dancing

Get out your Friday dancin’ shoes!

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

dance shoes vintageWhen was the last time you just stood up in your office or your living room or your kitchen and started to dance because you just had to?

Well, today is the perfect day for it.  Get out your Saturday morning dance shoes.  Twist and shout and move around the room and have some fun.

Or when was the last time you dug out a pair of heels and went dancing at some honky tonk with that crazy-good band that sticks to the great dance covers?  The band that plays Aretha, Stevie Wonder, and Coldplay.  Bruno Mars, Michael Jackson, and Earth, Wind & Fire.  Grand Funk Railroad.  The Beatles and the Rolling Stones.  Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.  The kind of music that speaks directly to some intimate and rhythmic part of you that tells you that you just have to dance.

The kind of songs that you can’t help but sing along with.  Someone told me once that if you succumb to peer pressure and find yourself up on the stage with a karaoke mic in your hand, pick Neil Diamond’s Sweet Caroline.  It is guaranteed that you won’t be singing alone by the time you get to the chorus.

Wherever you are, turn on some music and dance.  It is good for you in so many ways.  Movement clears your chakras and inspires happiness.  It limbers you up and gets you moving in ways that everyday life pretty much ignores. It instills grace and improves flexibility.  It can also reduce stress.  And it’s pretty difficult to be dancing to some awesome music and not smile.  Maybe even impossible.

Life is a lively event, and it sure is quick.  Do yourself a favor and do some dancing today. This mashup will definitely get you moving!  These dancers have got some serious moves!

How big is your Brave?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

How big is your Brave?  

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”  She also said, “Do at least one thing every day that scares you.”  Eleanor Roosevelt was not one to ignore our human need to be brave.  Bravery.  It calls to us and it asks us to listen.  And to act.  To do that which intimidates us yet still draws our attention, rallies our inner forces, and knits our talents together.  To simply be who we are and to not worry about what others may say or think.  As my wise, wise sissy tells me, “What another person thinks is none of your business.” Truth, Sis.  This is one of the many reasons I appreciate you.

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  Do the thing you think you cannot do.”  I strongly suspect that Eleanor was one heck of an advocate.  I surely would want her on my team.

This song (video below) by Sara Bareilles is inspiring to me.  And it is so sweet, too! Firstly, I very much like the concept/quality/action/trait (I don’t know what to call it) of Bravery.  When I act in Bravery, I am stretched in ways that preclude my ego and encourage me to stand up and take a stand.  For others.  For me.  And for those who don’t have a voice.  When I am Brave, I give myself permission to say or do something that might lead to judgment or reprisal . . . but I say or do it anyway because my moral compass is in the driver’s seat.  Being more of an introvert, afterward, I am always a little surprised and shook up that I took a stand without even really thinking about.  It just felt like the right thing to do.

I also like that the video below chose dancing on a public street to symbolize Brave Expression.  Have you ever danced in public when others are looking at you and saying, “Huh?”  Or have you ever been the first one out on the dance floor?  Or do you dance for the security cameras just because they are there?

See, that’s the thing.  Dancing is one of those forms of personal expression that can be intimidating to a lot of people.  I think this is true because dancing taps into a part of our inner soul and allows it a splashy escape to the outside world.  Very few people think that they, themselves, are amazing dancers.  Am I a fantastic dancer?  No, not really.  Do I love dancing?  Yes!  This is why I don’t want to wait for permission and squander some awesome dance music while waiting for someone else to break the ice and get the party started on the dance floor.  I guess I feel that there is a shortage of live-band, dance-worthy music in my life. . . so, as a rule, I’m not going to miss a single second.  It is so fun to dance!

pencil stubClick on the aqua-blue link below for your free journal download.  It is written with the idea of inspiring Brave in your life.  An action of being Brave provides one of life’s rewards that leaves a shadow of inspiration behind.  It doesn’t feel like it stays for very long, but I think that it does.  I believe that being Brave grows us from a deep part within.

Your Amazing Aqua-Blue Journal Prompt:

Your Brave. journaling prompt

[Print this prompt out, 3-hole punch it, and start your journaling binder.   Take the writing journey and listen . . . you can’t get lost when you are following your own heart.  After all, you are the only one who can hear what it has to say.  The only one.  Relax, read, think, feel, listen, write.  Repeat.  And enjoy the journey.  It is a fine one, and one that is perfectly-made just for you, I promise.  Life is meant to be grown.]

