New Poem

Hey all! So yeah, it's been a loooong time. I've been doing things and being away in Europe and that's been exciting. I don't think I'm going to post photos on here because they're all on facebook and there's so many of them. But I did want to put up this, which I wrote today. I decided it's an accurate continuation of the poem Yellow Trees, which you can see on this post. 

Yellow Trees Continued

On an Autumn night

underneath yellow trees

we came together to come apart

on a beach by the sea.

And I walk by that place

several times a year,

the trees seem to whisper

just loud enough for me to hear.

They feel just like us

both growing apart

and as seasons change

they look just like my heart.

A couple weeks after

they were nearing their death

but a few leaves still lingered

a little love left.

That’s when I first noticed 

I felt just like them, 

a witness to everything 

and barely strong enough to stand.

But as Winter progressed

I walked by again

the leaves were all gone,

all colour was dead.

I felt just as brittle

a chill always in my bones

like the smallest breath could break me

and my heart was so cold.

Then the rainy Spring came

there was growth in our trees

but they were steadily dripping

not completely at ease.

I, too, felt stronger

but still mourned my loss

I knew to start a life with colour

may come at a cost.

In Summer the trees are fully green

truly the start of something new

but whenever I see them

I still think of you.

***

So yep, in other news, college is coming up so unbelievably fast. So. Unbelievably. Fast.

Does this mean I'm crazy?

THE YOUNG CHOREOGRAPHER'S PERFORMANCE IS COMING UP REAL REAL SOON!!!! COME TO IT!!! IT'S FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

The show starts at 5 and is at Velocity Dance Center (located at 1621 12th Ave, Seattle WA). Tickets are free, and you don't even need to reserve them. Just be there at 4:45 when doors open, and have fun seeing four different young choreographer's pieces that we've been working on very hard for awhile now! (I'm in Anna McKee's piece.)

Here's a letter that Claire Connell wrote for anyone interested in coming:

Hello Friends and Family,

You are INVITED to STG’s 4th annual Young Choreographers Lab—Project Showing!
May 5, 2012, 5-6 pm
Velocity Dance Center (1621 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122)

FREE (donations welcome)

STG presents works choreographed by four aspiring teen choreographers from STG’s Young Choreographers Lab. Young Choreographer’s Lab is for teens interested in pursuing their artistic vision as choreographers as well as dancers. In the fall, participants met once a week, for eight weeks, for choreography master classes. Starting in January, four choreographers were selected to create a larger work on local teens with the mentorship from leading Seattle choreographers, Amy O’Neal, KT Niehoff, Tonya Lockyer, and Mark Haim. The showing will be followed by question/answer with the young artists. RSVP requested; please email jessicaj@stgpresents.org.

Choreographers:
Kyle Easterly

Heather Kaufman

Anna McKee

Jasmmine Ramgotra

Hope to see you all there!

Claire.

Also it looks like I'm going to be in another performance called the Unrehearsed Ensemble. It's going to be presented at On The Boards on June 17 from 4-10pm. (Yeah, long show.) It's an improvisation festival type thing, and will probably be very very fun and wild and (dare I say) craaaazzzaaayyyy. Heh..

You can find more information on it here.

So this has been something I've been wanting to do for awhile, and I've been constantly drawing to try to get a specific style down, but the other day I realized I just needed to go for it, and then while I'm doing them my style might emerge. So here it is, my first ever webcomic- hopefully there'll be more to come. As always, criticism is appreciated.

In other news, I now have two part time jobs! I think most people that are reading this blog have known that for awhile now, but I haven't posted since then and so I figured it'd be important to put on here. I'm a hostess at West 5 Lounge, and a waterer at West Seattle Nursery. The jobs are very different from one another (except for the fact that they both involve a lot of standing, so I end up standing from 9am-11pm on Saturdays,) but it's nice. I get peace and quite contemplation at the nursery, and social interaction at West 5, and it's a good balance in my opinion.

Other stuffs. Here's a picture! Of a flower! Hooray!

