QotD: Take a Leap

What's the biggest leap of faith you've ever had to take?

It was April.  Or May.  I'd felt myself running up to the brink for many months.  And all the time, I'd prepared other options.  I didn't know which one I actually wanted.

A)  I had a job in Japan, teaching English.  It was there.  It was ready to go.

B) Um...there was this weird thing...with these two friends of mine...that seemed pretty good, but.. you know.  Choreographers?  Who calls their parents up and says, "Hey, guys--today I decided to become a choreographer!"

Somehow we awkwardly broached the subject that we should probably...talk.  About The Future.  Maybe when we weren't even drunk.  I remember that conversation happening in Monica's car, Katie.  I don't remember how it got started.

The three of us walked down Grand Avenue, and Summit Avenue.  It was a sunny day through the spring leaves.  We talked about greenhouses attached to old Victorian homes.  We talked about which ones we wanted to live in, what we liked about houses when we were children.  We talked about everything but the topic at hand.  I think we stopped in at Ben & Jerry's for ice cream.  Maybe we only talked about getting ice cream.

We got to the park at the hill end of Summit, the one that looks out on the Capital and downtown St. Paul and we sat at a bench, or maybe we didn't.  I feel like there is a statue of an eagle at that park, I don't really remember.  There's an eagle statue in my memory, taking flight over the city.  I was too nervous to make eye contact.  We were talking out at the city, not at each other.  The view reminded me of the park near my home in Albuquerque--that one looks out over a smaller city, browner, with mountains.

Somehow we weaseled these details out of each other:  We wanted to keep going.  We wanted to make dances together.  We would stay in the Cities for one year and re-evaluate when we got to the end of it.  We would live together, with Paul, if he didn't mind. 

I called the people in Japan and said, "No, thanks."  (After I called them anonymously and asked if turning them down would negatively impact my ability to get the job again in the future.  They said no.)   I don't know what preparations Monica and Theresa had to make. 

And that was my big leap of faith.  Faith that we could make dances together, faith that Minneapolis was the right place to be, faith that I could stay in Minnesota for a little longer.  Faith in dance that I lost during long, grueling years in high school and various confidence-crushing moments in college.

I am sure Japan would have been amazing and exciting, but there is something nourishing about these years in Minneapolis.  Every year we reaffirm that we want to stay; there is too much here to give up and go elsewhere.   I have learned how to have female friends, how to build community, how to make art collaboratively.  I am still learning how to balance my need for rent money with my need for time, my passion with my tendency to burn out.  Roots are starting to form here in a way I never thought they would.  I still want to travel a lot, to live abroad.  I trust that these goals are not incompatible with MKT goals. 

I think this year is going to be another good year for leaps of faith.  Starting tomorrow when all of this hair goes away:

Hair Memorial