Image via WikipediaSide note: I do plan to continue this blog for the school year, as a record of the entire process of this fellowship. It was reinforced by my instructor all weekend, that we are lifelong learners in a continuum. This as a concept, is very dear to me.
Fellowship week #1, which was 3.5 days, has been about giving myself permission to think independently of family, friends, even computer (hey look! I can still write with a pen or pencil to record ideas) as much as it has been about living into my own body, my own life.
But to do this has required me find what the present means for me. That discovery was greatly enhanced by the techniques gifted to me in my anatomy/kinesiology class. I was certain that there would be concepts I would hear and learn that I could pass along to my students. I was hopeful there would be something for me as well, but completely floored by the number of new strategies the work has presented to me, as the artist. I had hoped for as much, but always aware that my over optimistic expectations.
Anastasi showed the class not just new techniques, but approaches to finding new pathways to learning and moving.
On Friday, when I left Boston, I was in a state of disbelief and focused primarily on the hows of my trip (subway, hotel, bus, etc.). Today, I not only feel native to the city (one of my primary objectives) but have shifted in my thinking is from how to what if.
I wrote the following notes longhand at Le Pain Quotidian, by Bryant Park, so I didn't use my laptop. Here were my perceptions while dining on divine soft boiled eggs and french bread with a cafe au lait (sorry you will just have to put up with the food references, I am an artist who's a foodie). Please note the subtle shift in thinking from my earlier posts.
Right now I am dining in Pain Quotidian, as though I have all the time in the world and there are no constraints on me, except for the challenge of eating slowly, one of those habits I have yet to control. Time has indeed morphed for me in the last 3 days. After the frenetic pace of packing, preparing and departing Boston I felt launched into a world that was new and yet familiar, worried about the details I might have overlooked or mis-interpreted.
The discovery of this first week has been about time. Given a finite amount is frightening and yet, because of the work that has helped me focus on the now, I am more aware of how to use time not just productively, but in a healthier and more life changing way.
The only thing I can compare it with, is the first year of our daughter Lydia's life, when time seemed to almost stop, because I was focused on the individual moments, not big picture.
I am a big picture kind of person and for me to find this space within time, is a broad gift, it will me time to re-imagine the possibilities.
Now it is 7:45 (I came in at 7 am) and the cafe is filling with people. Busy noisy people from every walk of life. But I am still in my time bubble and used time to reflect and refine some of the thought I have here, in the moment. Not to plan, not to worry, but to live fully in the present.
What a gently experience that I can carry with me throughout the week.
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