I suppose it would happen in any country, to anyone living anywhere, abroad or otherwise -- though perhaps especially for expatriates like me. Every few months, you start to wonder what you're doing here, because the things you think you want morph, the things you think you came for vanish, and in between there is a whole lot of gray to deal with.
It's not as though there are not opportunities in Cambodia -- in fact, there are so many that I'm working close to 50-60 hours per week between three jobs and my extra projects, which include a number of performances to dance in and create.
But it just doesn't look like I thought. Most of my recent frustration has come from my attempts to start "Pandaemonium Dance", which I had pictured as intense training and rehearsal with a number of dedicated dancers, building up to a variety of performances. I spent a long time worrying about the fact that I have no paid opportunities yet and not wanting to waste the dancers' time, and yet thinking they would be there to build the thing up with me.
Except, as artists do everywhere in the world, that's not the case. As the producer/creator, you are always the one who cares the most, and the others are there because it is one opportunity among many and they don't want to miss anything, so they do everything 50% instead of throwing 200% into one thing to build it and see it through.
What does that mean? It means that every week, some dancers are missing because they have other shows, other rehearsals. Saying they are free to rehearse at a certain time -- which they all did -- does not, I've discovered, mean they actually are. That time is not "blocked out" of the schedule as it is with mine, and if something else arrives, well, they try to do everything and if they can't, they say yes to the new one and send me text messages apologizing profusely for not coming.
That's all well and good, but they still aren't coming.
It's frustrating because of course I want it to be as essential to them as it is to me. When I say I'm doing something, I do, and come to every single rehearsal unless I absolutely cannot -- and if another thing comes up, I say I can't do it, I'm already working on something else.
But that is not the case with everyone and everywhere, and in the past few days, I've had to go back to that old question -- what do I want?
Every time in Cambodia when I think my mission is to "help" or to "teach" and that my knowledge is somehow invaluable or essential, I get lost and I have to realize that it is not. These artists are busy. They are good. And they will find their way -- or not -- regardless of what I do. I am not the Doctor or the Know-All, End-All.
It's a sobering thought, but the only way out is to go back to that simple question. What do I want out of being here? Why am I still here, a year and change down the road, and why shouldn't I just leave, as I consider doing every few months? If all these things I want, in life, love, career and etc, seem so very far away, where can I go to find them?
I actually still don't know the answer to those questions and probably never will, but I do know that for whatever reason, I'm not ready to leave this place yet, and I can't picture it.
So I'm having to go back to what there is and go from there, and follow my own heart, do things because I want to and not because I think someone else needs it. And be willing to let my vision of what it is I thought I was doing here to change. As an example, the past week I started judging for a Kpop dance contest on CTN, which is fabulously amusing, but that is not at all what I thought I was coming for -- a TV personality on Cambodian TV, WHAT??? But there it is, and it's fun, and though it is not the artsy fartsy production/creation I had in mind, it is here and happening, and I have to follow it.
Life is complicated, and so is this country, but for better or for worse, I am here, and learning by the day -- and maybe, in the end, that's the real and only reason to be here -- and maybe it's reason enough!
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
The Phnom Penh Traffic Drinking game
I wanted to find a fun way to explain to you just how stupid the drivers here can be. I've said before there are no traffic rules, at least, none really observed, and driving a moto makes me realize that seriously it's very surprising how there are NOT about a thosand accidents per second.
So here is my Phnom Penh traffic drinking game. To be played only in the back of a tuktuk, safely far away from the wheel or handlebars of any moving vehicle. Since Angkor draft is the way to go here, we're going to go with that -- take a drink or empty the glass.
Take a drink every time:
--A moto cuts across oncoming traffic on the red light to turn left
--Anyone suddenly cuts in front of you to turn right, with no blinker.
--A pedestrian starts walking across the street at the very second that the light turns green.
--Anyone is on their cellphone while driving.
Take two drinks every time:
--Any two vehicles make physical contact at a stoplight, handlebars or wheels or what have you.
--A car turns left from the right turn lane or right from the left turn lane.
--A moto drives on the wrong side of the road after turning left before cutting across all lanes of oncoming traffic.
--A car swerves to the wrong side of the road, with oncoming traffic, to pass a slower moving vehicle.
--You see something truly ridiculous on the back of a moto, such as a dead pig, a few dozen live chickens, four people plus a baby, twenty cartons of ramen noodles, etc.
Empty the glass when:
--Some hotshot jackass goes through traffic like a slalom course.
--You get stuck for ten minutes at an intersection because everyone is trying to get through at the same time and only later realized that the tuk tuk and the car at the middle can't squeeze past each other.
--You see something exceptionally stupid not mentioned here, such as a guy on a moto approaching a busy traffic circle and using both hands to tuck his cellphone back into his pocket.
And the bonus, if you happen to be on 278 and see the young, handsome Khmer guy dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, riding on a piece of crap motorbike with flowers on the handles and a boom box on the back and selling noodles (while singing), take a shot. Gotta love showmen...
Bless you if you're still standing.
So here is my Phnom Penh traffic drinking game. To be played only in the back of a tuktuk, safely far away from the wheel or handlebars of any moving vehicle. Since Angkor draft is the way to go here, we're going to go with that -- take a drink or empty the glass.
Take a drink every time:
--A moto cuts across oncoming traffic on the red light to turn left
--Anyone suddenly cuts in front of you to turn right, with no blinker.
--A pedestrian starts walking across the street at the very second that the light turns green.
--Anyone is on their cellphone while driving.
Take two drinks every time:
--Any two vehicles make physical contact at a stoplight, handlebars or wheels or what have you.
--A car turns left from the right turn lane or right from the left turn lane.
--A moto drives on the wrong side of the road after turning left before cutting across all lanes of oncoming traffic.
--A car swerves to the wrong side of the road, with oncoming traffic, to pass a slower moving vehicle.
--You see something truly ridiculous on the back of a moto, such as a dead pig, a few dozen live chickens, four people plus a baby, twenty cartons of ramen noodles, etc.
Empty the glass when:
--Some hotshot jackass goes through traffic like a slalom course.
--You get stuck for ten minutes at an intersection because everyone is trying to get through at the same time and only later realized that the tuk tuk and the car at the middle can't squeeze past each other.
--You see something exceptionally stupid not mentioned here, such as a guy on a moto approaching a busy traffic circle and using both hands to tuck his cellphone back into his pocket.
And the bonus, if you happen to be on 278 and see the young, handsome Khmer guy dressed to the nines in a suit and tie, riding on a piece of crap motorbike with flowers on the handles and a boom box on the back and selling noodles (while singing), take a shot. Gotta love showmen...
Bless you if you're still standing.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
The rains, bubble tea, and oh yeah, I am living in Cambodia
It's not quite yet the rainy season, and I guess at the end of the dry season here, the world has been cooking for so long that heat has wormed its way everywhere, the walls, the air, bones, skin. Air-conditioning pushes it back for very short time, the epic battle of our time. I imagine the cold air doesn't even make it to the walls, just hovering there with the heat, waiting on the other side.
I took a friend's moto out for a spin today, as I'd like to more or less know what I'm doing by the time I buy one of my own in a couple weeks. It was in the heat of the day, and the sun basically laughed at my SPF 15 sunscreen and, while I'm not burned to a crisp, my skin is noticeably darker. I was out for 25 minutes, maximum.
When the rains do come, as they are currently doing, it cools everything down for a brief and incredibly welcome time. I've learned to tell that the hottest, heaviest days are usually the ones where the storm is coming. Whenever I do leave the bubble tea place that is my newest addiction, the rain will be gently leaking from the sky and the air will be cool against my skin.
The bubble tea place was introduced to me by a friend this week, and we became quickly inseparable. My apartment cooks in the day time, and since my room has no windows, staying in there with its flourescent lights is not that appealing, despite the air-con. I'm starting back with my old job this week and my free time will be cut down, but for the moment I've had a lot to spare and no interest in staying at home, so I've been here the past three afternoons, drinking bubble tea and working. I'm busy cooking my latest project.
I picked up a book the other day about moving to Cambodia, a kind of all-inclusive guide for expats. I flipped through it out of curiosity. I remember reading stuff like that, about ten months ago, CultureShock manuals and articles my somewhat panicked mother (she has since calmed down, by the way) sent me.
It was all useful information, but it seemed strange to see it on a page like that, that it was necessary to take this life and string it into words, paint pictures with language. I thought, reading the safety section, that the words made this place feel much scarier than it does, but then again, I don't walk anywhere late at night or carry purses that are easily pulled off anymore.
Mostly, it was just strange to look at all these words, trying to explain something that I'm living, day by day, things I've known intellectually since before arriving but am only truly understanding now. It was a reminder that I'm here, yes here, in this place that before was barely even a word in my mental dictionary. Yes, it is a place that needs to be bashed into words for westerners coming to live, and even those are completely inadequate for the daily negotiations. Some people do it more than others -- some trying to bash the world into the words they already know, some just trying to learn the language of life as each word presents itself, some diving deeper, to find what is underneath the words.
Really, what I mean to say is, I looked at the words and saw a surface, and underneath an ocean. Every day here is spent in that ocean, drinking in what you started to know before now, and are only knowing now.
I took a friend's moto out for a spin today, as I'd like to more or less know what I'm doing by the time I buy one of my own in a couple weeks. It was in the heat of the day, and the sun basically laughed at my SPF 15 sunscreen and, while I'm not burned to a crisp, my skin is noticeably darker. I was out for 25 minutes, maximum.
When the rains do come, as they are currently doing, it cools everything down for a brief and incredibly welcome time. I've learned to tell that the hottest, heaviest days are usually the ones where the storm is coming. Whenever I do leave the bubble tea place that is my newest addiction, the rain will be gently leaking from the sky and the air will be cool against my skin.
The bubble tea place was introduced to me by a friend this week, and we became quickly inseparable. My apartment cooks in the day time, and since my room has no windows, staying in there with its flourescent lights is not that appealing, despite the air-con. I'm starting back with my old job this week and my free time will be cut down, but for the moment I've had a lot to spare and no interest in staying at home, so I've been here the past three afternoons, drinking bubble tea and working. I'm busy cooking my latest project.
I picked up a book the other day about moving to Cambodia, a kind of all-inclusive guide for expats. I flipped through it out of curiosity. I remember reading stuff like that, about ten months ago, CultureShock manuals and articles my somewhat panicked mother (she has since calmed down, by the way) sent me.
