Well now I strongly associate the song No One Will Miss Me with the smell of fish. And scent memories are the hardest to get out once they burrow into your brain. (it's true, any memory you form with a scent association is the strongest memories that even those with cognitive decline and dementia don't lose.  Scent-emotion is the strongest form of memory creation.)  Luckily, of all the scents to associate with the song and of all songs to associate with the smell of cooking up oily fish skin, this scent-song association actually works particularly well. I mean, what else would you be eating on the sea or along the coast of sea if not a lot of fish? But now every time I smell fish skin cooking I'll hear the song in my head and every time I ever hear the song again, my brain will get hungry for fish cooking in olive oil.I'm sorry if that's not the association you might want, it's indelible now. You're stuck with it. Or rather, I'm stuck with it.

Specifically the association of the smell of frying up in olive oil salmon skin and the scraps of fish that clung to it more tenaciously than I felt like battling so I could feed the cooked salmon skin to the dogs. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with salmon skin. I really love crispy salmon skin in small amounts, like splitting a sushi roll that has crispy salmon skin in it, but it needs to be freshly cooked and crisped and there's a point at which I'm over it and my body says enough.  When I pan sear salmon, I leave the skin on and eat as much of it as I want and then split the rest between the dog and the cat. In this case, however, I didn't think the fish skin would get crispy or taste very good in the curry (mushroom, carrot, chickpea, onion in a Goa fish curry spice blend.) I know that I dislike fish skin in fish tacos (I actually don't particularly like fish tacos....There are better ways to make tacos and better ways to prepare and eat fish.) So when I was cutting up the fish, I cut off the skin to cook up in plain olive oil for me to eat a little, as much as I desired, and feed the rest to the dogs. Which made the dogs super happy, lol. This is my first time trying fish in a curry and I wasn't certain how I'd feel about it but it actually worked really well and is incredibly tasty!! The fish stays tender and gets nice and flaky and not overly fishy tasting.  I'll definitely do it again.

Anyway, I really enjoyed having the dance performance livestream tonight -- that definitely counts as an unexpected happy surprise!! And I adore happy surprises!!!! (As a precog, happy surprises I don't se coming are one of my forever favorite things in the world!) Some of the choreography was not my favorite (I'm a firm believer in the school of dance philosophy that dance is an attempt to express the emotional soul in the music through the medium of movement -- so I don't like transferring choreography between songs or choreography that is cerebral and not connected to the music. If the choreography can be switched to another song with the same time signature or if it's going through motions marking time until another portion of the song, then I consider it bad choreography. That's not the dancer's fault, it's the choreographers.) I did enjoy all the song choices and most of the choreography was really good and the dancers did a good job of extending their energetic reach through the movements instead of doing connect the dots style dancing.  (Dance is about the movement, it's not a connect the dot. There are positions it's important you hit and hold, but it's HOW you get there and the expressions of getting there that matters most as you move through the music.) It was rather disconcerting to me when I happened to glance up and see him and his companion stand up and move and then he sat right in the front where the spotlight would hit him and his silhouette was visible no matter how zoomed in the livestream was.. Wasn't thinking or expecting that. Maybe I should have given the circumstances, but I didn't. C'est la vie. I didn't mind, it just surprised me.

