Immersed

Thank goodness for the three-day weekend. I've managed so far to immerse myself completely in things that I need to do and things that I hope will further my progress in this program. Thursday after seminar I felt completely beat, but nevertheless I managed to rouse myself enough to go to Pies and Pints with Katie, Dan, and a few of their friends, then came home and read Waiting for Godot, since I'd only ever read Beckett's Endgame before, and Godot is a pretty canonical text. I remembered bits of it from who-knows-where, so that made me feel better.

Friday, my day off, I spent grading acting assignments. Liz came over and we made a lovely lunch of penne a la vodka, watched an episode of Frasier, then got down to grading. Five hours later we were still at it, so we ordered a pizza, watched another episode of Frasier, then continued the grading. This was my first real thing to grade-- I've graded a few quizzes here and there, but nothing substantial-- and it took forever. Amazingly, yesterday the weather in Seattle went crazy and it hailed, thundered, and lighteninged! True, the thunder only clapped once, but it has been so long since I've heard any thunder at all that I absolutely relished it.

This morning I finished reading Isadora: My Life, the autobiography of Isadora Duncan. Isadora basically invented modern dance during the first quarter of the twentieth century. She lived to great heights and to terrible tragedy. Her book made me keenly aware of my body and my soul, and sometimes when I read books like these, I can feel my soul pressing against my heart-- a real, physical feeling-- and I want to see magnificent sights, I want to live to the fullest of passion and beauty and Art and just to feel. I wonder if I could dance her dance. I wonder who I might be or become, given wings. Given courage. For bravery is a great part of it and I do think fear of the unknown holds most of us back.

(Isadora Duncan, photo found here)