It was all useful information, but it seemed strange to see it on a page like that, that it was necessary to take this life and string it into words, paint pictures with language. I thought, reading the safety section, that the words made this place feel much scarier than it does, but then again, I don't walk anywhere late at night or carry purses that are easily pulled off anymore.
Mostly, it was just strange to look at all these words, trying to explain something that I'm living, day by day, things I've known intellectually since before arriving but am only truly understanding now. It was a reminder that I'm here, yes here, in this place that before was barely even a word in my mental dictionary. Yes, it is a place that needs to be bashed into words for westerners coming to live, and even those are completely inadequate for the daily negotiations. Some people do it more than others -- some trying to bash the world into the words they already know, some just trying to learn the language of life as each word presents itself, some diving deeper, to find what is underneath the words.
Really, what I mean to say is, I looked at the words and saw a surface, and underneath an ocean. Every day here is spent in that ocean, drinking in what you started to know before now, and are only knowing now.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Things are changing, or I'm noticing what has always been
I'm still a spectacle.
It is not unusual for the inhabitants of a tuktuk full of Cambodian people to openly stare when I bike past, or for one to poke their friends and point. I wonder sometimes what they are saying to each other, if they are making fun or just remarking. Heck, white people in tuktuks stare too and comment to each other, and I wonder about that too.
Sometimes I think it's amusing. Mostly I just find it annoying and somewhat perturbing.
And yet.
A kid in Brown café smiled at me the other day. I don't know why he did, as he was almost certainly gayer than Christmas, but he was there with a friend and when I left, he offered me the most stunning smile.
In town for the Youth Arts Festival, my students from Siem Reap have started, as far as I can tell, a contest to see who can get the most hugs from me. They smile and wave and generally cause an uproar whenever they catch sight of me.
At the opening of said Youth Arts Festival, I found people I knew everywhere, the heart of the arts scene here, and was truly disappointed that I wasn't able to talk to all of them.
Again to my surprise, I think I've been adopted.
I don't really understand how it happened, but honestly -- it's wonderful.
EDIT: I just used the tag "home" for this post. In fact, the toughest thing about being here is how far away my family and friends are, and I can't just go for a visit whenever. But somehow, as places tend to do, whether or not I have anything to do with it, I used the tag because I think it's becoming true.
It is not unusual for the inhabitants of a tuktuk full of Cambodian people to openly stare when I bike past, or for one to poke their friends and point. I wonder sometimes what they are saying to each other, if they are making fun or just remarking. Heck, white people in tuktuks stare too and comment to each other, and I wonder about that too.
Sometimes I think it's amusing. Mostly I just find it annoying and somewhat perturbing.
And yet.
A kid in Brown café smiled at me the other day. I don't know why he did, as he was almost certainly gayer than Christmas, but he was there with a friend and when I left, he offered me the most stunning smile.
In town for the Youth Arts Festival, my students from Siem Reap have started, as far as I can tell, a contest to see who can get the most hugs from me. They smile and wave and generally cause an uproar whenever they catch sight of me.
At the opening of said Youth Arts Festival, I found people I knew everywhere, the heart of the arts scene here, and was truly disappointed that I wasn't able to talk to all of them.
Again to my surprise, I think I've been adopted.
I don't really understand how it happened, but honestly -- it's wonderful.
EDIT: I just used the tag "home" for this post. In fact, the toughest thing about being here is how far away my family and friends are, and I can't just go for a visit whenever. But somehow, as places tend to do, whether or not I have anything to do with it, I used the tag because I think it's becoming true.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Very much to my surprise, I'm staying
You might remember that at some point on this blog, in a fit of uncertainty and culture shock, I wrote that I had no idea why I'm here.
Well, actually?
I still don't.
And yet, somehow, despite everything -- I think I'm staying. For how long is anyone's guess. I'm going home for a visit in March, that's for sure, but when I come back -- and yes I'm coming back -- I think I'm here until I leave. My head is trying to attach a date, because it likes doing that and it feels uncomfortable enough with the concept that I somehow ended up here, of all places (like every single one of my friends: why Cambodia, of all places???).
But my instructions from the universe are pretty clear: stay until you know it's time to leave. (Thanks, that's super helpful...)
I don't know why. When I think about it I'm very confused. Not three months ago I think I was muttering and cursing about how I was sure as hell learning a lot but damn it get me out of here when the time is up.
But if I kick my head out of the game, I am left with this calm, perfect certainty that this country is not done with me, nor me with it, and for whatever reason this is precisely where I need to be, until such time as it is time to leave.
Intellectually, what my brain can understand is that I'm very used to spending short, intense amounts of time in places, smushing a bunch of life-changing experiences into 6-11 months, at which point I go home to Denver and have my parents help put me back together for another go at it, onto something else. That was what this trip was supposed to be like, too.
Except it feels different now. This isn't anymore about packing a boatload of experiences into a short time and then moving on. When I go home in March, it will be as a visit. And then I will return to the same place. This time I feel like I'm actually building something, maybe setting groundwork for a much longer something. I'm not on the semester system anymore and maybe my soul is transitioning before my mind can. Okay, we don't have to move every six months, so I'm just gonna sink in some roots here, do you mind?
Uh....well, I guess not?
Well, actually?
I still don't.
And yet, somehow, despite everything -- I think I'm staying. For how long is anyone's guess. I'm going home for a visit in March, that's for sure, but when I come back -- and yes I'm coming back -- I think I'm here until I leave. My head is trying to attach a date, because it likes doing that and it feels uncomfortable enough with the concept that I somehow ended up here, of all places (like every single one of my friends: why Cambodia, of all places???).
But my instructions from the universe are pretty clear: stay until you know it's time to leave. (Thanks, that's super helpful...)
I don't know why. When I think about it I'm very confused. Not three months ago I think I was muttering and cursing about how I was sure as hell learning a lot but damn it get me out of here when the time is up.
But if I kick my head out of the game, I am left with this calm, perfect certainty that this country is not done with me, nor me with it, and for whatever reason this is precisely where I need to be, until such time as it is time to leave.
Intellectually, what my brain can understand is that I'm very used to spending short, intense amounts of time in places, smushing a bunch of life-changing experiences into 6-11 months, at which point I go home to Denver and have my parents help put me back together for another go at it, onto something else. That was what this trip was supposed to be like, too.
Except it feels different now. This isn't anymore about packing a boatload of experiences into a short time and then moving on. When I go home in March, it will be as a visit. And then I will return to the same place. This time I feel like I'm actually building something, maybe setting groundwork for a much longer something. I'm not on the semester system anymore and maybe my soul is transitioning before my mind can. Okay, we don't have to move every six months, so I'm just gonna sink in some roots here, do you mind?
Uh....well, I guess not?
Monday, October 29, 2012
Oh, is that what happened?
The other day, a dear friend commented on a facebook photo how glad she was to see how I've embraced Cambodia.
To be honest, I looked at the comment and thought, "Is that what I've done?" I kind of feel like I resisted doing so, muttering and bad-tempered and weaving through traffic, except when it comes to my students and my work, of course.
Is that what I did? Embrace Cambodia? Is that how I now very much despite myself find myself thinking seriously about staying much longer than anticipated?
When the heck did that happen?
I guess during all the moments when I had -- and still don't -- no idea what was going on or how to begin to talk about it, when I couldn't say anything but hey, it's happening and I'm still running. Whenever I wasn't paying attention, maybe that's when it happened, when I wasn't homesick or thinking damn-it-I'm-learning-a-lot-but-get-me-the-hell-out-in-eight-months, that somehow my feet just sunk into the soil and the roots starting wrapping up my body.
I guess it's the transition from 'project' to just 'living'. I am used to moving on and moving along, enough time for a project or a semester or a summer, and then kiss whatever's there goodbye and start anew. I do it a lot and get myself into tricky situations constantly of having to leave behind lives, people, and work that I love dearly. In fact, one of the times I did that was in Paris and I still, no matter what happens here, intend on returning long term at some point before too long.
But if everything goes well -- I should know by the end of the week -- I'm thinking that maybe it is time to stop my mad globe-trotting and settle to do something for real, spend a little more time building houses instead of just laying foundations.
The fact that it's happening while I'm here -- is that embracing Cambodia? Is that what I'm doing?
If it is --
I did it behind my own back.
To be honest, I looked at the comment and thought, "Is that what I've done?" I kind of feel like I resisted doing so, muttering and bad-tempered and weaving through traffic, except when it comes to my students and my work, of course.
Is that what I did? Embrace Cambodia? Is that how I now very much despite myself find myself thinking seriously about staying much longer than anticipated?
When the heck did that happen?
I guess during all the moments when I had -- and still don't -- no idea what was going on or how to begin to talk about it, when I couldn't say anything but hey, it's happening and I'm still running. Whenever I wasn't paying attention, maybe that's when it happened, when I wasn't homesick or thinking damn-it-I'm-learning-a-lot-but-get-me-the-hell-out-in-eight-months, that somehow my feet just sunk into the soil and the roots starting wrapping up my body.
I guess it's the transition from 'project' to just 'living'. I am used to moving on and moving along, enough time for a project or a semester or a summer, and then kiss whatever's there goodbye and start anew. I do it a lot and get myself into tricky situations constantly of having to leave behind lives, people, and work that I love dearly. In fact, one of the times I did that was in Paris and I still, no matter what happens here, intend on returning long term at some point before too long.
But if everything goes well -- I should know by the end of the week -- I'm thinking that maybe it is time to stop my mad globe-trotting and settle to do something for real, spend a little more time building houses instead of just laying foundations.
The fact that it's happening while I'm here -- is that embracing Cambodia? Is that what I'm doing?
If it is --
I did it behind my own back.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Tuesday Night Chatter
The rains are drumming the roofs and the thunder is rolling the city. The wind is making the rain into sheets and little clouds of moisture, flying off the roofs in waves. When it rains like this I always wonder if it'll just pull down the sky.
The King Father's passing is messing with life here. The streets around the Royal Palace are closed, except sometimes you can still go down them and I can't figure out when or why, and traffic has gotten exponentially worse what with all the people here to pay their respects. I haven't been by the Royal Palace yet, but there are always people there. The other night there were a thousand monks praying, and I do wish I was there for that.
