Homework

I am taking an intensive workshop being offered by the forever wonderful Dance NYC
called Entrepreneurship & Renewal -
(Yes, some of you have heard me stumble through trying to say that recently - damned "L" kept trying to show up in "Entrepreneurship")
Anyway, its pretty great - I think some of my classmates and I have questions on how it will all sieve out in the end - or, maybe a better way to put it is: "With all these high ideas, can you please just give me some TOOLS to sustain an arts organization in NYC???? Please?"
(photos to right are Weena Pauly of Brian Brooks Moving Company)
But I think we are heading there -
Ronnie Brooks has offered some wonderful honing techniques - paying attention to core values as what motivates your work & life while recognizing and calling out your purpose -
Actually here's something she said regarding life goals:

If you are not taking action and steps towards a life goal (big or small) on your list, it will first become a source of frustration, but could turn into a deeper sense of defeat. If you aren't working towards it, or you don't really want it - Take it Off the List.

Also here's a little tidbit that is a good one to keep:

Do not confuse Habits with Rules.

Finally (whew, this is a long blog...I'm tired.) She asked us to write a single page on "Where Do I Come From"
Here's mine...thought you might like to know.

Dance NYC
Entrepreneurship and Renewal
4/17-4/18/2007

I was built in a farmhouse, a beach, a sailboat
Climbing trees, dancing on sand, running through woods, looking for trouble.
I have been thrown out of doors, fallen off roofing out of branches and from ropes
I have a healthy respect for gravity.
I was always a dancer -
Mom says when she was pregnant with me, she would come out of music concerts feeling like she had been beaten from the inside out

I come from a family filled with love and warmth with hugs and back scratches
Willing to punish, vanquish or yell if you misbehave

And always it is said:
Do what you love, money will happen.
Who knew that what I would love was going to turn out to be so difficult.
But the money will come. Just in more creative doses.

My Mom thinks I can revolutionize anything.
I would like to learn to continue changing myself for the better.
My Dad thinks the New York Times should review everything I do and give me accolades.
I would like it if an independent reviewer saw my work and enjoyed it.

In the 1950's My mother was told by a guidance counselor that she wouldn't become a doctor
So instead, every aspect of nursing she has stepped into she has become a point of State or National reference -
My Sister had Lyme Disease...my mother read up on it, began an initiative of doctors to act on diagnoses of the mysterious disease and was brought in all over the state to speak on it -
Mom had a concern about the lack of early diagnosis in young women for Breast Cancer - she is now on the board of the American Cancer Society and the primary Nurse Practitioner called when more traditional doctors won’t pay attention and a second opinion is needed.
My mother doesn’t “just kind of” do anything. She loves deeply. She creates flower gardens.
And she isn’t very good at comprehending limitations.

My Dad is a sailor first a music lover second and a business owner third. His constant love of sailing taught me at an early age what it is to have a passion that can be so easily fulfilled - if easy is waking up at 6 am on a Saturday to scrape old paint that 6 months ago was new paint off an old hull that in two weeks is going to get put in the water so that in 6 months you do it all over again. (And that’s when its easy)
His satisfaction is in the completion, the putter of a re-built engine, the unfurling of the Jenny, the power of raising sails with your hands while the tiler is tied down, and finally sitting with a harmonica and a beer; steering the wind to keep you going down bay.
Dad knows where he finds joy and what he loves, he is strong enough to weep and always seemed capable of carrying anything.

Our lives, especially their lives, have changed greatly in forty years of marriage - but I know that thanks to my parents, I have stepped away from my youth with a sense of wonderment, joy and intense determination.

Very few things scare me -
Perhaps it’s the martial arts I have learned, the heights I know my body can climb, or a general sense that I possess the power to hurt something that tries to hurt me.
However, in my arsenal against fear I possess a sense of worth and love that moves through me at a level so deep that tears are the main way it bubbles to the surface - the embedded source of that tributary is my parents and the home they built, the hilarity we’ve experienced, pain we’ve shared and the love that has sustained us.

What is there to be afraid of? Being an artist in New York City?
I was built for this.