Nachmo, Day 2 - Joy

Yesterday I choreographed some 44 measures (in 4/4 time, so like 146 counts?). Didn't finish the song, but got just past halfway. And you what? I am absolutely happy with a minute and a half done on the first day, especially in tap dance (it's a lot easier to make ballet take up a lot of time than tap).

 

I can't even explain HOW FREAKING EXCITED I am for this year's choreography. I don't think I have ever been excited for Nachmo proper (M and I used to do a National Choreography Month -- which we dubbed NaChoreoMo -- in May every year, and I usually got way more hyped for that, as I was usually not dying of pneumonia at that time of year).

I'm excited about the show itself, for sure, but I'm also just really excited to be taking part in a creative challenge again. I haven't done one since NaNoWriMo 2023, and that one was really difficult/generally not-fun for a number of reasons.

I guess I forgot how much I love creative challenges, especially in a medium I'm currently 'feeling.' I was so high on life yesterday as I started this project that I wondered if that was what mania feels like. (No doubt my college professor would still have said I was being 'too sad.' But *beep* him. He has no emotional integrity, and you can't be a good artist without emotional integrity.)

 

Tonight I finished the first song of the show, and for the first time since 31 December 2022, I was able to actually add a song to my 'Completed Choreography' playlist (Sottovoce didn't use music, and I don't have the music for the two theatre shows I did in my iTunes library because both companies sent the music through ROCS ShowReady).

For trivia purposes... the playlist alone is now 130 songs, 8 hours and 10 minutes long. That's a lot of choreography, and that doesn't even include Sottovoce (24 minutes) and the theatre musicals. I could start the playlist when I arrive for my day job in the morning, and I still wouldn't reach the end of the playlist before it's time to clock out. That's so much music. That's so much choreography. I've accomplished so much, and I honestly feel like I'm just getting started.

I remember in February 2012 when I swore I would finish choreographing a dance to prove my mother wrong (about how I didn't want to choreograph 'bad enough'), and the elation I felt when I finally finished that piece (Sing Your Freedom) on 10 April. Look how far I've come. I just choreographed a tap dance in two days. At the time I choreographed Sing Your Freedom, I didn't even know how to tap dance.

I'm just so excited that I still get to do this. I'm so happy this is still a part of my life.

The Drafts Of Yester-Decade

Recently I went way back into my blog drafts folder... and I mean way back. I often scroll back about 2-3 years, but this time I went all the way back to the very beginning, to the first couple of posts I wrote back in 2010 and never published... probably for the first time since I wrote them.

There was a lot of little stories of my life written there that I had forgotten about. And in a way those made me sad. I knew I was a brighter, happier person then, but reading these posts has put into sharp contrast just how much Brittney's and my cousin's deaths destroyed who I used to be... and who I wanted to be.

I still miss that person.

The other day I contacted an old college friend who I haven't spoken to since 2020, when I was banned by my in-laws from anything I used to do or to be. I've been getting tired of being locked in the prison of my own mind, and I'm starting to rebel. I've volunteered for a local theatre. I'm starting to listen to music again. I'm starting to text people back. I'm starting to read the Bible and watch church services again.

I want my life back.

That may never happen. In September, I sustained a back injury at work, and seven months later, it is causing more issues than it did the week it first happened.

I have not yet brought up the subject of future dance endeavours with my physiotherapist. They know I have a history of dance, but they haven't asked for details, and I haven't mentioned it. I haven't needed to -- there are still no dance opportunities here anyway.

I am a different person now than I was fourteen years ago, but I'm not convinced it's a good thing. Perhaps I made some decisions that looked stupid -- but honestly, I made those decisions from a place of deep trust, and I never felt more free and 'whole' than I did back when I was living out on a limb every day of my life.

The freedom and joy in those old posts are palpable, even after sitting on a dusty server somewhere for well over a decade. I have not felt that since before my uncle left my aunt in January 2015. I was 21 years old.

All these tragedies I never asked for ate up all the best years of my life. My body was a well-oiled machine, and my mind was sharp and quick. But it was all wasted as I spent those years drowning in an endless ocean of grief. Now the grief has dulled, but both my body and my mind are no longer what they were. I wasted all of that potential, all those years... on something that wasn't even my fault and was completely beyond my control. It's so unfair. It's so unfair.

I'll never be able to get those years back.

