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Go Wrestle!

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Photo by Larry Costales on Unsplash

Childhood is filled with play. A significant part of development is creativity and imagination.  The homeland of play is found in the brain. Creativity and imagination fueling the games we play. Games that allow us to grow and expand our awareness.  When I think back to my childhood, I think of how every day was filled with play.  It’s the one thing that stands out the most. My siblings and I, we played from the minute we woke up until we were forced to go to bed at night.  

One of our favorite games was wrestling. We would stake out the family room and each of us would get a corner.  We based the wrestling ring on the wrestling shows we would would watch on Saturdays.  Back then TV was black and white.  So the wrestling wring was made of stark contrasts.  A stark white platform contained by thick black rubbery ropes that the wrestlers would bounce their muscle bound bodies off of and propel themselves to the opposite wall of ropes or to leap on to an opponent.  When we made our wrestling wring in the family room, we created the wring in our imagination and then instructed each other what it looked like.  

“Here are the four corners”, my sibling instructed as we placed markers made of a bundled sock, a book, a cup or an abandoned toy at each corner to create semblance of a large square.  

“This is your corner and this my corner. I will count to 3 and then say go and then we wrestle”, she commanded, as older sisters often do.

I thought about it, about my opponent. How strong was she? Was she really going to wrestle me? Was I going to hurt? Could I pin her down?

I didn’t know, but the challenge felt inviting and I imagined myself as the big, muscle-bound, weird looking, but awesome character, that I had seen on the Saturday wrestling show.  I couldn’t wait to experience what if felt like to be in a live wrestling match and live inside the body of that unusual human. 

We took turns counting down. My sibling got to do the count down first because she was older. 

“3, 2, 1, go!”

Sometimes we would sing the theme from Batman as we moved towards the center of the wring.  We would circle each other and then lunge.  Pushing with our strength, holding back at first and then realizing that we had to put forth maximum effort to find the best hold.  Then once we realized it was working we would pin each other to the floor.  We practiced somersaults and flipping each other.  We tried one handed wrestling and blindfolded wrestling.  Our imagination had no boundaries and we would create new scenarios for an hour or more playing the game of wrestling.  

I can’t even imagine what our parents thought as we yelled and hurled our bodies around the family room. Once I asked my grandmother what she thought.  She smiled quietly and said “It looks like fun” and then laughed.  I guess we were entertaining after all. I wondered how we could get on TV and if people would like to see our wrestling matches too.  For that’s what being a child is,  thinking that anything is possible. The skies are the limit. 

Photo by Allen Taylor on Unsplash

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Cat Fights and Work

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I heard snarling and ghastly howl come through my window on one beautiful sunny day in the middle of my work week, sheltering in place and working from home. The type of day where just walking outside and standing in the sun under  blue skies blanketing the earth, created a sense of peace and well-being.  Who could be screaming and howling? Creating drama like this in the middle of such a beautiful day?  The street was sleepy and quiet, there was no wind and even the palms were  stilled from their usual swishing and swaying in the gentle afternoon breeze.

I rushed to the window and peeked through the blinds. Three cats were positioned in a circle in my front yard. Their  backs arched and their hair standing on end creating spiky war Mohawks.  There was an old, tough looking orange tabby. His fur was smeared with dark grease and dust from the alleys and back yards.  There was a huge plush Norwegian Forest Cat with green eyes and then a short haired gray and white tuxedo cat. They hunched down, tense, cowering letting out a sporadic moan, or howl.  They cringed and slowly slunk away from each over the course of several minutes.  Eventually, they backed down and slunked away, giving up the fight. Dispelling all their plans to engage in open, violent warfare with one another.  

Our kitten watched from the window. Did he remember his last fight? When he was only 3 months old,  a random alleycat had delivered deep scratches and bites. His recovery consisted of  three visits to the vet, pain meds, antibiotics and wearing a cone for six weeks. He healed well and seemed ready and wanting to jump into the fray again. They kept coming around even jumping on to the outside ledges of the house to look in at him through the windows.   I bent to look out the window and a tabby glared in at me and howled. I was somewhat offended.  What gaul, to hiss at me while I was in my house!  I stepped away and went back to work.  The mornings carried on like this. Cats venturing into our yard, random howls and screeching, heralding spring and the time for cats to emerge and stake out their summertime turf.  Territories the would be filled with adventure, mating  and languishing in the hot days to come.  

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Made With Love

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Photo by Raoul Ortega on Unsplash

Maison Clairvoy 

One of the greatest gifts I ever received were my dance shoes from Maison Clairvoy. The shoes themselves were not gifts and the cost was deducted from my salary that I earned as a cabaret dancer. The gift was the opportunity to have dance shoes made by hand with extreme precision and skill to fit my foot exactly and provide a strong base to dance from. A fit that was meant to cradle the foot in comfort while withstanding and supporting an enormous amount of torque and pressure created by human muscles and mass to perform athletic movement.  Dance shoes created by one of the greatest artisan workshops in the history of the world. I was lucky enough to have two pairs. One for the Can Can and one for the more elegant numbers with feathers and rhinestones. 

When I arrived in Paris, to work exclusively for a well-known dance troupe,  one of the first things my dance director instructed me to do,  was to go to a local atelier and have my dance shoes fitted. We were rehearsing in an underground theatre.  It was a dark, cavern of a space, dank and musty. An old wooden stage took up the center of the room and was surrounded by low red velvet settees for the audience. Crystal chandeliers strategically place to capture light and reflect sparkling drops of shimmer and illumination throughout the room. One early evening, directly as rehearsal ended, our manager, walked towards me. He was a man of little words. He looked like he had stepped out of a 1940’s old Hollywood film, dressed in neatly pressed slacks and clean, crisp shirt.  An ever-present cigarette dangling from his fingertips. Smoke drifting up in misty curly cues into the blackness of the low ceiling. I quickly took a deep breath and inhaled the mysterious smoke. I wanted to take in everything I could about Paris.  Everyone smoked in the city and I wanted to understand why. I knew I had to try it- to know what the Parisiennes knew. To  find out why they loved smoking so much. The smoke was a mixture pure, unadulterated tobacco and somehow, men’s cologne. 

“Hello Darling, you will need dance shoes, here’s the address and give them this bill.”

“Do you think you can find it?” “Your dance captain will give you the time, place, name and address of the shoe maker.”

He handed me two small printed sheets of paper. Once I had the address, I found my way via Metro and my small tourist map of Paris that I keep with me at all times. The map listed the streets and arrondissements and favorite things to see and do in Paris.  Maison Clairvoy was not too far from where I was staying in Pigalle, The Red Light district.  Many of the touring dancers were booked into an auberge, well known in the dance world, in the heart of the entertainment district. The first  Parisienne cabaret, The Moulin Rouge, had come to life and still existed in this very location. It’s Red Windmill nestled among business offices, laundries, boulangeries and patisseries. Veg stands and charcuterie specialists.  Working Parisiennes from all walks of life moved carefully among the narrow sidewalks making sure to miss the dog poo that was everywhere.  The odors that rose up from the sidewalk were heady and odoriferous concoction of dog urine and feces, butchered meat, rotting veg, baking bread and perfume.  It smelled awful but I grew to love it and now decades later,  I can still smell it, just thinking of it.  Beautiful tall dazzling workers hung about the  corners of the Rue, 24 hours a days, in dresses, miniskirts and platforms.  Their faces blown up with injectable silicone and made up for any excitement that came their way. Wary and defensive towards the young girls they were attempting to emulate. But kind and helpful if you were really were in distress.  

I don’t know how I found myself navigating through a part of the world where I didn’t speak the language and it was completely foreign to me. As I remember, I was practical about it and I wanted to dance, so I figured it out. It wasn’t too difficult to understand the language or read it.  The French used the same alphabet as the English.  I found the store front with dance shoes in the window. There was a door next to it that led up a flight of old stairs.  I climbed up the stairs and was ushered into a workspace where cubbyholes stuffed with dance shoes of every kind lined the walls. A wave of warm air infused with the perfume of soft, fine leather came towards me and enveloped me.  An older gentleman greeted me. He was dressed in courdoroys and a pullover. He called his assistant over. A youngish, impossibly thin, chic woman dressed in black stovepipe slacks and a white button down work shirt.  He gave her instructions in French and motioned for me to follow her. She smiled and led me to a bench. I was quickly seated and she measured my foot from all angles and then had me try on samples of an open toed sandal with heels and and a closed toe tap shoe.  When I touched the shoes the softness of the leather was like butter and shone as a if someone had massaged the strong leather for hours to attain the beautiful sheen. The heels of each pair were solid and strong and anchored in a way that would last through years of punishment as they carried me across stages in Africa,  Europe and Scandinavia and then back home to United States.  I glanced around the workshop and saw many types of shoes for many types of dancers.  The fitting was over quickly and  I was on my way again and left the workshop.  I left the shop with a feeling of privilege to have experienced something so rare and romantic.  Knowing that I had officially entered the world of dance. The world of the Ballet Russe, The Moulin Rouge, The Lido.  I had been to the source.  Two weeks later my shoes arrived. I slipped my feet into my very one handmade dance shoes and they fit perfectly. They cradled my feet in the all the right places and felt like a solid hug from someone who loves you very much.   And then we were on our way to start our tour. Those shoes became an extension of my body and allowed me to jump, twirl, kick and land with force.  Once I had to have the straps replaced, but otherwise they withstood years of aggressive use.  A testimony to the enduring and exquisite craftsmanship of Maison Clairvoy. 

Photo by Kazua Ota

 on Unsplash

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Survival Tea

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Photo by Branimir Balogović on Unsplash

 

It’s a gorgeous Sunday, the sun is shining, the birds are singing.  Yet, there are layers.  Amidst all this beauty, people are dealing with a Pandemic and putting forth heroic efforts to thwart catastrophy.  Overall there is a great success and it has come with a cost, but will ultimately, most likely result in huge steps forward in many arenas.  Healthcare, Crisis Response and building unity in times of a massive assault on the population as a whole.  We have all had to sacrifice to some degree.  We’ve had to scale back in thousands of ways, but are learning to find new paths to follow our nature to succeed, live and grow.  We are now getting ready to emerge from quarantine and learn to live together in a new and healthier way that will be good for all. Summer has hit this part of the world and people are heading out of their homes.  Walking trails and parks are now open again with social distancing laws in effect.  Beaches in Orange County are opening with the same rules.  