Sara Bareilles – Brave

Try Something New: What’s Stopping You?

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

IMG_3357Is there something that you have been wanting to learn?  To do?  To try just once to see what it would feel like?

Is the Fear of Failure holding you back? Does it feel like a lack of resources is underwhelming your life?  Is there someone in your life who is telling you that you procrastinate and you never finish anything?  Is there a voice in your head that always gives you bad advice?  Don’t start.  You have so much to do around the house.  You have to get up early in the morning. You haven’t done laundry for a week.  The garage is a disaster.

Do you feel like you simply do not have enough time to even think about starting something new?

You make the choice.

Well, there’s bad news and good news.  The bad news:  You don’t have enough time.  The good news: You do have enough time.  You choose which news you want your inner soul to hear.  You choose.

I kept delivering the bad news to my heart, my mind, my hands, my spirit, while forestalling the good news for an unspecific time in the mythical future when “I had more time.”  I was living in a steady hum of constancy that was focusing on everything that wasn’t quite right with my life: playing an elaborate shell game with finances, juggling too many jobs with school and homework, barely keeping up with household chores, and feeling like my life had all the fun sucked out of it by some cosmic vacuum cleaner.  All of this MindSpeak was proving to be so exhausting to my Inner Spirit that I simply stopped trying to inject newness or creativity into my day.

It felt like I was buried by life’s stuff.

I wasn’t merely stuck.  I was buried.  I would find myself paying bills online while listening to a class-assigned podcast while brushing the dog while folding the laundry while feeding the cat.  I was all over the place.  All of this multi-tasking madness. . . until I thought to add a new personal challenge to the day’s mayhem: Try something new every single day.

In the beginning . . .

In the beginning, this challenge verified the bad news –> it was something that felt like an added extra that felt to be overwhelmingly huge and impossible.  My MindSpeak went into hyper-mode: When am I going to have the time to try something new every single day?!  My days already feel like pasta in a pot of water — on constant boil and threatening to spill over onto the clean stove top at any given second.

The Wooden Spoon Trick

IMG_3360But I was so craving Different in my life.  Better.  More centered and mindful.  I remembered reading that if you lay a wooden spoon across a pot of boiling  pasta that it won’t over-boil.  The pasta can boil merrily away with no more messy stove to clean up.  So simple and easy . . . and it works!  This Wooden Spoon trick reminded me that life need not be so overly complicated.  Just try . . . and do . . . and lay the spoon across the pot. And try again.  It is absolutely possible to turn a moment of my day into a gesture of mindfulness.  I can make it happen.  I will make it happen.  I scrawled across the top of the wall-mounted white board in my office with my blue marker: You’ve got this!  Try Something New!  Today!  I mean it!

It has proven to be a bit of an experiment to see how it works.

I originally intended on focusing on one single something new to try for the 30 days — in an effort to create a positive new habit.  My thought: develop some consistency and build some sense of discipline by adding only one thing for an extended period of time.  Like one of those scary-clown jack-in-the-boxes, all sorts of ideas came popping up out of my mind’s Procrastination Department.  Play piano every single day.  Save on gas and ride my scooter to work every single day.  Eat a healthy breakfast every single day.  Work out every single day.  Sort through one box in the garage and get rid of stuff.  Do one or all of these things every single day for 30 days.

What did these things have in common?

But I found that these ideas weren’t working — and they weren’t very inspiring either. And besides, everything that I was thinking of involved fulfilling some obligatory should: be healthier, practice music, save the environment, clean the garage.  All of which are very lovely ideas, but still . . . This challenge was supposed to be fun and invigorating.

As I was casting about for the best way to implement my challenge, I discovered that was working was trying something different, unique, and unexpected every single day.  Examples?  I started piano lessons — and have been pretty disciplined regarding playing everyday.  I went dancing at a casino — great stories as a result of this adventure.  I broke out the new orange-and-white kitchen towels that had been preserved in their pristine state in my kitchen drawer — now brightening my kitchen and thoroughly broken in with the hues of red wine, carrot juice, and tomato sauce.  I introduced myself to a stranger — and we have since become acquaintances.

