dancing

I took my daughter to her first rock concert / dance marathon last night. It was fabulous. I love how much my daughter loves to dance and how she lacks any amount of inhibition. This concert included three bands from Portland and was advertised as a dance marathon, a fundraiser/senior project for my friend's son. The show included performances by The way downs, The quick and easy boys, and Ma Barley. I love dancing, love, love, love it. I do not get the opportunity to dance much these days so I was thrilled with the idea of an all ages concert. Autumn asked the other day if she could dance, and I told her never to ask me that again. If you feel like dancing, dance sweetie, you don't need permission to move your own body. Of all the ideas and dreams I have for my daughter the few that stick hard and fast are these: be comfortable in your own body, be uninhibited and refuse to settle into socialized norms, and dance when you want to dance (she seems to have grasped two out of three so far) I love that my daughter is growing up (nearly 4!) and I look forward to getting to know her as she gets to know herself.

Happily ever after

I equate watching princess movies with my daughter to rubbernecking at the scene of a horrible car accident. I cannot seem to avert my eyes once I reach the intersection even as I vowed to respect the tragedy and not look. I am nearly positive these sorts of fantastical happily ever after stories will bear significant weight in warping her idea of happiness, marriage and everything in life that one expects to work out pleasantly. Despite my feminism and everything I know about gender, sex roles and society, I can't help but watch clear to the end as the girl marries the beast-turned prince and a kingdom is saved, once again. I continue to believe in a sort of magic couplehood that I have yet to experience and on some level realize may not exist, anywhere. This I get, I do. I understand that marriage is nothing like the stories, that if a couple if blissfully happy, they are not telling the whole truth and that life is messy, stinky and runs damn close to insanity at times. I never expected this for myself, just allowed myself the possibility of an attempt. I am trying to free myself up emotionally this week by giving up on a few possibilities. I am giving up on a love that will not ever become magical and real at the same time. I am giving up on the active search for love, or at least for that next romance. I am tired of the games of dating, the rules of engagement. It sucks to live a life tempered with convention and appropriateness, this is something I despise. I am closing the chapter of back and forth e-mail banter that is online dating. My words quickly betray me and I am no longer waiting for a response, for acknowledgement of an interested party. I cannot stand another fake relationship like the one I encountered recently, where the ground appears to be directly beneath my feet but on closer examination I am standing in a black hole.

Fall back

I have never before been as surprised with the daylight saving's nonsense as I was today. I found myself completely broadsided by an unexpected shifting of time. It was nothing o'clock for a brief moment today as I realized my clocks were no longer synchronized. This became my greatest gift of the day as I took my daughter outside to explore the space between the parenthesis of this newly realized moment. The sun was bright and as we walked around the yard we started noticing our shadows. Large willowy things that curved up around the tree trunk as we danced together. She was calling them sun shadows which reminded me of Cat Stevens. After running around in the sun for a while we came inside and listened to Moon shadows about nine times. That is what I did with my extra hour today. I considered it a gift of falling back into what I adore, what I love. I did some more falling back this weekend. I fell back on a pinkie promise with few regrets. I feel back into a town host to a painful wedge of my recent past and managed to squeeze out some emotion and a few cordial frivolities. I am falling back into an adoration that cannot be stopped, cannot be turned back one hour, or two. If I could turn back thirteen years what would I have said differently? If I could move the little hand to the nine and the big hand to the twelve, then what? What would we have left to say? It is hard to walk away from something that spreads over me like a lunar shadow, that fills my sky. Beautiful, unique, loveliness reflecting back into my hair, my neck, my moonlit backside. Tonight I will curl up between these two hands and fall back a little, bracing myself with your nine and my twelve.