Classic

Stepping into the city of Prague in the Czech Republic is a little like stepping back in time, if only for the apparent evidence that the city has been standing there for a long time. A long, long time.

Often when I travel I am overwhelmed with that notion and the evidence of such. Coming from the western United States--Phoenix, Arizona at that--the idea that something or some things have been standing, in use, or on display for hundreds (if not thousands) of years actually blows my mind.

I like the feeling.

Walking through Praha for 4 days with Don I was struck over and over again by the history of that area. And as is (again) common for me I found myself really thinking about the history of the people who had been walking those same streets for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.

I wish I knew their stories.

Saturday evening we entered the doors of the Estates Theater in our dress up travel clothes (I put on my fancy earrings!) to take our seats in the gallery and watch a performance. The perfomance was Mozart's Don Giovanni; an opera, which incidentally made its worldwide premiere at this very theater in 1787.

It was so cool.

The following photos are my favorite images of this historic piece of architecture. And just for you a shot or two of me in my fanciest earrings. (I know you were hoping for that)

(Told ya they were fancy!)

Enjoy the flashback.

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flashback friday hosted by 42

I Still Have Something to Say

So for the first time in about a million years, I am playing Flashback Friday hosted weekly by Cablegirl at 42. And the way I am doing it today is this: I am flashing back to exactly approximately one year ago. This post that follows sits in my archives and was written when I had been blogging just over a month. As you will read, at that writing I had about 80 posts on this blog. At this writing today, as my blog just recently passed its one-year-in-production mark, I have 373 posts sitting in the archives. I suppose I am making good on my title. I do have something to say. And you can trust me that there is still more to come.

This is an interview style post, with questions posed by Allison of Soccer Mom in Denial. I have other pressing questions sitting in my email inbox from both Jen of A2eatwrite and Goofball of Goofball's world. I am confident both women think I have long forgotten about those interviews. I assure them I have not and intend (honestly!) to answer some of those probing questions in the coming days. You want to know what I have to say. Right? Am I right?

Yeah, you'll be back.

Now then, finishing this ultimately too long lead, I now give you last April's post. Original date: 19 April 2007.

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I am going to confess something here. I like to talk. I know this comes as something of a shock to you as there is no evidence to support that statement. I mean, it's not like there are already close to 80 posts on this 50-day old blog. No, wait. There ARE nearly 80 posts here. I must have been thinking of somebody else.

But since we are on the subject of me, let's just linger awhile.

My new mentor and greatest cyber supporter Soccer Mom in Denial has recently been interviewing friends and fellow bloggers. I have so enjoyed reading the answers to her questions and actually have been tickled by the questions themselves. So much so, that I just couldn't stand it anymore and I asked if I could join in and play. I like to be included in what all the cool kids are doing. She happily complied and sent me the following questions.

Here is what I have to say.

1. If you could go anywhere with your family (and money and time were not a factor) where would you go?

At the very moment I am typing this I am listening to my youngest son squeak and grunt as he cavorts around the living room attempting to elude the ride to bed in his daddy's arms. My oldest son is gyrating through an impromptu Napoleon Dynamite dance on the rug in front of me; and my daughter is asking if she can have 30 Euro for a lunch card at school. So in answer to the query, if I could go anywhere right now, (and the return time were not a factor) it would be WITHOUT my family. To anywhere.
Seriously, my answer is anywhere. And everywhere. I have an incredible wanderlust and I absolutely love to go. Go and see. And there are myriad places to go and see in this big, wonderful world.
Where shall we meet?

2. What is your typical Friday like?

It seems so trite to respond this way, but my Fridays are complete TGIF days. Friday is the one day of the week that I don't have a destination first thing in the morning. No school for Andrew, no dancing class, no coffee groups, no Mom/Tot meetings. It's a day made just for me and my special guy and our pajamas.
There is NO SCHEDULE on a Friday and after the morning wake up ritual of munching breakfast in front of the BBC, we make it up as we go along. The big kids are out the door by 8:00 to cycle to school and Don leaves shortly after that for work. Andrew and I indulge in watching The Tweenies and checking email (you can make your best guess about who does which) and just take the day as it comes.
Friday nights are reliably date night with my husband. I never turn that down. He's a great guy to hang out with.

