Existential Crisis winds down

...thanks to lover lorenzo and friend jill (who probably thinks I'm an asshole for still squatting in the nacl shit). Turns out my ego needed a little dose of self-awareness. I have a man sized ego, it's been getting me in plenty of trouble for too long now.

So I am ready to write my dad an email. And I am ready to put the nacl adventure aside: I've said what I need to say, mainly to myself, and now I can grow up already.

Existential Crisis Part 2:

Went to the rock climbing gym with Lorenzo this morning and immediately began dogging myself. My imminent defeat came quickly: a little bit of stretching, a few bouldering routes attempted mostly unsuccessfully, and a serious hit to the left knee cap and there I was on the floor, crying. Bad etiquette in a climbing gym, I'm sure, but no use trying to stop the tears. Lorenzo was wonderful, patient and loving he insisted on kissing the boo boo even as I turned him away. He'd already spent a good few minutes massaging my aching forearm, shoulder and wrist, so why should I refuse him the knee? You must leave, cries my body. You are defeating yourself cries my brain. Maybe you will regret leaving? No chance that staying will do me much good: something is on my mind and in my body and it won't let go.

Lorenzo refuses to leave me alone, even as I push him away for the umpteenth time. I know I am acting like an idiot, having declared myself a failure and then set out to prove it to myself by goading my lover into rejecting me. Thank the god in him he is so much wiser. I need to talk, but the gym is no place, so I drag him outside into the cold air for a few minutes. Mainly I proclaim my hatred of rock climbing, or the rock climbing gym, but simultaneously I am managing to calm myself down. We go back inside and Lorenzo offers to come get a tea with me. This is too much, I know. He's come here to rock climb and there is no reason that my drama should stop him. What in the world is going on, why can't I just let myself go in peace? What is so hard about accepting that my body is tired and aching and that my energy is not answering the call to climb plastic walls?

I put my shoes on and insist that he stay. He is glad to, I know. And I experience a moment of clarity in which I confess both to him and to myself that the NACL ordeal is eating away at me. Every time I dip into that bag of shit I become inexplicably nervous, unable to receive Lorenzo's touch or energy, defensive and so easily irritable. I must write that letter that has been on my mind since I spoke to Tannis on Sunday. I must find a way to get over this episode once and for all.

FireFly @ Club Europa 10/22/08

I should feel hopeless more often, if it helps me accomplish so much! Here it is, a clip of our gig at Club Europa a little more than a week ago... This was our first time using the interactive technology I've been developing, and in retrospect I can smile and say it is a miracle that it worked half of the time and that I pulled off being both the techie and the performer. This piece is part of the second of three pieces we did. It's hard to see what's going on in the video, but the image is a live feed that is being transformed by the music, via Max/Jitter and a sensor system we've started developing. These are our baby steps, as far as all the technology is concerned!

FireFly is:
Ophra Wolf, movement; Lorenzo Sanguedolce, tenor sax; Chris DiMeglio, trumpet; Adam Lane, bass; Todd Capp, drums.


FireFly @ Club Europa from Ophra Wolf on Vimeo.

Hopeless

Hello blog, has it been so long? I am sitting in the studio, my recorder to my left, the lyrics to "The Man I Love" to my right, surrounded by Billie singing the song over and over again. Maybe I can learn to sing by osmosis? Music is a seemingly impossible task. I asked Lorenzo help me transcribe a simple English Folk melody to the recorder for my school project and was in tears in less than three minutes. It is so simple for him: he can SEE the shape of the melody, where as two out of four times I can't figure out if I'm going up or down, or starting in the same place as the last time, for that matter. Hopeless, I am thinking, and yet doing it. SAME WITH YOU, DEAR BLOG, no? And funny that the very thought of how hopeless it all is is what sent me to the keyboard. A little while ago it occurred to me that maybe what I need to do is immerse myself in a music program that will teach me once and for all to master music. But why not do it for dance? It's not as if I've ever mastered dance, certainly certainly not. I am a master of nothing, so maybe I can just relax and stop giving myself an ulcer over the fact that I am not masterful. Lorenzo is, and we are different. Maybe I'm just not the type to be a master of something, maybe in fact I would be a much happier person if I could take more pleasure at how adequate I am at so many things and not worry about not being the greatest at anything.

