Running Uphill Backwards

Wow, I haven't written a blog entry in months! If there was an award for slackingest blogger, 'twould be mine. Somehow I just haven't felt like documenting my journey at all, and have just now made some sense of why.

I've been moonlighting with my former carreer as a modern dancer and have been working since February on creating a dance performance with four other dancers, custom-created music, set pieces on which we dance, costumes, lights, a small black-box theatre and a reception to follow. I thought it would be a fun lark, and a fun show in which I'd get to have a fun time dancing. What I created was not only the above, but another self-designed obstacle course, everywhere I turn is another former demon to face, everywhere another ghost of my dance past. I have to marvel at the intelligence, elegance and thoroughness of my design - it's been a non-stop test at every twist and turn, speckled with some quite wonderful and enjoyable moments, too.

I have a lot more to say about this, which I will in my next entry, but to explain this blog's title: a friend of mine emailed me to tell me about a dance show she created that will go up a few weeks after mine - and her title is thus: Running Uphill Backwards. Nothing could describe these last few months, except if I added in, Running Uphill Backwards In High Heels, With a backpack, Two Suitcases, Three Lunchpails and a Cellphone.

Somehow I have more of a sense of humour about it since I've named and identified the shape and scope of my hard time. It tends to work: when I know, ah! this is what's going on, this is why, this is how big and how long - then somehow I am able to relax into the painful, strange, uncomfortable and magical ride of it all.