Expressive pursuits

I am a hypocrite.

I've always maintained that it is essential to keep up some expressive pursuits, like painting, singing, dancing, McGyver-ing or throwing pots while the rest of your life rushes around holding down a job, feeding kids or cats, buying a fresh bottle of ketchup, etc. While advising this to others, I've managed to ignore my own advice and let my more creative interests fall by the wayside. Ironically, I actually stopped dancing halfway through my dance degree. Working on that degree did change my relationship with dancing, and dance and I are slowly resolving our differences, but I didn't replace dance with any other artistic practice in the interim.

Since moving to Vancouver I've checked out the various dance studios and vowed at the beginning of every semester to attend at least one class a week in whatever dance form appealed to me. It didn't happen. In the past I've made stained glass designs but since leaving LOMAH I haven't lived in a city where space isn't a premium. At the rate I can afford, there just isn't space where I live to have a small glass studio. Essentially, I've moved through many different options and levels of intention, and I have yet to establish a regular expressive outlet. But that all changed last night!

I joined a community choir at my local community centre. Kind of a ragtag group of young to old, male and female (though women predominate), and a variety of musical ability, the choir sings a variety of styles and tempos. It's been over two years since I last sang in a choir and I've been sorely missing it in my life. Now I have something fun and calming to look forward to every Tuesday night, and it's just around the corner from my place. Last night we talked about what music we might do over the next couple of months and the selection looks varied and great; among other things we're going to be singing the King's Singers' You Are The New Day, which was sung at my sister's wedding last year.

I'm also hoping to attend a dance class at least once a week at the Harbour Dance Centre, but that's another battle all together. What do you do? Or, for some of you with my kind of inertia, what would you like to do?

Edit: Actually, thinking about it a little more, I realise that cooking has become my expressive outlet. In recent years I've found great release in cooking and baking. After a terrible day at the libary, cubicle or desk, relief is found in planning a tasty meal, shopping carefully for the ingredients, washing the veggies, chopping, boiling, broiling, spicing, and plating food. This can take hours, even when I'm painfully hungry, but when it's done the day has been washed away and my sanity (such as it is) is again intact. It's a very creative process for me and I find it calming. The mandatory glass of red wine that must be sipped while cooking helps a bit too!