I have a crush on my job.

You know Plato's cave allegory? I think that's what I have been experiencing this past month and a half--the part where you get out of the cave and realize where you've been.

I quit my job at the museum. Because I have a new job where I am appreciated and am allowed to grow and embrace who I am. Suddenly I've become much  more confident in myself, my ambitions and style. And happier. so. much. happier. 

Great things are taking shape at my new job and hopefully I'll be exactly where I want to be at this time in my life in a few weeks. 

!!!

Who knew you could actually feel wanted, appreciated and special where you work? I thought being under-utilized was the norm. 

Liberated. 

Also, I've made a goal to take more pictures 

but this will not happen until I can afford the coveted iphone...

Soooo until then here's a picture of me and Ryan on our trip to the Oregon Coast.

we're real winners.

Post-Recital Euphoria

Watching my students perform and getting to celebrate with them when they're done is one of my all-time favorite events. Last night we had our annual Spring Recital and I just couldn't be more proud of them all. They've all made such huge steps forward since I've been teaching them; even just since their Christmas Recital. I love watching them progress and having a part in their precious lives. They constantly teach me how to be a better teacher and a better person.

Favorite student quote: "I just wanna play the piano until I die." End of story. Best kids ever.

My Apologies

I recently decided to return to Facebook and I'm still not sure it's a good thing. Originally I left because I felt that I spent too much time on it psuedo-communicating with friends instead of actual interaction. Plus, I realized that I began forming opinions about people that didn't exactly match up to the person I knew and I wanted to keep the real person's identity in my life instead of the Facebook identity. That said, it's been a little over a year and a half since I decided to simply not get on the social network when I realized that all of those friends and relationships that I had seemed to have vanished. I thought once I removed myself from online communication I would interact more directly with my friends but that didn't happen.

I lean more towards the hermit side of life; read: I'm a private person. Sometimes that can be a struggle when so much of ourselves is online these days thus I feel the pressure to divulge certain things, but cautiously. Me writing this post is difficult but I admit that there is a gratifying sense of release whenever I venture into the realms of my blog.

Sadly, through getting away from Facebook I've apparently cut my ties to most of my friends. I'm not sure how I feel about this completely. I understand that friendship is a two-way street; sure, they could have tried to keep in touch with me but when someone just vanishes off your radar and makes contact more difficult (ie picking up the phone, writing a letter or email--funny how emails are more personal these days) then why would you remember to send them a quick "hello"? Now, I've begun to wonder if maybe I'm just a boring person to be around and that maybe it's a relief for my old friends to not have to communicate with me anymore. This sounds like a self-pitying comment but I'm really starting to think it's the case.

Also, I've made A LOT of mistakes in my life in so many areas. I don't think that I've been a good friend at all. I really want to be and I think that I allow my anxieties to get in the way of that; I'm really great at worrying and second-guessing (same thing?) which causes me to forgo the quick hello, or phone call I want to make to an old friend and instead focus on those immediately in front of me. In short, I just feel awful.

A couple of friends have taken the time to keep in touch and I cherish them more now than before seeing the unresponsiveness of others that I've received as of late. I don't want to cast my old friends in a bad light; they are such great, amazing people. Like I said, I've been a bad friend, they are not to blame.

This whole post feels strange to write but I'd rather get it out and then be over it. This helps me to recognize my disappointments in myself, to still hold my love for all of my friends and to focus on those whom I cherish whether they respond or not. Everyone needs a friend and I'm so grateful to those in my life who have been constant companions even though I have not always been there myself.

chronic ambivalence

(caveat: i get that blogs are widely used for pictures and short sentences but this one is just for voicing thoughts that don't always come up in my casual conversations...)

for the past few years i've been slowly exploring the idea of chronic ambivalence. Ambivalence within myself, in others, in the world surrounding me. the concept that there are two opposing ideas simultaneously coexisting fascinates me and i feel that i have a greater understanding of myself and others and life by understanding these opposites. there is a greater intensity when you understand life through the death surrounding life. i don't think that is a macabre thought but really just the opposite.

however, i've never been able to pin down exactly how to describe this to others without sounding like an idiot who doesn't know what they are talking about. then i read david sylvester's interviews with francis bacon. then i read milan kundera's essay on francis bacon and i've decided to direct anyone i try to describe this fascination i have with opposites to these two resources.

...

francis bacon has a way with his portraits of people that although they are not your regular realistic representation of a person they convey the individual in a much more knowing sense than any i've seen. bacon captures through the painter's "brutal gesture" (to use kundera's words) the "golden nugget." that special spot in which the ambivalence crosses hairs and forms the multi-faceted being. the self. not the static, one-sided individual. the sinner and the saint embodied in one individual. which also makes me think of caravaggio but maybe that's a different post.

i really want to do a project which involves these ideas and i immediately think of the myth of icarus and his wax wings. so fragile, a rebirth, the closeness of life and death. but it is such a tender subject to me that i don't want to do it injustice...and it's so personal that it would have to be something just perfect which builds it up into perhaps an insurmountable task. which i love. and hate.

...

musing to muse

note: i moved about a year ago and decided to live without the internet at my home. very cleansing. however, recently i received a calling in my ward in which having the internet would make life much easier so i decided to plunge back in. and it's good to be back.

really brief update on the past year:

so much.
i am mostly a private person. (still)
i got published again.
i started painting again. and again.
i've become obsessed with synesthesia. and francis bacon.--more on both of these later
for the record: i don't like bacon (the food not the artist).
i've re-felt emotions i thought i'd forgotten and they've come back deeper and better.
i've become exposed to so many new situations.
i can be described as a professional which i'm not sure i'm happy about yet.
i can also be described as a sailor which i am happy about.
i finally have a claw-foot tub.
i do not know that my emotions are for you to hear. (still conflicted about having a blog)
and i am blond. you wouldn't believe how friendly strangers are to me now.

image

what we keep

i wonder about my neighbors sometimes.

their immaculate lawn,

well-rounded shrubs and plushy red geraniums.

their fantastically spotless vehicles; nothing extravagant but maintained to the utmost level of

pristine.

because they, they do not burn their dinners for the rest of the neighborhood to smell.

they do not renovate their bedrooms to leave construction tracks as eyesores as what is inside is coming out what is outside coming in for something different,

sparkly,

new.

they do not have the darkness of silent, cloaking nights ebbing

out their windowsills, encroaching to the street. they do not spill oil on the driveway. they do not yell to the stars when the world falls down into the pit of their stomach.

but theypulltheirweeds

kneeling to the earth,

take out the trash methodical and silent but for the rolling plastic on gravel.

their leaves tinge in the sunsets, glowing, haloed and angelic.

the cement ditch between us cries an ocean.

Here, here

"Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large unexpected cheque in the post, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square...I just love it. I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city." — Bill Bryson (Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe)