Tag: musings

When is it okay to call yourself a writer?

First of all, LOOK!  One Crafty Lady went and got herself a facelift… er… a new free theme (!).  What do you think of my new digs?

I thought I’d celebrate the recent crossing of 100 posts on the blog (this one here is 110) by dressing her up in fancy new clothes and offering my reflections on the journey to becoming the writer I am today.

Pondering a post. Just another day in the office…

I first started writing online in 2009 while I was finishing up my masters degree in Kinesiology.  I was creating static content for Art Intercepts, but began dabbling in blogging to express more opinion-based topics that I wanted to discuss with other dancers.  I kept a little private blog between myself and my friend Erin as we traversed life, and One Crafty Lady was born upon her moving to Africa to work for the Peace Corps.

Even though I’ve been writing ever since, I didn’t really start calling myself “a writer” until this summer.  I guess I didn’t feel like I could because writing has generally been a hobby, an extra-curricular, something I do for fun.  People that play volleyball in their spare time can’t exactly call themselves “volleyball players” on their Linked-In profiles, right?

Over the past three years I’ve gone through four blogs (not including the two I have now), a couple hundred posts, and about 600 tags.  I’ve also created 3 columns on other sites (with a fourth pending), 2 magazine articles, and a gaggle of guest posts.  It feels really weird getting pitches from other writers and publications; it feels even weirder when you find out you’ve been added to someone’s press list.

You mean, people care enough about what I have to say to send me their press releases?  How cool is that?!?  I’ve either created a reputation of “crazy and incapable of saying no”, or I am now doing professionally what I like to do personally.

Isn’t that kind of everyone’s dream?  

Writing has become an important aspect of my voice in the dance community, my professional life at UIC (each of my 300 students is required to keep a fitness “blog” on our internal class site), and my personal life.  What started out as a hobby is now a huge part of who I am and what I do, regardless of whether or not I get paid.  Because writing permeates all those other aspects of my life, I guess I kind of AM getting paid – essentially.

I’m embarking on two rather big projects: one with friends and collaborators in the blogging community and one on my own.  Starting these (yet to be announced) projects, in conjunction with presenting at Dance/USA with a panel of dance bloggers this summer sealed the deal.

I’m a writer.

When is it okay to give yourself the title of writer?  When you have the confidence to own it.

…and I do.

Um, Welcome Back, Charlotte…? Or… Huh???

After the traumatic loss of Charlotte the spider, I was astonished to make my way out to the car a few days ago and find this remarkably familiar spider hanging out on the side mirror.

Charlotte? Is that you?

OMG! You didn’t die!

Ok, but here’s the weird part: After that awesome reassurance that I hadn’t let our spider friend plunge to her death on Roosevelt Road, I haven’t seen her since.

Was it her ghost? Or perhaps she is alive and was calling on me to stick out her spider tongue and say, “Ha! I lived and now I found a better place to reside than your stinkin’ side mirror!”

I’m now fairly confident that Charlotte is either in a better abode, or stuck in some sort of spider purgatory where she can occasionally come by and stick it to me.

Either way, I’m satisfied.

A quick moment for gloating

When I first wake up in the morning, I usually take a big stretch, scratch my belly, and check my feeds.  I browse Facebook and Twitter and update my Words With Friends.  Occasionally I glance at the news.  Then I eventually roll out of bed and get my day going.

So this morning was extra special when I pulled up the Huffington Post’s Arts and Culture page and saw this:

That’s me, the headliner, dishing about naked dancing.  ON THE HUFFINGTON POST.

Maybe you didn’t know that this isn’t my only blog… I also write about dance on my own site, as well as here and here. And did you happen to catch the guest spot I wrote here?!?  And it just so happened that my recent post on 4dancers.org was pitched to HuffPo and they liked it.

Anyway…

Had I known all it would take was talking about modern dance in the buff to get in at Huffington Post, I would have done it a lot sooner.

In any case, I’m simply tickled to be part of the the team of esteemed bloggers at HuffPo, and couldn’t resist taking a minute to brag.

So long, Charlotte.

For the past month, there’s been a spider living in the side mirror.

After about a week, she earned a name, Charlotte (naturally).

She grew larger and spun intricate webs.  Sometimes she would enjoy a breezy ride down Lake Shore Drive in the mornings.  Other times she would hang out in the mirror, only to reappear days later.  Yesterday as I was driving with the window down she managed to get inside the car, and, thinking we were tight I placed her on my pen to coax her back to the mirror.  With two inches to go, Charlotte feel off my pen and I haven’t seen her since.

Ok, so I got attached to a spider.  Whatever.

I can just only hope that she’s in a better side mirror now.

So, so long, Charlotte, wherever you are.

Crazy Horses and Dead Presidents

Rolling up to the Crazy Horse Memorial, knowing nothing about what I was here to see, my group looked around at each other confused and thought, uh, hmm, what exactly are we looking at here? I mean, it’s a big rock with a hole in the middle….

Wrong…

WAY wrong…

As we got closer, I realized what we were looking at, and now that I’ve seen Crazy Horse I don’t think many things can parallel that experience.  After 100 years of dynamite blasts and the meticulous sculpting of a rocky face in the Black Hills, what is to become the Crazy Horse Memorial is not nearly finished, and likely won’t be within my lifetime.  The family spearheading the project is carrying on the work of Korczak Ziolkowski, an apprentice to the guy who carved Mount Rushmore.