Hah, also I just joined Instagram. Probably addicted now. Oh wells. For those of you who may not know what it is, it's a photo-sharing app on apple devices (and droid too, actually, as of now i think?) where you can make your pictures look really cool and pretty and nice. For example. 

To quote Eddie Izzard, "So yeah..."

Getting handy with a push broom

I know I haven't updated in a while, and I don't even have a super good explanation for it. Hah. Other than the fact that I've been a little bit more busy with work study at Velocity, which opened up the ability to take more classes for less moneys. I've been getting used to it, things are coming a little more naturally now. And I keep feeling more and more welcome into the dance community there, it's wonderful. I even was given an opportunity to bartend at the last show I volunteered at for the first time. So I am gaining employable skills! Hurray!

Also I have a kind of starter poem that I've been meaning to work on lately and put up, but maybe I will just put up the rough draft and then I can get some input from anyone who wants to give it!


I once heard
the secret songs of trees with you,
their whispers
of all hopeful things.
I felt their joy and desire and peace,
but you heard it and only felt fear.
You could tell
things larger than you, us,
were living and breathing
and sharing with us
their raw honesty.
Maybe
you liked the idea of it,
because you shared the story with your friends
so you would sound
like all the things you wanted to be.
But now I know
you couldn't handle it.
So I went on
to stand
in high places
on dark nights
to hear the mournful bittersweet stories
of the wind and water,
rocks and trees.

In other news I'm back in Port Angeles for a bit, and I'm feeling really thankful for good friends. Friends that are there for you through thick and thin. Life is tumultuous and hard but we will be stronger in the end for it. I am also very thankful for the existence of cupcakes, because without them I don't think life would be as easy to get through. So, cheers to cupcakes and good friends.
And pretty pictures! Got to include my recent pretty pictures.

Night walking

 Self portrait. kinda.

 Sunny day flowers backyard pretty.

 

ALSO THE NEW ANDREW BIRD ALBUM IS OUT, AND THE SHINS. THEY ARE BOTH REALLY GOOD. GET THEM.

Kaybai.

Mascot

This is my mascot. I discovered it at Genki Sushi. It is my favourite thing in existence.

I just keep watching it... over and over and over... 

In other news, my name came up for starting work study at Velocity in March! So I start then and it will go for at least three months, and I will get discounted classes. It's super exciting!

This is what I do when I'm cooking... or not cooking...

Scratch that... this is what I do all the time...

Improv, anyone?

Hey, so the other day I came up with the idea of video recording any dance improvisation I do, for my own educational purposes. I want to be able to see what I did, in order for me to maybe incorporate parts into actual choreography. So I did a bit of improvisation last night, and tested it out. It was okay, except for I didn't pick out the optimum place to set my computer to record it so it's mostly upper body stuff, no floor work and I didn't get to go out of the range of the camera. But even if it's not great, it's not terrible, and I thought it might be interesting for people who don't have the ability to see me dance all the time.

This is the first video I took, it's to a song called "Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap. I really want to choreograph something to it, so I'll probably be working with it a fair amount.
UPDATE- I watched this on here after I posted this, and the sound and visual are really not synced very well. I apologize, it's a lot cooler when it is.

I also wanted to put up a couple pictures I've taken over the past couple of days. 

Definition of perfection: Seattle dinosaurs at sunset! (:

Some Semi-New Poetry and Doggie Pictures

Hey, I thought it was about time I put up some more of my writing, and I also wanted to put up a couple pictures I took of our dog, Hayes, yesterday.

Mid yawn.

Now for poetry.
This one I wrote about a month ago. I didn't title it.

Every time I sleep
I have these terrible dreams
where it's the same as when I'm awake.

But then I walk to you
and you say you love me too
all the time for contact I ache.

We hold hands and smile
keeping it secret all the while
until my eyes open and my heart breaks.

Here's another that's fairly recent- (it's less about rhyme schemes, but more about the sound when read aloud.)

On dripping days like this
I think of you
when everything is so
thoroughly soaked
that we're all fragile as bird bones.
The poetry seeps back into me
around this time of year,
through my feet
and up my body
until it bleeds out my eyes
and fingertips.