The clubs have been shut down and the bars aren't allowed to play music. I'm not sure how long this is supposed to last -- I had thought just a week but now the NGO is saying that we can't do the Thriller flash mob next week (would be such a bummer!!!). In three months they are having his official funeral but I think everyone is hoping this state of affairs doesn't last three months.
This morning there was a whole procession going by my window, several thousand people walking the street in their white shirts and black ribbons. I don't know why today -- maybe it's the seven day marker? Either way, it was impressive.
My life has been infinitely complicated by the arrival of something really awesome, which is a potential (probable?) job as a choreographer for the weekly concerts Cambodia Television Networks, the number 1 station in the country, puts on. It complicates my life because it almost certainly means something else has got to go, which is tough, and also it's a really, really great job, and goes on the list of things that are rooting me here.
I don't know how I can leave, and I also don't know how I can not go. I want to go home -- and that's not a question, it's staying home to produce a show (oh yes by the way that's a thing), which I really want to do and think maybe now is the right time -- but it's hard to leave so soon after starting this. I'm pretty sure I would train up one of my students to take my place, which would be good for everyone involved, but -- not ideal.
I don't know. I have no clue. I guess I need to see how this goes for the next couple months. I was not formally offered a job, but I was told to look at the stuff they prepare for me and then come back with a schedule and a proposed salary, which I take to mean they want to work with me.
I would dearly love to just do dance and choreograph all day, which I think I have the opportunity to do. The question is how to gracefully quit my only non-arts related job without screwing over my boss and not feeling totally guilty, which will be a tricky maze to tiptoe.
My Khmer tutor today told me he thinks I understand a lot. I was quite proud of myself, especially since -- with many pauses to write down words I don't know and speaking very slowly -- we spent the first half hour talking about this new job and I was able to more or less tell him what was going on.
Mostly, I'm just torn. There are a lot of opposing wishes in my heart/mind right now, and I'm not sure how to deal with them yet. I think this is one of those times when "sleep on it" is a highly appropriate expression.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
This Week Happened
And that's about as much as I can tell you, I think.
Tuesday Night Chatter vanished, and I realized on Wednesday which by then is far too late. This post has now been open for about an hour, while I stare at it and wonder how to begin. This is a familiar refrain to you now, I'm sure, Gillian struggling with language, trying to take a thousand small infinities and fit them into a few pixels of text on an LSD screen.
Let me start here: my attention the past two days (and before, I guess) has been entirely occupied by two things --- the public performance for my students, and finding a new apartment.
For the former, I finally sat down with them -- most of them -- and managed to hash out more or less what I'm expecting from them and what they want to do and when they can rehearse. That in itself was somewhat of a nightmare, as I returned home that evening with 14 excel spreadsheets with Xs all over them and needed to smash them all together into a comprehensive rehearsal schedule that would 1) work for all of them, and 2) not require me to quit my day job and just rehearse with them all the time.
There are still three of them that have not yet told me how many dancers and which dancers they want to work with, making it utterly impossible for me to schedule anything, plus another one who was not at the meeting and apparently wants to join.
Half of them were a half hour late, which does not bode well for my attempt to drill professionalism in them, but I guess it means there is room to grow. I had a translator and did not tell them I don't plan on using one for the project, but they'll figure that out pretty darn quick. It was mostly just an exercise in watching the X's cover up the pages and watching them bicker about who was going to dance in who's piece and when that might happen.
Well, hey, all projects start in chaos, right? As a measure of how much I've been thinking/worrying about it, I spent the entire night last night having anxiety dreams about it, of them not taking the rehearsals seriously and playing cards or generally goofing off, while I try in vain to get them to work on their pieces. Unlikely -- very -- to actually happen, but still vexing.
Thankfully I had google calendar on my side. My computer looked like this:
Tuesday Night Chatter vanished, and I realized on Wednesday which by then is far too late. This post has now been open for about an hour, while I stare at it and wonder how to begin. This is a familiar refrain to you now, I'm sure, Gillian struggling with language, trying to take a thousand small infinities and fit them into a few pixels of text on an LSD screen.
Let me start here: my attention the past two days (and before, I guess) has been entirely occupied by two things --- the public performance for my students, and finding a new apartment.
For the former, I finally sat down with them -- most of them -- and managed to hash out more or less what I'm expecting from them and what they want to do and when they can rehearse. That in itself was somewhat of a nightmare, as I returned home that evening with 14 excel spreadsheets with Xs all over them and needed to smash them all together into a comprehensive rehearsal schedule that would 1) work for all of them, and 2) not require me to quit my day job and just rehearse with them all the time.
There are still three of them that have not yet told me how many dancers and which dancers they want to work with, making it utterly impossible for me to schedule anything, plus another one who was not at the meeting and apparently wants to join.
Half of them were a half hour late, which does not bode well for my attempt to drill professionalism in them, but I guess it means there is room to grow. I had a translator and did not tell them I don't plan on using one for the project, but they'll figure that out pretty darn quick. It was mostly just an exercise in watching the X's cover up the pages and watching them bicker about who was going to dance in who's piece and when that might happen.
Well, hey, all projects start in chaos, right? As a measure of how much I've been thinking/worrying about it, I spent the entire night last night having anxiety dreams about it, of them not taking the rehearsals seriously and playing cards or generally goofing off, while I try in vain to get them to work on their pieces. Unlikely -- very -- to actually happen, but still vexing.
Thankfully I had google calendar on my side. My computer looked like this:
Success. I did have to go out and have a drink after that though...I really do hate scheduling. I long for the days when I have dancers who are just in my company and will be readily available...
As far as finding an apartment, that's been a bit of an adventure. I was trying to rent a room somewhere but with no real leads, someone contacted me to ask if I wanted to go in to find a 2bed together. We picked up a third person -- as 3 is cheaper than 2 -- and quickly found a great place, in a good location, but then the third person inexplicably bailed at the last second. Apparently it was too far to walk and she was afraid to bike. Good luck spending 5 months here...!!!
The search for a third person has commenced and seems to be going smoothly. The good part of all of that was practicing my Khmer with the very friendly agent, who eventually did figure out that I wasn't going to go for his advances, but either way he was sweet. My Khmer is bad but for the amount of time I've been learning, I think it's pretty good.
In either case, I should be moving in about a week -- and will reduce my expenses by half. Score.
Until next time...
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Too many mirrors, Khmer fusion bands, and the blue moon
I suppose technically it wasn't the blue moon because it is September now (say what??), but it was a blue moon in the US and either way it was a full moon, making lunatics of us all.
The evening started in this place called the "Sky bar", which is eight floors up and is probably the first time in eight weeks I've been up higher than five stories or so. It was in one of the new buildings on Sihanouk boulevard, sleek and modern and therefore totally incongruous. The elevator and the stairs up to the bar -- which is apparently also a Chinese restaurant -- are all black mirrors.
The bar itself is a maze of reflective surfaces and manages to give off the impression that there are mirrors everywhere, though I think there are actually none. There are old elevator shafts, or maybe they are just designed to look as such, with artfully lit art installations, things that look like slender silver tree trunks. The restaurant section was wrapped around the bar, little rooms like train compartments next to the full glass walls, red furniture and silver columns like windows.
It was disorienting and dizzying and extraordinarily beautiful, and I never got used to the fact that what I thought should be mirrors weren't. We sat at the bar, shiny black tiles, silver, and the aquariums on the other side with a few crabs lazily floating about.
A couple raspberry mojitos later, my friend had to head off and I just jaunted around the corner to street 278, which is this tiny little street lined with very cute little bars. The most famous, and much larger than I expected due to an expansive back and a hidden second floor, is called Equinox. I met up with a couple girl friends, who were there with a larger group. With seven of us at a table and adding chairs, the staff had to ask us to move out of their way or split up. We choose the former, but soon enough we heard the band had started on the second floor and made our way up to check it out.
The band, I later learned, was called Cambodian Space Project. They are a Khmer fusion band -- most of the musicians, at least as far as I could see/hear, were Australian, while the main vocalist was a Khmer woman. She sang in both Khmer and English, and the music was a mix of styles, but they were very good and we had a great time bopping away to the beat.
The venue, I should note, was really interesting, mostly for the huge shadow puppets hung on the wall, like those I saw at Sovanna Phum, with their intricate designs and strange material.
When the band went on a break, I decided to get home -- thanks to being up early every day this week I woke up promptly at 8:30, so I was starting to fade. But that was when the full moon madness began to set in -- at least, I'm going to blame it on the full moon because I can't figure out what else it might have been from and I wasn't the only one it happened to.
I didn't have nearly enough to drink to account for it, either. I couldn't sleep, and lay in a sort of haze of odd dreams, until I at last went into a proper sleep sometime around four in the morning, and woke up feeling very blah. A good amount of water didn't do much to help, and I sort of lazed through the day, until I started to feel better around four -- after watching a couple episodes of Community with a friend, which I give full healing credit to.
It was very odd, but fortunately the expression is once in a blue moon for a reason, and thankfully the lunacy only hit when I got home, and the rest of the night was lovely. Phnom Penh is becoming much more comfortable, in that I no longer feel totally and constantly displaced. I still notice the differences, but less so.
You'd hope -- as utterly strange as it is, by the end of this week I will have been here a full two months.
How THAT happened, I really couldn't tell you.
The evening started in this place called the "Sky bar", which is eight floors up and is probably the first time in eight weeks I've been up higher than five stories or so. It was in one of the new buildings on Sihanouk boulevard, sleek and modern and therefore totally incongruous. The elevator and the stairs up to the bar -- which is apparently also a Chinese restaurant -- are all black mirrors.
The bar itself is a maze of reflective surfaces and manages to give off the impression that there are mirrors everywhere, though I think there are actually none. There are old elevator shafts, or maybe they are just designed to look as such, with artfully lit art installations, things that look like slender silver tree trunks. The restaurant section was wrapped around the bar, little rooms like train compartments next to the full glass walls, red furniture and silver columns like windows.
It was disorienting and dizzying and extraordinarily beautiful, and I never got used to the fact that what I thought should be mirrors weren't. We sat at the bar, shiny black tiles, silver, and the aquariums on the other side with a few crabs lazily floating about.
