This pumpkin walks into a bar

Ballet, butterflies, Trader Joe's seasonal snacks

My pals and I adventuring in town this weekend

Hi friends! Apologies for this newsletter coming out late, I was feeling under the weather this weekend and I think I’m catching a cold which is setting me a little behind in academics and my personal endeavors, ie. newsletter. I am still trying to keep up with the weekly Sunday newsletter, and I’m pretty proud of myself for making it all the way through September! I hope I can make it many more months, but we will see how realistic that gets once things begin to pick up with work, school, and the list goes on. But, no need to think about that now, because we are here now, and I’m so glad you’re all here with me!

I am a sniffly mess right now, sitting in the common room with my friend using my “happy light” as our lamp. It’s supposed to help with depression during the many months that the Sun goes into hiding in the pacific Northwest (this has not begun yet, it’s supposed to be 80 degrees this weekend which is insane). We just danced and talked about dance and our childhoods growing up doing the Nutcracker every year and daily dance practice, our complicated relationships with dance as a creative outlet. She is still dancing (beautifully), which I’m a little envious of, as I wish I would have kept going in one form or another. It is hard to give something up that feels so formative to your inner self, and even though I’m pretty sure it was the right time for me to leave ballet, I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had kept dancing. I haven’t practiced classical ballet for five years, and my dancing skills now are attuned to what they were when I was three and began my dance career, but I dance all of the time. In the kitchen while the water is boiling, the living room when nobody is home, the shower with music playing, my room with the speaker on (I am so sorry downstairs neighbors, you must be sufficiently peeved by now). The way I dance now would probably send the many teachers who trained me in ballet for twelve years to have aneurysms, but luckily I don’t think they will ever have to experience that. 

From the time I started ballet, dance and I had a complicated relationship. Anyone who dances know that many people who only see this art from the outside severely underestimate the mental and physical challenges that come with being a dancer, especially if you’re dancing in a studio, in the training process, auditioning for role after role and feeling like every move, every jump, every spin is being carefully picked apart and analyzed by a teacher who rarely smiles. Ballet is inherently competitive, as you are trained to compare yourself to everyone else around you. In ballet lessons when I was around five or six, we would all take turns spinning about the room, to a rhythm the teacher had set as they clapped and gave us a sequence of simple turns or jumps to follow. One by one, I watched as every other girl in the class performed, and felt completely inadequate by the end. I don’t think there was one moment after age six or seven that I felt like I completely belonged in the studio, dancing under the instruction of a teacher with a group of people my same age who were more flexible, who turned more times, who jumped higher and with more elegance. Our teachers would circle the room, giving each girl critique and/or praise in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. The feeling of being the only one heavily critiqued in a room of over a dozen people is one I wouldn’t choose to feel again. 

I don’t miss the feeling that my body had to change to be adequate and worthy to be just as good a dancer as everyone who was thinner than me, had longer limbs. There were so many times throughout my years at the studio where I felt like if I looked more like other girls, my teachers would have liked me more, or just paid more attention to me during lessons. It felt like they were dismissive sometimes, since they knew I wasn’t built for ballet. I wasn’t tall, and I wasn’t thin. My limbs weren’t long and my thick, curly hair was difficult to slick back into the perfect ballet bun. Besides feeling inadequate in my fouettes and pas de bourres, I felt as if my body, something I couldn’t change, would never be sufficient if I wanted to be a “real” ballerina. 

However, there were really wonderful aspects of dancing in a studio, too. I met some of my closest friends at the time, so I never felt completely alone in my concerns or anxieties. It was also a beautiful and challenging way of expressing emotion (during contemporary lessons- showing any emotion in traditional ballet other than an unaware blissfulness is frowned upon), and just moving my body in the best way I knew how, and a way that I loved. When I left ballet, I was relieved to be freeing myself from an art that had gone from feeling like a release to feeling like a trap. But, like any relationship that’s ended, all of the good doesn’t go away immediately. I missed my friends, I missed my time being full with something I had done since I was three years old, in a space I felt pretty comfortable. I missed the rhythm and routine dance had brought me, and the consistency of practices and rehearsals. 

I have settled into a life without dance, but there are times when I try to emulate lessons and hours stretching and dancing without a pause, until I’m out of breath, until someone comes home.

