Author: hannah.ananas

Closing time

Doo do-doo do-doo-doo…

Well, this is the final week of my current assignment. My home and my life these past few months has been this school and its students and mission. I am not so sure I can keep it together the rest of the week. Just practicing the song I will sing for them in each of their last classes with me, I was struggling not to bawl this evening… In one class in particular, I don’t know if I will be able to keep it together enough even to sing the song, let alone sing it well. (And I do believe that I usually sing it well.) In that class, I feel so full, my life feels meant for these kids – they make me want to buckle down and prepare the greatest and most wonderful curriculum possible for them for the rest of the year, that particular class. If I allow myself to be fully present to my emotions when we are saying goodbye Friday, I certainly will cry.

What’s more, it is likely I will be in tears for all the classes, anyway, saying goodbye to them – I love these kids so dearly. And I have never experienced wanting to stay with my students like this before now. Every time I left a school, while I was bummed, I was quite looking forward to an easier schedule and less intense work for myself. This time, however, is very, very different. I want to be a part of this school. I want to be with these kids and support them directly going forward.

I’m just not sure yet how that will look. 😉

Thank you, God and Universe, for this blessing.

Amen

Post-a-day 2021

We like to party

Well, it turns out that I still love to dance and need to dance. I also am majorly missing physical contact in my life, as strikingly noted when someone held me to dance and my whole being felt like it was receiving a balm (despite the fact that the guy admittedly didn’t know how to dance). And I am still able to stay up ridiculously late and have a wonderful time.

Alas, we shall see how well I function getting up to leave by seven-thirty AM tomorrow – in just under five and a half hours – and spending the day at RenFest, though… After the 23 miles for the bicycle ride this morning from the park to the port and back, and the show and then the work party this afternoon and this evening, I am amazingly exhausted.

I pray I be quite well and at ease tomorrow, please.

Thank you, and amen.

Post-a-day 2021

Stressful rest times

The weekend has only just begun, and I’m already greatly stressed, and I have been so for several hours. Having loads of activities over the weekend, when I have work all week long both beforehand and afterward, is just exhausting and stressful for me. Plus, next week is my last week, and there’s much I have to do to make that happen successfully. And the main teacher reached out in a way that felt not very respectful – not disrespectful per se, but not respectful either – this week, disregarded what I offered for times to meet, and so is coming to school in the middle of the day one day, when I already will be swimming with work I still must complete… I am not delighted about it, and am rather stressed about it. Ugh…

God, please help me to experience the rest I need tonight and this weekend, and help me o have a lovely time in all of my activities throughout the next eight days especially. Thank you for this life. Stay with me and guide me, please. Amen.

Post-a-day 2021

Love to give love

You know, I sometimes feel best when I am doing something for someone else. When someone has shown an experience of feeling unloved, and I take on something to show that individual pointed love, I, somehow, feel loved. No, I have not really every had anyone do things for me like I tend to do for others in this realm, but that doesn’t make me sad about what I’m doing. When I read these lovely notes from people to this one person, it is as though I get to experience the love tenfold, because not only is someone who felt unloved going to feel the love, but I was gifted a hand in his or her feeling that love. And I love doing and being able to do that.

Thank you, God and Universe, for allowing me such opportunities. Please, continue to bless such endeavors, including this present one. Amen.

P.S. Happy Pocky Day!! And happy ten-year anniversary of Pocky Day!! 11.11.11 to 11.11.21

Post-a-day 2021

Tum Tumm

I’ve had this drum for almost two years now, and I still am not very good at playing it. I haven’t had any lessons of any kind, because I don’t know drum players (for this kind), and I’m just not an internet lesson person (despite my encouraging others to do it regularly!)… man…, how do I sort out my life enough to be able to do all those internet lessons I have been wanting to do these past few years???

I think part of it is financial security. Another part is the predictability of my schedule and life that usually comes with financial stability and security. That makes the routine possible, and having the routine is something I both want and need for my learning things of all kinds. At present, though, I don’t allow myself the mental space for such things, as there is too much else that is more important that I still need to figure out, versus these things I just want to figure out. Yeah…

Hmm…

I’m hoping Thanksgiving week has drumming in it for me(!!!).

Post-a-day 2021

No way

I’m reading a sort of murder mystery ‘with a great plot twist’, as it was recommended to me this week. However, I had a sudden panic that there might be a dude living in the walls of this old house. If that is the case, I can not and will not do this book. No way. A film I was semi-forced to watch last year had that in jt, and it is still haunting for me. I just don’t do freaky crap like that. Ugh! I have too good a brain and memory to waste its effort or space on anything of that genre. I love a good problem-solve or Agatha Christie, but this one has me worried. I already have stopped listening to it close to or after dark, and it’s only the second day (and that rule started yesterday, actually). I asked the girl who recommended it to me, and she hasn’t replied yet. I’ve asked a buddy if he would look up a summary for me to find out about that specifically, and let me know if I need to stop reading it, but I haven’t heard back from him yet either. I think he’ll do it, though, as he tends to understand that I am just plain odd, and so something like that is a crazy yet important request for me. That isn’t to say that won’t comment on how bizarre I am, or even make fun of my total wuss-ness. But that is nothing. 😛

I just need to know if I can read this book or not. I’m already freaked out in bed tonight, and I’ve only just started this book! And someone is teaching downstairs but moved the porch monitoring camera, and that has me super freaked out. This book is scaring me, and it isn’t even scary yet… ugh!

