Amy and I got back this afternoon from a mini-retreat to the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, CA.  We planned this trip in order to work on our final details for our upcoming fundraiser on Monday and to further hash out ideas to take with us on our Berlin trip, which we depart for next Wednesday.  Busy week next week!  It seems our retreat adventure came and went in a flash and I can barely recall having been there.

The Headlands Art Center is the magical place that I came to in 1996 when I was awarded an Artist in Residence from Ohio for my performance and visual art work.  This place fills my whole self with a high that awakens my senses and memory of past years.  Whenever I come out here, I feel deeply connected back to those days and months when I had the opportunity to develop as a maturing artist (at the wee-age of 26).  I often think how incredible that time was for me, how honored I was to receive a 3-month residency.  I made my way from Cincinnati to Sausalito to be welcomed by a huge bedroom and one of the large studio spaces all to myself.  As Artists in Residence, we had dinner prepared by a chef 5-nights a week and the sprawling green hills of the Marin Headlands to call home for a while.  I remember being overwhelmed at first, sleeping on the floor of my studio for many days, not knowing what in the world to do with myself with so much time, space and no pressure to have to create.  Somedays, the 6:00 dinner time was the only plan I would have.  Thank goodness for that time!  What was I to do with all of this, especially when the intention of this residency wasn't to create anything but to be? - To take in the Headlands landscape, interact with the community of fellow International Artists in Residence and reside in the sanctuary of free space and time (Today that is heaven, back then it felt at first like a mini-hell!  I felt trapped by freedom).  Little did I realize, it was that exact recipe that inspired me to use the space and express my creativity in a way that I may never have realized.  It was a gift that took years for me to digest and really understand how to appreciate.  It helped me recognize that I have the ability to take things for granted and not even know how to appreciate them until the experience has passed.  What are other areas that I do that in my life?  I wonder why that is?  Or maybe I appreciated experiences as much as possible at a given time, and upon reflection, I can appreciate it even more since my life is so different today.  Meditate on that…..

When my residency ended, I went back to Cincinnati and I remember feeling strongly that it was time to leave, time to spread my wings...or simply it was time to change.  I had built a connection with Maura in NYC who was creating a dance company called, In Mixed Company, so after a week back, I moved up to NYC.   (I wrote about much of this story in a previous blog on a visit to NYC in February.)  After 6 months in NYC, I ended up back out here in the bay area after being asked and agreeing to join Joe Goode Performance Group.  It was meant for me to be out in the bay area for so many reasons.  Little would I learn that for my well-being, San Francisco was where I needed to be.  I was struggling with how to take care of myself in my mid to late twenties and it seemed that looking outside for happiness was the way to go, which kept me hunting for more and more places, people, things and ways to be happy.  I didn't want to be seen as weak so I hid my struggles, which created a Marc that I wanted others to see, and a Marc that no one could see - and one was constantly threatening the other.  I wasn't even clear which life was meant to prevail! I was most certainly trapped in a fiercely dualistic perspective, lost in looking outside of myself for answers, caught in black and white, winner and loser, right and wrong way, better and worse.

During my first couple of years here in SF, I was often complaining about the area, wondering if I was going to go back to NYC where so much more was "going on".  I wasn't sure if being here was gonna stick, if I could handle places closing at 9pm!  Was I gonna feel like an artist still, or was joining a dance company on the west coast selling out?  Was I killing my momentum around making my own work?  I remember back then, that I was feeling desperate to just be involved in making art because I was struggling to make ends meet.  Here was a steady dance job and I was gonna be able to live off of a salary, more or less.  I discovered after getting here that I would need to do other work to subsidize my dance work - welcome years of catering.  I discovered after some years, that this was the most perfect place I could have landed - personally, artistically, emotionally and spiritually.  Being in San Francisco, away from what felt like the drug of NYC (but really had nothing to do with NYC), I feel like I've been able to acknowledge and bring healing to the addictive ways of my being, the split-life persona, in order to find the truth of happiness within myself.  Yoga and meditation practice have been some of the important keys on this key-chain of healing.

So many times it has taken great reflection to be able to comprehend what was going on in my past years, to be able to appreciate the gifts in life.  Like untangling a string of knots and only then being able to appreciate beauty of the string.  I happen to actually love untying knots as a side note.  It takes patience, acceptance and discipline and whenever I do it, it brings a peacefulness…after some frustration and confusion usually, which I seem to be ok with going through.  It's an untying meditation….in many ways I'm sure.  Nowadays, I try my best to appreciate the moment right when it's happening.  I said to Amy on our way up, that I wanted to be sure and appreciate our time up there WHILE it happens, rather than wait some years and then look back and be able to recognize the coolness of this experience.  I want to be able to recognize and appreciate all of the love that I receive from so many people.

I do feel blessed to have been invited to present performance pieces out there over the years.  It was really the only place that I felt inspired and where I experienced a longing to make work.  Out at the HCA, I have felt more invested in process and true creative expression.  It has felt more authentic to me out there.  In recent years since I've stopped dancing, I've returned to paint and to have retreat experiences, like what Amy and I just experienced.  We used this time to focus on our current work with the company she founded - Amy Seiwert / im'ij-re.  So that's what brought us out again after our first visit together in 2008.  We got some work done these last few days, but I have to say the highlights for me were:  1. building little rock sculptures during the hike we took. 2. Singing various versions of the 12-days of Christmas but using our days at the Headlands as reference for the lyrics.  3.  Freeing a trapped bat in our house in the middle of the night.  4.  Seeing Headlands folk that I love.  It was a very short time, but the feelings last a while.  I like getting high on the Headlands.  I appreciate all that happened.  I do.

Tonight I taught yoga class at Studio Gracia.  Olivia has become my faithful student and I love teaching class to her.  We had the experience of practicing while set pieces were assembled and loaded onto a Uhaul for a couple locations of on-site work by LevyDance.  Many great sounds, footsteps and conversations filled our ears during class.  I encouraged Olivia to keep focus more on the music or her breath, and to pull back from the studio noises, the distraction - to bring her mind away from noise and to direct it to the calm.  I joked after practice that all of this was planned for her benefit - to test her strength of mental focus.  I believe this really was about all that and Olivia proved to know how to do that.  How great to have this challenge.  After class, I went to watch the work by LevyDance at Washington Park and Union Square.  It was a sweet night of seeing friends, witnessing beautiful art in public spaces and taking a break from all that I have going on.  The late bike ride home and the late night dinner weren't really what I was planning on, (let alone staying up to work on this blog), but it sure was a nice way to end my day.

I'm learning to love whatever my day brings…or to at least not take any moments for granted, any of them.  Any of them will change and become something else and I may even forget them...which I'm ok with. I'm so happy that I get high on life these days.  Sure better than anything else I've tried...and I've tried!