I wrote this a week ago, but it was never posted and it’s a screenshot of the height of quarantine and my perspective of it, I’m including it here, because I want to remember this time. A big thought on my mind right now is survival.  A pandemic is circling the globe and we are now quarantined to decrease exposure, stop the spread of the pandemic  and increase survival rates.  Most of us are shocked by the turn of the events and feel a sense of displacement and disorientation due to the complete disruption of our normal every day lives.  I go out for walks with my mandatory mask and no one is about.  I wonder if I’m doing something wrong? The streets are barren, except for a random vehicle that speeds by every few moments. It’s as if the world is asleep, taking a long nap. I wonder how can everyone be so quiet? Are they really in there, in their homes? Can children, teenagers, husbands out of work stay so still and silent?

So I keep walking, getting exercise, focus on health, strength. California is a great place to do this. We are a state of natural beauty and a place of healing. For more than a century America and the world has sent their ill here to heal and rehabilitate. Long ago, trains filled with TB patients in the last stage of the disease came to hospital spread across the Southern California as a last hope for a chance at life.  Many died on the train, but there were those that survived and lived into old age settled in the warm arid client of the Southern California high desert.  

A culture of survival is forming now due to the pandemic. It’s bringing the best out in us and forcing us to focus on what is really important in life and why we are here.  These thoughts are overwhelming at times and I find it helpful to focus on coping mechanisms and find a new way to live that may be even better than what I was doing before.  Everyday I can see Spring blossoming and exploding into life all around and it’s an amazing show. The birds are singing from sunup to sun down, playfully doing tricks in the air with other birds they are trying to attract. They are enjoying Spring to it’s fullest. The birdsong is a blessing at this moment and a reaffirmation of life.  It’s too early to tell what will happen.  If we follow other countries that are now finally healed of the spreading virus, we will hopefully enter the same phase soon. It’s difficult to stay informed about what will really happen.  All the news sources have conflicting stories, some of them out right exploitation of the current situation and confabulating statistics that we will only be able to verify when this whole thing is done. 

Photo by Kate Trifo on Unsplash

And now, here we are, one week later.  We are more hopeful, more full of fight and determined to live with hope, faith and celebrate life no matter what.  Our world is beautiful and nature will always carry on despite our continual assault on our own world health and our precious resources.  Hopefully, we will come out of the Pandemic, wiser and more willing to work harmoniously with our environment, rather than destroying it. It’s a complex and difficult task, but not unrealistic at all.  We can all see what staying at home does. We can now see what being careful and be kind with each other can be like.  The cleaner air and the peaceful environment. We are seeing that we can live peacefully together and work together for success. 

Part of this blog,  Tea Travels, is comprised of posts about travelling locally and around the world to experience the tea traditions and teas of the world. It’s more relevant now than ever due to the quarantines around the world.  I love to write about tea around the world, because it reflects human kind’s ability to harmonize and elevate themselves together via the simple routine of taking tea.  Tea, how it’s made and enjoyed are direct reflections of the many beautiful and fascinating cultures of human kind.  Tea brings people together in a very simple way for bonding, sharing history and planning for what’s ahead.  Personally, I have never enjoyed tea more and been thankful for this simple beverage, than during this quarantine.  I’ve taken tea with my Pod, I’d explored herbal teas that support immunity and health and used the time during quarantine to delve deeper into the journey of exploring tea.

Last year we travelled throughout Southern California and even to Paris, France.  It was an amazing journey and we are hoping there will be many more.  World travel has been a part of human civilization since it’s inception and hopefully it will go on. It’s important that we explore and get to know our world and to become friends with all people of the world. I want to thank everyone who checks in and reads these posts. I hope that they have provided some light and entertainment during these trying times.  I’ll end this post with a great tea from Teavana(this post is unsponsored, I just really like this tea),   for relaxation and to make you smile. Teavana Citrus Lavender with pineapple, orange and notes of sage. Caffiene free.  Here’s a bit about the ingredients: Pineapple;  a tropical fruit grown in South America for centuries.  Sweet, packed with Vitamin C and explosion of flavor. Health benefits include decreasing inflammation, energizing and boosting immunity. Orange, another South American export, a catalyst of an industry that made the US wealthy.  Sweet, tangy and juicy-packed with Vitamin C. Health benefits include boosting immunity, maintaining skin and bone health. Sage-oh Sage-now that’s a lot to write about.  Sage,  utilized to clear away bad karma and spirits. Packed with vitamins and minerals.  Boosts brain health and cognition, reduce blood sugar, ease menopausal symptoms and protect against cancers. Lavender, reduces stress, anxiety, pain, promotes calmness and wellness and is a super attractor. 

 

 

And to end this post,  on this lovely day, full of promise and hope:

We live on this speck called Earth – think about what you might do, today or tomorrow – and make the most of it.

Neil deGrasse Tyson