what does your weight mean to you?

I think I told you kids about losing 5 lbs in California, yes? They're probably around the pool at that place in Calistoga. If anyone finds them, you're welcome to keep them. Apparently those were the 5 pounds that stood between me and delicious contentment in my body.

I don't mean that I hopped on a scale and thought AH! At last I weigh 210! Now I can be happy! but that I kept looking in mirrors and thinking something looked different that I liked. And then I discovered that I weighed very slightly less. I think it's the weight range that my body maintains when I'm moving, cooking and happy. So part of what I'm happy with in the mirror is just seeing happiness. But. I do think part of it is appearance, which while not explicitly about weight is certainly connected.

Hmm. This makes me empathise a bit better with people like my mom. You know. The ones who always have 5 lbs they want to lose.

How about you?

i'm dancing again.

I am. Dancing again, that is.

You may now be thinking you stopped dancing?? - which, okay. Technically I didn't stop. For awhile there I just performed with my dance peeps doing our regular shows and little else. Tribe stuff transcends dance. On a physical level, it's more like eating than performance. And the only classes I've been taking are flamenco and hula. I had lost a lot of my creative energy around dancing, and I still had to muster a fair amount of management energy to get things done. I think my body only produces management energy as a by-product of the creative variety.

So. The break was nice. I've worked on 2 minor choreographies for PURE [We're doing a short piece for each chakra, which is a very cool idea. Last week the back-of-the-class kids and I worked out a "penis chakra" piece.] and one major spaghetti western hair band fusion choreography. I'm particularly pleased with the latter. It was conceived in a biker bar. I bet my parents would've conceived me in a biker bar if there'd been one in town. It's almost ready for its debut, too.

I've found a new solo voice that I'm *cough* actually going to display in public in a couple of weeks *cough*. I'm having a new costume made. I'm going to local workshops again. I'm - my life is weird, kids - teaching a 30 minute hula party thing tomorrow. I'm enjoying dance enough that I could teach again... except I can't teach a regular class, keep up with hula, join a CST class (which is starting a week, yay!), keep up with my practice & performance commitments and possibly start aikido all at the same time. Giving my body new creative fuel is the most important thing this year, so I may not come back to teaching except for private students for some time still [If you're interested, that doesn't mean no one in TTE will be teaching. It just won't be me. Most of our other members are qualified to teach now.]. So, yeah. Not back to teaching.

But dancing! Dancing I am back to. I feel like dancing everywhere in response to everything.