Restaurant gigs, rehearsals, and toddlers, oh my!

I am quickly realizing what it actually means to be back in the thick of the school year, with a 50-minute bus commute, and try to fit in dance rehearsals and toddler rough-housing into one life.

It's probably crazy. It definitely is.  I have already sat crying in my boss's office even though it's the second full week of school.  But that's partly because we prepared a restaurant gig on a week's notice at the same time that school was starting up.  Not a good idea, I found.

The gig was at Bilbao, with another dancer whom I met just days before the gig at a rehearsal in her house on Capitol Hill.  I threw together some improvised pieces and danced some sections of an Alegrias that I had taught students last spring.  It was not our strongest show, that's for sure, and since we don't know too many people here, we also weren't able to bring in a huge audience, which is the whole point from the restaurant owner's perspective.  It was fun, I have to say, to finally put on my flamenco costumes again and put on makeup and to drink wine during warm-up.  If I didn't have to make money, I think I really would be content to just dance and do any ol' show that came up.

But it's hard to make rehearsals happen and then to have individual practice time in my in-laws' basement where I have my little floor that Ben's friend made for me, and then to actually be a mamma outside of my full-time job.  I repeat, it's hard.  I'm only a few weeks in, but I know it's going to be a rough year getting used to a new school and trying to make flamenco happen.  Hell, doing anything else while adjusting to a new school is just going to be rough.  Our rehearsals so far have been at other dancers' houses, involving driving, and either dropping off Hudson with his grandparents or having someone watch him at the rehearsal, which didn't work too well at a recent rehearsal because he is so obsessed with the guitar and with having his mom's attention that he was incapable of being occupied by other activities for long.

I could go on about how exhausting it feels, about how fruitless it feels, how scary and stupid it feels, to do this to myself, but I keep coming back to this:  I apparently love it even though it stresses me out.  I feel good when I feel like I'm learning to dance better and better each time I put my shoes on.  I can't stop enjoying the strength and beauty it seems to automatically impart -- and I need as much as I can get on both counts.  I am not whole without art, nor am I whole without being a mother, nor am I whole without teaching.  Dammit.  That means I'm stuck doing this for a while, and I suppose I will make the most of it since I'm here -- I am going to take it as far as I can.