dancing into spring
phew i belong again
it’s officially spring!!!! how are you meeting the moment of the new season?
dancing is the solution
my dance recital weekend is this week!!! despite my class being pretty brutally yelled at by our choreographer on tuesday, i’m still having so much fun. we had our tech + dress rehearsal last night, which had an audience (bc our actual performance tickets sold out near immediately), and it was SO FUN!
dancing really is the easiest way for me to be present, disconnect, and grooooove with the world. so grateful to JG for inviting me to watch his showcase this past winter, which inspired me to want to do the same!
we know how much i love a uniform and belonging to a collective, and this is such an easy way to do that. we all have to wear black football jerseys for the performances, and seeing us as a uniform-looking squad of 25 dancers is siiiickkkkkk. it’s really nice literally belonging to this group, in the way that if anyone is absent, it’s very obvious to those around, since the dances we’re doing are very relational to each other. it’s fun that we all have similar but slightly different roles to play, and that together we’ve created a 12-min long piece that’s FUN and looks pretty good i think. i haven’t performed on a stage/with a group like this since probably winter 2019, for my senior fall a cappella concert. i really do love performing and having my hobby time culminate in something big and cumulative that i can be proud of.
reading again :,)
lately whenever i find myself surrounded by books (often, since i go to the library at least 1x a week to chill/journal), i feel like all the books are foreign to me. either that, or they’re books i’ve had on my “list” for ever and haven’t gotten around to. i miss reading and knowing about the new releases and generally being part of the literary world… so i started reading again!
i finallllyyyyy finished taiwan travelogue which i can highly recommend (esp if you’re going to east asia anytime soon, the descriptions of food were divine), and now i’m reading playground by richard powers. i surely should’ve started with his the overstory, given how much more i love trees than i do marine life, but oh well. i’m enjoying reading it and i can’t believe i let my kindle stay idle for so long… lmk your novel + memoir recs!
FARMING AGAIN <3 <3 <3
THE FARM IS BACKKKKKK!!! and the weather today is so perfect for it. e-biking in the sun, welcoming in a new farm season,.. i’m soooo grateful for seasonal routines and to be in the dirt again.
lately i’ve been attending environmental stewardship events after work, and i’m impressed with myself how much i feel like i belong to that community without having ever formally worked in it (unless we count my 2 part time summer jobs, which idk lol.) i’ve been in the same rooms as a lot of key players and have personal relationships with a lot of people doing the good urban horticulture/agriculture and stewardship work! or if not, i’ve at least been to their parks. that world is so small and enmeshed <3 and i love knowing what’s going on with our natural environments here.
between having a very full time job with plentiful responsibilities in which i build solar projects around nyc, physically fitting in to this dance piece, and knowing surprisingly a lot of people in the local environmental worlds, i feel like i’ve restored my feeling of belonging and being tethered that i didn’t feel mere weeks ago. and i’m so excited to feel at home at the farm again! :) it’s no coincidence to me that the things that help me feel like a real rooted person are all things that are very in person (vs virtual) and physical: tangibly working with tools/land and moving my body. i love some of my computer hobbies but i’ve been pretty offline these days <3
spring mode
once dance ends tomorrow, i’m not really sure what i’ll do next with the general hobby realm of my life. i’m intent on joining a local queer book club and re-joining a local writing night, but i’d like to continue a physical movement practice somehow… maybe will take one off dance classes? what should i try or take up or return to this spring? let me know what you’re excited about!
overall, i feel lucky that i know and trust what my spring will look like. i’ll start biking again, i’ll start farming again, i’ll celebrate another year of j dinner, and i can wear my spring coats. i feel the preciousness of each season when it’s upon us, and how comforting it is to be excited for all that it brings, and even for knowing all that it can be. this is more or less an ode to staying in the same city/neighborhood, and gratitude for getting to look forward to basically the same things every year. of course every year and season brings new and different things, but it’s nice to feel a strong sense of return to the things i love that i know i do in the spring.
wishing you a warm end of march <3 and wish me luck on tomorrow’s LAST SHOW that SEVEN people are coming to :o XOXO sue