 I was definitely dancing in the kitchen watching it while doing mise en place and cooking the curry, lol. (My parents have an opening into the living room and when they rennovated the kitchen they set it up so that the stove is right next to that opening which means people can always watch anything on the TV while cooking. And then I used the computer hooked up to the TV to watch the stream.) Fun fact about me and my kitchen witch gifts: My cooking always tastes like my mood while I'm cooking. Most of the flavor profiles I end up cooking are aromatic and herbaceous and complex layered balanced across each bite with unexpected spiciness and/or sweetness to it. It always always ALWAYS tastes the best when I'm singing and dancing while cooking. If I get stressed while cooking, things start to unravel and things cook unevenly-- sometimes literally the sauce will break down in the pain, lol.  If I try to cook while I'm sad, everything tastes salty and brackish even if I didn't put any salt or anything fish/seaweed in it. And the more you reheat it later on, the saltier it tstes and you feel sad when you try to eat it later.... If I'm frustrated or angry, everything burns or catches on fire. It's awful. Literally can set on fire a bag of popcorn in a microwave or melt kettless and shatter the glass of the French press just trying to boil water to make tea or coffee. It's terrifying whenever I try to cook while I'm angry, legitimately terrifying and usually ends with someone getting hurt and the food being rendered inedible -- if I'm ever in a bad mood just don't let me anywhere near the kitchen until I recenter.  Either you cook or we go out to eat or get carryout/delivery but me cooking while even mildly irked is not going to be a pleasant experience. For anyone. If you ever experience me having to cook while in a foul mood, you know.

Luckily, I'm generally a very happy sunshiney soul optimist this life, unless I'm sleep deprived I usually wake up smiling and chirpy and full of life. So it's rare that I enter the kitchen not in a happy mood.  But all the best things I cook are cooked with joy in my heart and me physically singing and dancing while I'm in the kitchen. Always. And I was definitely dancing while cooking and watching that dance performance!

As for why I'm always a sucker for a dance performance opportunity, whether working up a choreography for a performance or watching from the audience.... I. Well. In this life, dance is the first hing I ever loved that I tried to give up and stoic through that I could keep going without it.  I've mentioned that martyring and giving up things I love for what I consider a good reason is something I do that my karmic lessons this life are about unlearning the stoicism and instead learning to choose and claim what makes my soul sing.  And in this life, dance was the first thing I loved dearly that I tried to give up....and the first thing I love that I tried to sacrifice before reclaiming it.

When I was 8.5 years old, in pre-pointe and advanced jazz dance classes, I got taken aside by my instructors for a very serious discussion about why I needed to understand that due to my phenotype I could never ever ever consider dance as a professional career. it wasn't about me being too large, I was a gangly long limbed coltish puppy until puberty rounded me out into curves. The thing was that at 8.5 years old I was already 5'5 (I've been just shy of 5'8 since I stopped growing in the 5th grade.) And so they wanted to have a very sincere discussion about how I was already too tall for any pas de deux partnering  because visually the ballerina en pointe should never be taller than her dance partner and 5'5 + the extra 5-6" of my foot length + the extra 2" of the pointe box would require that I only ever partnered with a male dancer 6'1 or taller otherwise I'd be taller than him while up en pointe (now I'm full grown me up en pointe would require someone 6'4 or taller) and they needed me to understand that most male dancers would never be enough taller than me ALREADY at 8 years old to be partnered en pointe.  Additionally, for lifts, dancers should ideally weigh 115lbs or less, ideally under 100lbs, and while I wasn't over 100lbs at that point, they warned me that when taller it's significantly harder to stay healthily under that weight for lifts and almost impossible once over 5'5 EVEN IF once puberty hit I had almost no boobs to take into consideration (which affect spins and jumps because of how centripetal force works -- bobs make spins and jumps take more force just to get the same rotation and height.) And post-puberty me is sitting over here with a 28G bra size which I think my cup size has grown since I last got a proper bra fitting over a decade ago, lol. My boobs get bigger whenever I put on weight but never decrease when I lose weight. (General rule is that medically speaking, each cup size you go up adds 5lbs of weight in mammary tissue even in an A cup. G cup is upwards 7 cup sizes, so it's about 35lbs of weight strapped onto my chest and post puberty me DEFINITELY has a harder time with jumps and spins than pre-puberty me.)  

