A Note To My Anonymous Commenter

Today, someone commented on last night's post, "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. Is it your own self-involved view of the world that is keeping you from connecting?"

Maybe my view of the world does keep me from connecting to those around me. It is quite feasible that it got in the way last night, at least toward the end of the evening, when my spirits started to drop. And you are right, that it is something good to keep in perspective.

I wonder though, why would you post something like that? What is your intent? Applying the label "self-involved", while it may or may not be valid, lends a negative tone to your comment. Not meant to help, meant more to diminish, judge, or invalidate my feelings.

To you, or to anyone else reading this journal - I don't claim that anything here is well written, that it is interesting, or that it is worth reading. I write mainly for myself. I write to sort through my feelings and achieve clarity. I am not posturing or trying to write for any particular audience, so my posts will sometimes - or often - be scattered, confused, colored with some level of angst or immaturity or any other emotion or block that I am trying at that moment to sort through and figure out.

If you have some interest in what I write, whether you are a stranger or an old friend, by all means, stay and read. But if you don't find value in what I write, you don't have to read it; perhaps instead move on to something else that you find to be of more worth.

A Next-Day Update

I woke up this morning feeling much better. Mornings are often good that way. Clear out the junk, hit the reset button, wake up feeling fresh and wondering what it is that got you so tied up and turned around the night before.

Anyway, I'm feeling good. I am not retracting the post, but I'd like to put some perspective to it: I'm generally really happy, I still do like many things about tango and many people within the tango community - but I just have trouble finding a way to fit back into the community entirely within the context of my current situation. It's not the end of the world. It's not awful. People change, tastes change, what fits changes. My life is still full, whether I stay with tango or not, and maybe I will stay, who knows. I wrote the post last night in a moment of angst and stress, and while it accurately reflects that moment, it does not accurately reflect the overall picture. It was just a snapshot.

Thank you to the friends who wrote to check in with me. I'm surprised sometimes that some of you still read, and especially that you catch what I write so soon after I write it. But in spite of that surprise, I am always so happy to hear from you. How lucky I am to have that.

Why I May Be Done With Tango

The tango community is a cold and cruel bunch.

I heard the other day that they still gossip about Jaimes and I now, years after we're done. What do they say after all this time? Apparently some people think I planned it all to be this way. Just like this.

What?

Raising a child basically on my own?

An over-controlling ex who started sleeping with a close friend of mine when my baby was months old and eventually left me for her, and who tries as hard as he can to dictate every detail of my life even now? Who is condescending and mean, who has no respect for me, who disappears for days or months at a time, leaving me to find a way to explain to Ravenna that I know she wants to see him, but he's not around, I have no way to get ahold of him, and I don't know when he will next have time for her?

Right.

I planned it to be exactly like this. Every last detail. Because this is awesome. I couldn't imagine a better situation.

...

If I had PLANNED anything, I would have planned to stay with Evan. I was so happy with Evan. He created joy in my life.

It's just as well that we did not stay together - he has thrived since we split, grown and matured and really settled in his life, in ways that maybe he never could have had he still been here with me. But for me, if I had planned anything back then, I would have planned to have stayed with him.

Instead, I let Jaimes sweep me back away. Look where that got me.

So there's that.

The gossips sure got that right.

Then there are logistics. I can't be around Jaimes. I can't be around Christa. There is too much baggage. And they both have too little care and too little respect for me as a person. It nearly always ends up badly for me, much better for me to just keep a distance and firm boundaries. I want to enable Ravenna to have a loving, functional relationship with her father, but for myself, I need distance and space.

This means that a number of tango events and opportunities that I might normally be drawn to are off limits. For my own sanity and well being I have to stay away.

And having a two year old child 24/7, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, makes it that much more difficult, logistically, to get out. Even if she is incredibly adaptable. Even if she is amazingly tolerant about going out to these things and keeping odd hours and allowing me some space when we are out to maintain and nurse my relationship to this dance. It's still hard to find the time. And to balance everything.

Then there are the dances themselves, when I am able to make it out.

Once in a while I go out, I connect really well with my partner, I lose myself in the music, I feel that I am expressing myself to all my potential, and I remember why it is that I love this music and this dance and everything that has kept me all these years.

But that is rare. Most times, nobody asks me to dance.

Then when I ask, if I ask, maybe they will dance with me. But often only for a few songs, and often projecting an attitude that they are certainly doing me a great favor.

I used to think that it was because I was so often there with Ravenna and people didn't know how to ask me in the context of me being with her. But it's so much of the time, and it's just as much when I find somebody to spend the evening with her and I go out on my own as it is when I am out with her in tow.

Yes, I am out of shape in the dance. I don't have the control over my body to execute technique and movement to the degree that I would like. It doesn't help that I don't have the opportunity to dance much, to get that feeling and control back into my body. Even when I go out to the practices and the dances this remains the case. I spend 3 hours at a practica, of which I get to dance maybe 10, 20 minutes. This is not enough to tone a body. So the situation perpetuates.

Body tone aside, I still have the knowledge. The want. The desire. The love of the music. The love of the aesthetic.

But it doesn't seem to matter.

I didn't spend six years of my life learning this dance so that I could go out and feel like everyone around thinks I am not worth dancing with!

So tonight, for instance:

Tonight was a good night. I was happy. Earlier on, I taught a lesson. It felt so good. I had a feeling of being grounded and in touch with my body.

So a bit later, Ravenna and I stopped in at the practica, and I was in high spirits.

The practica - I'm there, people there come up, say hello, they are friendly, but then they look at me with these shifty eyes that say, "Please don't put me in a position where I feel obligated to dance with you, I really don't want that...and oh! Over there, I have to go, there is somebody I'd be upset if I were to miss dancing with tonight."

