This week was like grease going down the kitchen sink; slow, a few blockages, but eventually the sink was empty and I was just rinsing away the remnants. But we all know that grease is good, which is why I ate a hamburger, fries and onion rings at Bickford’s last night. A good friend of a friend passed away this week. I met him a few times back while I was visiting my old boyfriend at Umass. Since then, haven’t seen him but have heard through the grapevine that he was living with some old friends in Somerville, and was using heroin pretty heavily. He OD’d on Monday night. It’s not the type thing that I’m very affected by, but my heart goes out to my my old friends who I know had stayed close with him. He died in their apartment in the middle of the night while the rest of them were sleeping. I’m blessed to have never lost a friend at a young age, and I can only imagine it’s a very real and scary thing to have a friend who is young and asking for trouble pass away in such a way. It’s got to be grating on the mind to feel like you could have done something. I remember this book I read a few years ago, by Chuck Palahniuk in which he said, “All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.”
Dismal thoughts, but in a way exhilirating and true. I risk judgement from god right now, but dare I say that my life is anything but boring at the moment. I’m in transition mode, and getting geared up to work for a temp agency that only places jobs at Harvard. I’m looking forward to satisfying my job ADD disorder, and bouncing around for a while from academic sectors in the heart of Cambridge. I should be receiving some information in the mail soon too about some graduate programs having do with some fields in therapy - I’m exploring physical, occupational, and expressive therapy at the moment.
I hadn’t heard much about expressive therapy, except for this one article I posted a while back on Fair Mobility, about Integrated Dance.
Expressive Therapy is a form of treatment that essentially assumes that humans are naturally creative beings. The philosophy integrated dance, music, art, and even theatre in to treatment programs for more of a mental health angle. It’s much more rooted in the mental health field than the physical and the therapists generally work with psychiatric hospitals, community mental health centers, adult day treatment programs, schools, and clinics that provide treatment for specific groups of people such as families or those with addictions.
My primary interest does life in the physical and occupational therapy field, but this is something to think about. One thing that I’ve always tried to relate to my students about is the usage of dance as a way to “get away” from everything. Especially working with teenagers, I’ve had many break-downs in the dance studio. This might be because they come to dance after breaking up with a boyfriend, or losing a loved one, or super-stressful stuff going on in school or with their family. Being a dance teacher has presented itself with much more than the basic structures of choreography. I am the type of teacher who gets close with my students, we talk before and after class usually, and in a lot of ways I think this has aided in my ability to properly form my classes to fit personalities and moods.
When I was a teenager, I was going through the usual angst that teenagers go through. Rebellion if you will. Boyfriends, failing tests, studying, not sleeping, fighting with parents, didn’t we all? I remember so distinctly that when I went to my dance classes, I would really feel this sense of healing. It is somewhat chemically based, as movement and excercise releases adrenaline and endorphins in the body and brain, but anything chemical translates in to something emotional. Being human, we have the ability to take the structure of a chemical and form in to a cohesive definition. This can lead to abstractions at times, but when you really learn to understand it and become in tune with your emotions (brain juices), you can learn how to rationally deal with things. Being at dance and feeling the healing was not an active reaction to bad times in my life, it just happened so naturally. Being connected to this feeling, I think that I could really relate to the field of expressive therapy and it’s definitely worth exploring.
So last night I was chilling in the living room, working on the machine, doing laundry, watching TV, a fine time indeed! I was watching an episode of The Cosby Show in which Alvin and Sandra come back from their honeymoon, and alvin asked Mr. and Mrs. Hucstable if he can call them Mom & Dad. It kind of hit me that it’s a weird thing that spouses have this tradition of calling their in-laws by the Mom & Dad title. Like there is this sibling-connotation to two people getting married or something. I couldn’t help but try to quench my curiousity by looking on the internet for theories relation marriage to siblingry. It turned up nothing, really nothing, I even tried changing my search phrases several times. Funny little idea though, if you ask me.