I’m awake. It’s after two now. I was cruising Facebook. Geez, it’s awful at two in the morning.
I applied for an on line job tutoring people who want to learn English. So, I’m in bed thinking of sentences to teach words that sound alike. The two of us are going to the store. Would you like to come too? There isn’t enough time for their breakfast this morning. They’re always running late. They will have to grab something when we get there. I’m not an English teacher. I applied because someone suggested it and I am seven months behind in my rent. If I got that lesson out there I might feel like a bit of a success? Maybe? A little.
Everyone is teaching yoga on line. The pandemic has made everyone into expert Zoom teachers. I can’t face myself teaching yoga on line. After watching my supervision videos. The sight of myself in a video was the most depressing thing to occur in years. It was like when I take care to get myself dressed and a little made up only to catch a glimpse of myself in a store window downtown. I’m far away from home and I have to walk around in a terrible outfit for several more hours. Demoralized. Makes me wonder, have I always been so self conscious? The answer is probably yes. I grew up in ballet class staring at myself in a mirror. Staring at other dancers in a mirror. Fixing myself constantly. Now that I’m not looking in the mirror all the time I have relaxed. I feel comfortable. Except on those occasions when I catch a glimpse. The glimpse of … what? Shame? Regret? Sadness? There is something that deflates me. How did I grow so old and frumpy?
Anyway, just don’t look. Relax and enjoy your life without worrying about that reflection.
What if I could see a reflection of how I feel rather than how I look? That would be better. I’m amused and grateful. There’s curiosity and adventure. There’s wisdom and honesty. There’s a grown ass woman that has traveled far.
So, then, in my wide awake bed I was also writing a better bio for my yoga movement classes. It occurs to me more and more that really, I was a dancer for a very long time before I ever studied yoga. I studied to be a dancer. I danced. There was ballet and jazz and modern. There were amazing teachers. There was New York and Chicago. So, it’s time to talk about that too. My eye for placement…I’m really a strong reader of your body, the body, bodies. How does that sound? Bad sentence. I know. I’ll fix it later.
There are crickets outside. All the windows are wide open. It’s a still night. The air is still. Chicago is still. I think we have a curfew again tonight? We have a pandemic and an economic collapse and a curfew too! It’s a trifecta.
When I was a kid my mother’s boyfriend would take me to the racetrack while he was babysitting me. We’d play the trifecta. Boy oh boy! If we won we got to go to China Town for dinner. We went to a place called Chiam. It was a huge dining room. I got to get a kiddy cocktail. It always came with a cherry that hung from a plastic monkey over the rim of the glass. My mother got a Manhattan. It came with a monkey holding a cherry too. I usually got that cherry as well as mine. My mother would rinse it in her water before she let me have it. No bourbon soaked cherries for me. Anyway, I learned to read the racing form & handicap a race. A skill every ten year old kid should have.
Okay, I’m going to try sleep again.
Spinster Life 