Last Friday at LilaDance!…

The last two Fridays, I have had small classes of families with BIG heart.  You just can’t replace those opportunities that allow getting to know people on a more intimate level.  We flapped …

Source: Last Friday at LilaDance!…

Getting In the Swing of Things

Wow!

Its been more than a minute since I last posted, huh?  I have good reason.  If you want to find out, though, I encourage you to visit my website to learn of my going into hiding.

But the most important thing is that I’m back and hopefully, I’ll get back into the swing of blogging on a regular.  Starting with baby steps, here’s a video that I personally am loving in this time of my life.

And don’t forget to visit LilaDance! to find out where I went off to and why I’m back!  Til then…

peace and be well

This Week’s Thoughts…

I thought I would give you heads up as to what kind of topics will come up this week in my posts.  That is, if I can get any of them out.

First challenge is to convince my computer to not be so old and “save” or “undo” my work before the week is over.  Hence why I’m posting this so late in the day.

Second challenge?  Because I have small children, ideas, thoughts, topics pour in like a fountain, mount up like flapjacks and then get eaten up like rats going through a cheese factory.  So before this one falls out of my head…

This week’s theme:

WORK WITH WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU’VE GOT!

You are perfect in your own imperfect and unique way.  Sure there are flaws that could be improved upon.  But we’ve become a culture fixated on being extra-ordinarily smart, beautiful, sexy, wealthy, witty, brave, right.  We are a society that competes for everything on every level.  We are so obsessed with superheros and superpowers.  And we buy into just about every gimmicky superhero serum that the media throws out there.  Like the hungry fish I saw as a kid clamoring for food at the Hoover Dam… yuck.

My personal opinion?  We’ve forgotten how wise and beautiful we really are because we’re trying to be something we’re not.  Its easy to do.  Some kid tells us we have buck-teeth or laughs when we do our happy dance because we got an A in Math.  We immediately shrink and that moment gets stuffed down.  But it doesn’t go anywhere.

So you take healthy action and get braces or take a dance class.  But those words lie quietly, slowly coming to life.  You continue to hear it whisper,  repeatedly getting louder those lies.  Next thing you know, you’ve bought a new butt to fortify your looks!  Or you’ve bought yourself a brand new Ducati to show off how cool you are when you’re… sitting down.

Those could be healthy endeavors, true.  Don’t get me wrong.  But did you stop to really look at yourself first?  Did you think to yourself, “What am I needing in my life right now to help me feel better about myself?”  Sometimes, it simply is a matter of accepting and loving that buck-tooth girl or that uncool-of-a-dancer guy, to get some peace in life.  The magic pill isn’t real.  No amount of money is going to get you the love and respect you honestly want and need.  And no one can give it to you…  that is, no one but you.

There’s a lot of wisdom that lies quietly in spaces that you’ve not yet checked into.  Those horrible lies are so terribly loud.  Tell them to shut up for awhile so you can visit with the wisdom and truth that is apart of you.  That part may surprise you with some sound advice like, “Use that money to take someone you love out to a celebratory dinner.  Tell them you all are celebrating their life and what a difference its made in yours.”  Or fine, buy that Ducati!  But be very clear about why you’re making that purchase it.  Don’t just get it and never dance again.  Dance you, dancing fool!  Be open and cheerful about who you are.

And don’t let nobody tell you different.

So I think I’ll be writing about coming to terms with how imperfect we are.  Well, not so much how imperfect you may be.  More like my own little stories of how and why I came to be the unsuperhero, Jane Do-It-All.

And for the new folks who just became apart of this here little community,        

I’d like to say welcome and thank you with a little video.  This one manages to always put a smile on my face.

“Confronted with Their True Self, Most Men Run Away… Screaming.”

Okay, I’m really not stuck in the 80’s.  I just need to write one more post using The Neverending Story as a reference.  Mainly because I found two more posts about the movie and I just feel sucked into responding to them.