3. Why Arizona before the Netherlands?

Why Arizona? Because I was born to be barefoot of course.

Why Arizona before The Netherlands is a longer story. Our convoluted path since we married began in Southern Utah, and then a stop in Las Vegas, Nevada. Both were education related moves. Most of our moves have been education related, as a matter of fact. With undergraduate school tucked away we were faced with some choices for Don's law school education. Initially we were set to return to Utah for that three-year course of study but then a letter arrived from the University of Arizona, with an offer we couldn't refuse. We moved to Tucson with our Honda Civic and a 10' trailer which held EVERYTHING WE OWNED and became desert rats for essentially the next twelve years. Eight of those years we spent in Phoenix.

4. Do your kids have the same life-is-an-adventure attitude as you?

Uh... yes. Maybe. And no.

My daughter is one of the most adaptable people I know. She seems to take anything and everything in stride when it comes to moves and changes and adventures. I have joked that we could move to Mars in the morning and by evening she would have found alien playmates and would have already scheduled her first sleep over.
My youngest of course doesn't seem to mind whatever it is we are doing or wherever it is we are. As long as he can "do it myself-okay?" and count on his peanut butter, then it's all good for him.
My oldest is my most routine oriented child. He just likes things the way he likes them, and though he has adapted beautifully to this experience and has grown immensely, I believe his preference would be to settle and stay somewhere. I picture him years from now, living a stable life IN ONE PLACE while he rolls his eyes to the top of his head as his parents pull up to his driveway in a ramblin' RV. We are a little on the flitty side and he is deeply rooted.

5. What were you in high school (e.g. jock, dramaclub, studious)?

I was a drama clubbing, madrigal singing, poetry writing social butterfly. And by the butterfly part I mean that I was (and still am) able to find a comfort spot with all kinds of people. Like a chameleon I can blend in with my environment. The bottom line is I really like people and I believe we all have more in common than what we sometimes perceive. It's all about spending time with each other and finding out just what that may be.

6. What did you expect when you started blogging?

I expected that I would find it to be cathartic and a worthwhile creative exercise. I hoped it would help me hone my writing skills. I also hoped it would help me process and record some of the experiences here. Both of those hopes are being satisfied as I blog. What I didn't realize was that it would bring me such deep satisfaction to write and share all of this every day. In addition I have been most surprised by the sweet support out there from readers and other bloggers. I didn't expect at all to find a group of terrific and loyal friends because of it. But I did. And that is a perfect sweep of icing on my blogging cake.

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Do you have questions for me too? Ask away, by email or in the comments section. I will be happy to wax forth poetically on all things me for as long as y'all think you can possibly stand it. Bring it. I can take it.

Generally, You'll Find Me Barefoot

As both a child and a teenager I traveled a lot with the dance company I trained and performed with. Most of that performing was what I would deem local, as in traveling within the state where we were based. Occasionally, that traveling took us to world wide venues, you know, like all the way to Canada. When I was sixteen the horizons expanded to this side of the pond as the company ventured forth to a Dance and the Child conference in Stockholm, Sweden. It was my first trip to the cultured and refined continent of Europe and I was smitten in every sense of the word. To me, it felt like every day I was waking and walking in storybook land, and I was utterly, helplessly in love with every moment of the experience.

We stayed (as only a company of 75 dancers under age 18 and their chaperones can likely afford) in youth hostels and the like throughout our trip. In Stockholm, the hostel was a decent distance from the Balletschool where we were in class and rehearsals each day which required a lengthy walk to and from the location morning and evening.

In between rehearsals and workshops and performances there was sightseeing for the group as a whole. In between the sightseeing there was sometimes some down time for all of us to explore or rest or play gin rummy and roll each other's hair in curlers. Whatever.

One particular afternoon with some down time on my hands I went for a walk. It was a lovely day and I was particularly longing to spend some time exploring by myself. I donned my shoes and began my adventure. I hadn't wandered very far from the hostel, when I encountered two (or was it three?) harmless looking young guys hanging out behind the hostel.