IMG_3317You get the idea.  I called an old friend just to say hi.  I bought Swiss chard at the vegetable stand.  I wrote a long overdue letter.  I told someone about my current writing project.  I had dinner at a restaurant that I had been wanting to check out.  I took photographs of garbage.  I added kale to my morning smoothie.  I had fun with some color and painted on canvas.  And another new thing for me? I set aside judgment of “what is good” when I was done painting.  I simply valued the experience and the time spent swirling color around.

IMG_3355I started reading my horoscope.  I subscribed to a new-word-of-the-day website.  I started blogging.  I bought three tiny wooden tops, which are proving to create a really relaxing “stop point” during work and study time at my desk.  I spin the tops and, while they are spinning, I do absolutely nothing.  I learned that an absence of activity can feel pretty good.

My Try Something New Challenge has proven to be that magical wooden spoon on the pasta pot.  I not only have enough time to Try Something New, I have plenty of time.  Life’s harried pace has reduced its boil a bit.  Not completely, but a bit, nonetheless.  Nothing is boiling over and making a spilly mess that I have to clean up.

It feels like I have effected change.  Like the motion of the little tops, the vibrational ripples have been spreading.  There have been some really fun and surprising and happy results from being willing to shake things up.   I don’t understand the way that time has expanded, but it has.  What I learned about this personal challenge: The hard part was starting.  The easy part is enjoying the expansive feelings of reward and appreciation.

You’ve got this!

Vision Board 058Would you like to share in this challenge with me?  Is there something new that you have been really wanting to do?

Please, leave a reply and post your One New Thing and share how it is enriching your life.  We all would love to hear about it!

Life is a lively event.  

Try something new, spin some tops, & effect the ripples of happifying change.

What’s stopping you?

Today? Let’s do the twist . . . then write . . . then . . .

/ Kennedy Farr / 1 Comment

Come on, Baby!  Let’s do the twist!

Today is January 2nd, and I am thinking about the List of Intentions for 2015 that I scribbled in my journal.  Being a process-oriented innovative type and not the get-‘er-done-and-check-‘er-off-the-list implementer type, there is nothing on my list with any defined or measurable outcomes.  In the past, I have tried to quantify resolutions into SMART-goal format — unsuccessfully so — as I gravitate toward quality experiences that are momentary and poof they are gone.

As I result, I do not make any New Year Resolutions.  I don’t say that I am going to kick butt at the gym and run for 10K 6 days a week, or that I am going to write 2000 words daily in one of my ongoing short stories.  I do say that I am heading to the gym or that I am going to write when the afternoon quiets down.  Perhaps if I were to quantify or to schedule such things, life would feel more accomplished.  Would I feel more successful?  I don’t know. I read once that it is better to schedule one’s priorities, rather than prioritize one’s schedule.  It is something to experiment with: schedule my priorities.

On my list for 2015, I wrote things down such as: Smile more.  Laugh at absurd moments that enter my life.  Meditate.  Exercise my mind and my body.  Play “Allegro” on violin and/or mandolin and do not slow down to lento in the more difficult passages.  Dance more.

I used to go dancing every weekend.  Friday or Saturday or Sunday night. . . or all three nights.  It was an important part of my physical, mental, and social life.  It still is important to me . . . I just don’t go to the bars anymore to get my dance groove going.

I woke up this morning with Chubby Checker’s “The Twist” running through the latter stages of my dream.   Then I found this awesome video, and it really made me smile.  And laugh out loud.  I felt so good that I felt prompted to tune my violin.  It was cantankerous due to having been moved into a new climate, but it is happily singing now.  I then spent some time meditating to further enjoy the morning.  Meditating always feels good.   When I completed my meditation, I found myself humming “The Twist.”  Then I replayed the video again.  Turned up the volume on my laptop and twisted with the awesome dancers on this video.  This definitely put me in a very happy place.  Back to one of my intentions: laugh at absurd moments.

What does this mean to me?  The power of writing.  The connection of writing to realizing my goals and my dreams.  After scrawling my “resolutions,” I was not consciously aware that I was following my morning’s “to-be-experienced” list.  When I wrote these things, I was thinking of a fuzzy concept to be wafted into my future 2015 — things that I enjoy doing or experiencing.

