Bionic Teutonic

I’ve been starting to get down back handsprings on the tumble track at circus. Last night, with only 4 of us in class, we spent the entire time doing tumbling, which was fantastic for about the first 3/4 of class. I’d been doing standing back handsprings and then moved on to round-off back handsprings and then back to standing back handsprings. Something about the difference in the way you throw your body when you stand vs. doing a round-off beforehand made it so that on the second go around, I basically just threw myself straight into the tumble track. I looked down at that point and saw my middle finger totally dislocated, bent almost 90 degrees off to the left. Scared the shit out of me. It didn’t even hurt that badly, but the sight of it was extremely unsettling. Fingers are not supposed to bend in that direction. I had to pop it back into place. Today my middle finger is about twice the size of the others.

We finally got keys to our new place yesterday. Yay! The remodel process took a little longer than we had hoped and they kept wasting our time having us come over for a walk-through when they were nowhere near being done. We showed up twice to what was functionally a construction site, complete with a bunch of Russian contractors running around and the bathtub sitting in the living room, while the sales agent tried to play it off like it wasn’t a big waste of time. We’ve started making little trips to start the move, but mostly, we will be doing it this weekend with a rental truck. It’s nice to feel like I’m moving towards being more moved in rather than less (due to having our house staged for the last month).

Also, it was exactly one year ago today that I took my first circus class! I am so glad that I decided to check it out - it has been an amazing thing to get to do every week. I’ve been having so much fun with it and it makes me smile.

This past weekend, Ariel and I hosted our annual summer campout at Sacred Groves (which I always want to write as Sacred Grooves for some reason). It was fantastic. This is our 3rd year hosting the campout, and it practically throws itself at this point. Our friend Aron rocked the music end of things, providing not only the soundsystem, but (along with LincolnUp and MonkeyTech) wonderful music as well. People brought decorations, food, amazing skills to showcase, and their beautiful selves. Friday night we simply hung out, getting to know new folks that our friends brought along (all of whom were wonderful) and hanging out around the campfire. Saturday was filled with yoga, more lounging, more food, town runs for coffee, hooping, diabalos, and all sorts of relaxing.

I rented an aerial rig for Saturday night and did a little routine for the first time. It was interesting putting together a little act and learning all the things you have to consider in a routine that you don’t when you are in class. At one point during my performance I realized that I was faced the wrong direction, away from the crowd, something I’ve never thought about paying attention to before. It seemed to go over well though. I think aerial silk is still so unfamiliar to most people that it’s just impressive to see it in action regardless of how polished my routine was. Our friends Lily and Shon put on a fantastic fire performance later in the evening and then we danced and hung out into the night. I have good friends.

Next weekend it’s off to Shambhala for more tribal hippie festivities. My hope is that when we get back, we will have gotten an offer on our house (it just went on the market Friday) and we can be done with it. I’m ready to have real estate stress be gone from my life. The kicker was on Friday morning, after having just signed the final paperwork on our condo, we get a call from our lender informing us that her company is filing chapter 11 and is going out of business at the end of the day. I don’t think it will turn out to be a problem to find somebody else, but that sent us in to a panick for a bit while we tried to figure out what that meant.

Only two and a half weeks to go, then I’m done, done, done with class. I can’t wait for summer. After spending the last 6 weeks neck deep in my textbook, a little freedom will be very welcome. I’m having visions of sunny days, playing in the park, and hanging out with friends (all of which are a little elusive these days). Ariel and I are starting the ball rolling on selling our house and moving back to Capitol Hill. Both of us are tired of living so far out and I’m definitely feeling the need to simplify my life logistically. Currently, I spend around 2 hours a day getting to and from work. While I’m in school, this is actually just fine, as I spend the bus commute studying, but I’d like to get that time back thank you very much. Add to that the fact that even going to the grocery store requires getting in the car, and it all equals us feeling a little bit separated from the life we are really comfortable in.

On a totally different and random note, someday, I want to be able to do this. This guy is amazing.

So, I’m obviously enthralled with my circus class, and I’ve been trying to figure out exactly what it is that I like about it so much. When trying to explain it to other people I usually end up saying something like “it’s like playing on a jungle gym when you were a kid” or some other such thing which really doesn’t say much. One of the guys in my class says it’s like being in superhero training school, which is an awesome way of looking at it, but also not very specific. Part of it is definitely just a sense of play, but tonight I was realizing that for me, it’s also a feeling of joy at being able to do something that when you first see it, you really don’t know if you can do it or not. I got to thinking that it’s like the first time I can remember going up to the high dive at the pool. There is this hurdle of courage or trust or something that you have to get over in order to will your body to jump. I remember being a little paralyzed the first time I looked out over the edge of the diving board, totally unsure if I could actually make myself jump, but when I actually took the plunge, all I wanted to do is run back up and try it again. I got that exact same feeling at class tonight after trying a drop that I’d been a little scared of (but that looks amazing). That feeling is pure joy to me.

I made this resolution at new years that I was going to try and get in shape, drop a few pounds and really rock the whole aerial thing. I’m pleased to say that I have managed to lose about 10 lbs so far. I’ve been getting a lot of exercise (lots of yoga, running, etc), but one of the main things I’ve been enjoying is not eating to the point of being full. It’s amazing how little we notice that we are overtaxing our digestive system by overeating until we, well, stop. I haven’t been going through as many energetic ups and downs during the day and after an initial period of having to overcome all my eating habits, I’ve been finding that I just don’t need to eat that much at one sitting. Also, I’ve been rocking my aerial class the last couple weeks. Obviously, it makes sense that the lighter you are, the easier it is to haul yourself up a rope, and I’ve really been enjoying it. Mostly because it hurts less to do drops. Less weight to catch = less pain. Which is good because I’m a total wuss.