Dress A Day, Day 48: Spring is Over

Wednesday, June 23

Another dress purchased at Goodwill to play dress-up in. It has lots of bright yellow flowers but a high collar and long skirt that make it perfect for playing the conservative strings of the soul. And I am moving in the direction of conservative and conservation after a Spring of frenzied flight and fabulous fantasy. It is time to get grounded and work. Funny then that after this dance I took three days off this project. Or not funny: practical in the way of conservation. You see my period came, as did a lunar eclipse and a cascade of matters to do with inner work and business work that needed my attending. So I directed my energies where I saw they were needed most. Now I can dance again.

First Break: Tuesday, June 22

Allowed myself a day off. So much is happening. I did post a longer version of the solstice dance on youtube, though, to make up for the missing minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpY-Ga0-zLI

Dress A Day, Day 47: Serenading the Solstice

Monday, June 21

Summer Solstice, at the Monday night Open Movement Jam. The lights are low because natural light is still streaming in when I arrive at 8:30PM. I am earlier than usual, it is quiet and there is a mood of reverie and introspection in the room. Good for me, I can dance my sadness and give my prayers for equilibrium a vessel to move into the world through. I love this dress but it always opens in the back. It looks like a big polka dotted red apron that you tie around. Jim, who runs the jam, said it was his favorite dress yet and that it made him think of my shtetl past - did I have a shtetl past, he asks? I do Jim, indeed I do. I come from many kinds of shtetls, ones my father's family may have lived in in past centuries, and ones that live on inside of me and my family. I am making my way out of the shtetl, you who are watching and reading are observing my journey.

Dress A Day, Day 46: A Bed in Boston

Sunday, June 20

This dress is one I am falling in love with. It is actually a skirt, transformed into a dress with a belt. That is how the designer at the recent African Market at BAM convinced me to buy it. It wasn't cheap, but my aunt Esti had put money in my hand to buy a dress with and the designer pointed out how practical it was for travel given that it was two outfits in one, so I let myself buy it. I tried on a few, the prints were so gorgeous, but the two sales women nodded so vigorously when I put the orange one up that I had to take it. Some people still remember me from my Berkeley days as the orange girl, so maybe my past is still with me. I bought it the day after my aunt Esti left and now here I am, at my aunt Esti's house in Boston, at the end of a long day of travel and family visits, exploring the haunted past and looking towards the future.

I want to be good and serious and playful too. I want to be in the light and in my skin and I want to jump and fall and land softly. Amen.

Dress A Day, Day 45: Boundary Building

Saturday, June 19

I bought this dress last year, right around this time, for way too cheap in one of those stores on Fulton St. that makes you remember that sweat shops are still alive and well in the world. But I needed a new dress at that time, one for a special occasion, a Fourth of July party. In fact it was my goodbye party, where I bid farewell to my amazingly gorgeous rooftop garden and the life in the apartment I shared for two and a half years with the ex. On this particular June night independence was on my mind and I meditated on that theme as I biked through dark streets to a party in Bushwick. I didn't bring my camera with me, so it wasn't until I got home that I filmed this dance, but perhaps that gave me time to contemplate the lesson at hand. You see, this year I am learning that independence is not just about freedom, it is about knowing my boundaries and how to guard them. To be free without boundaries is to be open territory for invasion.

Dress A Day, Day 44: Let Loose

Friday, June 18

A break from the lover, a breaking point in my relationship to myself, a break with my past. I'm letting loose with my favorite dancing partner, soul sister and my frequent savior, Diana Quiñonez Rivera at the Leftist Lounge fundraising party in Brooklyn. She is filming for a moment, then she will dance again. I am dancing because I need to, and the dress makes me feel like dancing. It is a dancing dress, made by Deha for dancers, bought at Daffy's sometime in the last two years.

Dress A Day, Day 43: Ancestral Bind

Thursday, June 17

An antique Moroccan dress given to me by my aunt Hana, I think. How personal am I supposed to get on a public blog? Let it be known that I am working through baggage that I do believe has been passed down to me through many generations of bound women. I am face to face with that bind in my relationship to myself, to a lover and to my work. I am pushing up against my limits, sad, tired and yet determined to break free.