What I learned from this?  In the morning, make a short list of intentions that I would like to experience today.  Nothing definite or solid . . . just things that would be fun or fanciful or maybe even practical to see or to do or to be.  Then see what happens.  Write down wacky or unlikely things along with the more specific things with measurable outcomes like going to the gym or taking 10 photographs to document today’s awesomeness.

So, I guess this does create a resolution for me this year.  Be open.  Write things down in a dedicated notebook.  Look back at what I have written at the end of the year.  Start checking things off.  [This is beginning to feel like SMART goals!]  Be happy and celebrate the things in life that give me joy and that provide laughter.

Balance in Creativity: “a harmonious adjustment”

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

036Today required some awareness for the need to balance.  Balance requires the art of focus — from my brain, my heart, my body, my soul — and I do recognize that I sometimes choose to focus on that which temporarily tips the scales toward chaotic creativity.  Ideas are large — sometimes enormous — and time and resources are sometimes limited.

This is certainly not to complain.  I have learned that ideas can stay alive and healthy while balancing them to a place that still feels right, do-able, and rewarding.  When I pay attention, I am better able to balance.  Anne Frank wrote in her diary: “It’s really a wonder that I haven’t dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out.  Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart” (Frank, 2001-2010).  Her words.  Wow.  Full Stop.  Re-read.  Amazing, aren’t they?

Although my ideals and subsequent ideas may sometimes appear to be “absurd” or even “impossible” to incorporate into my daily living, the idyllic life-learning environment for me is an amiable, generous, and benevolent experience.  In my own personal learning journey, much of it can be defined as being those sparks in time that have engaged my brain’s limbic system – that most primitive part of the brain associated with basic needs and emotions.  When I link emotional brain to rational brain, all sorts of amazing creativity rises to the surface.

It is then when all creative Hades busts loose.  I am all over the map.  Folders are created.  Documents are saved with obscure titles and then stored willy nilly in the new folders.  Ideas are scrawled on Post-It notes.  My Idea Notebook is flipped open.  I grab a Sharpie and start scribbling on a vision board.  Scraps and notes are slipped into a drawer of the antique fruit dryer.  I text myself obscure reminders.  I eat pasta.  I write on my bathroom mirror in lipstick.  I decide to apply for another degree program.  I go dancing to tame ideas into a basic rhythm.   It is on me alone to skim that which appeals best to my creative hand.  All the while, swimming in ideas that all feel so great at the time . . . but what to do with all of them?  Where to store them for my eventual return?

Vision Board 075James Allen wrote: “A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer of the man with his surroundings.”  This quote is in accord with the importance of becoming self-actualized in order to reach individual and unique maximum potential.  Allen’s idea that there is “a harmonious adjustment” between our internal and external worlds is in absolute alignment with my life philosophy.

Alignment.  This requires focus.  This is to say that I must explore both worlds in order to achieve authenticity and balance in my living and in my learning and my believing. We are most convincing when we truly believe what we express to others. When we are passionate about our beliefs, toaster ovenothers respond to the energy we exude.  We live more fully.  We laugh more readily.  We love more easily.

By acting upon our beliefs, we show others that we mean what we say, and our energy ripples outward into the world. We are each given unique abilities and a purpose that we bring to the world. Like a puzzle piece, we each have our own place and are equally important to the complete picture. By sharing our passion with the world, we may help to awaken others to their purpose, guiding them to find their place in the puzzle. (Daily OM, 2010).

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What is that one thing?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

What is that one thing —  that if you don’t do it everyday — you don’t feel quite right?

Running, playing music, hiking, taking pictures, gardening, speed skating, reading, playing water polo, geocaching, scrapbooking, quilting, rock climbing . . . What if no one had ever invented or discovered your passion?  Would you feel the gap?

It does seem that so many of the things that we love to do are derived from prior necessity. Someone had to learn to sew skins together to stay warm and someone else had to run to chase the herd or dodge enemies.  Someone wanted to climb cliffs to harvest eggs and someone else figured out a way to record stories with symbols in order to preserve them from disappearing.