And my well loved and trusted dance instructors I'd known for half my life weren't WRONG in telling me this when I was 8 and getting me used to it that young that my body type is all wrong for a professional dancer, especially in ballet. Because it is, and me denying that would have caused me physical harm trying to make my body conform to boxes it never could fit into.  In many ways I'm lucky that I didn't have dance in my life through puberty because everyone I know who did has severe body dysmorhia and eating disorder issues as a result of trying to maintain body type/size through their physical changes of puberty. And I skipped out on that head-body ptsd that all young dancers feel the pressure of even more intensely than other pubescent girls, though I have many friends who I try to help through how they're still working through these food and body image related trauma issues as adults.  But it stung to be told this when I was 8 that I was already too tall to be a ballerina no matter how hard I worked at becoming the best dancer I could be and I had to come to terms with the fact that dance could only be in my life as a source of joy but never as a professional career center focal point of my life.  Dance, using my body to express music and emotions and energy can only be as a source of personal joy never as a career for me. 

And then my grandfather died on Christmas Day when I was 9. And I was in the hollows for a long time after his death.  I take grief and loss incredibly deeply to heart. I don't show it because I don't like to burden others with my heavy emotions, but internally it hits me incredibly hard and takes a long time to heal and make my way through the hollows.  One of the things my grandfather made me promise him while he was sick in the process of dying was that no matter what I would fight to hang onto my ability to see the joy and experience the wonder of being alive and the world I encounter -- because he told me I was so overflowing with that magic in a way nobody else he ever met has been and that it was the most beautiful and precious thing he'd ever encountered and it was what turned him from a cynical atheist all his life into someone able to see the wonder and beauty in the things that exist.I only never knew him as able to see that, but my da and his siblings have told me that it's true that it wasn't until he was a grandfather and saw the delight and sparkle and wonder through my eyes that he changed so much from who he had been before.  And I promised him that I'd fight tooth and nail to hold onto my ability to see/find the beauty and wonder and joy in existence in me no matter what the world threw at me or how sad I got or what I gave up or lost in life. (Which may seem like a heavy topic to discuss with a 9 year old -- but he never shied away from discussing heavy topics of human inter-politics or philosophical questioning and he had seen how hard I grieved over lost/dead pets and one of his proudest moments with me was when I took his maxim he instilled in all his kids and grandkids, "Question everything, even what I tell, until you've fully considered it and made it make sense to you" and then had a really hard afternoon sitting under their dining room table refusing to play as I attempted to apply this maxim unto itself and got stuck in the paradox loop wondering how to apply it to itself.  He laughed so hard and told me that none of his 4 kids and my cousin 1 year older than me had never done that and we talked about it and me questioning even the idea of questioning everything was the mot perfect response he'd ever encountered in any child he'd ever taught it to. You should probably be glad you didn't know little me -- constant kinetic motion and curiosity and asking questions curious about literally everything then randomly disappearing into nooks/crannies under stairs or tables or running off into a flower garden or inside/up a tree or wandering in the woods to get away from humans and just exist in the natural world.)  Anyway. I was incredibly close to my Grandpa Ted, he was a co-owner in the family business with my parents and in my early childhood I saw him probably 6 days out of every 7 days of the week.  He's the one who taught me to read, how to swim, how to ride a bike. And he was the one who stayed punched in to work used his lunch break to pick up me and my sister after school took us to choose and buy our own afternoon snack and if it was a nice day we'd go to the park for a bit before he took us back to work.  He's also the one who walk me to and from my dance classes (which were right next door to the family computer store.)  After my grandfather's death when I was 9, I was in the hollows for a very long time and nothing made me feel anything. I didn't smile that touched my eyes for 3 months (first thing that made me smile was a Sheltie puppy we ended up adopting) and I didn't laugh a real laugh for about 9 months and it took me 5 years until I was finally able to cry for my grandfather's death. 

