I've done a lot of soul-searching recently over how I spend my free time, which seems to be on the verge of extinction. If I'm not at work, I am almost always at the trapeze studio, and if I'm not at the trapeze studio, I could be found obsessing over blogs, including mine. A couple of valuable things have come out of this period of first-world angst, this time when Netflix feels like too much of a committment.

1.  I've let go of any lofty aspirations I ever had for this blog. I have enough committments; I can definitely do without the guilt that goes along with not posting "frequently enough." I could never give up this webspace, but its purpose in my life is a place for me to practice writing and to catalog the things and people and experiences I find worth writing down, nothing more.
2. I've been invited to join the Repertory Company at Canopy, something I've wanted for a long, long time (and been working toward for a long, long time). The Rep Company is Canopy's official dance company, and it feels good, in a lot of ways, to have my hard work and talent (not to toot my own horn, but sort of) recognized in an official way. This doesn't really change anything about my schedule, but at least it feels like I'm not toiling in vain.
   

So other than not giving myself guilt about this blog, what has changed? Nothing. And I need to figure out how to pursue other creative outlets that I've put on the back burner. I have a lot of projects that I want to do that I can't seem to fit in, and I need to find a way to do them, because I'm really suffering for the lack. I think things will get a lot better when we FINALLY (where's the freakin' delivery truck, Ikea?) get the work table we've ordered for the office/studio, and I can organize my supplies in the drawers and get them out of the moving boxes. Then I'll have a space for my stuff and a surface to work on. Without those two components, craft projects just aren't happening.

Have tips for fitting hobbies into your life/maximizing your time/organizing your stuff? Share. 

From time to time, I am overwhelmed by a hurtful realization that people will let you down. It happens on those days when you give your best fruit and it's laid aside on a neglected plate, when you extend your hand to shake and it's met with empty air, when you search for a friend to walk with and find none ...

Well, one. At these times, I have always found one friend. One who is truer than anything I've ever known to be true. One who showed me how really precious the name "friend" is. My best friend: my husband.

Sometimes I understand what Thelma wanted when she told Louise, "Let's just keep going." I will never let anybody catch us.

I want one of these classic Moonbeam Clocks from L.L. Bean. It starts waking you with a flashing light ... I imagine that's so much nicer than the nails-on-a-chalkboard screech of my alarm clock. Railroad engineers used to use these while they were riding the rails, because the sound from a conventional alarm wouldn't wake them up. I love it in yellow, it looks so sweet and old-fashioned.

 

Here, after many months of anticipation, is the video of the performance me and Julia did at January's trapeze show. The piece is called "Magic."

Maggie Mason's birth story is one of the most excellent things I've read in recent months. Do not underestimate how much this will touch you.

"Now and then, in the weeks to come, I begin to have those moments of overpowering love — moments when it seems impossible that my body could have created something so precious, moments when his delicate fingers are enough to bring on tears.

Soon enough, those moments are so intense that they almost blot me out, and there’s very little break between them."