This Is What We Do…When We Dance

Last weekend marked the three-week mark for the Annual School Performance for the School of Oregon Ballet Theater. M has been attending rehearsals ever since January, in addition to normal class time. On last Saturday, the staff asked to see C for a ‘meeting.’

It was the staff’s assessment that M was just not ready for the stage yet. She “didn’t know her steps” well enough. Inside, I suspect that C was quaking. I also suspect that she put on enough of a calm face to ask the following questions:

• Was M the only student struggling with her steps? 

  NO. THERE ARE OTHERS. SOME OF THE OTHER GIRLS ARE NOW ENTERING THEIR THIRD PERFORMANCE OF THIS PIECE. M IS NOT UNUSUAL.

• Would this impact M’s ability to attend school at SOBT next year?   

  NO. NOT ONE BIT. THIS IS RELATIVELY NORMAL.

• Would we have to miss the performance?

  NO. M WILL LIKELY UNDERSTUDY.

• Can we help her with additional practice or rehearsal?

  SOBT WILL HAVE EXTRA TEACHER HELP AVAILABLE BEFORE HER CLASSES, IF SHE WANTS TO MAKE USE OF THE OPPORTUNITY.

• What music is she dancing to? Perhaps we can get it at home and let her practice at home?

  UMM, I DON’T KNOW THE NAME OF THE PIECE, BUT IT’S BY STRAVINSKY. SORRY I CAN’T BE OF MORE HELP THERE…

C then responded, I’m told with a great deal of acceptance and understanding, saying something like: “Well, I’d rather have M be an understudy now, than push her onstage if she’s at risk of a bad performance. This news may be disappointing, but messing up on stage could be a big blow to a fragile ego. We’ll do what we need to do – I’m paying attention to the long-range view here. If pushing her too hard now spoils her love of dance, then that’s just not the right choice.

Apparently, one of the staff members then turned to the Director and asked, referring to C, “can she be one of our backstage mothers, please?”

Well, two saddened and disappointed girls came back from rehearsal that afternoon. Sad and disappointed, maybe, but not defeated. I was given the challenge of finding a piece of Stravinsky music that might match with a ballet called “Circus Polka Pink” C and M started dissecting the “count sheet” – the closest thing we had to a choreography sheet.

I had no idea what to do for the music. The task seemed impossible. Even if I could find such a thing, the only person who could tell me if it was the right piece was M. Same thing for C’s task, however. Even if we did find the music, all C could do was take M’s word for what the movements where, and when to start counting. There’s no available video of the specific SOBT choreography,and parents are not allowed to watch rehearsals.

Well, not to blow the suspense, but achieving the impossible didn’t take very long. Stravinsky happened to title the music “Circus Polka for Elephants” so a search for “circus polka elephant” on amazonmp3 (I was using my Droid) scored me a direct hit. I downloaded the song for $0.99, and a minute later, M was acknowledging that this was indeed the right music for her performance.

Just as I got the MP3 transferred to both M’s netbook and cellphone/MP3 Player, she and her Mom had worked out the movements on the count sheet!

Typhoon clobbers impossible situation twice in less than two minutes!

But we didn’t rest on our laurels for too long. We now had the music and the choreography, so now commenced the at-home drills.

When I left on my business trip the next day (Easter), C and M had rehearsed the Circus Polka a dozen times. Ultimately, by class the next Tuesday, C and M had rehearsed 40 or 50 times. C was convinced that M knew the moves, steps, and timing quite well. The extra rehearsals uncovered no ambiguity in M’s understanding of the routine.  C called SOBT and pre-arranged an early teaching session for M. The two of them got to ballet class 30 minutes early, and a teacher was waiting for them.

M worked for a half hour with the teacher. Then, when regular class started, the class instructor asked M to perform the dance alone, in front of the whole class. Nervous as all get-out, that’s what she did.

