Dancing, falling, dancing

I did my usual roll-out-of-bed-and rush-to-school shuffle this morning. Arranging assignment stuffed in backpack. Not quite finished, but the score was done, so it could be played. Transported back to the '40s as our 4-part horn arrangements were brought to life by an impromptu band made up of faculty and students. For all the mistakes and cut corners, I was so happy to hear my arrangement at last. Then after class, a visit to the music department office. "Until you pay your fees, you can't go to any more classes." From happiness to grim reality in 30 seconds. I am so lucky my mom can front me the money until my royalty cheque gets here, but the way it's going, that baby'll be spent before it even arrives. I am so sick of having money troubles! The funny/sad thing is that mom and I were at a bridal shower for my brother's fiance yesterday and we were playing this bridal shower game where the groom-to-be answers questions about himself and then the bride has to guess what his answers were. Well, the thing that bugs Naomi most about her prospective husband (my brother) is that he's bad with money. I guess it runs in the family.

Sad news: a technician at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre who was very kind to me when I was stage managing there this fall dropped dead suddenly last week. The TD of the theatre wrote this beautiful email about how he'd died surrounded by the people he worked with, in the theatre he loved. There's this disbelief about death sometimes, isn't there: I didn't see him die so what does his death mean, exactly? I mean, it was the same way when my mom's really good friend Jackie died of cancer a couple of years back. She'd been sick a long time and lived over on the north shore so I didn't see her for a long time before her death. So when she died I was very sad for my mom but I never cried for Jackie because her death was never real for me. But Doug the sound guy was a character: crusty and profane, but with a marshmallow heart underneath. I hope there will be many people at his wake; I know I'll be there.

I played music for hours with the rest of the Redboots today. Not note-perfect, but there is some magic in the 4 of us playing together that makes us really powerful in a way. Just the easy way we all mesh together when we play, reading each others' minds. I'm a better musician when I play with these guys. I guess that's the magic for me.

I called this post dancing, falling, dancing because: a) it's hard to keep coming up with post titles and sometimes you just think of kinda pretentious ones and
b) that's what I'm trying to do right now: dance, and pick myself up off the floor when I trip and fall, and dance again. Times will be hard and I will get sick and people I care about will die and I can let it drive me mad or I can carry on dancing. Because hopefully I have a lot of years left on this earth and it's my job to make 'em good ones.