A couple raspberry mojitos later, my friend had to head off and I just jaunted around the corner to street 278, which is this tiny little street lined with very cute little bars. The most famous, and much larger than I expected due to an expansive back and a hidden second floor, is called Equinox. I met up with a couple girl friends, who were there with a larger group. With seven of us at a table and adding chairs, the staff had to ask us to move out of their way or split up. We choose the former, but soon enough we heard the band had started on the second floor and made our way up to check it out.
The band, I later learned, was called Cambodian Space Project. They are a Khmer fusion band -- most of the musicians, at least as far as I could see/hear, were Australian, while the main vocalist was a Khmer woman. She sang in both Khmer and English, and the music was a mix of styles, but they were very good and we had a great time bopping away to the beat.
The venue, I should note, was really interesting, mostly for the huge shadow puppets hung on the wall, like those I saw at Sovanna Phum, with their intricate designs and strange material.
When the band went on a break, I decided to get home -- thanks to being up early every day this week I woke up promptly at 8:30, so I was starting to fade. But that was when the full moon madness began to set in -- at least, I'm going to blame it on the full moon because I can't figure out what else it might have been from and I wasn't the only one it happened to.
I didn't have nearly enough to drink to account for it, either. I couldn't sleep, and lay in a sort of haze of odd dreams, until I at last went into a proper sleep sometime around four in the morning, and woke up feeling very blah. A good amount of water didn't do much to help, and I sort of lazed through the day, until I started to feel better around four -- after watching a couple episodes of Community with a friend, which I give full healing credit to.
It was very odd, but fortunately the expression is once in a blue moon for a reason, and thankfully the lunacy only hit when I got home, and the rest of the night was lovely. Phnom Penh is becoming much more comfortable, in that I no longer feel totally and constantly displaced. I still notice the differences, but less so.
You'd hope -- as utterly strange as it is, by the end of this week I will have been here a full two months.
How THAT happened, I really couldn't tell you.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
The banalities, the six week slump, and trying to remember where I was yesterday
So I was just thinking, I should save writing about the banalities for Tuesday Night Chatter, but then I realized several things. (All at the same time, so naturally I will have forgotten most by the time I write this.) The first was that, I will never remember everything I'm thinking of now on Tuesday, and TNC is mostly just for stream-of-consciousness anyway, a kind of snapshot of a moment. And besides, currently, the little observations, little ideas, short stories and small pictures, are what is making up my life these days.
I have some posts in the works with a bit more point, mostly about the workshops that I've grossly neglected to mention for several weeks. But in the meantime, I want to tell you about the small things.
Like how I got stuck biking in a real monsoon the other day, the several minutes of madness (only this time it lasted about an hour), and it was only the bright pink, flimsy poncho that one of my students gave me out of the goodness of his heart that saved me. Mostly, I just couldn't see, blinking madly as the raindrops assaulted my eyes and hunching my shoulders; not because they were getting wet, but because I guess I thought I could use them to shield my eyes.
The six week slump, I think I addressed somewhat last TNC, fueled by a lack of power and internet, the onset of a nasty head cold, and various other factors, has been rearing its ugly head this past week. I've been referring to it, but I don't think I've articulated its main source in clear terms on this blog yet, though I have to my family. The fact of the matter is this: I came to Cambodia with some fuss and fanfare, with a grand vision - subconscious or otherwise - to modernize and develop the dance form and be some kind of hero, or heroic presence. I didn't think of it in such terms, but I did.
I found out pretty quickly that that was not in fact what I wanted to be doing, that it was the most grossly western and arrogant thing I could do. Therefore, it left me scrambling a bit, and dealing with a very simple fact: I don't know why I'm here.
I don't mean this in a bad way. I don't even think it's a bad thing, and I don't think it's permanent. I don't particularly wish to be elsewhere, and don't regret having come here. But the fact remains. I came here because someone asked me to, and now I have to create what it means.
I'm sure that the previous times that I went to live in a new place -- Asheville, New York, Paris -- I went through this stage too, this maddening stage where you are where you are and glad to be there, but trying to adjust as quickly as you can and understanding that you can't hurry it along, but live it through. It's encouraging that I don't remember those times, because that means they were unimportant in the long run, and the breakthrough more than paid the hours spent running at the wall.
(You know, even when I want to not have a point I somehow ended up creating one. In blog posts as well as life, apparently.)
Anyway, it's also not like I'm not busy. There is a lot going on, and yet somehow I find that when you ask me what I've been doing I have no idea what to say, such that, like now, when I sit down to write blog posts I stare at the screen blankly, wracking my brains for something to write about.
I dropped the teaching job with the trust that I would be able to live without it, and that if it wasn't the right fit there was no point in doing it, and since then I picked up an odd job teaching an NGO the Thriller dance (despite not really knowing it myself) a couple hours a week and was contacted about another dance teaching thing. I modeled for an art gallery's weekly 'Drink & Draw' and picked up five bucks. Somehow, things are fitting together in ways that I couldn't have possibly expected, but that are only possible because I trusted enough to say no to something I couldn't fully commit to.
Besides getting caught in the rain -- and it has been VERY rainy recently, precisely after I said something about it not raining much -- the main adventures of the past week have been mostly in guessing how long until the power comes back, finding ways to keep cool and cheap cafés to go to, and obsessively reading the Fountainhead, which I finished on Wednesday (and loved).
Also, I apologize if I repeat myself. It's a bad habit, but when you can't remember what you've been doing without serious mental strain and just go for the main themes, you often mutter the same themes over and over again...
I have some posts in the works with a bit more point, mostly about the workshops that I've grossly neglected to mention for several weeks. But in the meantime, I want to tell you about the small things.
Like how I got stuck biking in a real monsoon the other day, the several minutes of madness (only this time it lasted about an hour), and it was only the bright pink, flimsy poncho that one of my students gave me out of the goodness of his heart that saved me. Mostly, I just couldn't see, blinking madly as the raindrops assaulted my eyes and hunching my shoulders; not because they were getting wet, but because I guess I thought I could use them to shield my eyes.
The six week slump, I think I addressed somewhat last TNC, fueled by a lack of power and internet, the onset of a nasty head cold, and various other factors, has been rearing its ugly head this past week. I've been referring to it, but I don't think I've articulated its main source in clear terms on this blog yet, though I have to my family. The fact of the matter is this: I came to Cambodia with some fuss and fanfare, with a grand vision - subconscious or otherwise - to modernize and develop the dance form and be some kind of hero, or heroic presence. I didn't think of it in such terms, but I did.
I found out pretty quickly that that was not in fact what I wanted to be doing, that it was the most grossly western and arrogant thing I could do. Therefore, it left me scrambling a bit, and dealing with a very simple fact: I don't know why I'm here.
I don't mean this in a bad way. I don't even think it's a bad thing, and I don't think it's permanent. I don't particularly wish to be elsewhere, and don't regret having come here. But the fact remains. I came here because someone asked me to, and now I have to create what it means.
I'm sure that the previous times that I went to live in a new place -- Asheville, New York, Paris -- I went through this stage too, this maddening stage where you are where you are and glad to be there, but trying to adjust as quickly as you can and understanding that you can't hurry it along, but live it through. It's encouraging that I don't remember those times, because that means they were unimportant in the long run, and the breakthrough more than paid the hours spent running at the wall.
(You know, even when I want to not have a point I somehow ended up creating one. In blog posts as well as life, apparently.)
Anyway, it's also not like I'm not busy. There is a lot going on, and yet somehow I find that when you ask me what I've been doing I have no idea what to say, such that, like now, when I sit down to write blog posts I stare at the screen blankly, wracking my brains for something to write about.
I dropped the teaching job with the trust that I would be able to live without it, and that if it wasn't the right fit there was no point in doing it, and since then I picked up an odd job teaching an NGO the Thriller dance (despite not really knowing it myself) a couple hours a week and was contacted about another dance teaching thing. I modeled for an art gallery's weekly 'Drink & Draw' and picked up five bucks. Somehow, things are fitting together in ways that I couldn't have possibly expected, but that are only possible because I trusted enough to say no to something I couldn't fully commit to.
Besides getting caught in the rain -- and it has been VERY rainy recently, precisely after I said something about it not raining much -- the main adventures of the past week have been mostly in guessing how long until the power comes back, finding ways to keep cool and cheap cafés to go to, and obsessively reading the Fountainhead, which I finished on Wednesday (and loved).
Also, I apologize if I repeat myself. It's a bad habit, but when you can't remember what you've been doing without serious mental strain and just go for the main themes, you often mutter the same themes over and over again...
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Traffic "laws"
The first thing you need to know is the city lay out. It is more or less in grids, though there are certain streets you can't get through to from other streets where the water cuts through (I think), and thus some streets don't go through. Generally speaking, odd numbered streets run north-south, with the numbers going up as you travel east. Even run east/west, and get smaller as you go north.
Of course, there isn't much rhyme or reason, or so it seems. 294 is followed by 302, though 296 and 300 exist, just further to the west, across Monivong (one of the main arteries). Only the main arteries have stoplights, the rest is a free for all in the intersection.
(Don't get me started on the housing numbers, which make even less sense than the street numbers. They proceed more or less in chronological order, but one odd number on one side of the street is absolutely no guarantee it will continue, and simply because the numbers are going down doesn't mean they will continue to do so. If, as is often the case, two houses have the same numbers, a letter is thrown on the end for kicks -- the most common being A and EO, though why is really quite beyond me.)
In the meantime, there are certain rules that everyone follows, though they cannot really be called traffic laws in the way we westerners would think of them. Once you figure them out, however, you can get along just fine, if by fine you don't mind a few heartattacks on each trip.
The most disconcerting thing for me is the way to turn left at intersections. You turn to the far left side of the road you want and drive on the wrong side of the road until the opportunity to cut across oncoming traffic presents itself and you can get back to the right side.
At stoplights, the motos and bikes wind their way up to the front, disregarding the lane markers entirely and often spilling into the oncoming traffic lanes. Red lights for many motos means 'take more caution when crossing the road', and they wait until everything is most calmed and then motor on across. If you don't start pedaling when the countdown -- large red numbers on the stoplights announcing just how long you have to wait -- hits "4", you'll be left in the dust, but then it's important to be aware as someone will always be pushing the limit of when the red light actually appears.