Missing Person

Written 4 June 2022, 1.24pm.

Trigger warning: su*c*de

I've been thinking a lot lately about who I used to be. That passionate, fiery, justice-loving, people-loving, fiercely kind, deeply-trusting person.

I keep thinking about when I was eighteen. The friends I had, the joy and the time and the clarity and the passion I had. I'm still in contact with some of the important people in my life from that time; the rest have all died. I was genuinely content to sit in my pink bedroom and choreograph Petra and White Heart songs. That was the time in my life when I felt the most complete and the most spiritually satisfied. I had a thirst for God that I didn't appreciate at the time, and in retrospect it showed. I fell into a couple of traditionalist traps, but by and large I was a fighter for true justice and love even then. A lot of my views at least mildly clashed with the religious establishment, but I was skilled enough in writing to persuade several key figures to at least properly consider what I was saying.

I keep thinking what could have been. What if I had ended up with that guy from youth group? What if my cousin had never died? What if I had never gone to college -- or at least that college?

That's a big one. The day I arrived, my faith started dying. It was slow at first, but accelerated tenfold when Brittney died and none of my college friends cared. And instead of getting out after my second year when I had the chance, I fought to return -- to return to the place that pushed me to such dire depths, spiritually. I was severely depressed, deeply wounded, and grieving, and I ran out of province back to a place that was also abusing me, but in new and different ways.

By the time I left college, I was no longer the happy, joyful, passionate person I had been when I had started. The stress of the insane performing arts course load and the abuse from the director who tricked me into believing he had my best interests at heart had taken a heavy physical toll. I was probably a couple of months away from death, based on my physical health alone (I'm not even thinking about the severe depression I was in when I graduated). Instead of being a launchpad for what could have been a beautiful, God-honouring life, college was the death knell for me. I have so many still-bleeding emotional wounds that can be traced directly to that school, that director. Almost every single one of my dreams have died because of him and his words to me. He would say 'performers have to have thick skin,' but the fact is he is abusive and uses that phrase to justify his atrocities. I had thicker skin before I went to college than I do now. I had courage. I had spunk. I had joy. I had passion. I had LIFE, and now every single speck of all of that is gone.

I miss who I used to be.

In my pain and abandonment from God's people, I pushed away God Himself. And now I'm trapped in a tiny desert town with an absurdly high cost of living, absolutely no emotional support, and 'well-meaning' in-laws who are trying their best to take the place of that abusive man. It used to be nothing for me to jump in the van and drive several hours to do a show, or hang out with friends, or try something new. And now I never leave the house -- partly gas prices, and partly fear. I can feel my soul shriveling up and dying a little with every second I live, every breath I take.

I attempted suicide on 8 March 2017, and now, over five years later, I wish more than ever that I had done it then. I wish my life would have ended that day. But I trusted that things would get better, and five years later, they've gotten worse. My soul is dead, and that's a fate worse that still lungs. Every morning I wake up is the same and that's the one thing I never wanted to happen. I wanted to live with passion and joy and verve and courage and life, and I am doing none of that.

I want to busk. I want to make dance films. I want to make shows. I want to learn new styles of dance. I want to write publicly again. I want to be able to have an opinion and not be literally abused for it. I want to be free again. I'm not free. I am in a prison of 'if you do this, I will withhold the love I promised you and stab swords of stinging words into your heart.' I am in a prison of working eight hours a day at something that's fast-paced, but not intellectually stimulating. I am in a prison of hearing over and over the words 'you're not even trying and you have no business doing this.' I am in a prison of being years behind my peers in terms of experience because I stubbornly stuck to a college that had absolutely no intention of actually training me within the field that I went there for, and I had not even begun to heal those wounds before rushing off into marriage and bringing all of that anger and pain into a relationship that did not deserve such a burden and now is so broken by my issues it may never recover.

I miss who I used to be. I would kill to get her back.

NaNoWriMo Wrap-Up

Never did do a wrap up post, and now that I'm wildly late, here we go.

I achieved my goals: 1. I passed 50k, and 2. I enjoyed doing it.

That's it. Those were my goals.

I hadn't enjoyed writing at all since M died, so 'fun' was just as important to me this year as the standard 50k mark. I used to love writing and wanted to recapture that wonder of seeing the story come together. I would say I did that. Enough to make it to the 50,000-word mark by Day 24, and to finish out with 52,086 words.