"Hallo." They said to me.
"Uh, hi." I said.
"You want to buy some shoes?"
"Huh? Some what? Did you say shoes?"
"Yes. You know... some shuuuus." One boy pantomimed inhaling a cigarette, you know of the funny kind, and then added:
"Make you feel good."

So, picture me, attempting to take this in, and while picturing thusly remember who I am, where I am from, and under which strict religiously conservative culture I was raised, and then try to stop laughing as you imagine me very ungraciously declaring that "NO! I DON'T WANT ANY SHOES! NO SHOES! NEVER!! NOOOOO SHUUUUUUUSSSS!"

And ran.

Away.

Fast.

With my shoes on.

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Flashback Friday is hosted by 42.
Go, look, reminisce. Participate.

Window Peeping

I am flashing back today and cheating maybe just a little to do it. This post that follows is one which sits in the archives of my blog. Initially this little bit of writing was shared via email with friends and family back in those long ago days which preceded the obsession opening of this blog. Originally dated 10 October 2005, these are the musings and observations of a newbie to the land of Holland. So much of it still holds true, though I do have to say I wish there was still that feeling of "newness" in everything. I like that feeling.
For more walks down memory lane, click on the button above to visit Cablegirl's blog and check out the links.

If the eyes are indeed a window to the soul, then it follows that the windows of a home are a direct line to the psyche and the personality of its residents.

To stroll down a street here in Leiden is to take part in my newly discovered preferable pastime, that is by name, window gazing.

Most homes here are built simply and for efficiency in design rather than style. In fact, from the structure of the outside it’s difficult to tell one home from another without the house number in front delineating that it belongs to you. So to make up for lack of design and form in the building structure, it seems that the Dutch take window design very seriously, using it as a means to give a home personality and distinction. From the window treatments to the decorated panes and ledges, each one seems to me a telling of the inhabitants within. I like to make up my own stories about the people inside based upon the window displays.

I suppose you could call it people-watching one-step-removed.

Topping the list of my favorite things is the lace curtains which grace many windows here. I remember when I was very small and I learned to draw a house, I would always add windows, and to the windows I would draw an exaggerated swoop of a curtain hanging down from the top and then cinched tightly in the center and pulled to the side where the bottom part of the drape would billow out toward the floor. (Pretty fancy digs for a simple line drawing, huh?) At any rate, these windows with white lace curtains are something out of my childhood fantasy. They are picture perfect. I absolutely adore them.

As a general rule, the Dutch keep their curtains open. My ex-pat books tell me that as a culture perhaps the Dutch feel they have nothing to hide, and therefore do not feel the need to close the drapes and/or blinds in their homes. Whatever the reason behind the tradition, you can generally count on window treatments, whether traditional lace curtains or modern mini blinds, to be cinched back or set in open position.

Window ledges are a terrific place to display collections, plants, decorative items, etc. and this is where the personality telling begins. Take for instance, the home just down the street from mine, where the kitchen window is lined with silver teapots of all shapes and sizes. At my cursory count there are 15 pots standing at attention on the windowsill. Or, there is the home crammed with plants of all varieties lined up on the ledge, pressing their leaves against the glass, vying for sunlight. Every day on the way to Emma’s school, I ride my bike past a home where the front window boasts a single row of sticky package bows in a rainbow of colors.

There are windows with candle arrangements, windows with flower arrangements, windows with candle and flower arrangements, and windows with candles, flowers and live cat arrangements. (It seems that a window ledge is an optimum spot for cat napping.) There are displays of Virgin Mary gracing windows and I have spied Buddha in multiple forms on others. There is the laughing Buddha, the praying Buddha, and Buddha in repose. Your choice.

My favorite Buddha themed window consists of an elegant statuette of a Buddha in prayer pose on one side and on the other a hand-built ship model constructed from Heineken beer cans. I shall let you jump to your own conclusions about the residents of that house.

