Advice most parents would hate...

"So do put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington. She may not always make a decent living there but she will be part of an ancient and honorable mystery, and it is on the stage that she will most likely be able to find herself." 

- Robert Brustein

...but that I love.  

When the stress, rage, passion, and exhaustion is culminated during that routine - it combusts into an electrical energy that is static. Tangible. Something I feed off of like a drugged up animal. When I'm on stage, nothing else exists. Hell, even the stage beneath my feet doesn't exist. It's just movement and music that pump through my veins. I'm slicing through the spotlights but cruising between the dancers. It's everything and nothing in the same heartbeat - self-destructive in more ways than one but gives my life meaning. 

If I'm lucky, I'll continue to find that feeling either on the stage or elsewhere. That feeling when you're waiting in the wings, filling your body with the rhythm, and there is that brief second before you start - just a second and no more - that you know you're about to create magic. 

Fact.

Some of the world's most beautiful people will love you more than you could ever love yourself. You are not confident without their encouragement. You are not comfortable without their acceptance. You are not you without them. And as hard as that is to accept, it is not a fact to be feared. Because it's one of life's most attractive peculiarities - to feel such strong, natural emotions for a body external to your own.

To you, who know who you are. Thank you. All of you. I love you.

Well this is awkward.

I'm no longer in Barcelona, but I am keeping this blog. And the title. Because we all know how much of a paradise Medford is.

It seems like everyone is moving forward these days. Getting jobs, or married, or pregnant (seriously - not over the shock yet). And for some reason, I'm moving backwards. I thought I made some headway with my whole law school plan. But now, all of a sudden, people from all sides are asking me the same pointed question that makes me think they see something I don't. "Are you sure you want to go to law school? It just doesn't seem you."

What. I really thought I was done with people laughing in my face after telling them what I'm studying (special shout out to that douche at CMU), by following it up with "But I'm planning to go into law." Now all of a sudden,  the sentence might just end with "I study Philosophy and Religion"? That's terrifying.

They ask me what I would want to do if I didn't do law. And the pathetic part is - I have absolutely no idea. I am one of the few people who don't have a dream job, and I'm not sure which part of this equation is more concerning. I know what makes me happiest - dancing, writing, traveling, helping people. But do I love these things because they take me away from my life, or do I want to make them my life? Would they begin to lose their beauty as they increased their frequency?

I don't know. And ironically enough those 3 little words are the only thing I'm certain about right now. They say I'll figure it out, and everything will be okay. But having faith in the future is so much more difficult when it's an amorphous blob that you can't mold yet. It smacks you in the face every time your friend gets an amazing internship opportunity, and you don't even know what field you want to apply to. Or when your immersion in the class' conversation about Happiness is interrupted by the realization that this stimulation isn't exactly a resume builder. Or when you talk to any Indian person, and they are completely and utterly confused by you.

It's not easy, but for now I have to trust that the difficulty means I'm doing something right. That maybe I'm not supposed to lead a structured life, and that this rocky road just might be the right flavor for me.

The End-ilogue?

I thought I'd be blogging the most in my last couple weeks in Barca, exaggerating my job as a writer by putting emotions into every little inanimate object. Turns out it was such a whirlwind that writing anything seemed inadequate to convey my last minutes there. Regardless, I have to spark note something to keep the memory pungent.

Istanbul. Street bazaars everywhere you turn, with vendors that have hilarious pick up lines in just about every language you can think of. Cheap, delicious eats in all 3 parts of this country separated across 2 continents. People genuinely interested in welcoming you to their land, and giving you free apple tea just to have a conversation. Hookah cafes like coffee bars, packed with laid back souls watching the silky swirl of raspberry ribbon caressing the air. A skyline of mosques that are blue, pink, white in the daylight - but all unite under an amber fighting against the black of night. Birds that circle the tippy top of Galata Tower, reflecting the gold that lights the cylindrical monster, creating an image that is chiseled into my mind. Two people met through couch-surfing who showed us around the nooks of the city, reminding us that people are beautiful. Turkey.

Between 8 finals and 4 classes, I spent my last days walking the streets alone or in small groups. We reminisced about our trip in a reminiscent way - by finding new cafes, boutiques, and spontaneous performances. The last night, my roommate and I put on "Bollywood Night" for our host mom with makeshift dance attire (harem pants and a scarf used for a chunni) and performed our respective styles. Needless to say she was wilin out, taping us and clapping - laughing in that way. You know the look - when your head goes back and your eyes are still focused, teeming with an emotion you have to surrender to, like you know it's a moment you'll remember for the rest of your life. We played videos for her and shared pictures of our families and crazy Indian dresses. The "Indian twins" soaked it up alongside their adopted mother, and even though it wasn't vocalized - we all realized this was it. This was the last night in the first city we've ever truly loved.