For those intersections without stoplights -- that is to say, most of them -- it's just a touch and go process to wind around everyone and hope the car in front of you isn't blocking a moto traversing on the other side (which it inevitably is.) This is similar to turning left without a light, in which case you just wind your way through oncoming traffic wherever there are gaps.
My trick is usually to find a moto or a car turning at the same place as me and then hiding behind them, using them as a shield and zipping through the hole they create. It works, most of the time.
Cambodian drivers are remarkably patient with this crazy system, and despite the hundreds of near collisions in one short drive, road rage is very rare. Honking, however, is common place. Generally speaking, though, the honk is used for both moto and car to simply announce its presence, usually as it is cutting across several lanes of oncoming traffic to turn left or something of the sort. Since people get cut off all the time, honking usually serves as a warning that, although you may have just swerved in front of me, I am still here.
Honking can also be used to clear the way, as the more important cars use it just to make the smaller ones get out of the way. There is definitely a hierarchy, starting at the top with the big cars, then the small cars, then the tuk tuks, motos, and lastly bikes -- yet another reason to use the cars as a shield.
The last thing you need to avoid are the huge carts carrying supplies - they move slowly because it's just one moto pulling it (no chevy trucks here, no sirree), laden with supplies and with at least one or two young men sitting on top, with dusty clothes and scarves over their mouth - and the food carts. These are sometimes like huge, glorified wheelbarrows or like the push carts you might find in Central Park. Their owners either walk them around or attach them somehow to a moto, and drive along the side of the street, announcing their presence with a little horn playing a ditty that may be the most annoying thing I have ever heard. But it works like an ice cream cart.
And I may have mentioned it before, but the motos, aside from being absolutely ubiquitous, carry the damndest things. It is not uncommon at all for whole families, including very small children, to be perched on top, or for huge boxes of god-knows-what tied precariously to the back. If you can put it on the thing and it doesn't collapse, well, then there you go.
It's not unorganized, as I thought at the beginning, and perhaps seems much more dangerous than it really is. But if you are paying attention, and understand where you are supposed to turn, it works out just fine.
However, and especially since the bag snatching incident, I wear a helmet.
In the meantime, there are certain rules that everyone follows, though they cannot really be called traffic laws in the way we westerners would think of them. Once you figure them out, however, you can get along just fine, if by fine you don't mind a few heartattacks on each trip.
The most disconcerting thing for me is the way to turn left at intersections. You turn to the far left side of the road you want and drive on the wrong side of the road until the opportunity to cut across oncoming traffic presents itself and you can get back to the right side.
At stoplights, the motos and bikes wind their way up to the front, disregarding the lane markers entirely and often spilling into the oncoming traffic lanes. Red lights for many motos means 'take more caution when crossing the road', and they wait until everything is most calmed and then motor on across. If you don't start pedaling when the countdown -- large red numbers on the stoplights announcing just how long you have to wait -- hits "4", you'll be left in the dust, but then it's important to be aware as someone will always be pushing the limit of when the red light actually appears.
For those intersections without stoplights -- that is to say, most of them -- it's just a touch and go process to wind around everyone and hope the car in front of you isn't blocking a moto traversing on the other side (which it inevitably is.) This is similar to turning left without a light, in which case you just wind your way through oncoming traffic wherever there are gaps.
My trick is usually to find a moto or a car turning at the same place as me and then hiding behind them, using them as a shield and zipping through the hole they create. It works, most of the time.
Cambodian drivers are remarkably patient with this crazy system, and despite the hundreds of near collisions in one short drive, road rage is very rare. Honking, however, is common place. Generally speaking, though, the honk is used for both moto and car to simply announce its presence, usually as it is cutting across several lanes of oncoming traffic to turn left or something of the sort. Since people get cut off all the time, honking usually serves as a warning that, although you may have just swerved in front of me, I am still here.
Honking can also be used to clear the way, as the more important cars use it just to make the smaller ones get out of the way. There is definitely a hierarchy, starting at the top with the big cars, then the small cars, then the tuk tuks, motos, and lastly bikes -- yet another reason to use the cars as a shield.
The last thing you need to avoid are the huge carts carrying supplies - they move slowly because it's just one moto pulling it (no chevy trucks here, no sirree), laden with supplies and with at least one or two young men sitting on top, with dusty clothes and scarves over their mouth - and the food carts. These are sometimes like huge, glorified wheelbarrows or like the push carts you might find in Central Park. Their owners either walk them around or attach them somehow to a moto, and drive along the side of the street, announcing their presence with a little horn playing a ditty that may be the most annoying thing I have ever heard. But it works like an ice cream cart.
And I may have mentioned it before, but the motos, aside from being absolutely ubiquitous, carry the damndest things. It is not uncommon at all for whole families, including very small children, to be perched on top, or for huge boxes of god-knows-what tied precariously to the back. If you can put it on the thing and it doesn't collapse, well, then there you go.
It's not unorganized, as I thought at the beginning, and perhaps seems much more dangerous than it really is. But if you are paying attention, and understand where you are supposed to turn, it works out just fine.
However, and especially since the bag snatching incident, I wear a helmet.
Friday, August 3, 2012
Studying abroad to living abroad
When I came back from Paris after eleven months abroad, I realized something: my family, the people I'm closest to in the whole world, had lived a full year that I knew nothing of. They were the same as always, but changed, and I found myself trying to relate to them in a way that hadn't worked for a year, like trying to fix a fridge the way you used to fix an ice box.
It was upsetting, and disturbing, but understandable. While I didn't cut them out completely, I did intentionally disappear, burying myself in the city and my own soul, trying to figure out what it looked like. I was lost, and needed that time to reform.
It's the only time I've spent significant time abroad; while New York is a full three and a half hours by plane away from Colorado, the family is only two hours and a phone call away. Plus, when I left, I knew I was coming back. I had a year left of school, after all.
This time, as has been previously noted and the cause of all sorts of shenanigans and complications, I just don't know when I'm coming back, and in fact I'm not planning to go back to America to live. Just to visit, a month or two every year. This time I'm separated by thirteen hours and a skype call, or a very expensive phone call.
This isn't a year abroad to find myself, but actually moving abroad, and it's changing my focus. I've been asking my family to send me updates, things about the daily life, little challenges and uncertainties that I would miss otherwise. What they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, triumphs and challenges.
I may live far away, but I don't want to be far away. Space is a distance, but thanks to technology even the other side of the world is just fourteen inches and on the other side of the computer screen away.
Not so very far away at all.
It was upsetting, and disturbing, but understandable. While I didn't cut them out completely, I did intentionally disappear, burying myself in the city and my own soul, trying to figure out what it looked like. I was lost, and needed that time to reform.
It's the only time I've spent significant time abroad; while New York is a full three and a half hours by plane away from Colorado, the family is only two hours and a phone call away. Plus, when I left, I knew I was coming back. I had a year left of school, after all.
This time, as has been previously noted and the cause of all sorts of shenanigans and complications, I just don't know when I'm coming back, and in fact I'm not planning to go back to America to live. Just to visit, a month or two every year. This time I'm separated by thirteen hours and a skype call, or a very expensive phone call.
This isn't a year abroad to find myself, but actually moving abroad, and it's changing my focus. I've been asking my family to send me updates, things about the daily life, little challenges and uncertainties that I would miss otherwise. What they're thinking about, what they're concerned about, triumphs and challenges.
I may live far away, but I don't want to be far away. Space is a distance, but thanks to technology even the other side of the world is just fourteen inches and on the other side of the computer screen away.
Not so very far away at all.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Monday: And so it begins
The first half of this post was written on Monday morning, when my Facebook feed was filled with happy statuses about a great Sunday, or somewhat less happy about the upcoming return to reality when Monday rolled around.
I have been to the future, my friends, and Monday is not so terrible.
It started with a meeting; or rather, with a phone call as I was about to leave for the meeting. My mad e-mailing seems to be going somewhere, as I was asked for an interview for an assitant teaching position at a nearby international school. Then it was off to the University of Fine Arts, and I didn't really know what I was planning to ask about. The pretext for my meeting, I found out later, was something about wanting to do research on the Royal Ballet, but we soon got past that. As a matter of fact, I just wanted to know them, and be known, and both turned out splendidly.
The meeting took place in the administrative and admissions office, which was simply a large room in one of the long buildings that make up the university. Next door was the music department, its doors wide open and some very lovely music spilling out, and on its other side "Choreographic Arts", though apparently they just teach the theory.
In the middle of the room was a wood table with a teapot, and surrounding it about five or six old desks, retro 70s style, clunky and somewhat gray. One had a slab of rock under one foot to keep it stable. Two of the desks had enormous desktop computers, the kind that look like old TVs. The floor, tiled red and white, was very dusty. Here and there a few pieces of scenery or decorations lay on the floor. It was cool, though, shaded and a couple ceiling fans gently keeping the air circulated.
I guess that's what counts for high tech here. Nonetheless, the man I was meeting was very friendly, passed off a few phone numbers and suggested I meet the teachers at their Secondary School. Exams, he said, are tomorrow, and then vacation, so you should go tomorrow.
Guess where I'm going tomorrow then? Somewhere way up in the north of the city, though really it's maybe 5 km, to a campus that they didn't really know the street address of but knew roughly how to find it and pointed it out on my handy Phnom Penh map. Interview, then secondary school. Sounds like a good day to me...
In any case, I also started my workshops -- due to the Secondary Fine Arts school having their exams, as I had just learned this morning, 11 of my students were not present, leaving me to try and ingratiate myself to the 4 who were present. They were all very nice, don't get me wrong, it's just that the long and the short of it is:
They have never done anything at all like this. I don't speak Khmer, though I do have a translator. They don't even know what 'choreography' is, as with a lot of people; I say it means making dances and they want to slap movement together. But there's more to it, and it's my job to get them to trust me enough to try it this new, strange, and decidedly different way. I'm trying to let them stay in their comfort zone by using movement they are comfortable with, but we are approaching it in a vastly different way than they know and -- well, that's why I'm here, to give them a new way of looking at things.
It was a long three hours, but that's okay; if this is going to work, it's going to take a lot of patience and a lot of attention from me. I bet you anything that the more we go along, the better it will be -- mostly because I'll have a better idea of how to approach it, introduce it, etc. I already do, and looking forward to restarting with the full 15 tomorrow.
Tonight my friend is taking me to a popular expat biweekly event called "Nerd Night," in which people present on something they're a nerd about, from tea drinking to barefoot running, by talking about 20 slides for 20 seconds each.
