Hi friends,
I’m catching up on sleep this week because I gorged myself (willingly) on all that the Dallas Bachata Festival had to offer this past weekend: a buffet of dance workshops during the day, followed by a palette cleanser of evening performances bursting with pageantry and rhinestones across the rainbow, and topping it off with a nightcap of social dancing until 6AM.
💃 My highlights from the festival were:
Debuting with my Bailart Intermediate bachata team alongside my dance partner and teacher Arturo Garcia (click here to watch our performance!)
Feeling myself and hyping up my dance wife, Eileen, while taking a lap dance class together
Gluing face gems onto my cute friends in my hotel room before Saturday social dancing
Exploring the world of Brazilian Zouk with incredible instructors from Austin Inspired Movement Dance Studio
The Dallas Bachata Festival 2023 was my first dance congress and when I stepped into the Marriott hotel lobby it was like I was teleported to a different world – a world that spun around the star of Afro and Latin music. People from around the world, from Spain to NY, had flown to North Tejas for dance.
This past weekend has shown me that the world is so much bigger and vibrant than I could have ever imagined. And being around warm and open humans who love to dance has helped me realize this personal truth: I have found a community where I can grow into a more confident and expansive version of myself. Which is what I’ve been searching for ever since leaving college and Seattle. This weekend was a reminder to keep on going, day by day, because I will find “my people”. And as cliche as it is, there is truth to this aphorism:
“Home is people. Not a place” - Robin Hobb
Now that I’ve discovered Latin dance congresses, I’m hooked. My goal for 2024 is to go to at least 2 bachata festivals1 next year, so please text me if you’re down!
👻 Moving onto my October highlights
🎃 Teaching 2 yoga classes to my bachata dance studio
🎃 Eating all the fried food at the Texas State Fair for the first time in 10 years with new and cute friends (reminding me that making adult friends is hard but so worth it!)
🎃 Watching Hocus Pocus and feeding my inner child with candy corn and peanuts (a surprisingly satisfying duo) on Friday the 13th while in a sleepover cuddle puddle
🧠Brain food
💭 What I’m thinking about
When I feel overwhelmed and lost, what are small steps that I can do to find my footing?
“Sometimes disengaging is the best way to engage” - Rick Rubin
What internal marks can I set as my definition of success?
In 5 years, will this issue/question/worry/frustration truly matter? If no, what can I do to let it go and move on?
👓 What I’m watching
(Youtube) My Response to The New Yorker article. as Hasan Minhaj fact checks and calls out the New Yorker reporter for falsely fact-checking his standup specials, très metta
📖 What I’m reading
With quotes that have resonated with me
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
“That's who is now, he reminds himself, someone who makes decisions, who doesn't let life just act upon him. Wasn't that the big lesson of transition, of detransition? That you'll never know all the angles, that delay is just form of hiding from reality. That you just figure what you what you want and do it? And maybe, if you don't know what you want, you just do something anyway, and everything will change, and then maybe that will reveal what you really want. So do something.”
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
“Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way. We may not be happy, but at least we know what we are - unhappy. Much fear of our own creativity is the fear of the unknown”
Tao Te Ching translated by Stephen Mitchell
Verse 33
Knowing others is intelligence;
Knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
Mastering yourself is true power
If you realize that you have enough,
You are truly rich.
If you stay in the centre
And embrace death with your whole heart,
You will endure forever
🎼 What I’m listening to
Joy Crookes, a Desi R&B artist based out of London who reminds me of Amy Winehouse. Her music videos are BEAUTIFUL and pay homage to her roots, this one is my favorite
I learned recently that most major cities across the US and the world host weekend dance festivals. I’m eyeing Houston Sensual Bachata 2024