Start to Finish

Whew! That was weird. I just came back from an orbit. I was lost in space, couldn't find my bearings. I knew what had to get done, but had no pathway to get where I needed to start.

In hindsight, 4 trips in March/April/May (5 days at Cues and Tattoos in Seattle, 10 days at GS/TT in Michigan and 8 days in Pura in Barcelona, 5 days at Tribal Fest in Sebastopol) wasn't such a good idea, especially when I'm trying to produce Devotion in June and keep you all posted on the progress after such a phenomenal KickStarter response.

So what happened was...I was talking to my Mom yesterday. We meet every Sunday afternoon when I'm in town. We have tea. I do whatever tasks she has lined up (yesterday was setting up a wireless connection - oh, the ethernet cable goes in the slot marked with a circle, not with an arrow - got it.) And we talk. We talk about all sorts of things. My Mother, Bess, is a retired librarian. She is really smart and interested in everything. She is able to carry on a conversation about almost anything if you give her a little info. She is 88 years old, an avid birdwatcher, walks every day and can take the SamTrans bus anywhere on the planet. Mom is full of enthusiasm and positivity, but can also lob a mean reality check (watch our Warren Buffet, she is not happy with your decision to mine coal in Montana.) But sometimes she just sits and listens.

Since we haven't seen each other much in the past months, there was a lot to catch up on. I found myself on a rant, trying to make sense of the fact that I was orbiting and couldn't land on the path of logic that is the balm for Capricorns. After practically going hoarse from monopolizing the conversation I finally paused long enough for her to say, "What are you going to learn about iMovie when you go to the Apple Store tomorrow?" I replied, "I want them to show me how to take some lecture footage that I've loaded into the program and walk me through the creation of a simple project from start to finish." BING!

After a few more minutes I told her that I had projects waiting at home and had to go. I drove home along Skyline Blvd, a strange semi-rural ridge that separates Daly City from South San Francisco which is shrouded in fog 90% of the time, it's also a great place to think. The phrase start to finish kept running through my mind. When I got home the house was empty because Loretta is house-sitting for a few weeks. As much as I love to come home to her company, the cat, dinner preparations and more chatting, I really needed an evening of total solitude. I sat down at the computer and completed the projects from start to finish. It was as if I had been released from the orbit and had landed back in the land of logic. I woke this morning to a renewed sense of Capricorn. I drank tea, knit for a bit while I watched a knitting video (check out Craftsy.com if the mention of knitting video makes your heart race.) I felt my brain start to focus, reached for my notebook, made a plan for the day and am here with you right now.

So that's it. You are now deputized, in the reading of this blog post, to say to me Start to Finish anytime I fail to post or complain about being too busy. I also added a Follow By Email gadget so you cane be notified when I post, which should be frequently. Please sign up and let me know, via comments, that you are out there. Tomorrow's post will be the journey of the Devotion project that I promised you back in February.

Good afternoon! Well, it took me a bit longer than anticipated to get back to updating the blog. Just a few days after the KickStarter ended .... $10,000 over the goal thanks to all of you! ... we took off to Seattle for Cues and Tattoos. Silly me. I thought it would be easy, since it was a short trip with the whole troupe, teaching two 5 hour intensives on Wed/Thu, having the day off before the show on Fri, just vending all day on Sat so I could relax and chat with people, teaching two workshops on Sun and flying back that night.

No seriously, that's an easy trip for me. It wasn't 10 days long and the sponsors (Adriene and Julia of Hipnotica) are great. How is that not an easy trip?

Well, let's see; the 5 hour intensives were actually the easy part. Being in the same room with the same people for 2 days removed a lot of variables and made it a nice routine. The intensive even took place in the hotel, so literally all I had to do was walk out of my room, get on the elevator and land in the classroom. Plus I had Kae and Wendy to help.

That's where the easy ended however. The rest of the troupe arrived on Fri morning. Their room wasn't ready so they came to hang out in our room. I was knitting the last bit of lace collar for the infamous black vest and I really needed to concentrate. They accommodated me by sitting quietly, but it was still more distraction that I had anticipated (more on the infamy of the black vest at a later date, suffice to say that I absolutely had to finish it at that precise moment in time or I would have thrown it out the window.) OK, I did have a bit of R&R when I went down to the gym for an hour's workout with an episode of Breaking Bad. Sons of Anarchy is over for the season so I had to get my fix somehow. Getting ready for the show was fine, walking to the venue was also fine because the Seattle weather gods took pity on us and it wasn't raining. The show itself was so-so, I thought we could have done better. But the event as a whole was replete with performances with a bevy of guest artists. There was a private after party at the hotel. It was very nice-drinks and snacks provided by the hosts-but I really should have gone to bed and gotten some rest because the next day was 12 hours of vending.

I think that's what did me in. My intention was to set up the booth and just bask in the happiness of the crowd and enjoy the day's show (which included a fantastic performance by my students as Taksu Tribal.) To a degree, that is what happened ... but it was 12 hours of basking and happiness and .. wait for it ... there was another after party at 10:30pm. I really shouldn't complain. I had elected not to dance in that show because I knew I would be whooped and had to teach and fly home the next day. The troupe had to get into costume yet again, and we all had to find our way over to the new venue. There was a moment when I was sure that I wouldn't make it, but my lovely booth-mate Shannon propped me up and we actually ate dinner and caught a cab, arriving at the bar just as FCBD® hit the stage. The show was stellar. I was really pleased to see my troupe kick it out. Adriene was nice enough to give us a ride home when I began to complain loudly and in a very unladylike fashion about the fact that we were so far from the hotel. Really, she is the nicest, calmest person. A saint, if you will.

Back at the room, my troupe-mates thought it would be a lot of fun if we all drank wine and chatted for another hour. I had to, again, complain loudly and in a very unladylike fashion that the party was over-go home! Sigh. Sorry about that.

Sunday was a flurry of packing up the booth early so we could teach the last two classes and then catch a ride to the airport for our 8:15pm flight. Everyone worked like a well-oiled machine to that end. Of course at the airport, as our outgoing flight had to negotiate with the San Francisco weather (why does a city that is known for fog not have runways that are set up to deal with fog?) they threatened to delay our flight. It was in fact delayed by 30 minutes, but I can't complain (loudly and in a very unladylike fashion) because two flights filled with dancers that were also coming back to SF where delayed several hours.

So anyway, that' my story and I'm sticking to it. It was a great festival and I'll attend as long as they keep inviting me, but next time I'm getting my own room and bypassing the after party festivities so that I can behave in a gracious and ladylike manner throughout.

Thanks to everyone who had to put up with me!

Seattle

On our way to Cues and Tattoos in Seattle. Virgin Airlines is in the Int'l terminal at
SFO. We are leaving from A12 where, coincidentaly, we performed at the
opening of the Int'l terminal several years ago.