One is 9 Reasons Why Adults Should Never Watch “The Neverending Story”  by Adam B. Vary

The second is 9 Reasons Why You Should Absolutely Watch The Everending Story as an Adult by LEAH SCHNELBACH

I think both make excellent points but I gotta put my two cents in for a third perspective.

On the bus to school yesterday, my 6 year old son asks me, “Mommy, what if there were nothing in the world?  What would it look like?”  Yes, I had him watch the movie last weekend so its natural for a kid to probe around seeing it makes quite an impression on impressionable minds.

Back to his question.  What would “nothing” look like?”  My answer is “Nothing.  There’s nothing to talk about.  Nothing to envision.  There’s nothing to imagine.”

“But even nothing is something, Mommy.  You can’t have just nothing and there not be something.”

Oh, the young philosopher so early on a Tuesday morning ride to school.  Can’t we just let it be?  But no.  He begins to debate me beyond the lightening, wind and dark clouds that roll in every time the “nothing” approached.  I ended up telling him to take it up with his father, the Taoist.

Sure enough, my husband found it a relevant discussion to have and was impressed with his astute mini-him.  He pulls out his book, The ZEN doctrine of no mind and reads me a few paragraphs.  I love how he gets excited by these opportunities to discuss deep thoughts with me.   I admit, I’m not all that astute, nor all that impressed.  It usually goes over my head.  This time was no exception.

But what I do get is that this movie gives my child something deep and meaningful to chew on.  It is probably why it has become a cult classic.  There are so many layers in it.  So many magical and mysterical (how could this not be a word?) layers.  So let’s take Adam’s reasons and respond to each.

1.   “It is so slow.  So incredibly slow.”  But that’s the beauty of it.  First of all, kids process things differently.  And to be frank, as adults, we move too fast to process anything.

2.   “Many characters’ voices do not match their lips, and it is very distracting.”  I loved Saturday morning Kung Fu movies as a kid.  Talk about out of sync.  I guess you could find it distracting but for me, its all the more fun.

3.   “Atreyu screams most of his lines.”  My son did ask, “Mommy, why is he yelling?”  What can I say.  Do you remember him as Boxey on Battlestar Galatica?  The original show.

4.   “Falkor the Luckdragon is shockingly creepy.”  I wanted a Luckdragon for years after this movie.  Nevermind how old I was when I gave up on finding one under the Christmas tree.  Creepy?  Not so much.  But out of proportion, yes.  Although, I could not get over the translucent caviar on his back.

5.   “It is unrelentingly depressing.”  I’ve got to disagree.  I think its making a point.  As adults, we give up on our dreams.  We’ve got to take responsibility but get stuck in it.  We are allergic to kids and can’t wait for them to leave us alone.  I thought it was saying adults are the miserable ones because we doubt ourselves.  We can’t look at our true selves in the mirror and be confident.  We can’t look “beyond the boundaries of Fantasia” which holds the pieces of dreams and hopes of mankind.

6.   “Speaking of The Nothing, it actually looks like a bunch of dark, swirling clouds – which, technically, is something.”  You, Adam, and my 6 year old son.  That was just the process of the Nothing taking over…  Okay, I admit.  Its something.

7.   “The final confrontation between Atreyu and G’mork is super lame.”  Okay, like my husband, you need a more gratuitous scene like the one in “300.”  But don’t we have enough graffic novel nonsense in film?  Its swift, to the point.  See, not everything in the movie is slow.  I choose to think of it as a Hitchcock moment.  We just don’t need to see all of the details.  We can use our imagination to make it the scene we need it to be.

8.   “The climatic revelation is even lamer.”  But he does yell out “Moonchild!”  Rewind it.  You’ll hear him.  And here is where Leah’s response was pure genius.  Do a little research just for fun.  That suburban mother named Moonchild had wickedly, fantastical parents who had a sense of humor obviously.

9.   “The title song will be stuck in your head for days and days.”  And we LOVE it!  My kids and I sing it all of the time now.  Not so much my husband.  But I can tell he digs it, too.

I gotta agree with Leah on all points;

It is nostalgic.

The effects are fantastic!