The way I understand it, Crazy Horse was the leader of the Lakota tribe, and as people and government moved Westward, he was instrumental in trying to protect Native American land.  We all know how that turned out, but Crazy Horse is still considered one of the most iconic American Indians to ever live.

The carved outline of his face and hand pointing East toward his Land as he stoically says:

 “My land is where my dead lie buried.”

Crazy Horse statue and the unfinished rock sculpture in the distance. Photo by Kelly Soprych

With an insufficient number of laborers and the continued refusal of the Ziolkowski family to accept government funds for the project, it may very well take another 100 years for to finish the Memorial, if ever.  But to witness the process and the stick-to-it-iveness of the men and woman dedicated to this project is humbling, and grounding, and downright awesome.  That’s one big rock with a hole in the middle that I could see over and over again.

Knowing that the entire Mount Rushmore Memorial fits in Crazy Horse’s hair, I was a little less excited to see four dead presidents carved out of stone, but nonetheless the crazy ride down Iron Mountain Road through tunnels and switchbacks presented ample “wow!” moments for glimpsing Mt. Rushmore.  I wouldn’t bother to pay to get into the actual memorial… Go through Custer State Park and save your $10 bucks for Crazy Horse instead.

The weight and significance of some of the natural and man-made beauties I saw juxtaposed with the lunacy of the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally made for one hell of a trip.  Traveling with a big group for the first time since, like, high school, and with such a jam-packed, diverse experience, in one week I witnessed the best and worst of America, and the best and worst in myself.

I don’t think I’d really change anything about my time in the Black Hills, other than to have a little more of it.  When in Rome you throw a coin over your shoulder into the Trevi Fountain to guarantee you’ll some day return to Rome.  Gazing up at the profile of Crazy Horse from the veranda of his museum, I threw a penny over my shoulder, hoping that the same holds true for the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Custer Things To Do on raveable

Freedom, empty space, and other patriotic thoughts from Wyoming

The ride down to Devil’s Tower from our chateau in the Black Hills demonstrates one of the most dramatic changes in landscape I’ve witnessed in two hours of highway.  One minute high in the trees and rocky hills, with the snap of a finger you find yourself on the barren plains of Cattle country almost immediately on crossing the South Dakota/Wyoming border.

But in the middle of the desolate and dry landscape of Eastern Wyoming, there’s an anomaly.

photo by Kelly Soprych

Unlike its fellow national monuments of bronze and stone depictions of dead presidents, Devil’s Tower is not contrived by men.  There was a placard somewhere along the 2+ mile hike around it that said something about molten lava and volcanoes, but I like the Lakota legend better:

Seven sisters were out playing when a bear started to chase them.  They climbed on a rock and the spirits rose the rock to the sky, where the sisters were turned into the constellation Pleiades.  The bear scratched and clawed at the rock, but was unable to reach the top.  

That’s way cooler than lava.

It’s hard to explain the gravity of a place like Devil’s Tower, but even more profound are the thoughts that come with a solid four days of moving Westward. People historically moved West for freedom, space, and opportunity.  They were motivated by gold, coal, oil and land, and maybe they still are.  Whether it’s gold or a job at Wal-Mart that pushes Americans Westward, I was starting to lose hope that there were still open spaces in this country, in spite of its size.  I live in a constant state of claustrophobia, seeking Starbucks after Starbucks, with people living literally on top of one another and paying the highest prices for the least amount of space.

But after a pit stop at the first and last gas station on the way from Devil’s Tower to Gillette, WY, there wasn’t a Starbucks in sight.  In fact, there wasn’t a single building – or even a vehicle for that matter – as far as the eye could see.  In that moment I’ve never felt more vulnerable, or more free.  I imagine it’s as close as you can get to witnessing what it was like for those first settlers moving West over the open prairie in search of, well, nothing… 

…and actually finding it.

Sturgis or Bust!

photo by Kelly Soprych

There’s something about road trips that makes me more more patriotic.  Especially if I don’t have to go through Indiana or Nebraska (no offense, but your states are pretty boring to drive through).  Taking a road trip on a motorcycle, however, has been downright religious.

I have the luxury of riding as a passenger, so I get all of the rewards of traveling by motorcycle with none of the responsibility, and fewer bugs in my teeth.  When asked what I was going to do for 2 days sitting on a bike, I jokingly said I’d find the meaning of life, but when we hit a thunderstorm and continued to ride through it, I got into this weird meditative place that was a combination of “don’t fall off the bike Lauren” and pure contentment.  Don’t get me wrong… raindrops going 65mph feel like little shards of glass hitting your face that is anything but pleasant. But my face, hands, wet feet and sore butt eventually settled into the rain and embraced it as part of the journey.

I wondered if the Buddha would have come up with something different had he been riding on a motorcycle through the rain instead of sitting under a tree.  Either way, the message is pretty much the same: Sit still, follow the path and eventually you’ll reach clearer skies.

I knew that riding motorcycles was cool, but getting a taste of the culture surrounding it is downright awesome – and not unlike the kinship I experience as a bike rider.  But to return to my point above there’s something distinctly American (in a good way) about traveling in a pack of strong, independent women across beautiful landscapes with the wind in our faces and the clouds so close you could reach out and grab ’em.

And don’t worry, mom, I’ve been wearing my helmet.