In the mean time I'm having a quiet dinner at home -- some veggies, some rice cooked with olive oil and salt, and bread. For dessert I decided to have half of what I suspected was a mango, and having never cut a mango before was unsure how to proceed, having somehow gotten into my head I should cut it like an avocado.
It was certainly a mango, but you most certainly do not cut it like an avocado, but juice everwhere aside, it is perfectly ripe and very, very yummy.
Not a bad life at all...
I have been to the future, my friends, and Monday is not so terrible.
It started with a meeting; or rather, with a phone call as I was about to leave for the meeting. My mad e-mailing seems to be going somewhere, as I was asked for an interview for an assitant teaching position at a nearby international school. Then it was off to the University of Fine Arts, and I didn't really know what I was planning to ask about. The pretext for my meeting, I found out later, was something about wanting to do research on the Royal Ballet, but we soon got past that. As a matter of fact, I just wanted to know them, and be known, and both turned out splendidly.
The meeting took place in the administrative and admissions office, which was simply a large room in one of the long buildings that make up the university. Next door was the music department, its doors wide open and some very lovely music spilling out, and on its other side "Choreographic Arts", though apparently they just teach the theory.
In the middle of the room was a wood table with a teapot, and surrounding it about five or six old desks, retro 70s style, clunky and somewhat gray. One had a slab of rock under one foot to keep it stable. Two of the desks had enormous desktop computers, the kind that look like old TVs. The floor, tiled red and white, was very dusty. Here and there a few pieces of scenery or decorations lay on the floor. It was cool, though, shaded and a couple ceiling fans gently keeping the air circulated.
I guess that's what counts for high tech here. Nonetheless, the man I was meeting was very friendly, passed off a few phone numbers and suggested I meet the teachers at their Secondary School. Exams, he said, are tomorrow, and then vacation, so you should go tomorrow.
Guess where I'm going tomorrow then? Somewhere way up in the north of the city, though really it's maybe 5 km, to a campus that they didn't really know the street address of but knew roughly how to find it and pointed it out on my handy Phnom Penh map. Interview, then secondary school. Sounds like a good day to me...
In any case, I also started my workshops -- due to the Secondary Fine Arts school having their exams, as I had just learned this morning, 11 of my students were not present, leaving me to try and ingratiate myself to the 4 who were present. They were all very nice, don't get me wrong, it's just that the long and the short of it is:
They have never done anything at all like this. I don't speak Khmer, though I do have a translator. They don't even know what 'choreography' is, as with a lot of people; I say it means making dances and they want to slap movement together. But there's more to it, and it's my job to get them to trust me enough to try it this new, strange, and decidedly different way. I'm trying to let them stay in their comfort zone by using movement they are comfortable with, but we are approaching it in a vastly different way than they know and -- well, that's why I'm here, to give them a new way of looking at things.
It was a long three hours, but that's okay; if this is going to work, it's going to take a lot of patience and a lot of attention from me. I bet you anything that the more we go along, the better it will be -- mostly because I'll have a better idea of how to approach it, introduce it, etc. I already do, and looking forward to restarting with the full 15 tomorrow.
Tonight my friend is taking me to a popular expat biweekly event called "Nerd Night," in which people present on something they're a nerd about, from tea drinking to barefoot running, by talking about 20 slides for 20 seconds each.
In the mean time I'm having a quiet dinner at home -- some veggies, some rice cooked with olive oil and salt, and bread. For dessert I decided to have half of what I suspected was a mango, and having never cut a mango before was unsure how to proceed, having somehow gotten into my head I should cut it like an avocado.
It was certainly a mango, but you most certainly do not cut it like an avocado, but juice everwhere aside, it is perfectly ripe and very, very yummy.
Not a bad life at all...
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Sunday in Phnom Penh
The heat is a bit oppressive today, and as such it is not quite four o'clock and I am dead tired. I just spent some ten minutes lying on my back and staring at the ceiling. I imagine there will be more of that before the end of the day, in fact a nap is looking increasingly likely.
This morning I went for a short tour on the bike -- hello thighs, we haven't spoken in awhile -- around Phnom Penh. I started by heading over to the riverside and biking north along the quai. It's very lovely, with the palm trees, and the sky is clear today, hence the heat. There was a bit of traffic, but nothing you can't deal with if you pay attention.
The city is small; it doesn't take long to bike. I didn't go all the way to the north, just up around street 88, then turned back and zigzagged my way back through the narrow streets to get home. My sense of direction is still as terrible as ever, but maybe it's getting better because I didn't get lost once, there were only a few times when I wasn't sure what street I was on, but that's understandable as there are very few street signs, and only on the main roads.
I really like the city; it's small and I suppose by American standards the streets are pretty narrow. All the signs are in Khmer and English, lest you forget where you are. As I've mentioned, of course, the tuk tuks are everywhere, and in the midday the drivers can often be found in the back taking a nap. Besides the restaurants, there are the nomadic food carts, their owners walking them along and tooting their horns to announce their arrival. Kind of like vendors at a sports game, only without the shouts.
I was only out for a half hour, but it was plenty enough to wear me out. I headed back out again for lunch with some friends around one thirty, to a place nearby called Khmer Surin. It's a guest house as well as a restaurant, and absolutely beautiful. The place seems to explode with plants and greenery. Dark wood and low tables, with red and gold cushions. Though you're inside, and cool in the shade, you feel like you're outside, with the green and the sky opening up above.
I had pad thai, which I know isn't Cambodian, but it was a Khmer and Thai restaurant and it was very good and cheap. I just learned yesterday the word for chili sauce and put it to good use, succeeding in ordering some. I was quite proud of myself...
We stayed a long time. The food was very good and it was so calming. Just next to us was a little pool and a fountain, and what with the green, you could just stay forever.
However, we didn't, and the bike ride home was enough to dispel whatever cool I had managed to gain at the restaurant. I'm now trying to decide what to do with myself for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is the start of everything and I admit to being somewhat apprehensive, but mostly just exciting to kick things off. As many people can attest, I don't do nothing very well.
I'm supposed to meet the dean of the university of fine arts in the morning as well, and I don't know for the life of me exactly what I plan on asking about, but I figure it's someone very good to know and I'm sure I can extemporize. Talking to people has never been a problem...
It looks to be a busy week, and all the better. Vacation -- if you can call it that -- is over, and now back to life. As I noted after graduation, I have nothing else but that for as far as I can see.
This morning I went for a short tour on the bike -- hello thighs, we haven't spoken in awhile -- around Phnom Penh. I started by heading over to the riverside and biking north along the quai. It's very lovely, with the palm trees, and the sky is clear today, hence the heat. There was a bit of traffic, but nothing you can't deal with if you pay attention.
The city is small; it doesn't take long to bike. I didn't go all the way to the north, just up around street 88, then turned back and zigzagged my way back through the narrow streets to get home. My sense of direction is still as terrible as ever, but maybe it's getting better because I didn't get lost once, there were only a few times when I wasn't sure what street I was on, but that's understandable as there are very few street signs, and only on the main roads.
I really like the city; it's small and I suppose by American standards the streets are pretty narrow. All the signs are in Khmer and English, lest you forget where you are. As I've mentioned, of course, the tuk tuks are everywhere, and in the midday the drivers can often be found in the back taking a nap. Besides the restaurants, there are the nomadic food carts, their owners walking them along and tooting their horns to announce their arrival. Kind of like vendors at a sports game, only without the shouts.
I was only out for a half hour, but it was plenty enough to wear me out. I headed back out again for lunch with some friends around one thirty, to a place nearby called Khmer Surin. It's a guest house as well as a restaurant, and absolutely beautiful. The place seems to explode with plants and greenery. Dark wood and low tables, with red and gold cushions. Though you're inside, and cool in the shade, you feel like you're outside, with the green and the sky opening up above.
I had pad thai, which I know isn't Cambodian, but it was a Khmer and Thai restaurant and it was very good and cheap. I just learned yesterday the word for chili sauce and put it to good use, succeeding in ordering some. I was quite proud of myself...
We stayed a long time. The food was very good and it was so calming. Just next to us was a little pool and a fountain, and what with the green, you could just stay forever.
However, we didn't, and the bike ride home was enough to dispel whatever cool I had managed to gain at the restaurant. I'm now trying to decide what to do with myself for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is the start of everything and I admit to being somewhat apprehensive, but mostly just exciting to kick things off. As many people can attest, I don't do nothing very well.
I'm supposed to meet the dean of the university of fine arts in the morning as well, and I don't know for the life of me exactly what I plan on asking about, but I figure it's someone very good to know and I'm sure I can extemporize. Talking to people has never been a problem...
It looks to be a busy week, and all the better. Vacation -- if you can call it that -- is over, and now back to life. As I noted after graduation, I have nothing else but that for as far as I can see.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Saturday Afternoon
Let me paint you a picture:
The patio is neat and deserted. Everyone is inside, as they well should be, but I wanted to sit here and watch. The tables are glass topped, and the patio is fenced in by black iron, every few tables a plant to add a touch of green. To my right, the parking lot; not much to see there, besides the army of motos and tuk tuks across the street, waiting in the shade for the customers leaving the shopping center.
In front of me the drive curls around to the parking garage. A staircase proclaiming "214Lounge" heads up to, presumably, a lounge, the 214 coming from the number of the street.
The ice cream in front of me is melting quickly in the hot air. Under the table are a couple bags with loot from the supermarket inside the shopping center; seasonings, a lot of noodle soup, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a dustpan. The makings of a home, for less than fifteen dollars.
Lest you think it was too much like home, to the side of the parking lot are the little miniature temples, set up for the ancestors. They are like little gold houses on pedestals, intricately formed and beautiful, filled with small gifts and offerings. These offerings are everywhere -- unobtrusive, and you don't necessarily see them unless you're looking, but everywhere.
Behind them, the street is lined with palm trees and another kind of tree with a brilliant red flower. Everything is deeply green and deeply colorful. There's a white apartment building beyond, a few palm trees on a rooftop garden.
Things are completely uncertain, but at that moment, I was at peace. I realized that even if I succeed in giving only one private lesson a week -- people have been urging me to go the route of private tutoring -- it will essentially pay my grocery bills. The thought was quite encouraging, as I have been impatiently wondering just when I am going to start getting income.
