2012 Year in Review

The sheer amount of life that occurred in 2012 astounds me. It’s impossible for me to believe that everything happened that did, and yet it did. Somehow.

The list is endless, the highlights are: 

• I fundraised, choreographed and rechoreographed, workshopped and coached, and then shepparded and took care of three dancers to perform in a festival in Paris, a stressful, frustrating, and magical time that took me back to my beloved city and back among my friends, and left me with something to be really proud of. 
• I graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University. 
• I co-produced a showcase, fought and coached dancers much more experienced than me in two pieces, and somehow got it onstage in Manhattan. 
• After a semester of planning, applying for a grant and not getting it, communication, I bought a one-way ticket to the other side of the world and left Manhattan in the middle of the night like a refugee, flying 16 hours in the company of the Indonesian navy.

And then there was Cambodia.

And I don’t know what to say about that, except that it was nothing like what I expected and now I’m having trouble remembering what it was I was expecting. I have no ability to intellectualize the country. I wasn’t lost, or changed, or fundamentally altered as in Paris, at least, not to my knowledge, but I must be because this place which was so strange is not so much anymore.

In six months, I found four jobs, two apartments, several friends, got to a very basic level in the language, organized a showcase, danced in a performance, gave four workshops to over forty students, got addicted to rice and learned how to deal with fish heads, got in one bike crash, one moto accident and several more near misses, got sick a couple times, spent two weeks in Siem Reap and saw the temples, learned and taught Thriller, met some amazing artists, and rethought my entire life plan at least twice.

The highlights are:

•  The first time my kids invited me to eat with them after the workshop performance.
• Meeting Linda, who I’m still looking for,
• Dancing in a real performance again, and
• All the many times I looked around and realized I was the only Barang, and yet being totally accepted by the surrounding crowd.

The greatest gift I received this year was a realization sometime in September that had been germinating for quite some time, since I met the Beyond in Paris. I had been obsessing over the latest One That Got Away, and the Ones Who Got Away before that, and feeling down about learning that I was making half as much money as I thought I was.

Resistance is the struggle between what is and what you think should be. Let go of what should be, embrace what is, and create from there.

I found a way to live out the axiom that things are the way they are and that’s that. I don’t believe there is any other or higher meaning than that. It’s just the way it is and everything is always perfect, even if it was different. Every possible reality is as perfect as this one is. 

And the resistance went away. I enter the next year much more peaceful, and much more zen. I know what I have, what I don’t, and that’s where I begin.

In the next year, I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of this crazy adventure called Cambodia. I’m looking forward to:

• Taking some time to rest and relax and process, having not done so in a year,
• My trip home and to Paris in March and April to reset and touch base with the places and people I love the most,
• Setting a show of my own in motion here and moving towards my dreams,
• Improving my Khmer and deepening my understanding of Khmer culture and life,
• Being open to the richness and vibrancy of the arts and of life here with all of its caveats,
• Keeping in close contact with the people I love the most and hopefully seeing some for visits here, and
• Traveling around the region, saving a little money, and getting some things on my wishlist.

The past two years I've ended these year in reviews with little sayings, goals I guess, what I want people to say about me, but this year I have nothing, in line with my realization. What is, is, what I am, I am, where I am, I am. Sometime along the way, that became enough.