So many of the things we love to do have a connection to the Mother of Invention.  And then I think about needlepoint or rock polishing or yarn bombing or collecting Beanie Babies or toy voyaging?  Could you live without Extreme Ironing?  Is ironing cloth while kayaking that one thing that you would just feel weird not doing every day?  This is not to diminish another’s passion — I celebrate creativity! . . . I just wonder about the evolution of the soul’s striving to express itself in modern times.  Viva la difference!  And bring the iron aboard, Matey!

We do, make, collect, expand, display, and learn.  My interests feel fairly global.  Nothing too over the top.  They are simple: Writing.  Painting with acrylics and junk jewelry and gauze.  Playing music.  Sharing with and laughing with my Sweetheart.  Dancing.  Researching the limbic system.  Going out for Happy Hour with friends.  Taking pictures with my new and awesome camera.  Walking my dog on the trail.  Pretty basic things, actually.  But I would feel really unsettled if I didn’t have these experiences in my life.  How much of what we do, we do because our soul just doesn’t feel right if we don’t do it?  Surely there is enough time in the days.  At least this is what I want to believe.

These questions came to mind as a result of a trip to the vacuum-cleaner-bag store — which also sells sewing machines and fabric.  The salesperson, Donna, was so enthusiastic about helping me, I asked her, “What is it you like about your job?”  Donna responded by saying, “I get to be around what I love.  I get to help people with their sewing projects and then I feel inspired.”  She went on to say that her husband had built a room onto their house so she would have a dedicated sewing room.  She  said, “If I didn’t sew every single day, I wouldn’t feel right.”

Wow.  I went in search of Type A vacuum bags and left with a good dose of inspiring enlightenment.  Her passion for sewing was so evident and inspiring.  I wondered to myself, “What is it that I wouldn’t feel right not doing every day?  What would I do without _________?”

It is a good question.  Since meeting Donna, I have been consciously investing time in those things that really make me happy.  Prioritizing that which I naturally love to experience.  I love dedicating Sunday afternoons reflecting and journaling with my two best-est friends.  I really miss dancing if I don’t go at least once a week.  Twice is better. Thrice is the trifecta for my week.  If I don’t get paint on my hands at least once a month, I get restless.  I can’t imagine not laughing with my Sweetheart when we are together.  If I don’t write every single day, I feel weird.

Surely, this is what Donna was talking about.  If we don’t answer to our own selves, than we aren’t going to feel connected to Self at the end of the day.  Like there is some unfinished business just wanting to be completed — something that spills over into the next day . . . and the next. Like some creativity that is wanting to be expressed in 3-D on canvas.  Those running shoes that want to commit some memory to pavement.  Some invention that is simply nagging to be discovered.  Some research that is demanding a question to be answered.

It is like hearing an added sixth chord on a piano.  Would someone, anyone (!), go and resolve the dissonance, please?  Suspense is greatly (!) appreciated in jazz and in life but do allow me to experience a classical resolve as well.  I love that feeling of returning home.

What is it that you so love to do, if you don’t pay it any heed, you don’t feel quite right?  What is preventing you from embracing it and having some fun with it?  I am beginning to suspect that we are born with a compass of passion — that instrument within that guides us to do that which feeds our souls.  I love playing music and when I don’t prioritize it, something is out of balance.  I seek the resetting of my inner compass that will point me back home to that place of consonance.

 

Keep Calm and Love Monday

/ Kennedy Farr / 4 Comments

keep-calm-and-love-mondayIt’s Monday.  I love Mondays.  The new week of hope and promise and abundance is about to begin.  We groove through a weekend filled with preferences and sleeping in and  music and family and chores and reading the newspaper and maybe even some dancing.  Then we land on Monday’s doorstep.  Today, as you enter into your Monday, smile often, look up and around, and realize how fantastic life is.  It is today and you are in it.  Pet the dog’s head before you head out the door.  Thank your barista for that mocha.  Tell her she is awesome for jump starting your morning everyday.  Let someone into traffic ahead of you.  Do something crazy fun. Dance for the security cameras.  Surprise your boss with a smile.   Take a walk on your break and look at the state of the clouds.  Call your sister and tell her you love her.  Send someone a surprise email.  Share some dessert with someone.  Write a letter, a real letter.  Play hopscotch at the bus stop.  And . . . always believe that something wonderful is about to happen.  Because it is.  Your next breath, your next laugh, your next hug, your next decision. grow-786x305 Grow your Monday, intend some abundance, and harvest the beauty.