Soon, I thought, savoring the now very gooey ice cream. The server, surprised I could speak even a few words of Khmer, asked me in Khmer if I spoke it. I stared at her blankly, but when she translated, I smiled.
Ch'hey tac tac, I said.
Only a little.
The patio is neat and deserted. Everyone is inside, as they well should be, but I wanted to sit here and watch. The tables are glass topped, and the patio is fenced in by black iron, every few tables a plant to add a touch of green. To my right, the parking lot; not much to see there, besides the army of motos and tuk tuks across the street, waiting in the shade for the customers leaving the shopping center.
In front of me the drive curls around to the parking garage. A staircase proclaiming "214Lounge" heads up to, presumably, a lounge, the 214 coming from the number of the street.
The ice cream in front of me is melting quickly in the hot air. Under the table are a couple bags with loot from the supermarket inside the shopping center; seasonings, a lot of noodle soup, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, a dustpan. The makings of a home, for less than fifteen dollars.
Lest you think it was too much like home, to the side of the parking lot are the little miniature temples, set up for the ancestors. They are like little gold houses on pedestals, intricately formed and beautiful, filled with small gifts and offerings. These offerings are everywhere -- unobtrusive, and you don't necessarily see them unless you're looking, but everywhere.
Behind them, the street is lined with palm trees and another kind of tree with a brilliant red flower. Everything is deeply green and deeply colorful. There's a white apartment building beyond, a few palm trees on a rooftop garden.
Things are completely uncertain, but at that moment, I was at peace. I realized that even if I succeed in giving only one private lesson a week -- people have been urging me to go the route of private tutoring -- it will essentially pay my grocery bills. The thought was quite encouraging, as I have been impatiently wondering just when I am going to start getting income.
Soon, I thought, savoring the now very gooey ice cream. The server, surprised I could speak even a few words of Khmer, asked me in Khmer if I spoke it. I stared at her blankly, but when she translated, I smiled.
Ch'hey tac tac, I said.
Only a little.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Markets, Khmer, and Tuk Tuks...
I'm not sure where to begin.
HOW should I begin? With what, doing where, going how? I don't usually have expectations about things so I can't say it's what I expected, but it is...it is as expected nothing like anywhere I have ever been.
I am really terrible at writing descriptions and explanations. You'll find that soon, and hopefully sooner rather than later I'll have a camera and all of us will be spared my stumbling attempts. Either way, for the moment I'll stay away from them, and just tell you what I think is important.
Let's start this way: the roofs are colorful. Flying in, it's a mess of color, green of the trees, brick red, deep blue roofs, white, everything else thrown in for kicks. On the street you don't see the colors of the roofs, but it's still a mess. Umbrellas, carts, restaurants but without front windows. The streets are packed with motos and tuk tuks and a few cars, and nobody seems to care which side of the road you drive on. The motos weave in and out of everything -- often you'll see the moto taxis with one or two people sitting on the back, and if you walk down the street, the drivers -- moto and tuk tuk -- will offer rides incessantly.
The city is small but any time you don't know where you're going it seems bigger. There doesn't appear to be any street signs, only a few on the main roads. People seem to operate on landmarks and a solid knowledge of their neighborhoods.
Everywhere there is something to buy. It's cheap if you go where the locals go and extremely expensive if you go Western. Someone is always selling something, phones, bikes, water. Parking seems to be another adventurous activity -- my friend has a driver, and in being chauffered around, I noticed that almost all shops have an assistant whose job is to park the cars and make sure the tuk tuks go around when the car is backing up. They open the door for you to get out, and I guess receive a few riels in return.
Yesterday happened, and exactly what happened I'm not sure I could tell you -- I arrived in Phnom Penh around noon and the rest of the day existed in a haze, being bombarded with sights and sounds, information, and in the meantime trying to trick my body into believing that it wasn't actually in the middle of the night.
I managed to stay awake until 8:30, barely, enjoying a traditionally Cambodian meal for dinner with my friend's parents; chicken and ginger, a fish soup, and some kind of stew with some kind of eggs, meat, and veggies. With rice, of course, and fresh lychees and mangosteens for dessert.
What else --- I decided that my current wardrobe is drastically inadequate for the culture and the heat and have already set about rectifying that. It's somewhat conservative here, so I already have a pair of 'aladdin' pants, which are light and airy but cover a lot. I also bought a light dress, with small sleeves and calf length, and will soon add a very light shirt to cover my shoulders for the dresses I have. Apparently white skin is deeply coveted here, and despite the heat the locals cover most of their skin, even going so far as to use whitening creams.
I'm already working on learning the language -- it bugs me greatly to not be able to communicate with the locals in their own tongue and English is pretty spotty anyway. I can say basic things like thank you and please, I would like to go, etc, along with "I am a teacher in the arts," "more rice please," and how to count to twenty. It's not a difficult language, but the pronunciation is crazy and I don't think I will ever be able to read it. But most signs are in both English and Khmer, so I don't really have to. It's just the speaking that's the trick.
I also already have a Cambodian nickname -- while in English nicknames usually come from the first syllable -- for mean, "Gill" -- but here it's the last. My friend's mom has trouble saying Gillian because the soft g sound doesn't really exist here. So now she calls me 'yan', from the "ian" at the end. I actually quite like it.
But before I go don't let me forget to talk about the markets. They are cramped and busy and you can buy whatever it is you please. Bargaining is allowed and encouraged, and the shopkeepers either recruit customers or can be found napping in their stalls. Things are cheap, but apparently the prices jack up if you're white.
I suppose the most jarring for me were the piles of fresh fish and dead chickens, being gutted and cleaned as you watch. I guess it's a good way to see where your food is coming from, but it smelled too much of blood for me. I suppose it's something you get used to, and I want to buy fruit for breakfast. Overwhelming, busy, but fascinating.
I think, actually, that could be said for everything here.
HOW should I begin? With what, doing where, going how? I don't usually have expectations about things so I can't say it's what I expected, but it is...it is as expected nothing like anywhere I have ever been.
I am really terrible at writing descriptions and explanations. You'll find that soon, and hopefully sooner rather than later I'll have a camera and all of us will be spared my stumbling attempts. Either way, for the moment I'll stay away from them, and just tell you what I think is important.
Let's start this way: the roofs are colorful. Flying in, it's a mess of color, green of the trees, brick red, deep blue roofs, white, everything else thrown in for kicks. On the street you don't see the colors of the roofs, but it's still a mess. Umbrellas, carts, restaurants but without front windows. The streets are packed with motos and tuk tuks and a few cars, and nobody seems to care which side of the road you drive on. The motos weave in and out of everything -- often you'll see the moto taxis with one or two people sitting on the back, and if you walk down the street, the drivers -- moto and tuk tuk -- will offer rides incessantly.
The city is small but any time you don't know where you're going it seems bigger. There doesn't appear to be any street signs, only a few on the main roads. People seem to operate on landmarks and a solid knowledge of their neighborhoods.
Everywhere there is something to buy. It's cheap if you go where the locals go and extremely expensive if you go Western. Someone is always selling something, phones, bikes, water. Parking seems to be another adventurous activity -- my friend has a driver, and in being chauffered around, I noticed that almost all shops have an assistant whose job is to park the cars and make sure the tuk tuks go around when the car is backing up. They open the door for you to get out, and I guess receive a few riels in return.
Yesterday happened, and exactly what happened I'm not sure I could tell you -- I arrived in Phnom Penh around noon and the rest of the day existed in a haze, being bombarded with sights and sounds, information, and in the meantime trying to trick my body into believing that it wasn't actually in the middle of the night.
I managed to stay awake until 8:30, barely, enjoying a traditionally Cambodian meal for dinner with my friend's parents; chicken and ginger, a fish soup, and some kind of stew with some kind of eggs, meat, and veggies. With rice, of course, and fresh lychees and mangosteens for dessert.
What else --- I decided that my current wardrobe is drastically inadequate for the culture and the heat and have already set about rectifying that. It's somewhat conservative here, so I already have a pair of 'aladdin' pants, which are light and airy but cover a lot. I also bought a light dress, with small sleeves and calf length, and will soon add a very light shirt to cover my shoulders for the dresses I have. Apparently white skin is deeply coveted here, and despite the heat the locals cover most of their skin, even going so far as to use whitening creams.
I'm already working on learning the language -- it bugs me greatly to not be able to communicate with the locals in their own tongue and English is pretty spotty anyway. I can say basic things like thank you and please, I would like to go, etc, along with "I am a teacher in the arts," "more rice please," and how to count to twenty. It's not a difficult language, but the pronunciation is crazy and I don't think I will ever be able to read it. But most signs are in both English and Khmer, so I don't really have to. It's just the speaking that's the trick.
I also already have a Cambodian nickname -- while in English nicknames usually come from the first syllable -- for mean, "Gill" -- but here it's the last. My friend's mom has trouble saying Gillian because the soft g sound doesn't really exist here. So now she calls me 'yan', from the "ian" at the end. I actually quite like it.
But before I go don't let me forget to talk about the markets. They are cramped and busy and you can buy whatever it is you please. Bargaining is allowed and encouraged, and the shopkeepers either recruit customers or can be found napping in their stalls. Things are cheap, but apparently the prices jack up if you're white.
I suppose the most jarring for me were the piles of fresh fish and dead chickens, being gutted and cleaned as you watch. I guess it's a good way to see where your food is coming from, but it smelled too much of blood for me. I suppose it's something you get used to, and I want to buy fruit for breakfast. Overwhelming, busy, but fascinating.
I think, actually, that could be said for everything here.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
And then life happened
And muttering constantly about how long May was taking to finish, I turned around to open the door and found weeks trailing behind me like little ducklings, wondering how long it would take until I noticed them.
It all just happened, just like every other moment of our lives, important and unimportant and essential and thrown away -- it doesn't change, each now unravels precisely as did its predecessor. If there's an apocalypse, it will be just like every other moment and we'll probably never know it happened, until much later.
I don't remember what it was like to be in school, to have homework, to go to class. That's probably a strange thing to say, but this is coming from someone who has trouble remembering what happened last weekend. I think it's a caveat - if that word is even appropriate here - of living in the now. But needless to say, I don't miss it.