So reasonable! And yet when Lorenzo enters as I'm typing the last sentence I am knee deep in despair. Or perhaps I am performing desperation: if I can't convince myself that it's hopeless, maybe I can convince him? I'm not even a very good performer: he has me laughing in no time. But lesson learned: kisses and affectionate strokes go much farther towards calming me down than reason.

And now I am upstairs and already a third of the way through the mug of grain coffee I made myself. The camera is connected to the computer, this blog having inspired me to transcribe the video footage from our last gig, and I'm ready to move on to the next project. But I have been thinking that since I spent all that time writing my dad the email I won't be sending him, I should at least post it here. So there is reason to rejoice in the futility of this blog... being at peace that (almost?) nobody reads this, I can print what I like.

Here it is then, a last letter to my father:

Dear David,

I have lingered and postponed writing you this email because I have been at a loss as to how to respond. I was very hurt on discovering that you were in Boston for the holiday and that you neither told me that you would be visiting, nor invited me to join you and your family - a family which for too long now I have continued to call my family, though most of them have treated me as nothing of the sort for over twenty years. I cannot pretend that I am not hurt, and yet in my whole life I have not yet had the experience of you acknowledging that you have ever hurt me.

This leaves me with a horrible dilemma! Because in order to maintain a relationship with you or most other members of your family I must pretend like everything is just fine and in doing so agree to a consensual reality that denies the validity of my feelings, sensations, and intellect - that, in other words, denies my very humanity! Or, I can try to express myself as a thinking, feeling human being and tell you that I am hurt and offended by your actions, with the inevitable consequence of being marked as unstable, perhaps insane, and certainly unworthy. The only way I can walk away from this situation with my heart and soul in tact is to say that it is surely you who is insane, unstable and probably unworthy of my continued attention and energies.

Believe me, it's not my first choice. As you know, I have made great efforts over the years to come to terms with you and to slowly reconstruct a relationship. In fact it is my increased effort in these past months that have led me to realize once and for all that I cannot allow myself to be in a relationship with you in which I must agree to be hurt without any acknowledgment of an offense ever having been made (am I supposed to believe that I deserve it?) and in which I must further hurt myself by subjecting myself to toxic repression and denial. I don't care to be hurt by you any longer, David - I was genuinely surprised at how hurt I felt when I heard about your visit and realized that I must find a way to confront the situation and put a stop to it, even if it means simply removing myself from the line of fire and relieving myself of the need to treat you as a father, which you have not been to me for almost fifteen years.

Even so, I am constantly attempting to be sympathetic to your cause - perhaps acknowledging your capacity to deeply hurt your children would destroy the semblance of normality and prosperity that you have toiled so hard to create for yourself in the past fourteen years? I would challenge you to reflect on the actual extent to which you have hurt us, your children, emotionally, psychologically and at times, physically, but I am aware that such a reflection may drown you in a sorrow from which you will not know how to escape. Better that you don't go there. Your life is good now - you are wealthy, successful in your field, you have good health and a caring partner - what more could you possibly want? Because if it is a relationship with me that you desire, please know that you cannot have one without at least opening up an honest, open dialogue about the very real pain that is at the core of our relations.

Love,
Ophra

...Why won't I send it, you ask? Well, the answer of course is that it's hopeless. And I am starting to be able to take peace in that.

Jane Rigler's Concert

Jane's performance in the studio on Sunday was beautiful! The crowd was small, only six of us in the audience, but the energy in the space was warm and so fully engaged. It was exciting to see it come together! Jane came over at 5pm with a suitcase of cords, I pulled out our suitcase of cords and we began plugging in and putting up: we hung the projection screen for the first time, Lorenzo built a new shelf for the projector, we were even contemplating going surround sound, but projection problems gorged the remaining set-up time. We put the inspiration we were left with to good use, with a FireFly rehearsal right after the concert into which the projector, max patches and sensors found their way in... Here's a bit of Jane:


Jane Rigler @ PuLsEsTuDiO, 10/12/08 from Ophra Wolf on Vimeo.