It is all one beautiful moment that is alive with promise: fresh and new and growing.

 

 

 

Who’s your Inner Baby? What do you love to do?

/ Kennedy Farr / 2 Comments

hold-on-to-your-childhood-cause-its-the-only-one-youve-gotWho’s your Inner Baby?  This is a super fun video (1:16) to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfxB5ut-KTs

We have all read and heard a lot about our Inner Child.  But what about our Inner Baby?  Much gets lost in translation between Babyhood and Toddlerhood.  And on it goes.  Toddlerhood and Tweenhood.  Tweenhood and Teenhood.  Teenhood and Adulthood. Some sense of autonomy or responsibility or conscience or something escalates our levels of self-doubt into radical stages of us double-guessing ourselves.  We gain in experience while our increased awareness of Other lends to added confusion of Self.

I am not a psychologist.  I have not researched what happens to us developmentally while we are growing and being alive.  But I do wonder where my Inner Baby went to.  It is as if something really innocent does get lost as the expectations of society are incrementally imposed.  My sense of spontaneity gets diverted into embracing the ways of politesse.  My sense of joyful random has been  funneled into sit-up-straight-and-behave.

Am I the only one that feels this way?  For example, am I the only one who still gets in trouble every time I go to the museum?  I don’t understand this phenomenon, but every. single. time. I go to the museum, I get scolded for something.  That door isn’t an exit.  Don’t get too close to the painting.  Don’t touch the painting.  Step away from the sculpture.  Don’t take a picture.  Now.  I do know that the doors that are marked in bright red as fire exits are not the acceptable way to locate the restroom.  And I know that breathing on and touching paintings are taboo.  And while I might be checking my phone for the time, it does not follow that I am going to aim and shoot with a damaging flash.  It is really kind of exhausting.

Someone once told me that the reason that I get scolded is that I have long, curly hair.  While I am open to this theory, I do believe that there is something else — perhaps some kind of mischief vibe — that I am giving to the museum’s VSRs.  Maybe it is my Inner-Baby vibe being unleashed without me even realizing it?

It is for the betterment of society that we learn these rules of etiquette.  What a crazy mob scene life would be if we didn’t have this cultural structure  to monitor our words and our actions.

But.  I watch this video, and I can see my inner child being mirrored back to me when I am doing something that I love that is fun and spontaneous.  I love to dance, so this video speaks to me very vividly.  And I can see my Inner Baby when I get out there on the dance floor and shake it.

What do you love to do?  

What is it that you see yourself doing in front of a magic mirror such as the one in the video?  I will refrain from MoonWalking my way through Chihuly’s glass series the next time I go to the museum, but I am going to have a good laugh imagining myself doing so past the docents and the stationed visitor reps.  Time to unleash my Inner Baby and have some fun!

 

What is the natural order in your life?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

Image

PROMPT: What is the natural order in your life?  

What is it that you do first before you think?  

What is that one thing that spontaneously drives you beyond having to stop, think, clarify, justify? Prioritize, verbalize, intellectualize, organize, strategize  . . . ?

What is that one thing that just pops into your mind?

Do you do this thing every day?  Once a week?  A month?  A year?  On Halloween?  On New Year’s Eve?  On your birthday?  Ever?  Never?  And if not ever, what is stopping you from doing it right now?

What is my natural order?  What is it that I do first before I even have to think about it?  It is exactly as Samuel Beckett has written: DANCE.  I love to dance.  I love to dance because when I do, time literally stops.  Any sense of time vaporizes, and I am caught in a moment of no-overthinking, no-planning.  I don’t think about my job, my current relationship, my to-do list, my chores, my student loans and other pressing bills.  I don’t think about having to set the alarm for the morning or needing to feed my kefir grains.  I don’t regret saying no to that someone who is always wanting me to over-commit to yes.  I don’t blame myself for making that mistake earlier in the day.  I give up the guilt that prevents me from experiencing my natural order.