The story turned out rather good. I think it came out differently than I expected, but I'm happy with the result. It's definitely good enough to revise and publish, but that day is a long, long way off. First Kyrie, and honestly IF that ever happens the next one in line is probably my 2016 novel Father's Delight. Then probably this one.

I was honestly scared I would never enjoy writing again. Having realised now that I still can brings both joy and sadness. Joy because my ability to escape into my art is not lost forever, but sadness because I'm not doing it with someone, and because it's different now. My autistic brain has yet to accept that 'different' doesn't mean 'bad' (it has the double whammy of having to process this concept in relation to Christmas too, and that's going about as well as this is).

I would still like to do NaNoWriMo next year. I don't think this is the last hurrah. But now I need to convince my brain to come up with more plots (this year's plot was inspired by a post on the NaNoWriMo 'plot bunnies' forum ages ago, and yes, I will try to credit the person should this actually ever get published.)

Joy, Dashed

I dreamt of M last night.

She was subdued -- had definitely gone through hell and back, but she was starting to recover and she was choreographing a dance. She showed me part of it. It was all so real. I was so overjoyed to see her again because it had been so long. It was so real that when I woke up I had forgotten that she's dead. And I had to re-learn and re-experience her death all over again. It's been throwing me off all day -- I was so excited that she was there. We were talking about choreography again, just like before.

I would give almost literally anything for a reunion like that in real life. I thought I really did have it in real life for just a few beautiful minutes it and then it was gone again. There aren't words for how gutting that is. To have everything you've ever hoped for right in front of you, speaking to you, dancing with you, the thing that you thought would never happen actually happening in that moment -- then have that joy ripped away from you again. Only this time it's worse, because you had finally just let yourself get genuinely excited and relax into the knowledge that she wasn't actually dead... only to find out that she did actually die. And you have to mourn it all over again, just as raw and fresh as the day it happened.

I would give so, so much for that reunion to be real.

Music Day - Song In My Soul

Here's another song I inherited from my dad's music library. As far as I know, this is the only not-Christmas album he had from this band.

They were an a cappella band, but without the pretentiousness of Pentatonix. These are clean, simple, refreshing songs with no unnecessary virtuosity. There's nothing in this track that doesn't directly contribute to the pure richness of the song. These guys also write their own songs, so if you love a cappella music but you're tired of Pentatonix butchering perfectly good hymns and Christmas songs with overdone, overdramatic flourishes, this is the artist for you.

My dad listened to this song all the time when I was a kid, and now all it takes is that ascending bass intro to put a smile on my face. I still have a hard time believing that this is all done with the human voice. There's even some beatboxing in other songs on this album (keep in mind, this is 1989 in CCM -- we still don't have beatboxing in mainstream Christian music in 2021). The songs are so rich and full of backing harmonies that one doesn't even miss the band.

This song in particular is a song of unabashed joy, something I don't think any of us has seen in a good long time. It's a worship song that you'll never hear in a church. Parts of the lyric hearken back to the Psalms themselves. It's a pure, simple declaration of joy in God's handiwork. It all clips along at a very danceable, grooveable pace, and they make their point and get out of the way in less than three and a half minutes. It's cheerful and energetic and fun. If you need a quick little pick-me-up, here's a song that'll keep a spring in your step for the rest of the day.

The smile on my face comes from the smile in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

You put a song in my soul and I want to let it out

Your Spirit in my life, well it makes me want to shout

I'm moved to sing with every beat in my heart

You put a song in my soul when You made me

Title: Song In My Soul

Artist: AVB

Album: Song In My Soul

Year: 1989

Label: Clifty Records

iTunes here; YouTube here (live version here -- caution, mullets abound).

Emotional Tourist - A Retrospective (2018)

This year, I lived.

Not as in 'survived,' I lived. From February-August I was either rehearsing or performing at least one show (An Ideal Husband, Pygmalion, Anne of Green Gables, Oklahoma!, and Mary Poppins), and then in mid-October I started rehearsing the next show -- hopefully the first of another good long stretch again. I have never known joy and excitement and the thrill of being alive like I did during the Mary Poppins run -- to actually be a part of a story I'd loved since I was three years old was truly special.

And I traveled. Quite a lot. I've never really thought of myself as much of a traveler, but I actually quite enjoyed it. I went back and forth between my parents' place and mine many times, I went to the city and explored a few times, I went up north for a wedding, I went to southern Alberta for an audition... and I took pictures of most of it on film, which somehow makes the experience richer even though 90% of the pictures suck.