Post-a-day 2021

Completion and New Beginnings

As this chapter comes to a close, God and Universe, please, guide me into the opening of the next chapter calmly, comfortably, gratefully, and wholeheartedly. May I bless the world with who I am and in all that I do, sharing fully your love with all those tied to me and this life. Help me to breathe easily in the knowledge that this all is perfect exactly as it is, and that you will use me perfectly for what only I can do and for what I am created and made to do. Please, give me the courage to do what needs most to be done, and to love truly.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Gratitude

Post-a-day 2021

Empty pockets, empty soul?

Tonight, I attended Mass at one of the wealthiest parishes in town. It was natural that the priest was insistent that everyone take a paper bag for the food drive – it has a list of items on it for one to purchase and then return to the church in the paper bag.

I did not take a bag, though I did consider it. I am not financially stable in a way that I can safely sacrifice the money it would cost to get all the items. Because it would be that for me, a sacrifice. I have barely been able to afford my own groceries and life bills lately. I cannot safely provide them for others, not right now, no matter how I may want to do so.

And so, as I was leaving Mass, the priest asked if I had gotten a bag. I told him that I hadn’t. ‘Why not?’ ‘It is not something I can do right now,’ I reply with best coming to my eyes. ‘Why not?’ ‘Because it requires money, which I do not have at present.’ ‘Ask your parents!’ he declares jovially, but allows me to thank him for Mass and pass without a bag.

I was fully crying by the time I reached the curb.

I immediately evaluated what was happening, of course. I was equating my financial situation with my personal worth, as well as my success as a person and adult and one worthy of being loved. And it sucked. And that was okay.

I reminded myself that being in my present situation isn’t bad. It is just what’s so, and my discomfort is merely a clear sign that I want to change something about it all. And so, what do I want to change about it all? Well, I want to teach. And at this particular school. If I need to wait another six months or hear and a half before I get to do that for real, that’s okay. Until then, I will continue to make myself better for my work, as well as make a difference in the world in my daily life. And I will make true efforts to have more money coming to me and reliably so. I can do this. And, as I mentioned to someone else today, failing at something doesn’t mean I am bad. It just shows how I can improve and allows me an opportunity to do so. Alors, let’s do it, Banana. We can do this.

Post-a-day 2021

Forgotten Gifts and Talents

Do you ever forget that you are actually really good at something, simply because you haven’t done it in a while? I think it happens to me rather often. Whenever I am not doing something consistently, I tend to think that I had previously overestimated my ability in it, and I the have at least a little bit of fear when it comes to doing that something again. It happened to me recently with teaching. And it has happened certainly with dancing. For the teaching, I always have a sense of imposter syndrome popping up, keeping eye in check – there’s always somewhere I need to improve and sort things out better. But, as I have now read from Adam Grant, that is actually something that tends to produce the best-quality individuals in something: When people experience the imposter syndrome but stick it out, they tend to give a better and more effective effort than all the rest. Of course, no matter how much evidence I have for that, I doubt my imposter feelings ever will go away fully.

Turn now to the dancing, which cam up for me this week. Someone asked me to help out – not lead, but just support – with a two-step dance lesson for a birthday party of a friend of his. Somehow, it felt right to agree to do the lesson, and so I did. I was nervous, and I felt like I didn’t remember anything important involved in teaching two-step. But I went, anyway, trusting that it felt right, and also trusting in the fact that this other guys was the one in charge of teaching, and I was just there to help with the demonstration side of things.

At the birthday celebration, though, in the lesson, I proved invaluable. My own knowledge surprised me. My own aptitude in teaching and, especially, in speaking up surprised me. I helped tremendously in the lesson, though, I believe, I successfully allowed for the other person to be the lead of the whole affair, even when I took over counting and starting and stopping everyone and determining the order of the patterns and moves and all.

And, you know, I had an amazing time. I had forgotten how much I love not only dancing but sharing dance… teaching it.

Because I love to teach. Period. And I especially love to teach those who want to learn what I have to offer.

It was wonderful on its own, but it also has been a wonderful reminder. When I watched a little video that somehow is still on my desktop of my computer, I was enthralled. I could hardly take my eyes off of me, though it was a group dance we all were doing. I was surprised at how good I was at the dance – a dance we had only learned right then and there, and to a song I had never heard before then. I was so chill and calm and on time and comfortable… it was beautiful.

And so, these two things – the dance lesson last night and this video today – have me wonder if it wouldn’t be extremely beneficial to the world for me to find a way to start teaching dance for real… Because I have much to offer, and I want to share it.

Post-a-day 2021