I still need a piece like the Auryn to add to my jewelry collection.  I don’t have much, but that’s a must.

Artax… sniff*

I can’t say enough about the lessons the magic mirror teaches us.

If only we all could see life in the way Atreyu saw his.  We are the hero of our own stories.  We have a quest.  If only we were as clear and aware of it despite the distractions and other things that throw us off the path.

I like that, “Rage against the dying light.”  I’m gonna have to use that someday.  Thanks!

Yup!  We do have responsibilities at the end of the day.  We win, we lose, we love, we let go, we try-try again.  It doesn’t have to be so murky.  We still have to continue building, striving, creating and taking care of ourselves, the ones we hold dear and even those we don’t.  We have a responsibility to care for our world since we all share it.

So I say thank you to Adam and Leah for caring enough about this movie to even write anything on it.  It is highly ranked in our home and maybe one day our kids will share it with theirs, should they have children.  My final thought, The Neverending Story is for anyone and everyone who simply enjoys a movie that is slow, thoughtful, a tad bit dark but joyously feeds the kid in you a good dose of sheer enchantment.

I’ve got a video for all of you who stare in the mirror and wonder what you’re going to be when you grow up.  peace

Just couldn’t help myself.

Keep Your Feet Firmly On the Ground…

Oh, I’m the last person who should be saying this.  So, I won’t.  What rubbish.  Why do we tell our children… wait.  Why do we tell ourselves this?

Be serious.

Stop daydreaming.

Grow up.

I once almost lost my cost of living wage increase due to the fact that I didn’t sit long enough at my desk.  I had to keep the karaoke machine playing on my computer to ensure I stayed close.  In my defense, I didn’t see the point of emailing my coworkers if their office was next to mine.

Well, I’m almost twenty years older and I see the error of my ways.  I should have never listened to them.  We need our dreams, to let go of being so serious all of the time and live life for what it really is; an experience to be born, learn, create, make mistakes, achieve goals, joy, change, engage, inspire, love, GROW!

But we get caught up with other people’s agendas, judgments, expectations, hurts, disappointments, anger, insecurities, fears, and doubts.  We forget we’re on the ride of our lives (literally!) and its to be enjoyed even through our own pain and shortcomings.  Why?  Because that’s growth and growth leads to maturity and maturity leads to wisdom and wisdom leads to peace within.

Think about the first time you rode a roller coaster.  Okay, I’ll tell you about my first ride.  It was at Kings Dominion and it was the first stand up coaster, I think that was the Shockwave.  (Honestly, it was the Scooby Doo, but for the sake of a good story, let’s stick with Shockwave.)  First of all, what prompted me to take on a coaster standing up?  I did, but I didn’t expect that first drop at all.  I thought I was going to die.  It scared the begeezus outta me!  But what happened after it was over?  Yup, I got back in line to do it all over again.

Oh, how about this one…  Mamas, you’ll understand.  I thought I was about to lose my sanity while giving birth to my first son.  In my head I was saying to myself, “If only I could slide off of this table, I could crawl out of here and no one would notice.”  The pain had me delusional.  But it came time to push that child out and though I felt my body was going to… well, enough detail.  The point is, once he was put in my arms, I only could experience the warmth and love for that baby boy.  Nothing else existed.  And I had three more pregnancies after that.  The second one was a doozie of a BIG boy.  I lost my third and that was devastating.  Then the fourth couldn’t have been more perfect than what any other mama dreams to experience.

Now, I’m not saying life can’t be dangerous.  There is need for caution but that’s what I like to call wisdom.  My grandmother’s famous line was always “He who runs away, lives to see another day.”

And I’m not saying that everything is a joke.  There is a time to be somber, reflective, purposeful and driven.  We have to remind ourselves that emotions can jerk us around, so making decisions with clarity and stability is what we want to get good at.

I’m older and wiser.  I listen to my body.  Roller coasters ain’t so much a thrill and children are expensive.  So those seasons are over for me.  But life always has something exhilarating to offer that reminds you its worth letting your mind wander, kicking your heels to the wind,  getting caught up with a good story or song that gets you feeling alive.