And at the end, the teacher pronounced her rendition “perfect”

We still don’t know if M will be in the show or remain an understudy. But, M has learned a number of lessons this week:

• M now knows that rehearsals require the same level of precision that a performance does. In real ballet, you don’t hold back in rehearsals.
• She can do the steps ‘perfectly’, and that her classmates, teachers and parents have acknowledged that to her directly.
• That she will understudy parts all throughout her ballet career; it’s a normal part of ballet training.
• That understudies sometimes have to fill in at a moment’s notice – it’s important for the understudies to be just as capable and prepared as the cast dancers.
• Her parents are proud of her mostly for giving her all, regardless of whether she’s in the performance or not.
• Her parents are more concerned with her lifelong development than this one specific performance.

I spoke with her last night. Once again, I told her how proud I am of her. Performance or not, she’s accomplished huge amounts this year.

Oh, that reminds me. M’s Summer Intensive sessions start June 28 and run through the end of July. Three days a week.

This is what we do. When we dance.

We Dance.

19 Days…

…until C’s surgery. November 1oth. The family is in-transit in a major way. It’s unabashedly chaotic and minimalist. But it has direction.

We’ve been “camping” at Dragonfly most of this week. C and I are sleeping on a queen air bed on the floor. R is sleeping on a trundle bed in the family room. M could sleep on one of the two other beds downstairs, but instead she chooses to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor of her room so as to be surrounded by the mural she and her Mom have been painting. For furnishings, we have:

• a kitchen table,
• two living room chairs,
• a family room hide-a-bed sofa,
• a fully furnished student room, and
• an air bed in the master bedroom.

We’re eating off paper plates. We have a couple towels and soap, but no shampoo!  We have yet to ferry dishwasher detergent over from the other house. Rather than an ordeal, we’re choosing to make this into an adventure.

The furniture starts moving this weekend. The required interior wall painting has been accomplished. The POD went away this morning. Replacement appliances arrived at 9am today. We have laundry services! Replacement carpet gets installed either today or tomorrow. The stove gets delivered on Saturday, separate from the movers.

Our exchange student moves in TOMORROW. We’ll start bringing clothes-and-such over as soon as tomorrow, working ahead of the movers where ever possible.

The biggest wrinkles remaining?  Getting the DLP TV, which needs repair, in for service before Sunday; breaking down the remaining unpacked items at Stark and getting them staged for the movers to put on the truck Sunday morning.

All of this with an eye on the hard-and-fast deadline of EOD Nov 9. What isn’t done by then, will proceed much more slowly afterward. Because that’s when things forcibly slow down for C’s surgery.

I’m proud of how my family is  learning to put prioritization into practice  though this process. When something comes up – some idea or issue or “need” for improvement – my family is starting to say things like “is this a need or a want? Does this require completion before surgery, or can it wait?” If not a move related requirement, it moves down the list. Everyone is increasingly comfortable with the idea that things go on the list based ont the balance of due-by and  importance, that sometimes order of completion does not always reflect overall importance or value of the issue. The historical dynamic of the family has been to use an interrupt stack (you know what I mean here -- where the newest idea moves to the FRONT of the list, only to be pushed back by the NEXT new idea). The dynamic is  morphing into a prioritized list that identifies needs, wants, nice-to-haves, and must-be-done-by dates.

Of course, there needs to be room for some want fulfillment as well. C just informed me that she’s purchased a student-grade harp. It’s smallish, and not the highest quality, but she can use it to discover if she loves playing the harp in reality as much as she’s in love with the idea of playing the harp. If not, we can resell the harp. Simple as that.

In C’s case, if having a harp puts her more at-ease going in to the surgery, then it’s a good thing. Her mental well-being is crucial. That she bought the harp tells me that she’s got her gaze firmly fixed on the distant horizon of the far-reaching future. Even with a cancer surgery looming in 19 days. This is a good thing. Back in 2006, as she was coming out of chemo and radiation, her view into the future only spanned days. A couple years later, her view had widened to span 2-5 years at most. And now? She’s planning to learn the harp during her convalescence.

