Letting things go

I haven't written for the past two days because I've been searching for the perfect image but I've stopped letting the perfect get in the way of the good, and am writing anyways...



I've been going through my closets which are now as neat as they will ever be, throwing things out. (the above image is clearly fantasy.) I have obeyed my three year rule - I have to wear something once every 3 years, or it can't live in my cupboard anymore, and am so grateful that Housingworks opened a shop around the corner so I can go and give my good enough clothes a new home.

It's funny, how I like throwing things out, it makes me feel lighter and less cluttered in my soul somehow, to have my space leaner and cleaner. Though I don't feel like that about my writing at all, have to keep every scrap there, and don't feel like that about people either. I hate it when people leave.

We are all leaving in my world right now. I've been so affiliated with DS's school, and as he leaves elementary school and moves on to middle school, I can see lots of change and flux.

I realize I'm not a 21st century gal after all. I don't relish change and I don't multi-task well. I like depth and stability. But I also appreciate life cycles and I can see one taking place now, and as change comes, as space forms, new things can grow... So I'm simultaneously trying to let go and hold on... no wonder I can't find the closet picture that portrays that!

Insights from the shower

I had a realization in the shower the other day - and where better to get clarity, with all that water sluicing off you, taking away dirt and sleep and making everything citrusy and fresh again (I'm a bit of a water fetishist)

Anyways, I had an insight - I don't multitask well. I'm more of a drill deep kind of girl. Even when I was PTA president and there was a lot on, things went in a linear fashion and didn't conflict with each other, and if there were conflicts, you could say, hey, there's something already in that spot, find another...

But now I'm in 4 distinct groups, none of which need to intersect, and all seem to be booking the same day for very important events, and I feel torn and discombobulated. I can't say, hey there's a conflict, change the date, as I am the only one with the conflict. Instead I have to make choices, and each one is a delicate weighing of scales, and leaves no one, least of all me, satisfied.

The thing that is easiest and quickest to jettison is personal life. I had the opportunity to go to London this w/e - DH is going for work, we could just sneak into his room and for the cost of a plane tix have a very pleasant stay, catch up with dearly beloved friends. But so many things are going on here, that I honestly felt I couldn't go, and in the end declined.

What sort of life is that, where you turn down trips to London to go to the Taste of Tribeca on Saturday (I'm a member of the Taste board and it's an event I sincerely love), and three other meetings on Thursday (board member for 2 of them, steering committee member for another), and one on Wednesday (community board member) It's really just ridiculous.

I have one husband, one child, and clearly can only take on one in depth commitment at a time...

Thought for the Day

“You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.”*

I guess I'm really feeling pulled in a lot of different directions right now, and striving for harmony, especially with issues around an organization I just joined. I have to say that is a very helpful notion - if we all just agreed, it would be stagnant. Lots of decent people are trying to bring different ideas to the table, all with the fear that if we don't find harmony, things will change. It will all be sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I know what the answer is - things are changing all the time. Noise is part of the melody, we can't all sing the same note, and indeed we ourselves change range as age and other life matters impress upon us. However I still feel anxious. I value this entity and the thought of it changing/going is sad...




*said by someone called Doug Floyd who may or may not be a good person to follow, but I liked this quote.

catching up

I've got so many new stories to tell and I never even finished Vegas!



So La Reve - beautiful but not as good as Love, and then DH told me that it wasn't a Cirque show, but a copy, and somehow you could tell - the edges weren't as crisp... However the high dives and some of the visuals were breathtaking, it just wasn't as cohesive as Love.

In the meantime we also went and saw West Side Story (back in Manhattan now) DH loves it and I'm very familiar with the music but realized I'd never seen it on stage, I'd only ever seen the movie.



It was a very weird experience, because it is a piece I love, but I thought it was such a bad interpretation, the lovers were unbelivable, I didn't care about them at all (even though Maria had pipes, no question there) and the all the male parts were uniformly dreadful. No energy, no bite, no sense of them being 3 dimensional people with back story, just flat. The women were better and the dance numbers better still but I was frankly bored.

