when the signs get clearer

and knowing what it is you want to do with your life

When I think about it, the signs were always there. I have always been a girl of ideas. At the age of four, I sang Mary Had a Little Lamb to my father and professed, "Daddy, I want to be a singer." And then there was the time when I collected jewelry boxes of beads and sat outside with with my sisters and neighbors and make necklaces and bracelets. All of the ballet lessons that I fought furiously not to go to; the imaginary school that I founded when I was eight; the years in high school when I took apart my jeans, wrote on them, sewed them in odd patterns and wore them with my favorite hats; The notebooks of clothing designs; The nail polish and silk gloves; I wanted to be an actress. A bookstore owner. A dancer. A movie star. A woman of ideas. And I always was. 

It's hard when you are not destined to become a doctor or a lawyer. Things are not so straight and narrow. After studying English and later studying dance, fueling my need to create things, it is apparent that I have always been a creative thinker. Lately, though, things have been falling a bit more into place. My place in the world is not a member of some corps ballet or modern dance company; it is not in a city school system or even a university school system (yet). My place is in a studio. Not as an administrator, though that is something that will come along with it. My career, my profession is to create things. Things that I like. 

Which is why I will be founding my own businesses. It has become ever so clearer that I need to have my own company. Of course, I aim to have a dance company, one that grows and flourishes on Staten Island because that's what makes sense to my body-- the investigation of movement and of my creative soul. However, there's more. In addition to my own dance company, I want to have my own little business-- one where I sell my ideas manifested into pretty little things-- hoops, earrings, clothes, paintings, and things of that nature. It will be a source of income and also of artistic accomplishment. It will supplement my movement ideas, supplement my wallet, and make people smile. The things I create will be pretty, sustainable, practical, and fun.

In the next few years, my energies will shift from "making it" in the world to making my world in the best way I know how-- making things, with a bit of love and care and dedication. This is more articulate than it was even six months ago. So, onward it is!

-m