I think I like this change in attitude. She’s planning for life after. With 19 days until the surgery, her eye is fixed squarely on what comes after.

Neko – Here It Is

The Japanese word for ‘cat’ is ‘neko’. In our house it’s Neko – a proper noun. That’s because Neko is the name of our 15 year old male Persian cat. Neko is not in a good way of late.

His health has always been just a little fragile. He’s battled kidney and urinary issues most of his life. In the last year or so, his jet black coat has turned gray. Concurrently, He started spending nearly all his time sleeping. About six months ago, he also started acting extremely anxious. A little anti-depressant medication helped him calm down. Behind the anxiety, said the vet, was a polyp in his throat. Over the last eight weeks or so, we’ve been working with the vet to try to manage this fast-growing throat polyp which increasingly blocks Neko’s esophagus. He’s barely eating – he can’t smell (cats won’t eat what they can’t smell) and he has obvious trouble swallowing. His breathing is labored. Clearly this thing is taking up much of the available space around it.

The vet said surgery to remove the polyp is ‘multiple thousands of dollars’. So, instead, we’ve been using some steroid drugs to try slowing the polyp’s growth. As of this morning, however, Neko can no longer purr or meow. There is a noticeable bump on the side of Neko’s neck, near his larynx.  I would guess that the steroids are not achieving the desired result, that the polyp is not been slowed at all by the medications.

The last time we took Neko to the vet, she agreed to throw everything at this to see if we can make any improvement. If this didn’t work, the vet warned us, our choices were surgery, euthanasia or allowing the polyp to cause natural asphyxiation.

Like I said, today, Neko cannot meow. C just called me from the vet. Neko’s polyp is, in fact, a cancer tumor that started in his nasal passages and broke through into the palate. The tumor’s consumed the bone in the top of his mouth. It’s filling his throat. Given that the tumor started in his sinuses, it’s impossible to diagnose until it breaks through into the throat or palate. By that time, it’s really just too late. The vet says he’s got two or three days, give-or-take, before he asphyxiates naturally. State-of-the-art chemo might buy him eight weeks, at great expense to us.

   ***

There was a day, back in early 1995, when C – then the woman I was dating – asked me to stop by a pet store in Raleigh Hills (next to the Fred Meyer store, now a Starbucks, but what isn’t these days?) to give my take on a black Persian kitten in the store. C already had a cat, she was thinking about adding a kitten to her life in her one-bedroom apartment.

I did as she asked. That Persian kitten seemed so aloof, so disconnected. I held him, petted him, put him back, and told C that I’d pass if it were me.

Well, it wasn’t me. She bought him anyway and named him Neko. He promptly started terrorizing the place, complicating life greatly.

Once, when he was about six months old, he strayed too close to a candle flame with his bushy tail and lit himself on fire. It must have been like like watching Shere Khan at the end of  The Jungle Book… I wasn’t there at the time, but I was on the other end of the phone when it happened. The commotion was on par with Fibber McGee’s Closet.

Whenever I was around,  however, Neko would curl up on me. Not with me, on me. He slept next to my head. He tried to sleep on my face. He licked my hair, giving me a bath. He purred directly into my ear. At 3 in the morning. “Damn tormentor of a  cat!” I’d say. “He loves you” C would counter. We were in disagreement, but we were both right.

Always one to make it more complex than it needed to be, not even getting Neko neutered would be straightforward. The vet could only find one testicle. The vet said that having only one wasn’t that uncommon. “Take him home and see if he’s still got one up inside somewhere” he said. So we did. Everything was fine… for a while.

A couple months later, when C and I combined our lives and everyone lived together full-time, Neko responded to his new family by marking his chosen belongings. I remember once when we’d folded the laundry but stacked it neatly on the floor under the window just before going to bed. The next morning I awoke to the smell of cat spray in our bedroom. Mad, I climbed out of bed an went in search of the source. The source was the freshly-folded laundry. Even more angry, I started sniff-sorting the laundry into ‘smelly’ and ‘clean’. It didn’t take long to realize that the ONLY clothing in the ‘smelly’ pile was MY clothing. That little so-and-so had surgically marked only my clothes.

