jake and layla make a dance...

jake and i have been talking a lot lately about owning our happiness. that idea (sometimes seemingly obvious... but if you're human like me, shit. making mistakes and learning how to be the layla i actually want to be isn't always my initial reaction...) that being happy comes from being inside of what really drives you. you. not what others validate as an acceptable form of expression. doing what i need to do to be happy is key for me right now. for as much as i think i know about myself, there's always more. and i'm usually the last one on the obvious bandwagon, you know?

so, as i mourn the loss of one great pal, i've got another who is allowing and encouraging me to own the things that make me, me.

jake and i are making a dance together. yes. our friend ryan asked if it would be an adventure with a lot of spinning/twirling... he's interested in that. i think we'll have to throw some in to keep him engaged,

but seriously, we had a rehearsal on saturday. i am a better person because of it. for so many reasons. being in the studio is always beautiful/exciting/challenging. and when it's with someone that i trust and respect as a collaborator... shit is magical.

basically, we rolled around for two hours. which, isn't too far off from what we used to do back when we worked in the same building... but intentions were different. it was like being in grad school again. we played with patterns and tricked our brains into moving in ways that are not our comfortable lexicon. pure joy.

i'll post some video one of these days... for now, i'm enjoying how high it leaves me. seriously... i can feel the effects for days. owning this joy (with a little help from my friends...).

ps... for about a year now, jake has been saying this to me: i was meant to be a dancer. me too, buddy.

aaaand, that's a wrap...

first there was this post, followed by this one. remember? well, let me fill you in on what's been happening...

-there was the first guy. the one who seemed great, at first. responsive, attentive, willing. and then. shut down mode got turned on. maybe we should slow down, he said. sure, i said... under the impression that he would set the new pace. wrong. complete hault, and then... where have you been? he asks. also, he smoked at least two blunts per day. blunts y'all. i thought i was the one from long beach.

-the unemployed one. it's seasonal, he said. well, season yourself right outta here please.

-the amazing one. he was funny, made great conversation, interested in art (and dance!!!!!), handsome, divorced, had a great job. brilliant. two insane dates later, i'm in a complicated situation. i'm in love with someone but we want to see multiple people, he says. avoiding a complete meltdown, i say no thanks.

but friday night was the worst date ever. i mean it. worst. date. ever. (i realize i'm going to throw out a lot of information and not a lot of context, but hey, i'm the boss around here (i'm feeling awfully feisty today)). here are some of my favorite things he said:

upon arriving: -you gonna get yourself a drink or just watch me drink mine? (he may have chuckled right after he said that, but as i turned toward the bar and considered leaving already, i was having some major internal dialogue, so i could be mistaken)

-i wish you'd brought me to a bar i'd never been to before.

-your dad fought in the vietnam war?! your parents must be soooo old.

-why the hell would i ever want to live in the city? only self indulgent fools who are still trying to live like they're in their 20's and party all the time live in san francisco. (i live in san francisco... he lives in alameda. and he's 30)

on skydiving: it was ok. not the most exciting thing i've ever done. what is the most exciting thing you've ever done? you ever gone 100 miles per hour on a [some dumb ass motorcycle]? hmmm. nope.

-i'm a caterpillar mechanic. wow, i have no idea what that means, but it sounds interesting. i dig up the earth. oh, mmm hmmmm. how'd you get into that? well i didn't want to work with wood.

-what do you do? well, i'm a dancer and choreographer. and i teach various movement modalities based on somatic systems to help people discover pain free ranges of motion. that's weird.

let's not even get started on the conversation we tried to have about monsanto. i left 45 minutes after i arrived.

ok, cupid. is. done. i'd rather sit at the bar at starbelly, by myself, read the paper and eat a burger.

i found it here. you buy one for me, and i'll buy one for you, ok? and the piccy here. chin up, cheer up.

best...

yesterday is one for the record books. such a brilliant day. jake and i had a bunch of together time... which can generally make me nervous, but we're pretty good at being friends. probably, i don't have to worry about too much together time.

we met for coffee at philz (duh) and then hit the road for the world savvy challenge. world savvy is an amazing organization promoting students k-12 to become active, educated, participatory and responsible global citizens. read about them, for real.

so jake and i were volunteer judges for the world savvy challenge. we watched performances, looked at exhibits and observed round table discussions about the need for change as it relates to sustainable communities. what what?! ya, junior high and high school students talking about using bamboo as a resource to build houses in haiti, the epidemic of e-waste, water shortages and hunger. the performance that i didn't get to see... which was a major hit... isolationism in north korea! the musical.


i. know.

oh, and... the keynote speaker rapped beef  by boogie down productions. yes. 

yes.

