When I was first thinking of creating a blog I knew it needed a name. I wanted it to be clever but I also wanted it to convey my mission. At the time I didn't have a mission other then the huge umbrella topic of: changing my life. Well that could mean a million different things, you can lose 20 pounds and change your life, become a vegetarian, become a devout Christian, learn a new language, and all of these things would most likely inspire a different title to a blog. So what encompassed all things that I could take on to improve my life? Hmmmmm. My sister thought I should make cooking the focus of my blog, and while I have a passion for cooking I didn't want to be super stalker status with the Julie and Julia project...more like a mild admirer from a distance :) As we brainstormed titles for this blog I was thinking of what interested me...cooking and cats. So I thought "The Cooking Cat Lady"...and with a shudder I realized that the title sounded like I cooked cats and thus it was not an option. I was really at a loss and the longer I went without a name the longer this blog didn't exist. Then one day as I am sitting at my desk at work in my dungeon of despair I thought: what is it really that I was wanting to do? Yes I want to get out of this job, yes I want to make more money, yes I want to be able to answer with pride the question of "what do you do for a living?" but really WHAT is it that I am looking for? I decided: I am looking for peace. I am looking for happiness. I am looking for a sense of fulfilment. I looked back on my life and I realized I had that when I was a dancer. When my life was filled with smelly pointe shoes, endless dance classes, and going to bed each night with sore muscles and blistered feet. Oh those were the days! I wanted to get back there, and I wanted to get back there fast!
I sat in my portal to hell (my desk) and I drifted off into a day dream of my dancing years. I remembered parts I have danced that I loved, ones that I hated, costumes that fit and some that did not, waking up with my head full of curlers when I was little for my first ballet performance as a little party attendant in the Nutcracker. Oh the amazing years I spent being a ballerina. All of the wonderful teachers I have had with their patience and their wisdom. Some of the bad teachers I have had with their spite and their inexperience. One teacher specifically resonates as someone who changed who I was as a person as well as who I became as a dancer. Her name is Valerie Houston. I remember the first class I ever took from her. She had a passion and an energy for dancing that I had never seen. Her classes left you an inch from death but desperately wanting more. She humbled me with critique and inspired me with progress. I always liked ballet, but Valerie taught me to love dance. A few years after my first class with her I was her student at UCSB studying for a major in dance. Valerie called me "Hatfield" and soon everyone in the dance department called me "Hatfield". That is the moment I was happiest, in dance, in life, in everything. That is where I want to be again. I realize I am little older, a little worse for wear, but hopefully a little wiser as well. That is my project, to be "Hatfield" again. Hence the Hatfield Project: A project in self rediscovery and a mission to find eternal bliss :)
No comments:
Post a Comment