That same week, he sprayed the inside all  my dress shoes. “Damn tormentor of a cat!” I’d sneer, after threatening to go after his remaining testicle myself, with a spoon in place of a scalpel. “He loves you” C would counter, unphased by my threats.

Ultimately, we took him back to the  vet, who went back in and found the second testicle way up inside. None too soon in my opinion.

The foundation of the relationship was now set: Neko and I were to have a love-hate relationship based on an unconditional respect and affection  for each other while still somehow having an ongoing battle of opposing wills. In many cases, the activity that looked like hatred was, in fact, motivated by love. Oh, that was so hard to see for so long.

Take Neko’s one hunting conquest, for example. Neko never was much of a hunter. In fact, the only prey he ever caught was Max, my pet cockatiel, who was about 13 years old at the time. Max was out of his cage – as he’d lived for all his life with me – when Neko cornered him. In the dark. Neko didn’t even kill Max, just wounded him mortally, leaving Max to die of trauma hours later. I was mad. That cat was so afraid of the real world outdoors that he hid in the woodpile and resorted to  hunting a family member. The outrage! In my eyes, he was a yellow-bellied worm of a cat. It took me months to overcome the urge to kick him every time I saw him.

And yet, I could never completely disown him. We still had a bond. Couldn’t break it.

He avoided the children when they were very little – too fast and unpredictable for him. I’m pleased to report that, as R got older, larger, and moved more carefully around Neko, Neko started sleeping on R’s bed with him. The two became close in the past year or so. M is a bit younger, Neko has started being a little interactive with M.  

   ***

In August, we had to put down Aki. That day, Neko started insisting on sleeping with me instead of R. I don’t know why for sure, but I can guess. I’d go to bed and Neko would appear from out of nowhere, demanding to sleep on TOP of me, purring constantly.

See what I mean? Irritatingly loving. He affected my sleep greatly. Damn tormentor of a cat, once again. Except we’re both 15 years older, and both a bit wiser.  Now? I’m not so much angry as I’m quizzical.  Did he need me as he mourned Aki, or did he think I  needed him? I greeted his efforts with love an acceptance. We found compromises so that we both got what we wanted. After a while, he learned to curl up in the crook of my knee as I slept on my side. That, it turned out, satisfied us both. He continued to sleep with me until he couldn’t make the jump to the bed any longer- until the polyp (nee tumor) had sapped enough strength to make the leap impossible.  Once he couldn’t get on the bed, he turned to sleeping on the floor of the bathroom – something he’s never done before. I tried carrying him to bed with me. He’d opt to hop off and return to the bathroom floor. It’s becoming clear to me that Neko is waiting for something.  I believe, knows full well what’s coming.

Just as we did last August, the family once again stands nose-to-nose with the prospect of  moving on without one of the animal members of the family.

C is scheduling an at-home euthanasia for Neko tomorrow. Afterward, I’ll make t

he trip out to Banks; Neko can go with Aki once again, prowling the farm together in the afterlife, as they did their mortal life. Bounding around together, free of their bodies that simultaneously were fighting cancer together.

   ***

We chose to experience this day back in 1995, when C brought Neko  home to her one bedroom apartment. We didn’t know then how it would play out. Naively, at that time, I don’t think either of us really cared about the end-game of life (have kids, face cancer. You start paying real attention to the end-game). Whether you think about it or not,  that time inevitably comes. And here it is.

You know what? for all the torment and complexity he brought to living, he’s bringing the most amazing wisdom, grace and peace to this particular process.

Neko, you’ve grown. You’ve challenged me to grow, too. I’d like to think that I have indeed grown through your torment. You’ve taught me about unconditional love; about the irritation that goes along with loving living beings. Thank you for the caring, love and presence you’ve been. It has been a gift. 

