Being Alive (Have you?)

On a number of programs and bios for various productions, I've started adding a silly little line, something I've been thinking about for several years. It's always among my life goals, and it's simple enough:

I would like to be the most alive person you've ever met.

What does that mean, anyway?

Honestly? I have no idea. I know what I think it means right now and what it used to mean, but it's a puzzle that I'm always chewing on in some shape or form. What does it mean, really, to be alive, and do you know anyone who has?

I know that I was alive in Paris. I think it's the closest I've ever been, at least. Thinking back, I remember so much of it being a haze, kind of like each moment was its own perfect eternity and I was perfectly inside each as it became the next. No brilliant flashes of light but light.

You know people who are alive. They sparkle, don't they? They explode outwards, they glow. They're stunning. I want to be them.

I was talking to a very good friend the other day, and she said that for me, it could be hard to do that, because I do too much. She said, hard to be alive when all you do is run around.

She knows me too well. It is indeed my challenge, and particularly epidemic to my life at Columbia. The energy here is do more, be more, and NYC is no different. I pick up energy very easily and then it gets into my blood and my bones and suddenly it's all I do, all I think about. Success, competition. For some people, it's nurture. For me, it's poison.

Step back. Do less, and be more. It was the only thing I could do in Paris, and I did it well. It's interesting to note that when I was in that state, I had incredible - almost scarily so - power to create and craft my life. I guess when you're in the Now, creation and reaction happen at the same time. Thoughts and intentions are not much different from reality.

I want to go back to that state, wherever I go, and wherever I live. I mean it when I put that sentence in my life goals, and I mean it seriously. I don't think it's ever something that I can say, okay, I've achieved this, but something to work towards and check and evolve. Find the life in alive, and be there fully.

Sounds like a good time to me.

Poetry Edition: Diamond Dirt

We were like criminals, covering diamonds with dirt. 
Hiding its brilliance, and so the guard should 
laugh to himself, thinking what fools, these two;
coveting dirt as though it were diamonds. 
And yet thinks again, were I to have a bag of gold, 
perhaps I too would cover it, to keep it safe, 
and with this thought blazing, he should spring to his feet, 
racing to where we are no longer, and, 
bitterly disappointed, should laugh to himself, 
thinking what a fancy I've had!; these were nothing but fools, 
and besides, were I to have a sack of diamonds
I'd wear them all on my fingers, and all would hail me, 
mistaking me for a King. 
Such foolish fools!, he should think, such stupid criminals, 
to cover their loot in dirt, and shuffle along 
like the depraved beggars they are, carrying sunshine
and calling it dirt. 

Life, tumbling along

Spring break is over, officially as of tomorrow morning at 9AM.

It seems very strange to me to be going back to school, classes, whatever it is I do on a daily basis. The break was no real break but a full, busy, insane mess of work and studio time, with a few late nights with friends because, sheesh, it's spring break. I spent 30+ hours in the studio and have the general feeling like I need another break from this one.

But it was life. It was life and it was full and now I can't imagine doing anything else. School -- like the midterm I have on wednesday and the fact that I never did write that paper for music hum I wanted to get out of the way -- is secondary, and mildly annoying.

I think they call that senioritis.

I started the week with a 24 hour fast, which I've never done before. I had noticed, some weeks previously, that eating had become an issue -- finding the time to eat, certainly, but I had also lost my desire to. Sure, I did it, because I know I need to, but nothing looked good, tasted good, and never really satisfied. Of course it didn't have to do with food, but the larger problem of nurture. We use food to nurture ourselves, to feed our souls as well as bodies, and I had simply lost that -- very important -- part of my life.

So I decided to stop eating for 24 hours and use the time to meditate about fulfillment and nourishment versus deprivation and figure out where I could find the nurture in my life. I turned off my internet and my phone.

It's funny: the best thing you can do for your appreciation of food is to not eat for a long time. Even just 24 hours.

It was a very, very good thing. It's interesting how in deprivation there's always fulfillment and vice versa -- another thought was that deprivation is now, not forever. It's only a state categorized by now, and has no bearing on any further nows. It's quite encouraging, actually.

In the mean time, life is moving quickly. Less than three weeks until I leave for Paris, and two months until graduation. Strange -- but so exciting. I've worked through all my anxieties about returning to Paris and have reached a state of delirious excitement. I just hope that the next couple weeks fly -- and with my life as crazy as it is, it should.

It's just like the title of this post. Life, tumbling along. Me, caught inside the now as it turns into the next now and the next after that, with 'after' somewhere between a dream and a reality. All I can do is walk in the direction I want to go, and assume that the path will arrange itself under my feet.

Stupid, or Visionary? (We'll find out in a few years)

I'm graduating in May. I think I've probably mentioned that. I certainly talk about it a lot -- I'm sure you've noticed, and can't wait until it happens so you can stop hearing about it.

Well, I talk about it because I can't stop thinking about it. What does it mean to transfer from the world of academics to the Real World? To be a "real person"? To live, to have time, to support yourself with the work you do?

It's a huge, giant, and pretty scary transition. I've spent 21 years in school, being schooled, etc. It's the only thing I know how to do. And now I, along with my classmates and countless others, must enter the world as it is and are somehow expected to live competently.

I'm not unique in going into the arts; however, I am one of few. In today's world, it seems like career suicide. The arts are dying, and the economy is already bad. How do I expect to make it Out There?

Well, how should I know?

I've noticed something that goes on in my head. I get a lot of e-mails about arts administration internships for the summer, most of which seem to be with reputable companies doing interesting work. I also get a lot of advice to go into teaching. And while I understand the reasoning behind both paths, and why it would probably be a Good Idea for me to pursue either or both options---

I don't.

Whyever not? Something in my chest just protests whenever I think about it. I had a dream, sometime last semester, in which I was wailing about not getting to go to a ball -- "I want to dance!" I remember waking up with that cry echoing in my ears.

No--I don't want to produce shows that I should be dancing in/choreographing, and I don't want to teach people to do what I should be doing myself.

Sometimes I think I really should consider it, just as a part-time solution. And then the screaming comes back. No, it says. Do what you want. What you love. And don't make compromises.

I'm either stupid, or a visionary.

I guess we'll find out a few years from now.

Re-opening Pandora's Box: Going Back to Paris

Let's call a spade a spade: in case you haven't heard, the eleven months I spent in Paris last year was hands down the most transformative experience of my life. However many months removed -- eight, I think -- I'm still figuring out exactly how transformative and what the ramifications are.

I probably couldn't tell you exactly what happened. All I know is that I spent a good several months after I came back trying to reconcile the person I had been and the person I had become. It was like staring in a mirror and having no idea who the person looking back was.

Well, I'm going back. Five weeks to the day, to be exact. And I'm not quite sure what to think.

Of course, I'm excited. I've been told by numerous sources that they have never seen me so at home as when I was in Paris. I found something I wrote about halfway through my time there: I don't know if I love Paris, but all I know is that I fell into living here as easily as breathing. There are people I haven't seen in months, and the culture, the city, the food...

But I also know that when I left, I left some incredibly powerful energy behind. And honestly, I'm not sure -- and I'm a little concerned -- about what will happen when I reopen that existence. It's not anything I can prepare for. Hell, I tried to prepare for the culture shock, but found myself facing a monster whose face I didn't even recognize.

Of course it won't be the same. A lot of time has passed since I left, and I've changed again. But I do wonder.

And then there are times when I don't worry, and I just remember how completely and ferociously alive I was, and I can barely speak for impatience.

I may have to amend the title of this post. I'm not going back to Paris.

For a week, I'm coming home.