Reading about dance

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

One of the joys that I haven't devoted enough free time to, is reading accounts of dancers and artists, as inspiration for my own life and work.

On Tuesday I picked up the book, "Mao's Last Dancer", thinking I would read a few chapters a day.  When I finished the intro I was sucked into the world of Li Cunxin, and couldn't put it down until I had finished it later that day.

It was a story that was all too familiar for me.  Life in the arts choses us, not the other way around, I believe.  Not that I am fatalistic about life and art.  It is just for those of us who have always made a deep connection with the arts, there seems to be no other way for a life well lived.

As I haed into my lfe in New York, I will carry Li's story in my heart.

I hope to carry other stories of inspiration home to my life and my work.

Details

Now that I am about two weeks out from my first day in New York, I am writing and rewriting my "to do" lists with greater urgency.

The things I am still working on are sets of maps of each area of the city, so that I can maximize what I have time to see and do.

At some point I also need to make the bus reservations (probably by Friday) so that it is just out of the way. I also want to write a daily agenda of what I am doing and where I am going.

Sounds a little obsessive, but I guess it is in my nature to enjoy the process of planning.