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Yilan, Taiwan
I just returned back to the States after 11 years in Taiwan with my daughter. Taiwan is an excellent base for us explore Asia, while living in relative (gun free) safety, while benefiting from a cheap and efficient national health care system. The people are amazing too. I have Taiwanese friendships that are 20 years old and I'm always making new ones! My coworker here in CO is from Taiwan.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

I'm like a rubberband

I am not a Sia fan, but when I watched these dancers on SNL I was moved. The choreography is a bit of a parody, but I thought there were moments when it was breathtaking, the execution was spot on.
It reminded me of myself and Z, being a single mom, with my daughter. The sometimes intensity of just us, no other family in this alien world where we are the aliens and this kantikoy of dependence and independence, the changing stages of her growth as a child and me too, constantly adjusting.
As for the lyrics, it reminds me that to love and parent, you really have to be fighting for peace against a world that is violent and totally at war with innocence. "Fighting for peace" is a bit of a contradiction lived out at times, the drama of choosing your battles. When the voices tell you its worth the fight and discomfort, loss of friendship or when God says, " Put down your sword...Don't be afraid I have already conquered the world."  The real war is just to maintain my peace and rest in that place of Grace that tells me the battle was finished before I was born. I return to that equilibrium, Light.
To chose to be a parent (because for me it was a choice), it came from a place of optimism. Despite the world being so vicious, there is Hope (hence one of her names). 
"You did not break me
I'm still fighting for peace"
The world hasn't broken me yet, Z has yet to see me fall apart as this dancer does dramatically, but my daughter and I do have this at times a mythological interplay of dancing archetypes.

"I've got thick skin and an elastic heart
But your blade it might be too sharp
I'm like a rubberband until you pull too hard
I may snap and I move fast
But you won't see me fall apart
'Cos I've got an elastic heart"...


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