and a softness came from the starlight and it filled me to the bone. – w. yeats

I feel filled up after the weekend. Lot’s of sleep, dancing, friends, and a yoga class that might as well have been an ecstatic rebirthing on a lululemon mat.

I have to move like that as much as possible. There is so much I am passionate about. My work life is central to my sense of purpose, my understanding as to why I am here this time around. My friends and family, I mean, there aren’t even words. Spiritual practice, prayer, devotion. Reading. Walking. Good food. Appreciating beauty. Theorizing.

But movement. Dance and yoga, this is the stuff of my direct connect to spirit, to a higher power, to myself. Clear, unadulterated, unchallenged (usually) by other people’s opinions and thoughts. It is my starlight.

And yet, I have barely danced since moving to new york. Pre-move, since my 21st birthday, I have been going to Sweat your Prayers (“hippy dance”) at least once a week. Sunday morning church of the dancing variety. I’ve been twice in the past 18 months. A few trips home have been dancing vacations, finding my way to the floor many many times.

I’ve wondered why I haven’t incorporated dance. Yes, I’ve been busy. Yes, it’s expensive. Yoga has fit in more easily schedule and money wise.

And. In some ways, dancing here means: I       Live             Here.

This is obvious. We are rounding the bend on the two year mark. There is no sign on a move home date. When my dear hearts here talk of their pilgrimages back to the bay sooner rather than later, I don’t jump to join them. When I got off the phone with my mom last night, I realized, I am gonna have to work harder to have relationships with my family over the phone.

I live here.

I know I have written about this a lot. For the most part, the live-here revelations have been more shock and awe this-place-is-amazing, can-you-believe-this-exists.

Now it’s: how am I gonna dance here.

The past several months have been hard. I haven’t felt the same pep in my step, the same exuberance and lightness that colored my initial decent into the city. I’ve tried to understand it as transition, the end of school, the beginning of work, maybe some depression-light, loneliness, singledom, exhaustion  and on and on. From where I am sitting this morning, I think it’s been continued adjustment.

It’s said that it takes three years to really land in New York. I was resistant. I think I have written about that here (sometimes I feel like I repeat myself a lot). I now think it’s true.

I’m sure in the next year and a half, more truths will be discovered as to what it means to land in a new city, to build and settle-in to an adult life away from home. I’m excited for the adventure, for the learning, and even for the months where it doesn’t feel so good, and I can’t really figure out why. This is the stuff of the dance. Dancing helps move it, helps connect the dots that are to big and simultaneously too simple for my brain to make words of initially.

happy monday. here’s to (new york) dancing.