Today would have been my father's 101st birthday. He died so young (53) it's hard to believe. Like me, he was a Taurus.
This is the first day I've had with nothing on the calendar...actually three calendars, that I'm trying mightily to keep up! Since I stopped working full time, I've switched back to a paper calendar. I used to carry my iPhone everywhere and use the calendar for reminders of all that I had to do. Now I have a mobile phone but it won't sync the calendar and the contacts. I DO miss the ASAE tech guys, they were great. Anyway, I now have a paper Filofax in my purse, a wall calendar in the kitchen and another one near my desk. It's a mess, half the time I don't know what I've scheduled. But, today, for sure, I'm free.
I've been involved in rehearsals since the beginning of April for a Bealtaine (May in Irish) dance festival. There are 9 different dances in the program -- 11 if you count the two I'm not in -- and it's been a real challenge. There have been times in this process when I've felt just hopeless. I have good rhythm and balance but my memory for patterns and, particularly problematic, my difficulty with right and left have made this process very hard. In addition to giving 'right' and 'left' directions, the choreographer is sometimes wont to instruct "anti-clockwise". Forget that, I'm sometimes challenged with forward and back at this point! I've done some reading up on what the problem might be and have determined that I have low spatial IQ, characterized by difficulty knowing where you are in relation to surroundings. Anyway, it's been a challenge and really eye opening because previously I had this idea that with instruction, I'd be a good dancer. Not so I'm afraid!
Set dancing on Tuesday nights will end at the end of this month and not start again until September. I will miss it. I'm going to try to get my dance partner to go to at least one set dance festival over the summer. There are several, I hope she will agree. Right now, we are focused on preparing for our walk on the Santiago de Compostela in Spain, which we are doing in September with a group of people she knows. We have several 6-10 kilometer walks planned and expect to build up to 20 and hills over the summer. We did our first "training session" last Thursday in Marley Park, we went twice around the park but that was only 7 kilometers. Still it was enough for me to get a blister from my new walking shoes. Next week we will do about the same distance but in more hilly terrain near Howth Head, a promontory in Dublin Bay. I think I worked out the rub in my new shoes, but we'll see.
Right now, I'm focused on remembering all the parts of the "Dance Across Dublin" the first performance is just 5 days away!