a bunch of my brown ledge crew was there. that's my summer camp world. in fact, the organizer of the even is a brown ledge girl and overall brilliant genius. and jake, who knows very little about camp was thrown right into it. he's a champ, but perhaps a teensy bit overwhelmed by our rapid paced conversations and squeals over memories and summers past.

we took a break from each other, but then reconvened for PINA. you haven't seen it yet? do. it. now. a wim wenders film made with the dancers for the late pina bausch. genius. and in 3-d.

and of course i ran into one of my sarah lawrence dancers in the theatre. ok, not just any sarah lawrence dancer... but the one who danced for me during her entire sarah lawrence tenure. more squealing. more rapid fire talking. this time with wayyyyy more gestures and general wiggling. we talked about dance and movement and training bodies for movement patterns and visceral reactions to movement and how fucking scary that can be.

i have amazing friends. so blessed. so in love with it all.


be kind. i love you. piccys are still coming from ffffound.

ch ch ch changes...

because of this, my mind has been more swirly than normal. more swirly. hard to believe, i know... but, apparently, i've been holding it together like a champ. who knew?! i've heard that my smile has been bigger in the past few days than it has been in a while. most people think i have a new boyfriend or something (barf).

jt has been sooooooo nice to me this week. seriously. taking good care of my downtime, and keeping me entertained. sometimes i don't even think he's doing it on purpose... it's natural for him. but, man oh man, do i appreciate it. sittin' with me at the ferry building, strolling through the farmer's market to taste sorbet, eating dinner and going to yoga. so indulgent, that one...

here's what we've seen:

and all of this makes the prospect of change even more scary, but he's got some stuff swirling too. so there's excitement and anxiety together. remember i told you about job changes? more to come. bigger and better. but that reveal needs to wait a few more days.

love you. and thank you for sending me so much kindness in the past few days. it means more than you will ever know... well, you probably know.

here's how i'm workin' it today...

i'm in love with my yoga teacher. she is so retarded amazing. and knows exactly what i need... i was in tears in the first 15 minutes of class. all good things, ya know? here's what's happening today... make yours a good one too, oui?

i'm also hella inspired to find new music today... my yoga teacher played some amazing tunes today. so, here's what's happening in my class today...

1. raconte-moi une histoire - m83

2. how can you swallow so much sleep - bombay bicycle club

3. les champs-élysées - joe dassin

4. love endeavor - alice smith

5. radio - lana del rey

6. young blood - lynx

7. somebody that i used to know - walk off the earth

8. santa fe - beirut

9. sunshine - devotchka

10. stolen - dashboard confessional

11. no rest - dry the river

12 . i slept with bonhomme at the cbc - broken social scene

13. intro - the xx

14. when the night comes - dan auerbach

send me new tunes, please. and thank you. spread hope. xo

t.a.g. ...

i've never gone into explicit detail about tony guest. tony guest is my dad. he. is. epic. i mean it. and the two of us? we're complicated. in a great way. sometimes i'm astounded at just how similar we are... which sort of explains why we butted heads whilst i was growing up. i don't need to fight, to prove i'm right. he is really the only person i've ever had a shouting match with. (don't worry we forgave each other and moved on).

anywhoodle. he is in san francisco right now, hanging out. we drove from long beach to sf this week after i flew back from hawai'i. (did i mention i went to hawai'i? whoops. mahalo for your patience while i was on hiatus. more on that later... ) the purpose of his trip, you ask? he is here to do stuff. for me... such as... hang hooks on the wall for the dishtowels, hang shelves, paint the trim around the windows, hang hooks for towels in the bathroom. out here in the fields. i farm for my meals. i get my back into my living. oh, and how could i forget?! he brought me caribou antlers. ya. you read that right. antlers from a caribou. don't know what those look like? they're the size of you and me, put together. originally, he wanted to bring me the antlers with the caribou bust still attached. what? i politely suggested that perhaps that big ass 'bou wouldn't so much fit in my tiny ass studio apartment. he respectfully agreed. he's great like that.

take my hand.

we'll travel south cross land.

put out the fire, 

and don't look past my shoulder.

so, here's the thing. tony guest and i just spent the last hour watching every live version we could find of the who's baba o'riley (often mistakenly called teenage wasteland). y'all. for your personal enrichment, read this, then watch this...

epic. EPIC! that guy playing the violin is nigel kennedy. he is retarded amazing. we saw him once live. this was the bill: nigel kennedy plays bach, brahms, bartok and jimi hendrix. duh. he's amazing. oh, and he wore red, high top converse sneaks during the concert. probably, he's another of my soul mates. don't cry. don't raise your eye. it's only teenage wasteland.

