i spent all evening yesterday working on an hour long “river presentation” i was supposed to give today, on my last day of graduate school. a presentation on my “career river” — how i ended up here today, graduating with a degree in somatic counseling / dance movement therapy. a presentation that i had started to imagine as less of a presentation, so much as a interactive performance; less of a performance, so much as a collective practice.
anyway. i’ve been sort of dreading this upcoming prez, and have been mulling over it for weeks: how big it felt, how vulnerable. but last night at 9pm i finally arrived at a place that felt good, felt exciting, felt like a sweet offering — maybe even a beautiful and meaningful ode to my journey, which has had approximately 10,237 chapters, of dancing and feeding and organizing and managing and writing, at various levels of employment / not
at 9pm last night, i opened up my laptop to open up my email, to send myself the introduction i had written, and saw this:
SL: URGENT NO CLASS TOMORROW
“it has come to my attention that the semester ends today.” there is no class tomorrow.
basically this is my professor saying, oops, NVMD. ☠️ (your last class ever? that preparation for your presentation? jk jk)
what?!
W H A T ? !
it has since come to my attention that the last day of graduate school was probably still scheduled for today, but because of the snow storm, yes, SNOW STORM — the snow storm we haven’t had all winter but we certainly have on hand today, in early may — classes have been canceled.
campus closed.
three years in grad school. one wildly disorienting end.
as if i haven’t had enough, sitting with and reading and writing and dancing disorientation with some amount of specificity and intensity these last 8 months.
it’s just
over.
it’s just
the end.
classic naropa. this school of crazy wisdom. this organization of disorganization, of spiritual materialism and bypassing, and unfulfilled hopes and dreams and unmet expectations. this school that shoved me headfirst into one of the most disorienting years of my life
which has also offered a opening, because it offered space
s p a c e . in the face of which i clung to a thread, the only thread i could find to hold, the thread of disorientation (and the related spectrum of disconnection and dissociation)
which has emerged as one of the most significant somatic cues (clues) about where I stand in relationship, about where i long to get more radical, where i risk the reach towards connection and relationality, which i now see to be the path.
the path i’ll keep following.
i’ll keep following relationality in my work, continuing to be a therapist for kids and teens and families/partners, for now with LFC
i’ll keep following relationality in my dance, continuing to move in The Shop with jo, as we tend to The House, and & also others, continuing to Bad Art with the Committee
(with whom i’ll also continue seeding, dreaming, dancing more radical, anarchist ways of relating into being)
and i’ll keep following relationality here, in my writing. in this little corner of the internet where i expose and make vulnerable myself and my tender interior world, in the hope of being more relational with you, in the hopes of a more relational & radical & connected & caring & reparative exterior world
(which is what i finally understand that i’ve been doing, all this time. tysm naropa & also jo)
…a world where we get to be messy and make mistakes as we fuck the norms, and flail while we expand our capacity to repair and keep moving through the inevitable rupture and inescapable discomfort of loving and just. keep. finding. our way back to connection, in all its forms. deeper and stronger still.
this thread that three excruciating, exhilarating, disorienting years at naropa have not “given” to me, or “taught” me, but have certainly made it really fucking clear,
that this is my thread. the thread i’ll keep following.
so yeah… i guess that’s what i’ll be doing?
now that grad school is officially #over.
so, see you soon. i’ll be right here, spinning around <3
tea