Thankful Thursday–lability; teenage iPod playlist; Improv classes; 36 Jewish folks who hold up the world; flaming heart

First, sort of unrelated to the rest of the post, but something that I love to watch on occasion and you may like to also. It is from Burning Man 2011, an amazing artwork about, what else, fleeting time (at least that’s what I think):

I am most grateful for the return of my energy. It’s been 6 days since I began feeling more energetic and robust. I am not so ashy and drawn, the deep wrinkles are smoothing out, I am less labile (now there’s a word one rarely sees*). I wasn’t really labile anyway, I just wanted to use the word. I was too exhausted to be labile. I’ve begun to take short walks, to do more driving of children around, to grocery shop, even to go out in the evening if need be. Wow.

*I first learned the word labile when I took a pregnancy massage seminar (32 hours in 1990 with Kate Jordan from California and it changed my life). I think no one uses the word because it sounds too much like labia, but it’s nothing like labia, except, like the word hysterical, it is often used to describe a particular emotional state generally pertaining to women. My uterus has been quite unstable of late, I suppose, but this is the price one pays to birth the world. Rather than seeing this from the side of its power, society’s response has generally been to try to clamp down and enforce more control. Control the gate to life and death and you control death, I think is the thinking…but I ramble and digress.

Yesterday, I was driving Annie to school in the outfitted Fit (as in my older mini-van does not have the right port to insert an iPod cord) and she played her iPod for us. Here’s what I heard:

The Ramones; The Beatles; Wilco; Jonathon Richman and the Modern Lovers; Tom Waits; Lucinda Williams

Not bad, I thought, though the Beatles (“Happiness is a Warm Gun”) were especially out of place in that order and the songs didn’t really flow. She’s been strongly influenced by her sister, who, in turn, has been strongly influenced by us. It made me happy. Not the influence part, but the groovy music choices part.

And now proceeds a more tedious portion of one of my more tedious posts. Suck it up, people. I’ve been unwell and I deserve your pity in the form of you have to read it anyway. It’s like your twinklysparkles’ homework assignment from here on out, but I’m a great teacher–witty, blond, sexy, wise, wholesome, brilliant; I have a good vocabulary, using big words when necessary; I draw interesting diagrams on the board with bold, colorful chalks; I have a great singing voice which I will use to emphasize dramatic points in a lesson; I will teach for Indian, Italian, Thai, or hippie food, including any meals containing beef, bacon, kale, sweet potatoes, beets, and most soups. In other words, I’m easy. But again, I digress…

I have been taking Improv classes down in Hartford, Connecticut. I started last fall and then enrolled again with a new set of classes beginning 5 weeks ago. This was the one thing I committed to doing while I was really sick. I missed my first class, but have been able to go to the rest. I was not in the best shape–gasping for air when doing a scene or jumping around in warm-up games and not being able to catch my breath sometimes.

I take my classes through Sea Tea Improv (there’s a link on the sidebar to the right under THE FUNNY, too).

So grateful for Improv. When something goes right, I love it. When something doesn’t go so well, I cringe, move on (sort of), and learn.

I have tended to love “acting” (whatever that means) in a small capacity my whole life. I find Improv less intimidating than scripted work. I am not sure why, but I don’t seem to get quite as nervous quite as frequently. I am less doubtful of my choices generally.

What else in today’s too-long post?

I was thinking about some little rituals and routines of mine and how I have the belief that they matter. For instance, I always try to open the car directly with the key in the lock rather than by using the remote un-locker (unlocker is funny, don’t you agree?). I think this has a big impact on all sorts of things.

It all reminds me of this. I remember first hearing this story long ago. I wasn’t raised in Judaism at all, in spite of my Jewish father. He would occasionally tell stories from his boyhood in Hungary and even more rarely some Jewish lore would come up. But he was older and had no interest in his religion, having left it all behind at a very young age.

The story, the one I heard, had 10 people in it, not 36, and the “chosen” are definitely unaware of who they are. It was told to me by my great poet friend, Major Ragain, back in Kent (maybe I got that wrong, but I have a clear memory and it has to do with baking my banana nut bread, too).

The thing to me is not that the story might be true, as a Talmudic scholar or an Orthodox Jew believes or debates. It is interesting because of its deeper significance. What would it mean if you or I (no girls allowed in traditional Judaism though, those fundamentalist bastards) were one of the 36 and we didn’t know it? I love that.

There are many cheesy depictions of flaming hearts on google images. They make me think of Christ and bikers and tattoos and vampires and teenagers dressed in bad goth clothing, of bad poetry and of the Devil. I chose one anyway. Hearts and vaginas, have I made that connection here before? I think so. And the heart and blood and the lungs and the breath and iron and holding on and Led Zeppelin (got a flaming heart, can’t get my fill). This one was really colorful if nothing else.