My absence, part 1: Doing the right things

I can't believe it's been six months since the last time I wrote a blog post. Well, actually I can ...

First, life got in the way. Recovering from the kind of heartbreak that makes a person rethink her approach to love, to life and to herself, I took a three-day retreat at a spa and resort up on Lake Travis. There, spent a lot of time alone, thinking, writing, walking around in nature, eating healthy food and enjoying the extra brain bandwidth that comes from being in an environment where I didn't have to make very many decisions. My food was prepared, my room was cleaned daily, there was a set schedule of activities, and I didn't have to worry about a thing. As I told my dad, it was an expensive vacation, but the only other place I could think of where other people would take that much care of me and just let me wander around pondering things is a mental hospital, and the spa and resort seemed less complicated to get into and out of.

Nathan Fillion photo op.
I forgot every word I know in 2 languages.

After three days on the edge of a wilderness preserve, I drove up to Dallas to be around people again. Throngs of people. Specifically, throngs of people at the Dallas Comic-Con. More specifically, Nathan Fillion. Who's just one guy but has all the power a of a throng. Honestly, after a bad breakup, standing next to Nathan Fillion for even 30 seconds is a marvelous thing for a geekish girl like me.

Dancing at Euro Cafe

And then there was the belly dance solo. I had been wanting to dance to the arrangement of "Kashmir" that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant did with Hossam Ramzy back in the '90s for what felt like forever. I had fallen too far behind on the choreography we were learning in belly dance class to catch up before our big performance, so I went on hiatus from class and stayed at home, coming up with choreography to the first 4 1/2 minutes of the song. I had a couple of private lessons with my teacher to show her what was doing and get some advice and ideas, and by the end of the summer, I had a solo. I danced it for the first time at my teacher's free monthly show here in town. A bunch of my friends came to support me, which was awesome, and I did a good job of dancing -- didn't freak out, didn't forget anything, didn't trip over my own feet and land in anybody's lap. And my first performance of my first solo did wonders for my confidence level and frankly made me love dance even more. Since this summer, I've been to Cabaret Dance Camp -- four days of dance workshops and sharing cabins at a camp on the Guadalupe River -- and a two-day workshop with Hossam and Serena Ramzy up in Austin, and I'm now working on choreographing a drum solo.

In August, which is typically the crappiest month of the year for me -- there's a long history of death and destruction in August -- I managed to get and stay productive. I went to a creativity workshop based on the main ideas in "The Artist's Way," and that helped me kind of unblock some things with my writing and gave me a lot to think about. I've been doing Morning Pages every day since the workshop and in some ways, that's left me with less to say online, but considering the kind of nonsense that comes out every morning, it's probably good that none of that is ending up online! And my friend Dave began a series of workshops on the Nordic Runes and how they relate to the subconscious. I have been fascinated with runes as divination tools and as writing since I was in high school, so I've found Dave's ideas to be fascinating and valuable.

At the Poe Cottage in The Bronx.
This is the nicest place in The Bronx.

In September, to get out of my own head for a little while, I visited a friend in New York City, where I saw Robert Plant in concert, stood inches away from Ewan McGregor in a boutique in the East Village, had tea in the "Physical Graffiti" building (which houses the Physical Graffi-Tea tea shop), visited the Edgar Allan Poe cottage and the Fordham campus in the Bronx, saw a ton of art and had a marvelous rooftop dinner involving coq au vin, three bottles of champagne and some pears flambed in bourbon. Oh, yes indeed.

Zepparella at Red 7
in Austin

And of course, in between all of this traveling and other frolicking, I have gone out to see a lot of live music -- a lot of rock 'n' roll, and a lot of other stuff. It's all been good for my soul, and I've met some pretty amazing people along the way. I'll be posting some pics from some of the shows I've seen later.

Anyway, all of this getting back in touch with myself and the world around me is a good part of why it has been so long since I have blogged. But just as San Marcos is my rock, my home base, that makes me feel free to travel knowing I will have a little paradise to come back to, so this blog is my home base -- something to return to after many flights of fancy and exercises in spreading my wings and fleeing from my comfort zone. Plus, all that time away has given me plenty of material.

However, there is another side to why I haven't blogged in so long, and the post about that will be coming soon.