nostalia

jams for while I’m away…

April 12, 2012

Well, it’s vacation time again!

Luckyyyyyyy.

This time around I’ll be skittering off to far off places like New York City and Charlotte– warm weather HERE I COME. I’ve got my stripes all packed and my playlist made and ready. I can’t wait for this break and for the time I am going to spend with friends. This week as been longer than long and if it wasn’t for that 90s pop Pandora station I found on Sunday I honestly don’t know if I would have made it through to today.

But here I am, and PUMPED at that.

You guys remember the 90s, right?

Scrunchies and roller skating rinks, puffy paint and mix tapes.

I had trolls, played MASH, and wrote my notes in a Trapper Keeper.

And I could be found in the afternoons snacking on DunkAroos and watching the best Nickelodeon television there ever was.

You might have worn something like this:

Or this:

Or maybe even this:

Or, if you were my sister, you might have worn some something as outrageous as this:

HILAAAAARIOUS.

Every time I look at that last one I die.

Seriously.

CRACKS. ME. UP.

Now, I’m leaving you with something really special while I’m gone. Something to help the time pass, and that you’d be crazy not to love:

15 of my very favorite 90s jams to listen to allllll week long.

Luckyyyyyyyy.

90s Pop! from dearfriend on 8tracks.

Later sk8ters!

ENJOY!

16 Comments · Filed Under: life, music, nostalia ·

i was a dancer.

March 29, 2012

I was a dancer once.

That print was in the studio where I danced and that painting, well besides it being absolutely gorgeous, is one of my favorites because it’s pretty much the exact outfit I always wore.

I used to fling my body through the air and through space, freeing myself up unto the heavens.

It is one of the best feelings in the world.

I was a dancer and I loved it.

I don’t dance much anymore and it’s sad, but sometimes, sometimes in the summertime I find myself dancing again on the beach. It’s usually when the sun’s about to set and the crowds have gone home. Through the sand I move and glide and jump and twirl. I put some music in my head and I just dance. I jump through the sunlight and the salty air and I feel that feeling that I felt such a long time ago.

I was a dancer and I miss it.

That’s the thing about growing up sometimes. You don’t do the things you used to love to do. You find new things to love, and new things you’re good at, but sometimes you have to leave those old things behind. Or they get left behind somehow as you grow older and you’re not quite sure how to get them back.

I dance on the beach and I dance on my glossy wood floors from time to time, spinning around and around, but I don’t really dance anymore. And I miss it.

I miss it.

17 Comments · Filed Under: nostalia ·

i wanna dance with somebody.

February 13, 2012

{photo credit}

I used to dance in high school. I think I may have told you this before, but I’m not sure. I was pretty serious about it too. Pointe shoes, dance camp, the whole nine yards.

Then in college I kept up with it to some extent, but less for serious and more for fun.

I miss dancing a lot. Sometimes I think I should take a class, but I know it would never be the same. I actually tried a ballet class a few years ago and I held my own pretty well. I was really proud of myself for doing such a good job, keeping up with the steps and jumps and spins. I couldn’t walk for a few days after, and going up stairs was pretty much torture, but I did it. Ok, ok I might be exaggerating a little. But anyways, like I said, it just wasn’t the same.

I think for me, one of the best parts of dancing and being a dancer, besides the thrill of moving through space, were the friends I made. It’s like any sport or hobby, really, you find a connection with other people who have a love for the same things you do. It’s happening to me now with blogging in the same way.

So anyways, I have the specific memory with some of my closest dance friends from college. We were an eclectic mix really, all so very different, but that’s one of the reasons I loved this group of people much. We all loved to dance and the rest didn’t matter.

It was spring vacation and while the rest of our school was away at home or off drinking on the beach on some island in the Caribbean, we were spending our time at a dance festival (taking classes, performing, watching all kind of glorious dance). We were getting to know each other better and better, which is what happens when you spend every waking moment with people, and at the end of one of our last days at the festival, as we were leaving the parking lot, I had this incredible experience I will never forget.

Whitney came on the radio.

This song.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

Without even discussing it we stopped the car in the middle of the parking lot, blasted the music as loud as it would go, opened the doors, got out, and started dancing.

We lifted our heads to the sky and threw our arms open wide.

We jammed and swayed and felt that music in the deepest part of our beings.

We just danced and danced like dancing fools do. Not a care in the world, not a bit of worry or embarrassment or self-consciousness.

We just danced our hearts out. All 5 of us right there in that parking lot.

We danced to Whitney and we loved it.

And forever I will love that song because it reminds me, truly, of when I was young and wild and free.

11 Comments · Filed Under: fitness, friends, nostalia ·