Just remember, this is your life, your fun ride, your story.  Write it, rewrite it, live it, throw your hands up as you go down that first drop and scream with delight!!!!  It is the time to let your light shine.

I’m dedicating this one to the folks out here who know their truth, who live life in the now and sometimes make it up as they go.  It may be corny, but hey, that’s just apart of me.

Enjoy!

“Play is What You’re Passionate About”

Don’t take my word on it.  Take a little bit of your day to read this article in the Idealist Blog; Why So Serious? What Playful Thinking Can Do For You.  Then decide how you’re going to finish the day; grumpy because you gotta do it again tomorrow or with a good game of Twister?

From personal experience, a game of Twister with a two year old and a six year old is a perfect remedy for a solid, good night’s slumber.

I Do It Because That’s What I Came To Do

Some of you know that I’ve been working on leading a creative movement class for adults.  It sounds silly but I think its relevant.  A couple of weeks ago, I watched a long string of Miley Cyrus clips and commentaries and sighed.  What are we doing, America?

I don’t watch TV.  My husband’s in the business, yet we don’t plug up our tube.  We have one but it sits in the closet, in the way, way back.  Why?  You do the math.  After watching an hour of the Kardashian show (I was having lunch at a small Jamican joint in Petworth), I am not sorry the box is shoved back there.  It is mezzz-merizing.  I’ll give you that.  But that stuff is like cancer.  It just spreads throughout your body eating up anything healthy and good in you.

Oh, and don’t get me started on the music that’s on the radio nowadays.  Am I starting to sound like a grandma?  I don’t care.  It sucks.  I’ll admit that I like a few songs out like that one Radioactive or… I can’t think of another right now (Yikes!  Senility setting in).  Honestly, I can’t say I listen to the radio enough to make a true comment on what’s being played.  I search the web and enjoy stumbling upon what I think is good.

But I’ve gotten way off track.  That’s what old people do, by the way.  Go down these long roads to say what?  I forgot where I was going.  Oh!  Right.

So I’m working on this class because I think there’s a need for adults to remember what its like to be a kid again.  We love children for their “innocence” and their “sweetness,” right?  Wrong.

We make it all about them to take the focus off ourselves.  I know, the lady’s done gone n’ lost it now.  Just gimme a second, though, to explain.

The internet, I think we can all agree, is a curse and a blessing rolled up in one.  Just like anything else in our lives, good can come out of bad and vice versa.  The internet has made worlds available to us.  We can learn more about each other.  There’s something for everyone… EVERYONE!  Babies are born computer literate.  It has brought us information and knowledge.  But has robbed us of our need for mystery and wisdom.

Remember the show Cosby did, “Kids Say the Darndest Things?”  It was cute and lighthearted but at the same time, those kids said things that made you think or amazed you at their insight into life.  Now children sound like mini-adults and that’s sad to me.

Adults forget to just simply take in the wonders of the world.  We think its silly to explore it without being inebriated or influenced by some mind-altering and sometimes dangerous substance.  And we are always rushing around to get where?  McDirties?  (What my best friend in junior high called McDonald’s).  We’re always rushing our kids to grow up.  Why?  Is it that great being an adult?

Yet, at the same time, we dummy our children down by putting them in front of the tube for hours with fluff and non-substantial media like 90% of the cartoons on Nick or Cartoon Network.  We talk to them in squeeky little voices that make us sound like the idiot.  Or we speak to them as if they are our homegirl/boy from around the way.  Do we really do this?  Sure we do!  We can’t help it.  We’re trying to do right by them, to help preserve their childhood, give them what we didn’t have or the classic – “I’m never doing that to my kids when I grow up.”  But what it comes down to is, we pass along our baggage to them.

I could go on, but I want to make this point.  If we grown ups paid more attention to ourselves, really took time to do that deep inner work to discover and heal our own childhood hurts.  To rekindle or ignite our love and curiosity of the world around us.  To turn off the noise that shuts out that inner wisdom that quietly sings in us all.  Then we can find the light that leads the way to raising and working with kids so they can make healthier decisions than twerking in a grown man’s twatch.