Magdalena (a poem)

If you were a shooting star, you’d move slow to let them watch you

You wouldn’t rush across the sky, you’d take your time, let them tether you in

Your home made of hay the wolf won’t touch, windows open to a make believe view

Magdalena, you paint your lips over with red right after they turn to blue

You spread rumors when they’re true, you apologize for things you did on purpose 

Impossible to reach, easy to touch but not to feel, Magdalena I can’t hear you, please come back, the shore is begging you, resurface

But how many rules can you follow, and how many times can you lie through your teeth about being okay, able to breathe deep

They’re confident you’ll never drown because you never have before and it’s easier to love someone when you think they’re doing alright

Part of you wants to stay underwater for a little longer this time, just to make them nervous

But I know you love the dolphins and I know you

If it was up to you you’d stay down, but you’re too scared of hurting them to try Magdalena,

Magdalena, I know you love the water, and I feel like it’s my fault

You taught yourself just for me how to breathe in all the salt 

But you’re still perfect windows open, always singing the same songs awake and at ease

Watching out for all of us and never down, awake on the phone, crying only in your sleep

Magdalena, you can breathe

you can float, let the water hold your weight and let them hold theirs

Dance with your family and let them finally sing, rest your voice, listen to something you’ve never heard, watch the stars, watch the birds, Magdalena

Magdalena, Magdalena, I don’t want you to stay break down but

I don’t want to be selfish so swim for while, shooting star come back down, break down

I promise you can float while keeping your crown

You can believe in God and place your feet on the ground 

You can remember our names without forgetting your own

You can smile without your teeth and you can sit shotgun

Magdalena, come to my place if you want to be held

Or just sit in the quiet, drink tea, whisper in silence

Magdalena, go wherever you don’t have to burn yourself to light a room 

Magdalena, let the river carry you, hair wet until you’re home 

Magdalena, your love will sustain the air in my lungs until we’re eaten by beetles

And ants and the works, Magdalena I’m sure you’ll thank even them

For giving your lifeless body purpose, for loving your lips even when they’re not red

September songs

I found lots of new wonderful music this month, and got back into some old tunes I love. 94 tunes to be exact, and you can scroll through them below if you desire

Trader Joe’s seasonal snacks

Especially fall and winter (the real reason I am so excited for all the silly holidays), and I haven’t gone to Trader Joe’s since the fall snacks arrived, however I have the autumn inventory pretty much memorized, and these are some you must try even if you aren’t a Trader Joe’s local

You should also get a cinnamon broom while you're at it

Upon making this list, I realized that I haven’t had over half of these this season, which is quite sad. Butternut squash mac and cheese is probably one of my favorite foods on the planet, as is the pumpkin ice cream, and I think I may have missed my window. Heart= a little broken but I shall recover (praying for a Trader Joes run in the next couple weeks)

Chobani yogurt

We definitely have a food themed week (I love and live for food and it just happens to be reflected in this newsletter). The little Chobani yogurts with the fruit stuff at the bottom (blueberry, black cherry, and mango are currently in the communal fridge- my fridge is coming next weekend! I will be sure to include it next newsletter) and also the little lemon ones. Most mornings I have one of these with a lot of granola and some honey and it’s just a lovely little breakfast that’s quite easy and pretty affordable for my fellow college students

Mozzarella balls (or maybe just Italian food)

One more food because food just has my heart and I really miss good food. My lovely friend Katy’s birthday was on Friday, and it gave us a great excuse to go out to dinner. It was the first time I’ve eaten non-dining hall, really good food in an extremely long time and it was kind of really spectacular. There was pizza (one with garlic cream sauce which is insane) and fettuccini and spaghetti and chessy garlic bread. And there was mozzarella (I just spelled mozzarella wrong three times) balls. I don’t know what it was about them, maybe the fact that they’re called mozzarella balls, but they were incredible (even the one I dropped in sauce). Go get yourself some mozzarella balls (unless you’re lactose intolerant, in which case I am so sorry, although I think all of us are to varying degrees. However that’s a topic for another time).

I want to eat more of these so bad.

The beautiful painted butterfly

Today’s bug is the painted butterfly. The painted butterfly can migrate incredibly long distances, which can be observed in Ireland and Britain. Every year, they fly northwest from North Africa to the Middle East, central Asia, mainland Europe, and ending in Britain. In their two to four weeks of life, they fly up to 100 miles per day during their migrations, and reach northern areas much before some of their butterfly relatives. The painted lady is also an irruptive migrant, meaning it migrates without regard to any seasonal or geographic patterns.

This brings us to the end of today’s newsletter. I hope you have a lovely week, that it will be full of mozzarella balls, dancing in the living room, and discovering new favorite songs, maybe making a little playlist. Thank you for hanging out with me for a few minutes! Spoon and I are so glad you’re here

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Love,