I know it's not April any more, but wait till you meet my last guest and hear about her passion. I've been a big Hula Seventy fan for years. Andrea Jenkins is an incredible photographer, a thought-provoking blogger, and the kind of mother you want to be yourself. Her home is gorgeous and her talents are nearly boundless. Plus, she's the best list-maker I have ever known. 
"you have to love dancing to stick to it. it gives you nothing back, no manuscripts to store away, no paintings to show on walls and maybe hang in museums, no poems to be printed and sold, nothing but that single fleeting moment when you feel alive." -merce cunningham
that single fleeting moment. that's what I'm passionate about.
the truth is that I'm passionate about a good many things. but when relyn first asked me to write this, it was dance that immediately came to mind. it was my love for dance that I came back to again and again. before the cameras and the photographs, before the writing and the teaching and the list-making, before photobooths and bicycles with baskets, before road trips and thrift shops, library books and underground hip hop, before the streets of new york and modern art, before lemon sugar anything and vintage everything, before pretty much everything I have ever been passionate about, there was dance. for me, it was dance. always there, for as long as I can remember.
even when my parents couldn't afford ballet lessons. or when my high school dance teacher told me my body was all wrong. when it seemed like the most impractical thing to major in at college and then after I had my first baby and wasn't sure my body would ever be the same again, it was there. it has always been there. it's as much a part of me as the color of my hair, the shape of my calves, the way I sign my name. it's been years since I performed but that doesn't matter. dance seeps in through the cracks, slips in through the back door. I find myself in class, catch myself choreographing small phrases in my mind. I see dance everywhere I look.
that single fleeting moment when I'm dancing and I feel alive. that's what I'm passionate about.
xo, a
1. http://www.flickr.com/
, 2. http://www.flickr.com/
7 comments:
I just love that quote ... You are so right, it leaves no visible grace, just a memory and a feeling in the body ....
This sounds so much like my daughter that still has dance in her soul. I could have found passion in dance when I was young, I would have loved it. It is still tucked in there somewhere I do believe. Thanks for this very special passion and contributor.
In preparing to move, we've been having a clear-out. My teenage daughter was a little surprised to see my and my husband's ceilidh-dancing dresses and kilt! (A ceilidh is a traditional Scottish dance.) We haven't been to a ceilidh for years but we will go again, and oh what a joy to dance together to those familiar, set steps. Yes indeed.
thank you so, so much for having me, relyn! and thanks, everyone, for the kind words! xo
Relyn, new to your blog and instantly in love with this series. Thank you.
andrea is always such an inspiration to me. to live passionately and to savor the moments. thank you for sharing!
loooooooved this!
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