I just dance.  I am no longer thinking and processing.  I am doing.  I am living my natural order.  When the music is really perfect for dancing, I have stayed out waaay too late on a work night.  I have returned to ex-boyfriends because the perfect song caught us on the dance floor together.  I once smoked a kretek after a night of dancing with a really Bad Boy.  [I feel so transparent confessing this!  If you knew me, you would know that this was a really out-there thing for me to do.]

Consequences of living your natural order?  Of course.  All of life has consequences.  What I do creates the experiences that form who I am.  But when I embrace my natural order, I am no longer a human doing; I have become a human being.  I want to be in my life.  I want to respond to my natural order.

What is the natural order of your life?  What is it that you do before you think?

Who is conducting your life’s tempo?

/ Kennedy Farr / Leave a comment

PROMPT: Is there someone or something in your life that is dictating your unique tempo?  A conductor who is in charge of the baton?  What is your tempo?

Tempo is the speed at which a passage of music is (or is intended to be) played at.  The notes, the dynamics, the tempo markings on the page direct us to celebrate not only the originality of the composer but his musical imagination of time and place as well.

The conductor provides the musicians with leadership in interpreting such originality and imagination.  I would imagine that it takes a lot of skill to feel the difference between hearing a passage played in a dignified largo or in the slightly slower and overlapping tempo of larghetto — and then convey such subtlety while waving a thin stick in the air.  Pretty tricky stuff.  After all, what would it be like if the horn section was playing a piece of music larghissimo and the strings were playing the same piece vivace at the same time?  What a muddle this would be.  The equivalent of fingernails scraping  the bottom of an aluminum bread pan.  Ouch.

Dissonance would occur.  Chaos would ensue.  The music would go splat.  We would all be wishing we had brought ear plugs.  The music would be distorted and not appreciated.  The composer would be thoroughly and unfairly dissed in a review.  Mahler, Debussy, Berlioz . . . they would all be understandably ticked — their masterpieces trounced.

But life is not a symphony on the page.  It is an organic composition that we are constantly composing and conducting.  What is the tempo of this moment?  Of today? What was the tempo of this past week?  Month?  Year?  How do I want to change things up?  Do I want to change things up?  For some of us, we want to add more presto to our lento.  Others of us, more adagio to our allegro.  There are those few I know who have discovered the secret of andante, just moving along at walking pace and taking in the view.

When it comes to life and its intricate and dynamic composition, who is conducting its tempo in your life?  When do you go with the flow of things for “the sake of”  and when do you fire the conductor and make your own fun?

Some days, I feel as if there are an inordinate amount of choices to make.   Jobs to quit and moves to make.  Adventures to invite and trips to take.  Dates to accept and relationships to end.  Boundaries to set or to release.  A small and puny voice inside whispers that it would be so easy to just hand over the baton and say, “Here.  Please.  Figure it out and then direct as you see best to interpret.”

But then the question begs to be asked: Who is truly in charge here?  Who did I inadvertently or intentionally or voluntarily appoint as my life’s conductor? And who is setting my tempo?  Do I I give the stick to some self-appointed authority or do I merrily swing the baton with the wild abandon that life’s music deserves?

Whew.  Some days even the harmony and stability of consonance  do not have the seductive power to sway me away from the transitional instability of dissonance.  There is something just so seductive about eradicating the tick-tock of the metronome and marking time up and down and all around.  Swing yer partner!  [True confession: I don’t know if I am embarrassed or proud to report that I was once meanly ostracized at a square dance for having too much frivolous fun while others were trying to dance squares to the beat.  Not my best night of dancing, to be sure, and I certainly did not feel compelled to return for more free lessons.  But I did learn a lot that night: sometimes “free” costs more than I can afford.  Sometimes more than I want to afford.]

So. Continue in your tempo and ignore the conductor.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.  To the boyfriend who is trying to solve your life problems.  To the family member who knows what is best for you.  To the boss who thinks your creative ideas are a drain on his brain.  To the grumpy man at the square dance in the taco-shell hat and the snap-down checkered shirt with a lot of points.  To anyone who thinks that their perceptions of truth are the best match for you and your tempo.

Life is hoofing it by in prestissimo.   And there are times when I want to trade in my zen for yeehaw.  I want to break the baton over my knee, kick up my heels, and have a hoot, even when it is deemed inappropriate.  Yell “Huzzah” for no visible reasons.  Invent and claim my tempo.