Following my grandfather's death, I was in the hollows for a long time and nothing made me feel anything at all with the state of grief I was in. Even dance didn't make me happy. And if I had stayed in dance, I probably would have pushed through the hollows felt joy sooner. But my dance studio moved while my grandpa was sick and on chemo and dying.  So my parents and aunt and uncle (family owned business with 6 owners throughout my childhood, one of my uncles and one of my aunts and two of my cousins were like extra parents and extra siblings to me when I was a kid) would take me to dance class while he was dying instead of him -- but it wasn't something I could walk myself to anymore after the studio moved.  And then after my grandfather died, while I was in the hollows, there was one afternoon my parents were both busy and started fighting over how neither could break away to take me so the other one had to do it. And I sad wide eyed stood there with my dance bag over my shoulder ready to go and told them quite seriously, "It's alright if you can't take me to dance today. It doesn't make me happy right now anyway."  And then my dad dropped everything to take me right then because he recognized that that was my grief speaking and a reminder why I needed to be taken to dance while grieving. But when that season was over and it came time to decide if we should enroll me for the next season, my mom remembered me saying that and asked me if dance was bringing me joy because they were trying to budget and figure out schedules. And we ended up deciding that if it wasn't making me happy and I couldn't consider it professionally even if I wanted to thanks to my height so I was only doing it for the joy it brought me and it was going to cause them to fight trying to get me there now that my grandpa couldn't just take me, then the cost was higher than what anyone was getting out of it. It was a logic based decision and you shouldn't ever push kids to do things they stop enjoying, but in my case it was just the stage of grief in the hollows where nothing makes you feel  joy. And so I stopped dance lessons the summer before I turned 10.

Which is rather a heavy story.... But you didn't actually expect any story about the first time in this life that I fell into my old patter of sacrificing something I love in the name of something "greater"or to be practical to actually be a HAPPY story, did you? Dance isn't the only thing I've done this with, as I've said my self-martyring stoic streak to continue on and find joy/delight on the other side of the current pain is something I'm meant to unlearn this life. The lesson I'm working on this lifetime is that it's okay to claim as your own and to prioritize what makes your heart light up with joy BECAUSE it makes your soul happy. That things that light up your soul are a reason unto themselves they can be a goal and a priority for you simply BECAUSE they make your soul sparkle.  And you shouldn't too easily sacrifice these things no matter what the world says or even if your cause for doing so seems important. 

And in the name of that karmic soul lesson I'm working on in this life and the promise I made my dying grandfather that no matter how long I was in the hollows I'd fight to hold onto my ability to see beauty and wonder in the creation and to rejoice in it, I decided in college that with my single credit holes in my schedule, after I had attended all the fencing classes I could take for credit, I started re-embracing dance in my life. I took 6 semesters of ballet courses, 4 of modern jazz, 2 of ballroom dance, and 1 modern dance all for credit.  And then in my free time not as University coursework I took further ballet classes with Vivian Tomlinson until he retired, Irish step dance, ceilli social Irish dance, Luigi style jazz dance, and belly dance for many many years until covid made in person impossible. And in college I learned that ballet barre work at 7am before breakfast or coffee to start my day and center me is one of my all time favorite things in the entire world. Barre work and ballet floor exrcises to start the day is a wonderful habit I need to get back into....

There's other things as well that I've fallen into this ego trap masquerading as spirituality of martyr stoicism in sacrificing things I love in the name of something else.  Not just dance and not just Eric -- I've also done it with my writing and my sketching/painting and my interest in healing to a certain extent by saying that those are only things for free time not to make time for... When I was considering at the start of this year what my own personal growth required of me, I decided that this year for me needed to be about reclaiming the things that give my soul joy and choosing to prioritize them in my life for no reason other than they give me joy. 

Sparking and feeding the light in the soul is a reason unto itself and I decided that I wan to consciously prioritize that this year I want to reclaim those things and make them central in the foundational structure of my life solely for my joy of their existence. 

It was a conscious choice that I'm in the wrong any time that I try to rationalize sacrificing what brings light and joy to my soul and that starting this year I wanted to use my energy to fight to make these things central core to my life rather than as a lower priority. And a promise to myself that I was going to try to weed out that stoic martyring sacrificial streak in me by calling me out on it whenever I do it, even if it's just back burnering things I love.  It was that conscious realization and choice and examining my choices through those lenses is why I had that recognition on Wednesday night that seeing the pictures of Eric and reading his philosophical questioning email itself brought joy and light to my heart  BECAUSE seeing him knowing he IS brings me that sort of light in the heart soul joy and the application of my decision to be ruthless about calling myself out for patterns of stoic sacrifice of things I love is why I decided (so seemingly abruptly) Thurs morning that I was in the wrong denying myself to see him when seeing him gives me joy and I should go back to follow his socials again for as long as following him brings light and joy into my heart and life.

