bucket

this thing. ugh.

1. Run a marathon 
2. Refinish a piece of furniture. (check!) 
3. Write a love letter in Paris. 
4. Visit India. 
5. See the pyramids in person. 
6. Donate bone marrow.  
7. Learn to sail. 
8. Take tennis lessons. 
9. Sky dive. 
10. Solve a Rubik's Cube in 30 minutes. (close)
11. Go zip lining. 
12. Walk The Louvre. 
13. Make a cool dodecahedron. (check!)
14. Read 20 books in 2013. 
15. Volunteer at a Soup Kitchen or Homeless Shelter. 
16. Get my degree. 
17. Make a difference in at least one person's life. 
18. Invest in my future. 
19. Memorize the Periodic Table. 
20. Go to A TED Talks. 
21. Ride an elephant. 
22. Apply to medical school.
23. Spend a day reading a book in Central Park.
24. Create a dance that I love. 
25. Feel sexy in a little, black dress. 
26. Make a delicious cake from scratch. 
27. 
    
28. 
    
29.  
30.   

this life

i've been thinking about this life of mine...how weird and simple and small it is. everyday i wake up around 6am and sit in bed for about twenty minutes. i look at emails and twitter and instagram and facebook and after twenty minutes i feel weird about it so i put the technology away. then i usually get up and do the nominal things in life that are automatic & take no intentional energy. i wander around my house and see what i should accomplish for the day. it's probably about 7ish at this point so i go back in my room and read a little of my Bible. not too much because my brain isn't fully functioning so i just read enough and then i say a simple prayer. i always pray for the same people everyday- my family, nick, my niece & nephews, paige (and her husband and family), my grandmother vivian, my aunts, uncles, cousins, angelou and elissa/lorne. it's nothing elaborate or big but just something that let's God know that they're important to me and that i hope He protects and blesses them.

from there, i am usually unsure of what to do. i could clean, organize, edit music, respond to emails, exercise, make breakfast, or run errands. some days I go for a run. other days I just hop into the shower. or I will walk downstairs and make breakfast. regardless of the order, my days progresses with little interactions with friends or family...i'm not sure why but this has been my norm for some time.

and by noon, i'm out of my house running errands (going grocery shopping, to the bank. library, getting something done on the cars, etc) and then i head to work. i teach dance for a living. i tell kids to point their feet and to straighten their backs. sometimes i create dances that i feel proud of but most of the time i just move through the process of teaching dance while in my brain hoping that each person i come in contact with will just have the best life imaginable.  look at some of the teenagers and my hope for them is that they will have value and confidence and humble experiences that will make the world so much bigger to them. i hope that all the things in their world that are important to them are bigger than just today. sometimes i work with students and i think that they could go on to have a career in dance. or that they will become politicians. a lot of them will become teachers because for some reason high school girls think that becoming a teacher to preschoolers is the cutest thing ever. i don't get it but i know some of them were made for it so i hope they follow those dreams. most of them have no idea what they want to do so i hope they just pursue what they love and are passionate about. like, i'm sure one of them has thought that helping people who can't help themselves would be amazing but they won't do it because they don't know how it will make them lots of money. weird. and i'm sure one of them wants to be a doctor but thinks that it's too much school or that they're not smart enough and that just makes me sad because i understand those feelings. but usually those are just my thoughts while i teach them. i don't say any of that aloud. i just tell them they need to stretch through their feet and knees and some days they like me and some days they don't. it's okay.

after work i come home & sometimes i will reply to emails, edit music, post videos for students, respond to everything i can muster. sometimes i just turn my brain off for a little bit. some days that means watching an episode of something on netflix or hulu. other days it means reading a few chapters of whatever current book i'm on. after that i try to read a little more of my Bible and sometimes i just reread what i read in the morning and i say another simple prayer. Nothing fancy. i don't know how to be fancy with God and it be honest. and then i kind of just exist until my brain stops thinking about whatever it thinks about. and eventually i sleep. i didn't save a life. or walk around the museum of natural history. or learn about string theory. i was just me. and my day- this life- was just simple.

maybe one day I will have a different kind of day...i will have a different experience. but for now, this is my life.

simple & mundane,
m

ps: none of this was proofread. apologies for any spelling or grammatical errors. also, it is written how my brain thinks and not intended to be a formal piece of writing. please don't judge me... thank you.

stripped

such a deceiving title.

i feel like in one year's time i've stripped layers of myself. i wish i meant physically but unfortunately that is far from what i mean. this life, my life, has taken me and changed me. most people that know me understand that dance is such a huge part of who I am. i can't even say it's a big part of my life because, at this point, my life does not exist without it. i don't understand how to exist without it. and because of that, part of me has been stripped by it.