I haven’t figured out the formula for my class, yet.  Mainly because I haven’t had grown people for my class.  I’ve had my LilaDance! in the Park series for the babes and adults.  But its challenging for people to step out of that big person role with a little person in tow.  Especially when in a big open park.  It perhaps is more so challenging because its not apart of acceptable behavior to act like angry bears in the middle of Lincoln Park, either.

I need to keep pushing to find folks who will be willing to come out and do the journey within, together.  Its just what I believe I have to offer this world.  A chance for people to play and be okay with connecting with their sweet, adorable, innocent yet wise inner child.  Its the Art of Play.

For those of you who are artists and just started following me, I want to encourage you to continue pouring your heart into your work.  Honestly, its the good stuff that keeps us on this planet.  Without the art of music, drama, dance, painting, sculpting, crafting, writing (including blogging), we would have destroyed ourselves long, long ago.  Thank you to you all, Charlotte Hoather, Mathieu Jang, Andrew and Sarabeth, Nate Ollie.

Winchester Crafts

 

 

We are the art, we do it cause we ought to. We scrape by, scrape by, scrape by. But we so tired , so tired so tired, and we still try still try still try, but we so tired so tired so tired.

Bite down check it out, yes it is a fight now for music and music is, afraid how we never really knew we could break down living our dreams. Stand up for what is beautiful, give it up for the ones who try. Oh the art is the reason that we came here, take a bow together we fight.

I call out the reasons why I cant take it, and watch the seasons change and ease my age.

Read more: Nico Vega – We Are The Art Lyrics | MetroLyrics 

This is another song the kids and I blast at home.  I suggest you do the same and just let the music move you.

 

She Always Stood At the Back of the Line, Smile Beneath Her Nose

I love Prince.  Love, Love, Love His Purple Majesty.  I’m not so much a fan of his newer work with Third Eye Girl.  Really, I don’t know much about any music he’s put beyond 2000.  But I’m a fan, nonetheless.  I’ll be true to you, Mr. Nelson.  Just play me the oldies but goodies.

One of my favorite oldies is Starfish and Coffee.  I choreographed a little diddy to it one year.  I had my piano students and my son perform it at the end of our piano recital.  My lovely little student played “Lucy.”  She was adorable.  My son got cold feet and wouldn’t come out of hiding.

At the time, I was homeschooling my son.  It was second grade and this was supposed to be a sort of end of the year performance for him, as well.  He got nervous and did not do the part.  I think I recall it was me who took over the role.  Now, that kid is performing in high school musicals and even performed on the streets of Spain to make some spending money during his exchange trip this past summer.  It doesn’t surprise me as much as it makes me think, “I didn’t screw up as much as I thought!”

I only homeschooled him for one year.  By summer, he was begging for me to let him go back to school so he could be with other kids.  I was bummed.  I thought we were having a grand ol’ time.  I mean, I didn’t stick to the regular school bells and whistles routine.  We went on field trips everywhere.  Learned math in our local grocery stores.  Studied flowers outside in our yard.  I do tend to conveniently forget the head-butting and power struggles between the two of us.  It was just him and me for a long time, so there was plenty of that.

That’s why I played that song so often.  Yes, I understand its a song about a girl with perhaps mental challenges.  But who’s to say we all aren’t a little challenged mentally?  Okay, maybe not everyone.  However, I will admit, it was my dream school experience.  I wanted all of our days to be fun, fancy-free learning about life in the most odd and unconventional but simple and cheerful ways.  It was “unschooling” before I knew there was such a thing.

I wanted to invoke curiosity and wonder in my child.  I wanted to dance every day away.  We had quite a few dance sessions to break up the tension, actually.  I felt guilty days that I didn’t stick with the PROGRAM.    I just wanted learning to be fun, though!