I sat and wriggled and looked at the audience - and the audience - loved it! Clapped and whistled and cheered. I felt so out of sync. And yet, as we walked out, no one was talking about the show. It was like they focused on it for 2 hours and then forgot it as they walked out the door, already on to the next thing. But they applauded and stood (I refused. Really, I didn't enjoy it at all.) But I don't get it when I'm so not with the audience. What were they cheering? What did they connect to that I couldn't see? So odd experience on all counts.

DH and DS are still listening daily to the CD of Love that we bought at the Vegas show and DH is raving about the orchestrations etc... so that show is definitely lingering.

This week I've been suffering terribly from hayfever and both prescription medication and over the counter stuff is not helping, and then I remembered that I have an air filter that I use every year, sitting and waiting for this season - sometimes it's so hard to be an adult and remember how to look after yourself!

letters...

More about Vegas soon, I promise, but this is the sort of thing that I love- an article about the letters that Obama receives. He really reads 10 letters from strangers a day? God, where does he find the time. That man must have every spare moment accounted for. I was thinking that's probably why he smokes, it gives him a moment of solitude.

And this, of course, is the letter I think he should have received:

Vegas dreaming...

DH has been to Vegas many times, he reckons he spent nearly 2 months in a one year period for work. It's my first time. People say it's like Disney for grown ups and I think they are right. Even as you leave the air port, the streamlined efficiency of the cab service makes you relax, as their competent smiling efficiency takes hold. I thought about how to catch a cab from JFK is all chance and chaos, and wondered why they couldn't set up this smooth system (20 cabs fill up at once, drive off, 20 more cabs swoop in, the line jumps forward, you're in your cab within minutes.)



But you don't want to read about me nattering about cabs. We're staying at the Venetian, a huge, huge hotel thousands of rooms in this faux roman decadence complete with canal and a mock St Martin's Square in perpetual twilight (pictured above.) All very glam and clever. The only problem is that the hotel is so big, each individual guest is small potatoes and their service is appalling - everything takes for ever, and even to complain takes 10 mins on hold before you can talk to a human. To our amusement the music from Phantom plays endlessly in the elevators, as the 90 min version of the Phantom of the Opera is playing here. The elevators are very luxe, there are paintings on the ceilings in true baroque fashion, and the faux canal is fun, but I don't like it here and we won't return.

Vegas itself, on the other hand, has been a blast. So far we've seen 2 shows - a preview of Peep Show (which opened tonight) and Love, by Cirque de Soleil, music by the Beatles.



I've not seen much burlesque, so I can't judge Peepshow against other shows of it's kind, but it was kind of... unerotic. The woman whose body I liked best was Mel B. (pictured above) ex Spice girl (Scary Spice) the rest were just too skinny or Barbie doll for me, not quite real enough. The skits that were more classic porn - girls bending provocatively over cars, girls in cheerleader uniforms stripping down to g-strings - they worked least for me. The scenes where there was some emotional content (even if that emotion was laughter) worked better. The girl flirting with her salacious stuffed bear, the girl falling in love with the amazing guy in the bath (great acrobatic scene) but even there, the emotion was all veneer. As a piece it didn't work for me, though I imagine as it beds in it will get better.



But then I hadn't seen any other Vegas shows, so didn't really have anything to compare it to. Tonight we went and saw Love at the Mirage. My goodness - dreams made flesh. Just so many beautiful, beautiful images, set against such classic music. To listen to the music, so wonderfully produced, to see those images, to be in that moment. I just loved it. I can't rave enough. I've seen about 4 Cirque shows, but they were all travelling shows in tents. This is the first one I've seen in a theatre that was purpose built for the show. Oh the things they could do with light and movement. It was both graceful and evocative, and very moving. As we walked out, I wanted to go straight back in and see it again.

And tomorrow we go to La Reve ... many things to look forward to!

An oldie but a goodie...

This one always makes me laugh and wince at the same time: