Footage Friday: Muscle Memory

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This is the third video in the creative collaboration series that my friend Marsha and I are working on (you can see the first 2 here and here).

When Marsha sent me this piece, I had to smile. It took me back more than a decade.

Long, long ago, when we were teenagers (I think…I’m bad with chronology), Marsha and I were both training intensively in our chosen art forms. She practiced increasingly complex and beautiful pieces of music on the piano, and I practiced increasingly complex and beautiful steps in ballet class.

And when we hung out at her house, we had a ritual of going into the play room where the piano was. She would play through her pieces, and I would stand in the small rectangle of open space behind her and dance. I’ve lost a lot of memories from my childhood, but this one remains a treasured favourite.

Marsha went home over Easter weekend, and she recorded this piece on the very same piano she used to play on when we’d dance and play together. And this video is my response.

I call this piece “Muscle Memory” because I started out with the idea of doing a very “balletic” dance (and you can see how the dance begins and ends that way). I wanted to see if I could still capture the essence and feeling of the dances I used to do in the play room, having not taken a ballet class in 8 years.

I think I managed it…but it wasn’t very comfortable (physically as well as emotionally—the inside of my right knee did NOT enjoy my attempts at turnout). And I couldn’t sustain it for the whole piece. I still like the end result, though. It’s more Meg-now than Meg-then, but it still, I hope, pays homage to the young girls in the play room.

Thank you, Marsha, for a beautiful piece, and for the great memories. <3

 

A whirlwind of change…

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Last week my life changed.

I don’t mean that in an “I’ve had a crazy awesome epiphany way” (for once). I mean it literally. Last week my life as I’ve known it for the past 4 years…changed.

I went back to work.

People who don’t know me personally probably need some backstory here: For the past few years, my husband has been working at a computer game company (he’s an insanely talented artist..do a Google image search for “Matthew Goodmanson art” sometime and see what I mean). But at the end of March he left his regular office job to work from home on a contract basis.

He needed a break from work, and I (I hate to admit this) needed a break from full-time Mama-ing, so we agreed that he would stay home with Xander and I would go back to working temp assignments like I did when I was pregnant.

I started my first assignment on Wednesday. And it was FAR more difficult than I’d expected.

The work itself wasn’t much more difficult than I had expected (although I had to learn a TON that first day). It’s the emotional strain I hadn’t considered. You don’t even want to know how much I cried that first day. I cried when Matthew and Xander dropped me off, I broke down sobbing on my cell phone at lunch, I cried after work, and I cried before bed. I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I actually cried a little bit during work as well.

I wasn’t just crying because I missed my kid (I did) or that the work was intimidating (it was). In hindsight, I think I was crying because I didn’t know how to process what was happening. It was the biggest change I’d been through since I became a mama—which, incidentally, made me cry in exactly the same way for a number of weeks. It felt huge and scary, and I didn’t know how to handle it.

Things got better. No more crying after that first day. But the tears have been replaced with…I don’t know…malaise. Something’s shifted since the last time I did this. I can’t really explain it in any way other than saying that I feel exactly the way your feet feel when you’ve been wearing sneakers and flats for years and then try to go out in heels. I’m trying to be a person I’m not, wearing a costume (because what is “business attire” if not a costume?) so I can fit in. I feel wobbly and uncomfortable and all wrong. I feel like I’m from another planet or something. I don’t like the way this feels AT ALL.

I don’t remember feeling this way before. And I can’t tell if this is growing pains or something more permanent. I think that I assumed that when I went back to work, things would go back to the way they were when I was pregnant and temping, that I would settle into the rhythm and be 100% OK with everything. And maybe I will…I’m only 3 days in, after all, and I’ve been at home for almost 4 years…it just doesn’t feel like it’ll be OK from here. And I don’t know if I want it to be…

I’m in SUCH a weird space right now…off-balance, adjusting, while simultaneously feeling like I don’t WANT to adjust. I’m trying to remember that I’m not in this forever, that things will sort themselves out, that I can still be ME and work toward my dreams even when I’m working an office job (lots of people do it, right?!).

There are some good things. I’m finding that my priorities are clarifying in the face of this change. I’m learning that when I’m at home, I need to do my Right Work with super-intense focus and efficiency, or it doesn’t get done at all. This would be why you barely heard from me last week (it’s a learning process) but I assume that (eventually) learning to do my work efficiently and intensely will be a good thing in the end. And I’m cherishing every minute with Xander, even when I end up being the puke-catcher and cleaner-upper all weekend (he caught a tummy bug…blech).