Tipping Points

I’m dredging up an old metaphor – a cliché, even. The idea that a tipping point does not usually come from a single change, but from the cumulative effect of a number of aligned small changes. Like tossing coins on the pan of a balance scale, most of the work of change causes absolutely no outward change until, suddenly, all the little changes contribute to one significant change.

It’s an interesting experience to watch a balance scale sneak up on its tipping point, when the pan has not yet tipped but you can sense  it quivering with a pent-up desire to suddenly jump into motion. My fingers get twitchy at that moment. So Exciting!!

It’s somewhat more nerve-wracking to watch one’s life at a tipping point. See, we go through them, too. Life changes and life transitions are, perhaps  surprisingly, built up of classic tipping points where a bunch of otherwise inconsequential and low-impact things all line up to create a powerful and influential body - acting either like links of a chain down taking us down into the pits of struggle, or the rungs of a ladder leading us back out to the meadows of prosperity.

We’ve all seen them both. Chains down and ladders up. Undoubtedly.

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been having that ‘tipping point’ experience again. I’ve been watching things shift. Little things, changing and re-aligning. Things that were hard obstacles moved, rearranging themselves into avenues of progress instead of roadblocks. Each shift has been a like little bit more weight on the pan. In the past couple days, it just seems like the pan has reached the point where it’s quivering. Like we’re sneaking up on the tipping point.

Back in 1993/94, I went through an experience like this. It was as if my whole life unraveled in about six months’ time. The pan just emptied, and the scales thumped hard against my success. But then, after a period of emptiness, things started to rebuild. Fast. Scarily, eerily fast. As if I weren’t steering, even. I remember saying to a friend, “My whole life came apart in 6 months, now it’s rebuilding itself completely in about six weeks, whether I like it or not!”

I didn’t know it at the time, but I was spot-on. The stuff that happened in that six week time period set me on my new course in life that took me further and higher than before; the course that has taken me to where I am now. And I am the better for this new course. My experiences in 1993/94 were the rehearsal for what was still to come.

Which is what brings us to this blog post. See, that same cycle has been playing out in my family for the last few years. We’ve had a series of challenges to work through. Sometimes, the amount of challenge has been overwhelming. But we’ve gotten through. I remember the feeling of despair that accompanied the six months of emptiness; it’s similar to what we’ve weathered recently.

And, and-and-and… oh, i love this next part….

I feel the same sense of tension and excitement that makes my hands twitchy. The pan is starting to quiver. Back then, my life rebuilt in six weeks. This time may take a bit longer, but I '*feel* it. I feel it coming. And I am hopeful that my family and I will find ourselves embarked on a new course that takes us further and higher than before. And we will be the better for this new family course.

The ‘Cult of Done’ Manifesto

I’m certain this will emerge as an internet meme almost immediately. Nevertheless, this is an ideal starting point for discussion with my son, who’s a Perfectionist with an Attention Deficit. I mean, think about that…achieving perfect consistently takes longer than his attention span can hold on. Guaranteed non-performance EVERY time!

So, this manifesto comes to the rescue:

1. There are three states of being: not knowing; taking action; and completion.
2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
3. There is no editing stage.
4. Pretending you know what you're doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you're doing even if you don't and do it.
5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
7. Once you're done you can throw it away
   [or turn it in for a grade, depending upon the context – ngj].
8. Laugh at perfection. It's boring and keeps you from being done.
9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
11. Destruction is a variant of done.
    [except where grades are involved – ngj]
12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
13. Done is the engine of more.

It's Different

C took the Jaguar for a solo drive last night. First time.

Now, C loves  her Honda Odyssey. It helps her perform her role as loving family COO, and it's such a safe, comfortable, pleasant, dependable, high-quality vehicle. It handles itself well in town and traffic. It roadtrips five people and a dog to central Utah like nobody's business. And it pulls MPGs in the high 20's for all the space it provides us. I don't think she'd really want anything else for her daily ride. We all love it, frankly. Running a family without one would be much, much more difficult. How we ever got along with the Trooper for so long is hard, now, to imagine.

