The air in my metaphysical tires needs to be changed

She would kill me for this photograph because her leg is bent to start with... but she's messing around at her home contra dance and I LOVE this.

Shadow summed it up perfectly. If you want to get something done, ask a busy person.  I am a busy person and I’m starting to figure some stuff out. Elizabeth is going to be doing a lot of that too.

My drive to Amherst and back caused enough of a drop in the household barometric pressure to finally let the rest of the air out of Elizabeth’s metaphysical tires.

On Thursday afternoon she had a series of small hissy fits which might or might not be interpreted as mini meltdowns depending on the current emotional state of the interpreter. I wasn’t doing so well myself at the time so I went with mini meltdown; I prefer the term small hissy fit but we’ll leave that one up in the air.

Ballet Moms. I hear I’m living it. Grin. OK, I’m not, actually. It just looks and smells that way a bit on the surface. I perused a few ballet mom blogs and nearly puked onto my feet. I won’t be doing that again anytime soon. The truth is that if my girl is going to get anywhere with this business of taking her passion forward into her life as a a a career choice – see how hard that was for me? She’s going to have to turn her sunflower face toward the 10,000 hour rule.

Anybody out there familiar with the 10,000 hour rule? Maybe it’s not a rule. Maybe it’s a concept. I’m certainly familiar with it and it’s daunting as hell. I don’t know any kids anymore who have ever heard of it and when I do bring it up I get blank stares and when we start to do the math the comprehension just doesn’t happen or… if it does there’s this sheer look of terror or panic or disbelief and then sometimes an incredible arrogance. Oh, and I shouldn’t have dumped that all on kids. That was wrong of me. You should see the look I get when I talk to adults about it. I’ve just about stopped doing that entirely.

It takes 10,000 hours to become a master of… fill in your own blank.

Mastery.

Consider that on your own.

I did this with NM via text this morning. 20 hours times 52 weeks = 1,040 hours. 10,000 hours divided by 1,040 equal 9.6 years approximately. And you really can’t stretch it out much more than that. In other words, the early years of less intensive training don’t really count so much. Now counts. From now. And She’s not dancing 20 hours a week yet. She’s booked for 13 and has the option for more. She could, I think (I’d have to look at the schedule more closely) continue to stay in school and dance 19 hours a week.  That would look like this:

Get off the bus, change your clothes, get into the car (somebody’s car) with all your stuff including your violin and hope that car is big enough for you, your stuff and your violin so it’s not on your lap and get to the studio, dump your stuff, stretch and get into the 3:30 class. Get out at 7:30, get home at 8:30, do your homework, find some food, get in the shower if your mother says you kinda smell and NOW it looks more like 10 or 10:30 depending on your school work load.

That shit started this week. Ah crap. My out loud voice.

This business of dancing four hours a day began this week. It is my job to help her find the balance.

I just didn’t happen to be there the night she came home after the first four hour day. Nobody was there. She got dropped off and had to fend for herself. That’s ok too. This is just where the small hissy fits come into play.

Yesterday was her day off. We sat on the couch and I just held her. We watched Under the Dome. It’s what we do on Thursday nights. Well, it *was* what we did. It’s over now so we have to find something else just as marginally insipid.

And not all days will be four hour days.

This takes conditioning and choice and something and I don’t know what this is going to look like yet but I meant it when I said… here it comes…

I need to buy her another two sets of leotards and tights. I was thinking she could live with three and we could do laundry or she could do her laundry on Thursday when she gets to come home after school… what the hell was I thinking?

Tomorrow I don’t have to do anything other than bring her over to Other Weston Mom’s house (I really have to come up with names) at 7:30. I’m off duty after that. She’ll get dropped at the house late afternoon and I’ll already be in the city at the Giant Robot Dance (I am not making this up, google it). On Sunday we will do virtually nothing together. That will be lovely.

Also. I should cut the grass. It got tall and fell over but then it stood up again and I think the neighbors are kind of, um, unhappy. Nothing has been burned on my lawn yet so there’s that.

Happy weekend and all that :-)