I made friends with other performers. I stayed up till one in the morning talking and eating and dancing with these friends -- these people I might never have met. I watched them all grow and succeed and laugh and cry and look out for each other and stick together.

I made more impulsive decisions. Like driving seven hours to an audition in a city I have literally only seen twice in my entire life and then crashing on my dad's cousin's couch for the night. Or like going for coffee with one of the musicians I'd literally never spoken to before at 10.30pm after a two-show day. Or going to the city and shooting a whole bunch of film because I was bored. Or going to see local theatre productions because I wanted a night out. Or skipping two days of school to drive out to my dear friend's funeral. Or attending NaNoWriMo write-ins, for the first time EVER in my ten years of NaNoWriMo. Or doing a ten-hour round-trip to a three-hour wedding and only getting back in at 1.30am, surviving the dark, late, relatively boring drive only by the grace of God and loud driving music.

I began seriously rewriting Kyrie, and I actually got a bit of a system going. I've written some additional scenes, and rewritten a handful of pre-existing ones. I'm starting to figure out a more detailed timeline of events.

 I began writing original fiction again, for the first time since my cousin died in April 2015.

I began fighting for myself more. I began to realise (mostly through my experience with Mary Poppins) that I AM talented, darn it, and not one of you is going to tell me I'm not. I will prove you wrong. I've done it before and I'll do it again, with or without your support. I began enjoying life and giving less of a crap what people think I should be doing or can do.

I started learning Thai, mostly for the heck of it. I took a college class outside of my program for the first time since 2016 and I met some really great people there. I started learning piano and found that I love it.

Life is rich, and full, and sweet, and I tasted just the edge of it this year.

Singing and Dancing

Written 31 January 2017, 11.19pm.

The thing with being primarily a dancer in a musical theatre program that emphasizes singing SO heavily is that you're kind of caught between two worlds. On one hand, dance is my first -- and biggest -- love. It is the one thing I have found that can keep me alive when my entire life is falling apart around me.

On the other hand, I want to be a good singer so I can get better roles at this school. At this school, weak singers get lesser roles (if any) and that's all there is to it. I, of course, am one of the weakest singers in the program. But -- singing is not my love and my joy. After all, how can someone enjoy something they're so mediocre at? I don't exactly enjoy watching people flounder and struggle to find something, anything nice to say about my vocal performances.

If I'm honest, I feel singing is a necessary evil if I want to be a performer. Right now I'm just fighting to get my singing to a passable level. I know I should be having fun with it and enjoying it, but if I'm honest, I often dread practicing voice. If it happens to go well once I get going, then I kind of enjoy it, but the bad days far outweigh the good and I feel like I'm going absolutely nowhere.

I'm torn between wanting to focus on my voice -- my weakest point -- and strengthen it, or on dance -- my strength and love -- and attain higher levels of true excellence.

I should love to sing. So many people do, whether or not they're good at it. Why don't I? Can I ever be any good at it if I don't love doing it -- or at least sort-of enjoy it? But how can you love something that you're not that great at? Will joy come with time and practice, or will it never come at all?

Music Day, Part II - The Traveler/Joy

It must be Easter -- I'm listening to Don Francisco. I don't know why... Don Francisco at Easter just feels 'right.' This is the influence of my father on my life. (Don Francisco is also one of the very few artists who appears to remember that Jesus was actually raised from the freaking dead. I have no trouble finding songs for Good Friday -- everyone has a song about the crucifixion. But precious few songs exist that attempt to capture the joy of the knowledge of the resurrection.)

Just imagine this song playing on vinyl, as it was originally heard. As is Don's method (especially on these earlier albums) he starts with a story (from the Bible: Luke chapter 24) put into song form, but then he segues the narrative song into an exuberant praise song. The second part of the song, the celebration, is the continuation of the story Don retells in the first part, but it's also very clearly coming from Don himself. You get the sense that he physically can't express more joy than he already is, but more joy most definitely exists, boiling fiercely just beneath the surface -- just listen to him cry out We have been redeemed!

Title: The Traveler/Joy
Artist: Don Francisco
Album: The Traveler
Year: 1981
Label: NewPax
iTunes here; YouTube here.
CD available at the artist's website here.

He is risen!