The next morning was filled with tears and goodbye notes, followed by a cab ride to the airport with only sniffles breaking the solemn silence. With a Barcelona playlist illegally blasting in my ears to try to numb the sound of the engines rolling away from the gate, I looked out the window and said goodbye to the buildings, which from so high above looked like the individual squares that made up my Barcelona Box, the winding roads creating the confusion that pushed me out of it.

The transition was made easier because of the London detour. Expecting this trip to be like most others - I was pleasantly surprised when it became much more than a normal family visit. Partly because of the nightly adventures with my cousins that I missed out on in previous years, "baby of the fam" that I am. Partly because I had friends my own age there, and didn't need to rely on anyone to navigate the city. Partly because of the tears that couldn't be held back after being in my mother's arms after 4 long months away.

Mainly, however, because I met someone new. Someone truly special who is constantly changing, moving forward with a raw desire to live. Someone with a little spunk, a little kick. Someone to care for, who would lean on me and keep that beating heart pure. I thought to myself - this could be it! This could be the person to make me want to be a better human being.

Yes, this person has grown to be an extremely important part of my life, quite unexpectedly and quite immediately.

To the unborn baby in my sister's belly - you make me believe in love at first (lack of) sight. I love you, even though (to quote Bublé), I just haven't met you yet.

A bit more than puppy love

It is fall in December and the wind is pushing in anger while the branches are fighting their fate and the leaves are swirling in confusion and the sun is ducking to hide from it all.

And then there are the clouds.

Each evening I ascend from Alfons X and politely say hello to them, should they choose to stick around until I come home. But today, I look up and see that they aren't their usual pale white. Today, the are aglow with a slight rose. Perhaps they don't know. Well, of course they don't know - they're clouds. But I can see them and how they have changed from down here. I see their flushed cheeks, despite their radiant crush slinking further into the distance still. But they don't care. They are fluffy, smitten clouds who are retaining their lover's warmth, no matter how fast he may try to run from them. They continue on, a little bit different than they were yesterday, and all the other days I have known them - using the fingers of each ray to keep an eternally tickled pink.

A writer's criteria.

To be lying on the sidewalk of Passeig de Gracia (the equivalent of Saks 5^th) in pajamas and ripped boots, with nothing but a plastic bag full of apple juice and a cigarette you don’t know how to smoke.

To go out with a pair of heels, and come home with one, the only clue of its whereabouts being sand in your purse.

To be broke for 3 out of the 4 months in a strange country, and to resort to begging for metro rides from sometimes merciful strangers who shoot you the “Stupid American” look.

To not shaving your legs for days and exposing them to the world, only to notice a cute guy staring at them in horror. Twice.

To use your intermediate knowledge of a language and attempt to conduct an entire visit to the dentist (which you were promised would be in English), in Spanish. Only to find out your wisdom tooth is growing in infected, and to therefore be on 3 drugs for 8 days - 2 days before you fly out of Barcelona. To fly into the new city, to have no choice but to then mix this medicine with other substances and to…

To somehow fall asleep when you are no more than 30 seconds away from your bus stop, and walk backwards to get home.

To turn the 3-second rule to the 20-second rule, or sometimes to the finders-keepers-I’m-eating-it-anyway rule.

To be groped by an old man when you are trying to read a book in the park, and to sprint up the mountain to get home and away, thanking yourself for whipping out your go-to outfit of sneakers and gym shorts that morning. To sticking true to yourself and your style.

To be lost in translation one night, and accidentally tell your host mother you are sexually aroused instead of regularly excited. And to subsequently never hear the end of it.

To faceplant on the daily trek you thought you had by now mastered, breaking your favorite ring and creating feminine-looking gashes in your legs and arms.

To try and pour the water out of the top of your yogurt, and end up dropping the whole lump in the trash. To realize that was your food for the next 6 hours.

To know that these happenings are beneficial – no – necessary, to your life abroad. For if each bruise came without a story, you would never be an interesting enough character for one.

Still my favorite poem.

One Art

BY ELIZABETH BISHOP

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident

the art of losing’s not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.