Now I read about people unschooling their kids and it makes me happy.  People learning how to relate to their kids beyond waking them up and sending them off, rushing around to a trillion after-school activities.  I believe that every kid is different so the chemistry for unschooling vs. formal schooling vs. homeschooling can be there in varying forms.  Whether it be 20/50/30 or 70/20/10.  To some degree kids should get it all.  There’s a balance prescription for each child.

Think about how unschooled you were as a child.  Where did you learn some of your most valuable lessons and what got you intrigued most about learning?  If you can’t remember, get creative and find something new and fun to learn.  Double dare you.

One of my favorite bloggers, Leo Babauta, just started a new blog called Unschoolery.  If you want to learn more about unschooling, learn from someone who is in the throws of it.  He and his wife have been unschooling their kids for five years now.  I wish him luck with his daughter as well as with his new blog.

This one’s for you….

Cheers to the Bacon Skies

I am proud to say my family is an award winning lyrical-mutilating talent.  If there were an award for such a thing.  We know how to completely pulverize a song of its lyrics to the point of no recognition.  Even when we try to hum it, the song takes on a whole new aura that will paralyze and sometimes put to sleep even the best of interpreters.  But there is one among us who reigns supreme in this category.  One who has no understanding of the English language thus, can add any ole’ conjugation to make a classic there very own.  That would be my six year old son, Nazir.

Seriously, this kid is pretty talented.  He really doesn’t hear the words.  I think its partly because we don’t curse, talk about crime in the news nor watch any television that he doesn’t recognize what’s being said in songs.  When we’re on the X2 Metro bus (AKA, the Zoo Bus), the swears fly over his sweet little noggin that’s full of magical stuff I can’t comprehend.

To him, the songs aren’t about the words but the rhythm and sounds of the words and I guess what makes sense in his world.  Let me say, it makes for poignant renditions of hits like The Alphabet Song, Old MacDonald and Pumped Up Kicks.

He still doesn’t realize they are singing about a young person having homicidal thoughts.  The lyrics he doesn’t try to sort through.  So call me bad mom if you’d like, but I find his chorus much more appropriate and relatable; “Run better run, faster than my momma!”  Therefore, we crank this up to the max all of the time when we’re feeling the need to jump around and work out those urges to do things that will cause one’s momma to come after them.

Anyway, Naz’s newest stroke of genius is to an oldie but 90’s goodie, No Diggity.  My husband likes the cover by Chet Faker so Nazir has heard this version a million times now.

While I was standing at the bus stop waiting with my two boys, Nazir starts singing “Hey ya, hey ya, hey ya, hey yaaaa – Cheers to the jaded skies.”  I thought, “that was original.”  But what does he know about being jaded?    I didn’t say anything.  My oldest son and I just looked at each other and laughed.  I guess that made poor Naz insecure.  (We laugh at his antics often and he’s so sincere.  He’s being serious when those darn things come out of his mouth.)  So he began to talk about it being lunch time and how hungry he was.

We sat there for a bit longer, but apparently the song couldn’t escape his head.  So he began to hum it again, getting louder and louder.  Then he belted out “CHEERS TO THE BACON SKIES!!!”

Now, we don’t eat bacon often.  In fact, we teeter on being a vegetarian family, though my oldest is not a big fan of tofu-anything.  But Naz and I do like to get our bacon fix on once in a blue moon.  Well, here it is…

Blue Moon.

So here’s to my young Weird Al Yankovic and to all of you who like this post.  I hope you enjoy Chet Faker singing No Diggity.  Maybe afterward, it’ll prompt you to fix yourself a meal with some salty, fatty goodness.  Or if you’re in D.C., check out Good Stuff Eatery and order their Obama burger.

peace

When Do You Stop, Lila? I don’t.

When Do You Stop, Lila? I don’t.

You can never have too many blogs, is my motto.  That’s of course coming from a woman who does a blog for every season of her life.  Before there were blogs, there were pen and paper journals.  I’ve got several of those dating back to junior high.

This blog is all about my LilaDance! Creative Movement for the Child Within classes.  Stop by to see how its prgressing.  You might find some fun music to move to.