Perhaps one reason life is happening behind my back, only to stop guilty when I turn but betrayed by its movement, is that I've been feeling particularly transitory -- unsettled in the most literal sense, un-settled, not settled. And no wonder -- I'm staying in someone else's apartment. I get my clothes from a suitcase. I'm leaving in four weeks (!!!!) from Thursday, to somewhere across the globe that promises to be exactly like nothing I have ever experienced, ever.
It's been many years of violent transition in the family -- the easiest way to describe it is Dad changing careers, but that doesn't cover how the whole family melted like steel in the forge and came out changed. How the life we had before is nothing like the life we live now, down to the way we think, act, make decisions. Inside it's easy to think this is all there ever will be, this uncertain wobbling as we try to figure out where and what to do, how to live when we can barely see tomorrow, let alone our hands in front of our faces.
Lately, I've had a couple thoughts. One, a simple bit of optimism: it won't always be like this. I can imagine a time in the not so distant future when I will have a little place, however small, that is mine, that I can buy little decorations for and come home to each night. Sure, I probably won't know when or where or how to make my dreams of dancing and choreographing come true, but I will have that one little bit of stability. Maybe even many years from now, my company will be well-established. Stability, like life, goes in cycles. At least, I'm willing to bet on it.
The second is something zen masters would probably approve of: until such time that I am settled, I must become settled in transition. Transition needs to be my home for now. Travel lightly. Dance from place to place like a sparrow, ready to fly at every moment.
In the meantime, I'm preparing for the move as best as I can, holding rehearsals, working. Thinking I'm paying attention to time and turning around to find it sneaking by while I wasn't looking.
It all just happened, just like every other moment of our lives, important and unimportant and essential and thrown away -- it doesn't change, each now unravels precisely as did its predecessor. If there's an apocalypse, it will be just like every other moment and we'll probably never know it happened, until much later.
I don't remember what it was like to be in school, to have homework, to go to class. That's probably a strange thing to say, but this is coming from someone who has trouble remembering what happened last weekend. I think it's a caveat - if that word is even appropriate here - of living in the now. But needless to say, I don't miss it.
Perhaps one reason life is happening behind my back, only to stop guilty when I turn but betrayed by its movement, is that I've been feeling particularly transitory -- unsettled in the most literal sense, un-settled, not settled. And no wonder -- I'm staying in someone else's apartment. I get my clothes from a suitcase. I'm leaving in four weeks (!!!!) from Thursday, to somewhere across the globe that promises to be exactly like nothing I have ever experienced, ever.
It's been many years of violent transition in the family -- the easiest way to describe it is Dad changing careers, but that doesn't cover how the whole family melted like steel in the forge and came out changed. How the life we had before is nothing like the life we live now, down to the way we think, act, make decisions. Inside it's easy to think this is all there ever will be, this uncertain wobbling as we try to figure out where and what to do, how to live when we can barely see tomorrow, let alone our hands in front of our faces.
Lately, I've had a couple thoughts. One, a simple bit of optimism: it won't always be like this. I can imagine a time in the not so distant future when I will have a little place, however small, that is mine, that I can buy little decorations for and come home to each night. Sure, I probably won't know when or where or how to make my dreams of dancing and choreographing come true, but I will have that one little bit of stability. Maybe even many years from now, my company will be well-established. Stability, like life, goes in cycles. At least, I'm willing to bet on it.
The second is something zen masters would probably approve of: until such time that I am settled, I must become settled in transition. Transition needs to be my home for now. Travel lightly. Dance from place to place like a sparrow, ready to fly at every moment.
In the meantime, I'm preparing for the move as best as I can, holding rehearsals, working. Thinking I'm paying attention to time and turning around to find it sneaking by while I wasn't looking.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
At a loss for words (part 3)
It's somewhat fitting that when I get to the part in the story that left me speechless for the first time, I have no more words to say.
I can't tell you about Paris -- I already have too many times and stuffing it into words makes it into language, and I want to keep it in the same plasma state it was. I'd like to tell you -- about each moment and each now, and how the colors inside them blinded me, how everything burned and how I turned around one day and realized I wasn't lost anymore. But I can't. To do so would be a great disservice.
All I can tell you is that -- and what a silly, piddling statement it is -- I changed.
Maybe that's the theme I'm going for in this series, the only thing I can say for sure at the end of this mad, violent, busy, wonderful, intensely full period of life they call college. It's nothing but another door, but this door means something because I've changed -- but not just changed ---
I think the word I want is become. I have become.
This past year, the final one, has been no exception. I spent the first semester staring at myself in a mirror and having no clue who was looking back, struggling to fit the life I had before with the life I had created. I knew I'd be culture shocked and thought I had prepared, but prepared to fight a monster whose face I didn't even recognize when I saw it.
Sure, there were the academics -- a thesis, for one -- but this year was about making a dream come true, and celebrating the journey. I think I did both spectacularly.
I have nothing more to say about it, which is not to say there is nothing to say about it -- about each year and each summer and each splendid moment that was terribly unperfect and perfect, and about this year, but again -- I can't. I've run out. Paris left me speechless and I haven't recovered my tongue yet.
I'm just the girl who has become, and turns to face the world with immense passion and determination. Who is either really stupid or a visionary, and I guess we'll find out soon enough.
It's been a fun ride. I wouldn't have wanted it any shorter or longer, any more or less, anything else than exactly what it was.
(Everything is always perfect, remember?)
I can't tell you about Paris -- I already have too many times and stuffing it into words makes it into language, and I want to keep it in the same plasma state it was. I'd like to tell you -- about each moment and each now, and how the colors inside them blinded me, how everything burned and how I turned around one day and realized I wasn't lost anymore. But I can't. To do so would be a great disservice.
All I can tell you is that -- and what a silly, piddling statement it is -- I changed.
Maybe that's the theme I'm going for in this series, the only thing I can say for sure at the end of this mad, violent, busy, wonderful, intensely full period of life they call college. It's nothing but another door, but this door means something because I've changed -- but not just changed ---
I think the word I want is become. I have become.
This past year, the final one, has been no exception. I spent the first semester staring at myself in a mirror and having no clue who was looking back, struggling to fit the life I had before with the life I had created. I knew I'd be culture shocked and thought I had prepared, but prepared to fight a monster whose face I didn't even recognize when I saw it.
Sure, there were the academics -- a thesis, for one -- but this year was about making a dream come true, and celebrating the journey. I think I did both spectacularly.
I have nothing more to say about it, which is not to say there is nothing to say about it -- about each year and each summer and each splendid moment that was terribly unperfect and perfect, and about this year, but again -- I can't. I've run out. Paris left me speechless and I haven't recovered my tongue yet.
I'm just the girl who has become, and turns to face the world with immense passion and determination. Who is either really stupid or a visionary, and I guess we'll find out soon enough.
It's been a fun ride. I wouldn't have wanted it any shorter or longer, any more or less, anything else than exactly what it was.
(Everything is always perfect, remember?)
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Everything is Always Perfect (Even when it's not)
I've mentioned this a few times to some of my friends, who always, being very sweet, open-minded people, nod and smile and say, sure, they suppose. But I thought it deserves a more in-depth look here -- at least so I can explain myself. It is, I admit, a sort of strange thing to say, in a world and a life so obviously UN-perfect.
The essence of it is this: I don't mean 'perfect' as in "perfection", or "utopian". These words suggest strange, vacant, vapid places of idyllic beauty, filled with vacant, vapidly happy people stumbling around in a daze on golden streets. No, I don't mean paradise.
I mean perfect as in the idea that everything is always exactly as it should be at any given time, as it must be, because it could not possibly be any other way.
This is not to be confused with the idea of "fate", which is a whole different animal. A cold and unfeeling universe unfolding with no chance of redemption or fixing what has already been given to you to break does not sound like my idea of a picnic. No, the universe is dynamic and changing and changes as we choose and create the realities we want to live in.
But at any given moment, everything is exactly as it needs to be. Perfect. Even if it's not perfect.
It's not an easy philosophy, but it's the only way to make sense of the world for me, especially because it demands a certain loss of judgment. Good and bad distinctions are the world's favorite way of speaking, and I just can't deal with it. I honestly don't believe in "good" or "bad" -- I believe things can be constructive or destructive. Construction leads to life, joy, creation. Destruction is pain, despair, and fear. One is certainly more desirable, but I am loath to use the word "better." I simply try to live my life in the most constructive and creation-oriented way possible, for myself and for those around me.
Getting back to the topic, if everything is always as it should be, then it's very hard to call things good or bad. They simply are. They are exactly what they are and nothing more or less. In that way, you can just deal with things without the halo of connotations and judgments we carry around life in.
Sure, it requires a lot of patience, and trust, and I freely admit to not always following the philosophy as much as I'd like to. But I do try.
"Whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding exactly as it should."
The essence of it is this: I don't mean 'perfect' as in "perfection", or "utopian". These words suggest strange, vacant, vapid places of idyllic beauty, filled with vacant, vapidly happy people stumbling around in a daze on golden streets. No, I don't mean paradise.
I mean perfect as in the idea that everything is always exactly as it should be at any given time, as it must be, because it could not possibly be any other way.
This is not to be confused with the idea of "fate", which is a whole different animal. A cold and unfeeling universe unfolding with no chance of redemption or fixing what has already been given to you to break does not sound like my idea of a picnic. No, the universe is dynamic and changing and changes as we choose and create the realities we want to live in.
But at any given moment, everything is exactly as it needs to be. Perfect. Even if it's not perfect.
It's not an easy philosophy, but it's the only way to make sense of the world for me, especially because it demands a certain loss of judgment. Good and bad distinctions are the world's favorite way of speaking, and I just can't deal with it. I honestly don't believe in "good" or "bad" -- I believe things can be constructive or destructive. Construction leads to life, joy, creation. Destruction is pain, despair, and fear. One is certainly more desirable, but I am loath to use the word "better." I simply try to live my life in the most constructive and creation-oriented way possible, for myself and for those around me.
Getting back to the topic, if everything is always as it should be, then it's very hard to call things good or bad. They simply are. They are exactly what they are and nothing more or less. In that way, you can just deal with things without the halo of connotations and judgments we carry around life in.
Sure, it requires a lot of patience, and trust, and I freely admit to not always following the philosophy as much as I'd like to. But I do try.
"Whether or not it is clear to you, the universe is unfolding exactly as it should."
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
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.
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.
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