back to tony guest. (and probably, you'll start to hear more about him as time goes on) he described to me what it was like to see the who live, in concert, at the great western forum (on a date with big red, no less. swoon city! hellooooooo? can you believe how lucky i am!?!? they made me!). doodle, he says, when we saw the who they played baba o'riley first. and it was darker than beans in that arena. and i was loaded. when the music started, they blew up a keg of flash powder. christ, i thought i was gonna be blind for life. i mean, that was really something. but i was so loaded, i didn't care. the music was just so brilliant. i didn't care!

the happy ones are near.

let's get together,

before we get much older.

did you just fall in love with him too? ah. it really is a brilliant piece of music.

lyrics? duh. read the above, you'll figure it out. that piccy is from pinterest. and why does my dad have a spare caribou in the house? he was a hunter at one point in his life. he "got" that caribou himself. fed he and his crew for two weeks. hope that didn't freak you out. xoxoxoxo

phases...

this afternoon jt and i had linner at an indian restaurant in our hood. they were playing some pretty rad tunes... i turned to jt and asked him did i ever tell you about my indian phase? he just stared at me. but, not in that christ, layla. what the hell are you talking about kind of way. more in a uh huh? i've been waiting for you to spill the beans about this and i'm not the least bit surprised, not one eentsy bit kind of way. how i adore this guy...

so, towards the end of undergrad, i was studying kathak and bharata natyam (both classical forms of indian dance). i listened to mostly indian music... anoushka shankar, nitin sawhney and lots of bol chanting. i saw performances by shobana jeyasingh and swooned over akram khan... i read a fine balance by rohinton mistry (disregard the oprah sticker... it's not to be missed) and even made a dance about that piece of literature. i talked for hours to grandpa jim about india and his experiences there during the war. i dated an indian fellow. you get the point, yes?

but no, i never went to india. blast.

i've had other phases... in grad school it was mexico. lots of dances about los angeles, angeleno/mexican culture, catholic saints, mariachi music... i realize that these phases may sound ridiculous/awful depending on your point of view. trust, it was my way of honoring and learning about the cultures... promise. all good intentions.

hey y'all? i feel another phase coming on. españa! i think maybe i'm supposed to go to live in spain. like, soon. i found this guy... he takes amazing photos and i cannot stop staring drooling at the flamenco dancers. spain. let's start saving right now, ok? until then, we'll take flamenco dance classes and maybe even a course in spanish. (i know, how come i din't learn spanish during my mexico phase... i was choreographing and writing my thesis at the time. plate. was. full.)

so. look at these: (i don't own these photos... and if you are journey photographic (i give you mad props) and you want me to take these down, i will... but pretty please don't ask me to, because i'm staring drooling...)

i've already looked at flamenco shoes online. it's. happening. now. oh i can't wait to make my feet move like that! and the skirts?! can you stand it?!

xo. i love you.

good news tuesday...

i was just explaining to some folks that i am a fake quilter. i sew stuff together and pretend it's a quilt... but it isn't actually a quilt. it's a fake quilt... see? here it is:

fake quilt hanging on the wall. (it's hella colorful because i made it when i was living in new york and not loving that dark grey life...)

so imagine my serendipitous surprise when my dear friend sweet t posted this on the old facebook!

WHO: Rebekah Werth hosts…

WHAT: A two-part beginning quilting workshop to kick off the new year!

WHERE: Gravel & Gold

WHEN: January 19th & January 26th both starting at 7:00pm.

WHY: We will meet for two nights for about two hours each night & learn the basics of quilt construction: how to plan a design with squares and rectangles, how to cut with a rotary cutter, how to pin, how to piece on a machine, how to press. The finished quilt will be a mini-quilt, or baby quilt sized.  Quilters can complete their tops at home before the next session, sewing by hand or on a machine. Quilters should bring at least 1 yard each of 3 different fabrics that “go together” for them. One suggestion is to choose one light, one medium, and one dark fabric.

In the second class we will cover how to make a quilt “sandwich,” how to tie a quilt, and options for binding. Quilters will need to bring their completed tops, batting or an old blanket for the inside, a piece of fabric to use for the back, and a pack of safety pins. Quilters will get set up to complete their projects at home. It would be helpful if participants have experience sewing a straight line on a machine, but not necessary. This is a class for real beginners.

HOW: Sliding scale donation for instruction starting at $10. Please RSVP to em@gravelandgold.com so we can make space for you!

i've already rsvp'd. so has sweet t. and if you live in san francisco... become a real quilter with us! oh, and it's at gravel & gold, a super awesome space that i have never been to but discovered way before i moved out here. sooooooo excited!

this has nothing to do with my quilting obsession, but did i tell you that my betsie's boyfriend came to my house last week at 6:45 am with this in tow...?

whaaaa? i hope you can tell by the bookshelves that this thing is taller than i am, literally. what in the hell am i going to do with this? oy. 

love you. (and remember to come quilt with me!!)