Friday, September 05, 2003
Fall, for me, has always been almost like Spring, for the mind. The leaves may be fading, but everything else is starting new. New year in school, new job, new clothes, new dance steps. The newness is a little less certain this year. I guess that's what it means to be grown up. I can't help but think that one incentive to having children is that it enables you to continue your life according to the comfort of the childhood calendar for another 20-odd years.
The dance season is starting up again. This year I begin as a teacher. I've taught for many years before, but this year is the first I truly start off with a stake in the dance school as 'staff' rather than 'student, or even floating assistant.
I'm looking for day work to supplement the teaching so that I can move back out on my own. Although I dearly love my parents, and this year has been a unique bonding experience, I can feel the parent-child relationship slowly but surely displacing the we're-all-adults-now truce that we started off with initially. And after 6 years living on my own, in Vancouver, Montreal, and Japan, the periodic 'oh my, how are you ever going to survive on your own?!' jibe when I'm not perceived to be contributing enough to the cleaning/cooking/shopping can become a tad irritating.
That said, after living mountains, prairies, and oceans away from my family, I look forward to being able to stop by for Sunday dinners again for a while, and perhaps host some of my own.
"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."
--Jane Howard
The dance season is starting up again. This year I begin as a teacher. I've taught for many years before, but this year is the first I truly start off with a stake in the dance school as 'staff' rather than 'student, or even floating assistant.
I'm looking for day work to supplement the teaching so that I can move back out on my own. Although I dearly love my parents, and this year has been a unique bonding experience, I can feel the parent-child relationship slowly but surely displacing the we're-all-adults-now truce that we started off with initially. And after 6 years living on my own, in Vancouver, Montreal, and Japan, the periodic 'oh my, how are you ever going to survive on your own?!' jibe when I'm not perceived to be contributing enough to the cleaning/cooking/shopping can become a tad irritating.
That said, after living mountains, prairies, and oceans away from my family, I look forward to being able to stop by for Sunday dinners again for a while, and perhaps host some of my own.
"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one."
--Jane Howard