Also on the route to Emma’s school is the rooster house, with a collection of ceramic roosters lined up on the ledge and then soon following, there is the swan house which boasts several elegant blown glass swans, their long necks reaching up nearly the full height of the window. Not to be outdone by anyone however is the gnome house, where a minimum of 50 clay gnomes decorate the front window and the front yard of a home I spotted only once while out on a bike ride. I have had more than one good giggle over that one! There must be a personality class for “gnome collectors” right? Something akin to “cat person” or “Trekkie” I would think.

In our own home, on the ground floor it is our kitchen which faces the street. The far wall of the kitchen holds five large windows. Running the length of the windows is a six inch ledge. At this moment, on that ledge sits a single desert plant, a watering can, a row of matchbox cars, and a partly eaten stroopwafel.

Now what, I wonder does that tell you about us?

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And now, for some shameless self-promotion:

My haiku about Andrew made the finalist list in the second edition Haiku Buckaroo contest at My Mommy's Place. You can go vote for my poem (or one you like better) by clicking on the button above. Or you can click here if it's easier for you. The voting is easy and guess what? You don't have to be a blogger to cast your vote. What this means, of course, is that even my beloved lurkers (you know who you are) can click here and go vote. It's a snap to do and it would build my esteem immensely if you'd take a minute to do it.

So, go. Do it. Okay?

Beneath the Wings

The first performance I have much cognitive memory of I was six years old.

Surely, there were others which preceded it. The in house shows at the end of each semester in the dance studio. Each class of budding young artists had paraded in front of adoring parents their polaroids and their generous applause. But this would be my first moment on the professional stage. I had been chosen to perform in a suite of choreography and I, along with the others in the cast, had spent weeks, possibly months, in rehearsal every Saturday morning in the army barracks building turned dance studio. I remember so much about the sights, sounds and smells of the place; the very way that the dust looked in the forgotten corners, how the sunshine came in at a slight angle through the partitioned windows and the way the records on the player scratched and skipped.

That experience is a moment frozen in time in my memory. The whole of each individual gesture and exercise, the sound of the choreographer's voice, the sight of watching the grown-up dancers work through the movement while we few young ones played in the corner of the room, is wrapped up in one eclectic and extravagant memory package.

But what I remember most--after the rehearsals, the costume fittings, applying the makeup and waiting an arduously long time backstage--is the moment I sprang out from the wings and entered that magical world of lights. It was the first time I felt that incredible connection between expression and reception. I couldn't have named it then and am not certain I can explain it at all well now, but there is this something deeply connective between an artist and her audience; an energy which, could it be contained just might power peace on the planet. Or if not that, at least could increase the happiness level of an individual exponentially.

I gave it my everything that night, pouring my heart into every movement. Whatever nervous butterflies had been flitting in my belly up to that minute, they were instantaneously gone when my bare feet touched the marley flooring; and the energy of the thousand flapping wings was pushing me forward to share my best; my all.

You well may wonder how I can recall it all so clearly. That's easy. In the 25 years of performing which was to follow for me, it happened every time.

I haven't been on a stage as a performer in a good many years and instead have found the magic occurs for me now by watching my young students find that moment themselves. The mystical connection and energy exchange between s/he who is on the stage and they who are in the audience rarely disappoints and I love to watch as a child experiences and processes such an incredible moment.

Part of what I personally left behind when our family moved to The Netherlands was the performing arts program I had built and nurtured in our Arizona community. It wasn't the easiest thing to let go and truth be told, I miss teaching very, very much. I have snuck in a class or two here and there in the past couple of years and have enjoyed those moments very, very much.

And this week, I got to get in on it all over again.

The music teacher at our school is organizing and directing a musical for the children. Someone, somewhere whispered something to her and she approached and asked if I could help with the choreography for the show.

I answered.

And in a few weeks time I will be watching a whole new crop of budding performers enter the stage (some for the first time ever) and touch that moment where they pour their hearts into the song and the movement and are received by an adoring audience--replete with camcorders--who will signal approval with the thunderous sound of applause.

Indeed, several stars will be born.

And I will be there to see it all happen.

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See what else is happening at 42 where you'll find the links to more memories.

Once a performer

Now a teacher for children

I watch from the wings

*For Leslie's contest