i love my world, my cocoon in washington. it's full of alone time and reading and figuring out how to turn my brain off for brief moments in time. but beyond that my time- my life- is spent teaching dance. i love it.  i love my students... how hard-working and beautiful and kind they are. but also, i love how i see change and growth in them. they are becoming adults- independent and confident people who are embracing themselves. it's beautiful. it's seems kind of perfect.

perfection is silly. it's not that. but their growth has come with a price. it has stripped me. parts of who i am and who i know to be. i don't understand. opinions, thoughts, ideas, criticisms, complaints, conversations.... all of it has drained me. i can't. i just can't. i don't exist like this. i don't understand a world where i exist in it without knowing me. in every situation i have faced in life i have still known me. it's all i know. but now, i don't. i just don't understand the layers that have been stripped of me in this process. layers that should have never been taken off. it makes me feel raw. vulnerable. cold. i don't think people understand. this isn't my job. this is me. every moment is me.aAnd there is just less of me now than there was a year ago. less armor. less heart. Less. i've always wanted more in this world but for now i must settle for less. i must settle for this less of me.

and in this moment,  i feel like i am trying to salvage thin petal pieces and glue them back on the stem. clearly it's not possible. i will grow new petals. i will heal. but i don't think it will be a quick process. but i guess that is what life is...it's time passing and having the world damage me and then heal me. i must as: is that what this world is?

my brain cannot fathom this puzzle and for now it keeps me at a loss. i cannot grow and heal and fix without my brain understanding first. i hope my brain sees the puzzle soon. i need sleep.

questioning & puzzled,
m

ps please forgive grammatical & spelling errors and my flat out terrible writing. this isn't filtered.

crossfit

so i started crossfit this month. it really was a long-time coming but i put it off for as long as possible in hopes that i would fall in love with some other form of physical exercise enough that i could avoid ever trying crossfit. well, that didn't happen so i signed up for a series of classes that were one-on-one through a crossfit gym. geez it was pricey but it was definitely money invested toeards my health so it was money well spent. now, don't get confused and think i'm one of those people that gets all braggy about things like eating right and exercise, it's not my style. in all honesty, i have this love/hate relationship with crossfit already. i do not get excited about getting my butt kicked, sweating all over the place, and generally feeling like a weak person...i just don't. but i do feel proud of my hardwork and my accomplishments when i improve my form or i lift more weight without feeling like i'm going to die. haha. it is way too early on to say that i am seeing this huge overhaul in my level of fitness but i can say that i feel better about myself and how this is making me more eager to get outside and do more. crossfit isn't a fad for me where i'm jumping on a bandwagon to feel cool. it is more about me improving my overall fitness and increase my strength and power in everything i do. i will post about it periodically if there is anything exciting to say. as of now, i just hope to not suck at it and to not be so sore after a workout that i can actaually lift my arms over my head. seriously.

tired & sore,
m

update:
i don't do crossfit anymore. it sucked. 6/3/13

synthetic organ tranplant

i read this article about a synthetic organ transplant with an artificial windpipe and my level of life inspiration was magnified to a new level. in the past twenty years, the innovation and advancement in medicine is rather remarkable. my uncle has been on the kidney transplant list for years now. i've watched his health and body deteriorate from a genetic disease that has caused both his kidneys to stop functioning almost entirely. i've read some articles that have frequently discussed that a large majority of cancer patients fight their disease over a significantly shorter timeframe with a higher survival rate than patient's with kidney failure. dialysis does delay the inevitable transplant that every patient with kidney failure will need, but the toll that years, sometimes decades, plays on a patient is daunting. even now, my uncle is starting to get closer to being to the top of the transplant list, but his ailing health is evident. there are so many hurdles to get over before they will even allow him to receive a transplant at this point in the game. but i am hopeful. if there are people creating organs and blood vessels in this world, i'm hopeful that we will doing synthetic kidney transplants before i die. isn't that amazing!?! it is something that makes me just take a moment and remember to continue to see the inspiration in this world.

thank you to those who are intelligent enough to comprehend the human body, hardworking enough to go through the schooling and training it takes to become a surgeon, and creative & artistic enough to think outside of the box and invent. i hope i find that sort of inspiration in this life to do something of value.

grateful & inspired,
m

my first post

so my good friend luke told me to make a blog. and i kept trying to come up with reasons why i shouldn't but i guess it is silly because it's up to me how often i post. well, this first post is of no real value or topic but it's just to say that i have done it...i have a blog.

sometimes i wonder what life is like from someone else's perspective. good conversations are like having brief flickers of someone else's life and that is probably why a good cup of coffee, sunshine, and talking with a good friend is one of my most cherished experiences in life. well, i'm off to work. thank you luke for encouraging me to do this. i'm hopeful that i will see the value in so many new things because now i have a place to write them down.

new & nervous,
m