Evolution

In the fall of 2010 I danced my little heart out, performing in Shagara Moon's THE RED SCARF.  I rehearsed and sewed and ferried people and bits about for a couple of months between paying gigs as a television production manager.  It culminated in four performances over one weekend, at a University of Toronto theatre.  A total high.  A total relief to have done.  A total awareness that I am an introvert, and performing for anymore than three people is a stressor.
A couple of other things happened too.  I expended my physical resources, which made me really sick in 2011.  Girl issues, iron deficiencies, nothing drastic.  I just couldn't walk a block without stopping three times to catch my breath.  Only in 2012 am I finally regaining stamina, but after not dancing for what is now close to eighteen months, parts of my body have almost rusted stiff and away from non-use.  Originally because I was home on modified puppy maternity leave I had been able to give my attention to this endeavour.  It's been a long slog to move from enthusiasm for a fabulous career and being well compensated for lending my skills, to hoarding my best energies for me.  My resulting boredom in negotiating kit rentals and lunch receipts for entitled film technicians and walking a tightrope of controlled chaos  reached its zenith in the spring of 2012.  So i quit.  Not really quit quit walk out the door, but I called uncle.  This disturbed the well established order of my working relationships, in particular with the producer I had worked for for over 20 years.
I had to face the loss of a good working relationship and a good job, by taking a peon job across the hall as an accounting clerk.  Another quasi police show being produced by an American network with money.   In the eyes of my old colleagues they probably think I slutted out to the evil empire.  But  the experiences has been good.  I've  mostly laughed my pants off so hard everyday I peed.   That felt good.   I've refocused what I can give and what I would like to do, and what I want to be paid for it.  And it only took five months to figure it out.
So now, waiting on my next job,  I'm back in the basement, the basement I so desperately tried to avoid 14 years ago.  I'm with large dog, knitting needles, fabrics and sewing machines, and a handsome apple iMac.  I follow my selection of lifestyle porn blogs, now emboldened to share my own visual aesthetic.  I've thought of starting a "journal" blog, a food blog, a quilt blog,  a bullmastiff blog, but I think I'll stay with bellydance knitter.  There is something disturbing to me where one's life and interests are compartmentalized.  Where knitting Turkish stockings leaves off, collecting Persian rugs begins, and where sitting on a rug ends with a meal adapted from Paula Wolfert's writing, discussing Edith Wharton and where the Arab Spring meets Occupy Toronto, and my family's well trod path through alcoholism and addiction to wellness and healing, and wholeness.  Not wanting to be too scary here, but the blog is a package deal I think, what I would share with a stranger in a coffee shop, or co-workers by the monitor.  Maybe I'm too open a book, too shallow, too concerned with pretty colours and nice flavours, too messy, too much rage, too much dog hair.  et bien.

So writing on the bellydance knitter blog continues.