I wish he would fly

A white dove just swooped onto the roof in front of me. The wind is just starting to rustle through the leaves and the grasses again and the moon shines brightly against the light blue sky. Where is that dove now? I wish he would fly again.

Finding Peace

The grasses on the roof turning their Fall colors

I am basking in the early evening light of this beautiful October day. The mosquitos are gorging on my blood. There is so much to do and I can't figure out what the hell I want, except that I want very much to be right here right now, on my beautiful roof taking in the cool air, and I want these fucking mosquitos to leave me alone. Well you can't have everything.

I am not so far away from a conversation with my aunt Debbi. She is here from Haifa, roaming Central Park with cousin Neri, but there is no talk of meeting up. It would be too complicated to confess such a meeting to her family, my dad's side of the family: not my family, they keep pressing the point. So that's that and in fact nothing has changed. But in the end it's Debbi's choice not to see me, and well ok I'm not dying to run out to Times Square to meet them right now either. Hope they enjoy Spamalot and hope that I can move on more and more quickly through this stinking pit in my heart/mind that is my father and his world. Not my world, I keep pressing the point. Who cares about his four houses and young girlfriend, I don't care enough to even complain about the aunts, and the grandparents... well, if they are looking for some kind of peace then they certainly aren't making it easy for themselves.

I, however, do want to make finding peace easier for myself, and so I have entered into serious training. Training is rigorous and involves significant leaps of the mind in those moments in which the mind would most like to stay perched on a high branch with a view like potato chips: addictive, comforting and lacking in nutritional value. In fact it seems clearer than ever that finding peace for myself and sharing what little bits I may find with those around me who are open to receiving is the only worthwhile endeavor I have ever embarked on. Learning how to receive those bits of peace from others is a big lesson I love to learn. It's time for another SWAN Flight discussion, no?

The tomatos are still going strong!

On to new ones

That's it, I am committed. I pressed the "new post" button and now there is no turning back. Turn down the brightness on the computer screen, yes, acknowledge that this screen has sucked you in for far too many hours today. You could be dancing!!! what are you doing? came up to eat something and make jewelry. So I'm writing, same difference or perhaps more daunting because there is truly so much to write about. It has taken a blog to make me realize how quickly life in this city moves.

How far back shall I go? The very evening of my last post I had not a single person sign up for class. Determined not to take it personally, I decided that the best thing to do would be to go dance. I called Alex on a whim - maybe he wants to jam? Just so happens there is an event at his loft that night, with the possibility of a jam to follow the lecture. I venture to the loft and leave it without dancing: the lecture is dragging on, my body is heavy. But my coming is fortuitous - Alex has been deserted by a couple of other dancers, needs someone to join him for a performance with an Indian dance company that will take place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in two weeks - would I like? Yes is the answer and so the next day I'm back at the loft. We talk and stretch and talk: my body still heavy, has felt immobilized recently. Finally we begin to dance: there is karma between us, I don't understand it yet but clearly it is there. In fact we've both known it was there since we met, and yet it takes me by surprise. I leave feeling like perhaps I'm not a good enough dancer for this gig?

Never mind the insecurities: it is the body I need to attend to. But training pirouettes is not the answer right now and so I allow myself to resign to the reality that I am not a superstar dancer and start asking my body just what needs attending. I am deep in the waters of subtle adjustments, the kind that can change everything: an hour in the studio today following an hour in bed of feeling my jaw and throat shift like they never have before. This is about singing.

Monday! Monday there was no school because of Rosh Hashanah. I tried my best to plan a dinner for Sunday night but couldn't manage to convince myself that I really wanted to do it the day before the holiday: a holiday can't be a holy day if it's celebrated based on convenience. So I canceled work at the gym for Tuesday night and rescheduled with Katy and Ursula.

It is that same Monday that I spend time in the studio working on voice exercises, and bring myself to tears again. Don't know why, it happens when I start to sing "If I should lose you," and it's not because of the lyrics. My neck hurts, my throat hurts, my voice barely comes out and to make things worse I decide to record myself just to prove to myself that it is truly hopeless, this whole singing venture. I am blocked, the block is huge, ancient, I don't know what to do.