I’m struggling to regain my balance in the middle of a whirlwind of change.  I don’t have a solution or a Grand Plan or anything really conclusive yet. But I can tell you this: here and now I make a commitment—

~to hang on to my dreams with both hands

~to make use of every moment I have

~to work with laser intensity and rest/play with equal intensity when I’m done

~to dance as much as I can

~to keep an eye open for opportunities

~to remember that this change will help me get where I need to go, even if it’s just by shaking things up and reminding me of what’s important.

And what’s most important to me is this:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOYxQ0znZN4)

Spirit Mover: Michelle Maclean

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Today we’re going to try something new on Spirit Moves Dance: an interview!

If you’ve been reading from the beginning of my blogging adventure, you’ll remember that just over a year ago I tried out a dance class called JourneyDance.  It. Was. Awesome. And it was a pivotal moment for me, dancing outside of my living room for the first time since I had Xander, and remembering just why I wanted to DO this.

Michelle is awesome. She’s a fun and inspiring teacher, and she’s got a dancing story that will rock your socks. Here’s what Michelle had to say:

1. Tell us about yourself!

After 15 years in corporate public relations, I feel so blessed to have found my passion and the courage to leave an unfulfilling career and pursue more meaningful work. I am currently enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition studying health coaching and I look forward to inspiring others to make healthy, natural choices so they can live long, healthy, and joyful lives.

My journey began almost three years ago while I was on retreat at the Kripalu Centre for Yoga and Health with Tama Kieves in her program Unleashing Your Calling: Finding the Work and Life you Love. Since then I have done a lot of soul searching to uncover what my true passions are. Along the way I discovered JourneyDance and fell in love with the practice. I have completed teacher training and am now offering classes in the Halifax and surrounding areas.

I am a lifelong seeker of authenticity and an avid yoga practitioner for over 12 years; I am passionate about living from the heart and encouraging others to find their truths. I believe in the transformational power of movement and plant-based, whole-foods. I live by the ocean with my husband and two cats.

2. What is JourneyDanceTM?

JourneyDanceTM is a holistic fitness practice that tones your body as you sweat away toxins while having a ton of fun! No fancy footwork or complicated choreographies, JourneyDance offers simple movement suggestions and imagery to help you explore your own unique way of moving. There is no right or wrong just authentic letting go as we dance barefoot through the chakras to inspiring world music.

3. How did you discover this kind of dancing?

I first experienced conscious dance while on retreat at Kripalu in 2009. Every day at lunch time they offer a movement class. Being open to new experiences and making the most of my time there, I eagerly attended and participated in a couple yoga dance classes. But it wasn’t until day three, during Toni Bergin’s JourneyDance class, when I really felt the transformational power of movement.

4. What do you love most about JourneyDance?

As a young girl I was very active in many forms of movement including figure skating, gymnastics, tap and jazz dancing. But as I grew up and became interested in other activities I lost touch with these forms of expression. They became buried beneath the expectations of life, the social norms, the drive for a career, money, relationships.  But I always felt that little girl deep inside of me bursting at the seams to be free to dance, sing, laugh, play and soar. And that day in Toni’s JourneyDance class she did. It was at that moment, with tears streaming down my face, I knew something had shifted inside of me. I had found my passion.

5. How has JourneyDance affected your life?

JourneyDance has really transformed my life. Through the teacher training process, I learned so much about myself and peeled back so many layers to start uncovering my authentic truth. Through the practice I gained the courage to leave an unfulfilling career, found my passions and am now the happiest and healthiest I have ever been in my life. Each week on the dance floor I continue to release and let go even more and continue to get closer to the real me.

It has also provided me with an outlet to give back, to inspire, to reach out and touch people’s lives. To witness others letting go and experiencing the freedom found within the practice is truly a gift.

6. What’s the next step on your journey? 

The next step, or the one I continue to work on with JourneyDance, is to build more awareness and educate about what it is and its benefits and find new venues and audiences to share it with. Otherwise in my life, the next big leap will be to launch my health coaching practice later this year.

7. Where can people find you (online and in class)?

You can find me on Facebook at JourneyDance Maritimes and on Twitter @mmhealthcoach and this summer my coaching website will launch www.michelle-maclean.com

I teach JourneyDance every Tuesday from 12:10-1:00 pm at Halifax Yoga. Every second Saturday from 10:30-11:45 I’m at Trena’s Dance Studio in Bedford. And on the second Sunday of the month, we’re grooving at the Prospect Road Community Center from 3:00-4:30 pm.

 

Thanks so much for sharing your story, Michelle!

If you’re in the Halifax area, I highly recommend Michelle’s classes. And if you live elsewhere, you can find listings of JourneyDance teachers here.