I can't tear my eyes from the scene outside my study window. Good thing I'm a a good typist and I don't need to look down at my keyboard. There's some white stuff floating around but it's not snow! Woohoo! It's the pretty pink-tinged petals of apple blossoms as our tree sheds to make room for apples! I see bees flitting around the bright azaleas and blooming rhodedondrons as the branches of evergreens that tower over the nieghborhood sway gently in the light breeze. It's the start of a beautiful day and hopefully the harbinger of more sunny days to come. One can only hope!
I haven't blogged in a while. My cell phone makes it too easy for me to Twitter and update my status on Myspace, Blogspot and Facebook. I feel like the 140 character peeks into my daily mundanity were enough. I used to think blogging was silly. I don't really have an audience, so who really cares about my experiences? But a good friend who also loves to write told me, "You do have an audience. You. Even if it's an audience of one, if you're not going to capture your experiences, who will?"
I have a quote on my page from Anais Nin. "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospection." I haven't found a quote that better describes the reason to write. Especially now, when my memory isn't as sharp as it used to be. I can remember details of a Silver Spoons show that aired two decades ago, but if you ask me what I had for dinner last night, I'd have to think about it.
I'm starting to stumble for the right words, too. I know what I want to say, but there's some disconnection now in the synapses and neurons from my brain to my mouth. It's easier to replace nouns with "Y'knows" and "whatchamacallits." I think I'm turning into my mom.
That's why I could never do video blogs. I envy Gareth, my brother Mark and my sister-in-law Trista that ability to just say what they need to say. Me, I overthink and suffer from that inability to find the perfect word. I discovered that when I had to describe Cirque du Soleil's Corteo to my coworker a few weeks ago.
"You look tired, Gen."
"Yeah, Gareth and I went to opening night of Cirque du Soleil Corteo last night. It was press night, so we had free passes."
"Oooh! How was it? What was it about?"
"It was wonderful! Like the other productions. It was ...y'know..you don't know where to focus your eyes, there's so much to see, you're just...."
"Overwhelmed?"
"Yeah! That's it. It was overwhelming sometimes. This one, not so much as the other two we've watched, but still. The stuff they did...in the air...the um...different acts...y'know..."
"Acrobatics?"
"Yup! People bouncing, rolling, swinging everywhere."
"What was it about?"
"A dead clown."
"What?"
"Well, it was a clown's funeral..or what a clown imagined his funeral would be like...I don't know. The first act had these women swinging on ..those fancy crystal thingies...y'know those lights that hang from the ceiling?"
"Chandeliers?"
"Yeah! Those!"
So, no. Video blogging would not work for me. However, please take my written word for it, Corteo is a wonderful experience. I wasn't too jazzed about the seating under the "Grand Chapitieau" (Big Tent) in these seats built for grade-schoolers. Especially since I was squeezed in between Gareth and a hefty woman twice my size, and I'm hardly small myself. I was literally wrapped around Gareth the whole night. He didn't mind, but I needed a chiropractor visit the next day.
But once the show started, I forgot my discomfort. We watched Verakai at Marymoor Park and Ka in Las Vegas a couple years ago and Corteo is the first production I've seen that "fits" the circus theme because you had the trapeze and high wire acts, juggling, madcap mayhem and other aerial acrobatics. One of my favorites was the Bouncing Beds act, a playful reenactment of a scene from childhood for anyone who had to share a room with their sibling: jumping and bouncing from bed to bed. Except these kids had more talent and no one broke a collar bone.
After the chandelier act where four scantily clad women performed on swaying and spinning giant chandeliers, Gareth leaned over and whispered, "That's it. I'm getting you a chandelier." The next act was a group of shirtless beautifully-muscled men in pants and suspenders rolling around in Cyr wheels. I leaned over and whispered, "That's it. I'm getting you a hoola hoop."
I loved the Helium Dance where this little woman is tethered to these big balloons and is let go to float over the audience, where she pushes off the random spectator's hands to make her way around the theatre.
She also performed a charming pas de duex with a little partner.
If you have the chance to go, I strongly encourage it. It runs through June 1 at Marymoor Park. Easy to get to and a wonderful treat for a family. It is a little pricey, but the cheap seats are just as good as the higher-priced seats. Maybe even better for your neck. We were in the 4th row, surrounded by various anchors and field reporters from KOMO, KIRO, Q13, etc, and some parts of the show we had to crane our necks above us or twist to watch something behind us.
