since before she left for a spring break in Paris. I helping her brainstorm ideas for her photography class assignment. Reconnecting is nice. I also caught up with M. (another girlfriend)... who had been travelling a lot recently. She had just returned from South America and was just packing for New Orleans when I called and caught her before she dashed off for a few weeks. And then A. and I have been spending most weekends running around in a convertible for fun in the sun...

I have friends I want to visit in Boston next month and I hope I can pull off a nice break. Friends, teaching, E, dance ... what else is going well?

Oh yes, my niece, M and mom are spending a few days with me next week. That will be fun. We will be visiting gardens, going for walks and making meals together. M. wants to see the big houses and mom wants to go to Universal Studios. Isn't that funny? Mom wants to go on the rides and the little girl wants to look at real estate. I'm looking forward to it... So there.. family is on the sunny side as well.

I think I'll ride this wave for as long as I can keep my eyes on it. What else do I want? What else to name?

JNET