Monday was the day that congress turned down the $700 billion handout to Wall Street, but that was not why I was depressed at the Yippie Museum that night. Andrea sang beautifully at the show Lorenzo curated, Patricia said hello and even tried to converse about the Garden show. I ducked: if we began to talk I'd have to mention how irked I was at her maneuver that day. But when she pointed at me to come up and dance at the jam session, following her little solo, my hips locked and refused to move. Can't sing, can't seem to bring myself to dance, so I joke about politics. Monday night was a beautiful night, the few clouds in the sky seemed to huddle above Wall Street and the air in East Village was unusually fresh.

Tuesday I cried again at my lesson with Andrea. On Monday I had tried to convince Lorenzo that I was convinced that I should stop singing, but did a bad job at convincing either one of us. Lorenzo has way too many ideas about me and my singing and probably I should not consult him on the matter at all, but I always turn to him when trying to make things harder for myself. I'm sure I could have indulged myself in this decadent form of self-destructiveness for much longer, except that there was something in the lesson that I did enjoy and then that all too reasonable voice spoke up and suggested that perhaps I was crying because I was actually getting somewhere. My desire to have Andrea take me seriously inspired me to restrain my tears for eight months but the restraining order lapsed and there was nothing to do but go on and deal. So I'm not a superstar singer either, so what.

I sang at the Rosh Hashanah dinner that night just the same. Andrea and Lorenzo were both next to me. Preparing the meal with Lorenzo was wonderful: we worked peacefully and seamlessly. In three hours we had made chickpeas, sweet roots, couscous, two beet salads, radish and cucumber salad, peeled a bowl of pomegranate seeds, and sweetened sesame seeds. I left it to Lorenzo to prepare the fish that Ursula brought. Andrea, Jane, Dawn and Kenny had all decided to come earlier that day. With Katie, Matt and Ursula we were nine. Katie brought a shofar and Lorenzo did his best to open the skies with it. It was a euphoric celebration, a true holiday.

Today, Thursday, is almost over and I am still in front and inside of this computer screen. But the website for the studio is up: !!! : www.pulsestudio.org, and the blog is updated with old adventures, so on to new ones.

My first Max Patch

Amazing, all the double triple checking to make sure everything worked right and still the technology showed me up: I was missing the cord to connect my computer to the projector. In an effort to transfer the files to another computer, the curtains movie was lost, so the patch never lived up to it's full potential, but I am still thrilled with having actually made it. And our presentation went off just fine without it - bless the instinct to put the technology last not first.

The Streams of Hamlet

My vision seems to be stronger and clearer since this morning. Maybe it is the beautiful Fall light. Danica's short Reiki session this morning is also contributing to the sense of clarity. In my eyes, that is - not quite so in regards to my day. Lorenzo has left for the mountains with only a short moment for goodbye. I hope he is safe and that he finds what he's looking for!

If Hamlet is no longer a viable play for our times, as Helen suggests, it is in part because the Ophelia's are no longer interested in committing suicide. Lorenzo is struggling with "to be or not to be" when from my perspective he simply is and frankly that's plenty for me. I love him so and hope he finds his way to a sense of his stature and greatness without too much fretting about who gets to be king. Meanwhile, I have my own path to clear, and though I am longing to drown myself in the stream of the shower head, the prospect of dampening my forward momentum is not one bit romantic.

We'll jump from one stream of Hamlet inspired thought to another. This next one was written in class on Monday night, as part of the assignment given us by the first group to present their Hamlet Machine piece. We were told to write everything we could remember about Hamlet. Later I was asked to speak a line of Ophelia's. I wrote this:

Everything you know about hamlet. Don’t start don’t start until after your line. Your video, dear Hamlet, your video calls to me from another dimension. Oh but it is flat, that dimension from wither it calleth me and I can not immerse myself within. This too too cruel world has imprisoned me on one side of a two dimensional screen and whether the further exists or not is not known.

Hamlet calleth from beyond – the within? The further? Or some other? She the other. She who spills her blood to stain the screen to see if it will seep in. Is there somewhere to seep into? Hit Hit Hit. Not yet further into the into. Prosperously delivered. Prosperously of. Silence. It pauses and continues from afar afar to the printer go. Hamlet is in jail. If so is she free to stand outside and observe? She must enter. Further along … you are as good as a chorus my lord.