Having said that, she often confided that having a Mercedes to ride in was a real ego booster sometimes and a nice treat. She noticed that she got a higher level of  respectful treatment when she drove the Mercedes; people were always just a little nicer to her, in subtle and undefinable ways. People would actually notice the car. She could see people trying to connect the car to the owner with their eyes. It was just...different. Special. Worth putting something nicer from the closet.

I had told her it was even more different in the Jaguar, that the conspicuousness goes up a notch, based on what I've seen so far.  She was a bit skeptical (thinking, I'm sure, about the pickup truck driver in southern Oregon who gave us all sorts of attitude just for having a Benz. I mean how could you be more conspicuous than inciting a guy to make gestures and yell out his window while we're on cruise control going down the interstate? Good thing the Benz had double-paned glass...the kids didn't hear the words he used. Neither did we, for that matter, I just read his lips), but then she took the Jaguar out herself and saw what I was talking about.

The gas station attendants immediately called her Ma'am, and used a completely different tone of voice with her -- hushed, deferential. It's more than respect -- awe. People don't just match the car to owner, they stop and admire the car outright. Pedestrians walking past the gas station actually pause and stare. Not at her, but at the car. Then they catch themselves and look for the owner...admiringly. Someone approached her as she waited, just to tell her how nice her car was.

She picked up on that difference once she experienced it for herself. I mean, how could you NOT? She did a good job capturing the feeling when she put it this way:

"In my Honda Odyssey, I'm just another soccer mom. In a Mercedes, I'm respectable. But In the Jaguar, I am a GODDESS!"

I love that line!

 

Driving to work,this morning, I watched a Geo Metro -- paint all beat up, with two young twenty-somethings, man and woman -- pull up behind me at the light. They were both really clean cut, well groomed and dressed like you'd expect a college graduate to dress for their first jobs. I could easily imagine them as a young couple in love, starting their careers after graduating from college last spring, making do with what they've got as they get started. Full of big dreams and ambitions. There was a happiness in their faces. But that changed as he sat behind me, impatient that I didn't make the right turn on the red light quite yet. His body language got a bit angry, as he spoke animatedly and gestured at my car. He wasn't gesturing toward me, I noticed, but toward the car itself. In the rearview mirror, I could see he was staring at the spot on the trunk where the badge is. It was about the car. He'd have been looking at the back of my headrest if he was angry at me. I could see her expression shift from engaged to withdrawn. She had been turned toward him, smiling, as they approached. She turned her head away and stared blankly out the window after that. I got the sense that he was frustrated that he wasn't driving a car like the Jaguar. I made the turn, as did they. For the next two or three miles, he followed me in traffic. They never went back to to their happiness. They were withdrawn.

The whole experience took me right back to my first couple years, driving a beat up Honda Civic. Happy as I was to have a car at all, there was still a hunger. I'd park in the lot at the software company, next to the Maserati, the BMWs, the Porches, and the CEO's Ferrari... in my stupid littl 1200cc Honda pillb0x. "One of these days," I'd tell myself, "one of these days." On a rainy day when the Ferrari wouldn't start again, and the tow truck would come to take it to the shop for an electrical harness dry-out, I'd count the dollars and realize that the CEO was spending more per month on towing than my car actually cost. At least my car would start in the rain, and a set of four tires cost me $60. I counted those things as blessings and told myself, once again, "One of these days..."

Well, young man behind me in traffic this morning: if you're reading this, don't make it miserable for you and your girlfriend. One of these days, you'll have a Jaguar too. Just keep working hard for it, wait for the right opportunity, and don't rush. I feel much closer to you, young man, in your Geo Metro, to this day, than I do to the other Jaguar owners around town. I may be one myself now, but they still intimidate me. I'm sure I'll keep talking to them in hushed, reverent tones -- calling them 'Sir' and "Ma'am" --  even as I drive a Jaguar myself.