Annual State of the Self Address

It is December, and I've been working at LC for almost half a year now. Today, for the first time ever, I heard the Penniless Picasso laughing...It was the funniest laugh I've ever heard. It sounded like someone pretending to cry-- like an actor's mock-crying--, and it went on and on and on. It took me a minute to look over the register to see who was making such a racket and find out it was dear old B. I wondered what he was laughing at, and whether it merited such a laugh. I wondered what in the world could merit such a laugh. Last week, he gave me a 9th painting. I hung it up on my "Bartwork Wall" when I got home this evening, and lay on my floor studying it and the others, searching for cohesive elements and hints to his unusual inner world. It is nice to have meaningful artwork coloring my walls. I've been told it's a bad idea to write on the paintings and put holes in them because they might be worth something in the future, but I've done both, as I have no plans to sell them ever.

Once again, it is December, which means the year is almost out. I had some grand plans for 2010 back in January, and of course, most of them have not panned out. Some have though! More than anything, this past year has been defined by ballet (an understatement!). Now ballet defines me. This art form has brought such joys, pains, purpose, and multitudinous other dimensions to my life, none of which I could have predicted when I first stepped into the old studio on Sansom Street last October. A year later, I am transformed both outwardly and inwardly. A year later, I will be dancing the role of Clara in The Nutcracker in front of an audience of 4-to-9-year-olds at a nearby elementary school. A year later, I have come to know what it means to feel passionate about something, and driven. I have never felt either of those before all throughout college or ever in my entire life until this past year of ballet. For that and everything else that ballet has given me, I am eternally, utterly grateful.

The one problem that ballet has brought me is the conflict between staying and leaving. Virtually this entire year was spent in daily agony over the loss of my travel plans. After my year in the Mideast, I had a desperate need to see the rest of the world, but then ballet came along and tied me down to Philly of all places and annihilated all my plans to satisfy my wanderlust. Enter perpetual inner conflict. Now I have many things to stay for (mainly ballet and my job), and in the past couple months, the choices I'd made so haphazardly finally feel "right"-- like actual choices, not random draws due to indecision, ambiguous feelings, and impulsiveness. A couple days ago, however, I had a sudden realization that there are interesting places to visit in my own backyard-- places which I can actually afford to go to, for which I would not have to shell out a grand for the plane ticket alone. This evening, as I sat on the couch researching this idea, a memory came to me of an article I had read months ago about Nicaraguan Sign Language. And thus, an idea was born, of a pilgrimage...an awesome, nerdy, linguistic pilgrimage that will shape the coming year, and perhaps the years following. Who know what discoveries will come of this pilgrimage!

Between my colorful workplace and ballet-- and the mouse that lives in our house and my imaginative roommates-- I feel as if I am living a story (not storybook, mind). Work is more than just work, the studio is more than just a place to dance. Life has become organic and meaningful.