Inspiration

How beautiful is baby Austin?  My mom is picking Avi and me up in the morning and we are driving down to Santa Ynez to meet him and share the love with Mead and Tina.  I am really excited.  It already feels fun to be an auntie.

Leeor is not coming with us.  He has to work.  His new life running a non-profit is pretty busy, but it's a different kind of busy.  There are lots of community meetings to attend and he is writing their quarterly newsletter pretty much by himself.  I remain incredibly proud of him. It's funny how I also feel more abundant even though we now make far less money each month. I feel abundant and spacious and full of possibility.  Plus, Leeor now stays home an extra hour with Avi in the morning when I leave for work, which is great for the two of them and also saves us a little money on childcare.  Life is flexible.  And I appreciate having a husband who likes to go see dance performances with me.

Last night we went to see Alonzo King's Lines Contemporary Ballet.  He is a local SF choreographer and I got the feeling that people in the audience feel proud of this.  I did, too. He's amazing.  There was a new piece, Dust and Light, that blew my mind.  First of all, the 8 dancers, 4 men, 4 women, were breathtaking.  Their bodies alone are works of art.  I thought a lot about dance as an artistic medium, how the body curves and flows and the way that choreographers put things together in this collaborative fashion with the dancers.  I loved the whole show.  The venue, Yerba Buena, is stunning, modern and clean.  I appreciated everything from the light design down to the impeccable marley floor.  The soft whisper of the ballet shoes.  The chic costumes made of flowing silk.  I imagined them rehearsing and then finally changing from ratty practice clothes to these incredible costumes for the performance.  I wondered about my relationship with dance.  I was in awe of these professional dancers and fantasized what it would be like to be one of them.  The work and dedication that goes into that life.  There was a tall female soloist who danced a few pas de deux with this beautiful male soloist.  I remembered both of them from two seasons ago when Leeor and I attended a  show at some point during my pregnancy.  She is white and he is black.  Have I mentioned their incredible bodies?  Alonzo King knows how to make a pas de deux.  All these words floated through my mind as I watched them ooze into each other, but none of them seemed to capture the exquisite nature of their dancing.  

Bay Area National Dance Week begins tomorrow.  Even though I will be away this weekend, soaking up my newest, littlest family member in beautiful wine country, I can still join in next weekend.  There are free classes next Sunday, May 3.  I haven't been to a dance class at SF Dance Center for a few years.  I loved the first class I took, but then the next one felt intimidating and the crowd was too serious for me.  I am way too out of shape in body and mind to be "serious" about a dance class.  My spirit is pretty open, though.  And what I saw last night was incredibly inspiring.  It was also good to be reminded (as I looked around the packed theatre and surmised that a lot of the folks in the audience were dancers, too) that there are so many types of dance here in the city for us non-professionals.

New babies bring an inspiration all their own.  Our good friends' son just turned two this week.  When he was born, I found a job opening at UCSF, applied, interviewed (3-4 times!) and got it.  And if I listed all the ways Avi inspires Leeor and me, I'd be blogging nonstop for eternity.  So maybe baby Austin will inspire me, too, especially in this area of my life that begs for attention, this dormant dancer who needs to move.