Not one. Not a few. Most.

Most people. People I have known for years. People I have often quite enjoyed talking to, interacting with, and yes, dancing with.

...

I started in such high spirits, but I left the dance in tears.

This is typical of my tango experience these days.

Why do I keep going? I don't really know. But nights tonight I feel like it's my own damn fault if I end up feeling this way again, if I'm dumb enough to continue to go out. Like, really, it's maybe just time to sever my relationship with this dance.

Not because of the dance - I love the dance, I love the music - but because of the community. This cold community of people that make me feel so unwelcome. I'm some sort of idiot if I keep letting that into my life. I have good friends, other artistic outlets, great things in my life...tango just sullies it and brings me down.

So maybe I'm approaching the end.

Sewage

. . .It’s been more than 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt wondered aloud whether "civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water.". . .

Google!

The NYTimes published a recent article that, while not definitive, enumerated a number of cool google applications. Neat stuff! Some of which I am already familiar with, some of which is new to me.

Sad Snowman

This is the Seattle we know and love.

Day 3. Or 4? I don't even know any more.

This can't really be Seattle...can it??

It just keeps right on snowing!

Yes, those things just barely peeking out are cars.

This isn't some rural area. I didn't stray any further than 5 steps outside my front door to take any of these photos, and I live smack dab in the middle of the city, just north of the University District.

Snow! In Seattle! And a LOT of it!

I'm living in a winter wonderland.

Ravenna, However, Is Feeling Just Fine.

Guess My Mood

Getting ready for the practica tonight...just getting over a flu and emotionally all over the map, felt like showing it in attire and make-up.

And Obama Wins...

Had an incident with Jaimes that predicated that last post. It unfortunately happened just before the election was declared for Obama.

I'm glad that Obama won.

This other stuff has got me so caught up that I can't quite appreciate the election fully, though.

Ah well, I guess there are the next 4 years left for it to sink in.

Where Do I Belong?

Starting to wonder sometimes if I'm making the wrong choice, sticking around here in Seattle. Staying home with Ravenna, living on very tight financial means, tying ourselves to Jaimes, who can be very unpredictable and at times exceedingly difficult.

I want to enable Jaimes and Ravenna to have a good relationship. At the same time, he has little to no respect for me, and so will at times treat me with utter contempt, or he act in ways that are completely inappropriate. What sort of example am I setting for Ravenna to perpetuate this?

Then there is the issue of support. So many people that I used to consider friends have dropped out of my life in the last few years, either after I had Ravenna, or when Jaimes and I split. There are some still around who have proven themselves beyond any doubt, but lately they are busier and busier with their own lives. Seattle is becoming a rather lonely place for me.

I'm not sure I like the way that MN is developing or that I have a great desire to live there again, but at least there I would have family around. That's something special that Ravenna is missing right now.

I love being with Ravenna all day every day and it would break my heart in some small way to give that up to go back to work, but I could make us a good living, and who's to say that some other daily arrangement wouldn't be just as good for her? Children often love day care and pre school and thrive in environments with other children.

I'm so torn up about it all.

What's the right thing?

Is there a right thing?

If I did something else, then she'd be missing everything she has now; my full attention all day every day, a few hours most days spent playing with her father who adores and dotes on her, relationships with several close friends of mine who are really are a sort of "family" to her...and that's all special too. She's such an amazing child, and she's really thrived so far.

Would I be happier somewhere else? Or even here, still, but doing something else? Maybe.

Is that worth giving up these things? I just don't know.

Hair Cut

Here it is! I'm still not sure whether I like it or not.


I had been thinking about cutting it really short, sort of following the line of my jaw. Chantal, who cut my hair, thought that would be really extreme -- except the thing is I've had that sort of cut many times, so it's not that drastic in that I'm already used to the way it looks on me. I've never had this cut so it somehow feels more extreme. Every time I walk by the mirror I catch myself thinking, "Who is that?"

Then again, it's only been an hour. Plenty of time still to warm up to it.

Sleep, Where Are You?

Why is it so hard to sleep when you've got stuff on your mind? Wouldn't it make more sense to drift soundly away and work it all out in your dreams? In your subconscious?

I'm so rarely an insomniac, I just don't know what to make of it. What to do with it.

I'd like to just stay up and do something mindless, clean or code or paint or cook or...something, anything, but Ravenna will wake up in the next 3-5 hours irregardless of how well or how long or how little I have slept. And oh will I regret this then.

Back to lie down, close my eyes, and wish for sleep to find me...

Success!

It is cold today!
Seattle is cold.
My house is cold.
I am cold.
Cold to the bone.
Cold to through and through.
EXCEPT -

Here I be, a proud thing, having conquered many issues with kindling, structure, starters, showing off me first made fire in this place! Success! Light! Warmpth! Heat!

Ahh, fire.

Life is so good in this moment.

Reading a Book

Another Blast From the Past

Hadn't looked at this in years. Pretty sure I drew it in about the same time frame, maybe a year or so before I got the tattoo.

My tattoo

This picture is years old, shoulda posted it when I first got the tattoo, in...what? 2004? But I'm not sure if I ever did. It's my only tattoo, and it's my own design.

Unrequited

I have a crush on a man who is, for a number of reasons, absolutely unavailable. I really like him. And it just doesn't matter at all.

I haven't really felt this way since I was a teenager. Consumed with some feeling that I just can't find the words for, not able to really convey in a way that does it any justice. Can't find the right words, the right picture, the right anything. There's a bit of sadness to it, a bit of bitter sweet, something of an awakening, a bit of a feeling that it's good to be feeling anything at all.

It's all pushing on my chest; wrapped up in a cocoon but the cocoon is too hard, reinforced on the outside, I can't break out.