Encouragement from the cosmos

I am growing by leaps and bounds. I am sure that my heightened awareness of what seems to be the inevitable impending collapse of this country I live in and perhaps of life as I have known it to be until now is to thank. These days have been greatly informed and inspired by Dimitri Orlov's Reinventing Collapse.

The larger part of today was marked by anxiety. Tears came from nowhere during my voice lesson with Andrea. It is the first time I really cried during a lesson - cried right through two rounds of "If I Should Lose You," but never stopped singing. See what I mean? I'm growing. And for the most part I have been calmer than ever before. It's easy, now that the world outside seems to be catching up to my own state of economic affairs and the myth of god-given upward mobility is dissolving - all I have to do is make just enough so I can keep plugging away at my art, without any pressure of success in the form of recognition or finances.

Finances are truly a bitch, and I am constantly dreaming up new ways to build the business up a little more. Today, post-tears and mid-anxiety, I updated my mailing list, sent an email to my regular students, designed a new flier, photocopied it onto brightly colored paper and cut it into shape. I filled the flier up with the beautiful quotes my students sent me. The excess print is unlike me, with my preference for clean designs, but I found the change exciting and relished the sense of rebellion it gave me: in place of fancy ads and glossy post cards I'm putting out crowded half-pieces of neon colored paper full of the gems of support and good energy my students have bestowed on me.

So I am not without recognition. In fact the recent wave of recognition from my colleagues has lifted me right out of the torrential waters of artistic dead ends and perched me on a little branch just above the roaring flood. Lorenzo is in a different place, perhaps not quite as open to the exhilaration of admiration from our fellow artists and not nearly as used to having his efforts ignored or outright denied. Ah, for once to see that I have benefited from being denied inclusion and awe! Because today I could give a rat's ass if so and so finds me worthy and worthwhile so long as I can keep doing my thing and occasionally feast on the enthusiasm of those colleagues about whose existence I am myself enthusiastic.

Since there doesn't seem to be anywhere big to go anyways, I might as well be clear and honest about where I am right now and not waste my time on trolls who wish to exercise their powerlessness on me. Let them frolic elsewhere, where the myth of "getting somewhere better bigger soon" still thrives and they can sell the shit they poop on you as your only hope for warmth during the long wait for the Gate to open. No, I have turned in my dreams of the land beyond the locked Gate for the infinitely more interesting and challenging task of dealing with the territory at hand. By very virtue of this choice I am having great success, surprising myself to no end at my ability to adjust, juggle and even shape the various struggles I encounter into pleasure and release.

Not all the releases are wonderful. There was a smelly one just today. A fight with my mother, a battle of the vocal cords and a cathartic climax sought out by an outdated program in our psychic systems. I could have just said, sorry I didn't call sooner, Mom. Instead I felt the need to tell the truth, which is that I'd really rather not hear her complaints and criticisms about my behavior, especially on the topic of being close and communicative. Unless of course her intention was to really communicate, but since she is caught up with her finances, the ones I'm not supposed to know or talk about, that was not actually an option. Anyways, that's one truth. Another is that we are both stressed out, swimming in the tension of the world around us, and practicing a stroke we know all too well: blame it all on HER behavior.

There is more, more! But it is already late, late. Max patches, group presentations, garden politics: I'm taking them on and knocking them out with my brazen insistence on doing it my way. Rob Brezsny inspired tonight's garden breakthrough with this advice "You will receive encouragement from the cosmos whenever you seek out and express facts that disprove prevailing biases and mistaken beliefs."

Conjuring

2:27, I've figured out what to do for my PIMA group meeting today. It is a dance throughout, between two worlds. One in Moroccan dress, her stride is limited, she whirls. The other in the moment, her body true to the storm inside.

2:32, I will return to conversations with Jeanne, Adam and Lorenzo. They are baking inspiration. 30 minutes or less to group time but I am already slipping into that world, it is conjuring me into the future.

I don't want to work best

Fingers sink into the keyboard. Looking for a way to start that is not an old recycled story I've been telling myself all day: I am this and that, such and such makes me feel like blah blah blah. No, I am a different person all together now that I have sunk into my fingers, digging on the keyboard in search of words. delete delete delete. I'm back. Just rolled right past 2 am and who would have thought I'd be awake.

