Where I Am

It has taken a solitary Sat. night with no plans and a sense of loneliness creeping in to sit down and write. I haven't felt this way in awhile. Maybe not since Thanksgiving. Leave it to the holidays to somehow make us question just how much those we love most and most want to connect with can understand and connect with us.

Today, a close friend of mine who has been a sworn bachelor for all the years I've known him, announced casually that he is getting married in a month or two. While I am happy for him and so far really like his future wife, I feel a bit lost with this news. It stirs an emptiness in me and raises the uncomfortable question...why don't I have this love in my life? Why doesn't anyone feel this way about me? Why don't I have what he has?

It's been a year of being single and while mostly I feel grateful and liberated in my freedom and independence...lately I feel that strong pull for connection surfacing within and it both illuminates me and terrifies me, in turns.

This time last year, I was in Southern Spain...experiencing Flamenco culture, entering the first of many phases of intense heartbreak, making new friends in the foreign lands of Granada, Sevilla, Madrid, Cordoba, Cadiz, El Puerta de Santa Maria, Jerez and learning how the Andalucians celebrate Christmas. While it was a powerful time of falling in love with a new dance form, I can also say it was one of the loneliest times I have experienced. For those who have traveled to distant lands solo when feeling empty and heartsick, you know what I mean. It can be both a comfort and a sense of banishment all at once. I was so lonely, that I remember soothing myself with the thought, "At least I am feeling this loneliness in a foreign place, rather than in my familiar environment". The one thing worse than feeling a stranger in a strange land is to feel a stranger in your own home. That is the worst of all.

Well, enough of all this sad talk! How did I get on this dark topic? Hmmm...just reminiscing, I suppose. I don't know that I ever wrote these thoughts or feelings down.

Well, here I am in Boulder Colorado. I have been here exactly a week. I have been catching up with friends, processing my recent experiences in Europe, visiting my favorite coffee shops, and trying to figure out what direction to set my sail this winter. What do I want to focus on? The answer every time I ask this question is "DANCE". I want to study dance, but where? After a year long search for a Flamenco teacher, this mysterious art form is still elusive in my life. My second choice is Indian dance. And so, a trip to India seems like it might be approaching...