But anyway. All of that is a long winded storytelling wandering tying together disparate threads tangled in my mind around WHY my reclaimed love of dance as important to me IS important to me and why I'm a sucker for any dance performance rarely miss them if given an opportunity to see a good dance performance.  And why it seemed such a serendipitous synchronicity of a happy surprise that of all things he could have shared about with me deciding to go back and follow his socials once more, it was about a dance performance and the potential I could watch a livestream of it tonight AND since I was going to be at my parents house anyway to spend time with their dog the timing to stream it on their TV tonight was perfect.  It just felt like and still feels like a perfect confluence of seemingly random but deeply interwoven strands of the Universe affirming right path free will choices. 

The synchronicity of it all FEELS right and good and fated to me. And while I remain science minded evidence seeking skeptical toward astrology but my spiritual side and pagan past lives knows a damn lot about it find the synchornicities in it eerie, I recognize for those astrologically minded, the timing of this occurring that I saw his stories right during the eclipse this afternoon (not visible the solar eclipse path here, also it was rainy thunderstorm under a tornado watch here) with eclipses being about bringing into alignment fated changes/paths (which is why you shouldn't try to manifest your will/intention during eclipses) and right after Venus and Jupiter conjunction in Pisces during the witching hours last night while he sun and moon are in conjunction in Taurus. Which if you look into

Now, after the happy surprise of the dance performance tonight and a delicious dinner and writing out these thoughts/feelings I had inside my head, I'm going to take the dogs  outside and stand barefoot in the grass hugging my birch tree I grew up with in the front yard, staring up at the sky hoping to see some stars peek through the thick clouds. Then I'm going to go make me another cuppa tea and find something to put on in the background and curl up with the dogs to read some more in my re-read of The Lord of the Rings books.  My plans for Beltane tomorrow are to plant some seeds and plant the new summer bulbs that came in (ranunculus and gladioluses) and tidy up some of the dead I left s habitat for wild critters and bugs over the winter. (I leave the small branches and leaves broken into manageable sizes and as mulch under the "dwarf" 15ft tall pine tree my grandma planted in the work garden so that birds and anyone else seeking to build nests this Spring will have the material available still while I talk to my waking up plants and put new bulbs and seeds in the ground.) Spring is very late in Wisconsin this year due to an up and down freezing/thawing March/April, leaf buds barely growing on trees with even the daffodils and tulips stunted and only just starting to bloom this week. May is going to be baller Spring on steroids here though as everything bursts forth life, lol. ALL the flowers everywhere for May and June in Wisconsin. So tomorrow I will be in the garden and then working on pulling/purging old files hanging out with the dogs until whenever I head back to my parents house with the dogs. Then Monday I'll bring the dogs in first thing in the morning to hang out at work all day while I spend some time at home with my cat then back to work at 5 to get some hours in and then taking the dogs to my parents house.  Which will be my weekday schedule all of this week and next week trying to balance time at both my condo now with the lonely cat and the house I grew up in with my parents' lonely dog.

I hope your night has whatever your soul most needs tonight to ill it with light and love and that sense of rightness in your life. Or at least, as much of what brings light to your soul as you can bring into your life tonight with wherever you are in your life path.  Turns out that creating hygge and finding joy in what you have right now doesn't mean you can't work towards a future where you bring more of what creates/feeds light in your heart.  You're allowed to have gratitude for now while still working toward creating/manifesting more into your future. So I hope that tonight has as much as possible of what brings joy to your heart, as much of it as you can have in your tonight wherever you are.