The meeting with the PIMA group tomorrow is on my mind but hey why stress. Just have fun with it, who cares how it comes out. Pains on the right side of my body, neck as usual but also in the waist and kidney area. So I am under strain, it's true, but keeping my cool. Look, the business is growing after all, gigs are coming up, school is rolling along... I do wonder why it takes me being busy to get anything done at all. I work best on a full schedule, and then yearn for an empty one. Sometimes I don't want to work best. I told my PIMA group as much, now I'm recording it for myself. I tend to forget.

Studying, Seeking

Time is short - sleep is calling. Today was a day to myself, mostly. I wrote this morning, in Hebrew. Filled six little notebook pages up. And I organized the new tea leaves into clean jars, finally. I also danced and sang in the studio, gave a bodywork session, handed out the rest of my fliers in hopes of getting a few more students, taught a class, ran to Port Authority and back. And dreamt of at least as many other ways to fill my life.

Cassandra, my client, asked me about school. She knows me as Lorenzo's girlfriend, a rock climber, a dancer, pilates teacher and bodyworker. You do so many different things! she exclaims. Not really so. They are all the same, and increasingly coming together for me. I am studying the language of the human body, and seeking to express it.

Now I'll seek out those dishes that need washing and slide into bed. A soft bed with a warm blanket, not the sleeping bag that didn't make it to the mountains tonight.

first day of school

I noticed how scared I was at the group meeting this morning. I just wasn't falling for my usual defense tactics - steered clear of believing any of my instant judgments in an effort to make some space in that little head of mine to actually observe the situation as it was. And it was scary - myriad power struggles, large personalities, passive aggressive strikes and streams of nonsense to which I had to actively remind myself to smile or else be marked as an enemy. What in the world possessed me to think there would be space for me here? Dunno. Tried to get an ID card, but I hadn't paid a bill. Tried to pay a bill but I hadn't registered for a class. Tried to prove that I had registered online, but the Professor hadn't yet approved me, so there was nothing to prove.

For my existence on campus to be validated, I had to go to the prof's office, get some kind of slip that I would then bring to the registrar, she would enter it into the computer and give me a slip to give to the lady who takes my money, and theoretically she would open the gate to the lady who takes my picture and gives me an ID card. Had some kind of vision of spending my day at the library, immersed in the work of making my life go somewhere interesting, but without an ID card the task would be a little bit harder. So I walked down the hall to the cafeteria. In truth I was starving. From the seating area the cafeteria looked like it might have potential, but the reality was much simpler: same old shit. Shitty cold cuts on shitty bread, wilted salad bar mainly out of a can, greasy pasta with some kind of meat product... it all made the pizza look appealing. But I didn't dare. I packed a little bit of lettuce, tuna salad and tasteless beets into a small plastic box and headed for the grass.

A classmate was there, one that might be directing me this term. Well that was a bit of good fortune, a chance to investigate further. But we only got so far before she was interrupted by a very important phone conversation and though I thought to wait patiently I couldn't bear it any longer I had to go. Not to the professor's office, no, back home.

So an extra bike ride got thrown into my day, so what. No reason to let that tuna fish salad sit in my belly too long anyway.

All of a sudden I remember my first day of kindergarten. I remember how terrified I was, how I cried and didn't want to let go of my mother and I was not one to cling to my mother. All of a sudden I can see that I am still the same Ophra I was then, and maybe not quite the Ophra I like to believe I am. So what if it's taken me almost 32 years to get to know this side of myself: vulnerable, scared of people, threatened to no end by the prospect of needing to belong and be liked? So what because now I can see it and what a great time to see and bask in this little light now that I have tactics galore to deal with the fear and enough hindsight to suppose with a high likelihood that things will turn out just fine. Frequent reminders may be necessary.

I am not throwing all my pennies in this school basket. If it takes me nowhere or even sends me over the edge I'll do one of my famous flips and find some new ground to tread. Seems I've pressed that red PRESSURE button inside me and all brain functions are crowding at the starting line arguing about how to win the race and if it's even feasible. Deep breath. No rush, no race and if you don't enjoy it save your money and get out...

Now for some real food. Lorenzo is back, I've made something simple and tasty...