The Light and the Dark

This morning on my cycle ride to work, I saw budding crocuses by the Hackney City Farm, and Hare Krishnas dancing down Oxford Street. I'm in another period of enamourment (is that a word? It is now) with London. On Sunday I spent most of the day in the City with Erin, and it was a lovely reminder of what a cool, beautiful, exciting place this is. We saw a great little clown show at the Southbank Centre. We wandered along the Thames, through Trafalgar Square, and then back to the river via the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. Also, Naomi shared Gordon's Wine Bar with us, which was totally amazing. Everyone who comes to visit me will now be subjected to at least one visit to this place. It's beyond cool. Another Sunday discovery of note: a great little vegetarian restaurant in Covent Garden, that I've also decided I love.

I'm especially grateful for all the lightness I've been discovering in London (and the extra time I've had with my new schedule to appreciate it) because school has been getting increasingly heavy. The past two weeks we've been exploring Grotesque theatre, which has actually been quite playful and fun once I finally got the hang of it (stuffing our bodies and going completely over the top with parodying celebrities and social classes), but has gotten consistently darker, particularly this past week when we've begun to "enter the tragic space". We've been asked to explore the darker aspects of humanity (the murderousness, the wrath, the insecurity, the unforgivingness) and to embody them fully, and that makes for some very intense, exhausting, difficult classes. Couple this with recent drama amongst ourselves as a group outside the classroom (social politics to do with the choosing of creation groups), and school has felt more draining than usual this week in particular. I find myself going out more after class because I feel the need to decompress. Really I just need to relax and reflect.

The thing about exploring the darkness in the world and in humans, and being asked to embody it as entirely as possible, means you inevitably touch on the darkness in yourself. That's been my experience of this week. I feel as though I've walked into my home, my bedroom, the den of my heart, and saw the dark and ruthless tiger there that's inhabited some corner all along. That we've locked gazes and just observed each other, taken in the presence of the other, the acknowledgment of mutual existence. Within the first 24 hours of seeing this tiger, I swung from feeling defensive, to devastated, to empowered, to contemplative about this newly recognised darkness in me. It's a new kind of honesty for myself, about myself. That as a person, I am capable of hurting people whether I mean to or not. That humans are human, but, in the purest of terms, we're also animal. That there's a space for darkness in me just as I am filled with light. And that's okay.

Super Fringe!

Today I got my hair cut like this:
and it makes me feel like this:
Superhero Isabel!

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

So I'm getting my hair cut on Sunday, and I've decided to go for bangs (that's "fringe" to the Brits out there). This is a big decision for me, and I'm a little nervous, but I feel I'm due for a change.

Here's what I'm thinking:
Those of you who saw me over Christmas know that these days my hair is about this long (and on a really really really good day, might even look a little bit like that, too), so I'm thinking keep the length, but have bangs that are a cross between this and this.

Thoughts?

(P.S. I reserve my right to completely change my mind at any time.)

(P.P.S. With any luck, I'll end up looking like Jennifer Garner.)

Goodness! Lists of goodness!

Life is good these days. I have a sense that 2008 is going to be a really lovely year. Here's why:

• I feel more fit and happy and settled in my body than I have in years (for serious, I feel so muscled and strong! Check me out!).
• I feel calm and happy and content.
• This new work schedule is already doing wonders for my quality of life.
• I'm spending more time with my flatmates and realising how great it is to live with them.
• I feel that I have strong, wonderful relationships and friendships with most everybody in my class.
• I came close to landing my front handspring in Acro on Monday.
• Our office just ordered Thai food in for lunch today.
• The sun is out.
• I am absolutely at peace with (and actually a bit excited about) the fact that my life after this September is an unlimited expanse of "I don't know."
• Baerbel and Persa and I are planning a weekend trip to Paris in March to see the new Theatre du Soleil show.
• I just got an email from dear friend and collaborator Ana Mirtha about a theatre festival in Turkey in early May, which there's talk of performing in.
• I just started another great novel.
• I get to sleep in (again!) tomorrow morning.

I could go on. It's just that good right now. This is me, sending waves of gratitude out into the universe. Thanks, Universe. You're the best.

And it thrilled me

I just read this horoscope from this past week, courtesy of Freewill Astrology:

LIBRA:
In 15 million years, Los Angeles will be a suburb of San Francisco. It will take that long for the constant slipping of the San Andreas Fault to push the southern city 400 miles north. That will be lucky for the people alive then, since they won't have to travel far to enjoy the distinctive pleasures of two of the West Coast's finest cultural centers. In your case, Libra, you don't have to wait so long. I predict that two of your personal centers of gravity will combine by the end of 2008. Your divided sense of home will disappear, allowing you to feel more united than you've been in years.

Back in the swing

It doesn't take long for things to kick into high gear. I'm already tired again, but it's a good tired. This past week has been physically demanding (I can only imagine that one day all the aches and pains and soreness will go away), but also lots of fun. We've been exploring childhood more in class, and I've been really good about cycling everywhere, and we had a Butoh workshop for eight hours over two days this weekend, and I had my first Saturday of running the comedy club, and I saw two plays on Sunday. Whew!

Also, I thought I lost my keys for about 24 hours, which was stressful. But I found them again! Thank you, St Anthony, and St Jude! You're my boys!

Ugh. I love the busy, and there's a lot to write about - particularly with starting Butoh classes, which is very new and exciting to me - but I feel at this present moment I lack the concentration to write about much of anything effectively. I blame it on reading so much (I should probably start going straight to sleep when I go to bed at night, instead of cracking my novel and getting sucked in for an extra hour of wakefulness.) Tomorrow I get to sleep in, and so look to Wednesday's entry for more focus.

And so it begins

The new year is already buzzing with events. I spend my (fewer!) hours at work reading article after article about the Caucuses and Primaries and Political Analyses about What This Means For Our Country. I, too, was jubilant at Obama's win in Iowa, and touched by Clinton's tearful moment in New Hampshire. I sleep in every other morning (yes, this is an event). Two of my dear, dear friends announced their engagement over Christmas (CONGRATULATIONS GEMMA AND MARK!!!). In the five days I've been home in London, I've logged 100 miles on my bike. I've seen my first British panto, and Punchdrunk's new show, both of which were unadulterated, incomparable Theatrical Experiences. I have tickets to four shows in the upcoming London International Mime Festival. I'm reading novels again. We're playing like children at school, which is liberating and Exhausting (this week's theme: Children Playing as Adults). I've been promoted at my comedy-club job starting this week, which will mean more responsibility, more grey hairs, and twice the pay.

Notably absent: genuine reflection time. This weekend will be busy (Saturday: Butoh workshop and then work; Sunday: Butoh workshop then two Mime Fest shows), so I'm hoping that tomorrow morning and early afternoon I'm able to kick my own butt out of bed and to a coffee shop so I can have some quiet time to think. It was so immensely wonderful to be home in Minneapolis over the holidays, and I did do a good job of not overextending myself while I was there (if I do say so myself), but there is such a disconnect from my life in London whenever I'm in Minneapolis that I'm not sure that I did as much reflection on the past year as I might have done. It's important to remember that, even having considerably more time to myself this term with my new, improved work schedule, I still have to remember not to give it away.