2016: Year of the Nomad

The first month of the year is coming to a close and I have been traveling Europe for the last four weeks. "Where do you live? Where are you based? What do you do?" they ask. I shrug my shoulders and smile the smug smile of a proud, uncertain nomad. Four months ago I found myself having to decide where I wanted to geographically continue my life. As a Canadian citizen who has spent the last five years studying and networking her career in the U.S., but not so convinced as to exert copious amounts of effort, money, and commitment to acquire the right to stay working in America (yet...) I decided I needed to see more and experience more, before marrying myself to a country. And so, by December 2015, I chose to invest in a relationship with a 20-pound backpack branded by Gregory, and bought a one-way ticket to Paris in time to greet the first of January, 2016.

With a pack strapped to my back and changing locations every three or four days, I am in constant ponder of the idea of "home." So much, that it has become a sort of research. I do not have an apartment, or even a childhood room, waiting for me to return and bask in its physical home-ness. I have no bed and memory foam to dream of, or walls of photos and UO decor to anticipate greeting. No where in the world do I own my own pots and pans, or a garbage can anymore. The thought can become a downward spiral towards a self-indulgent, sob night of wine and ice-cream. But, in actuality, the lack of these things don't matter. The place where I've found the most comfort, and this sense of "home" these last few months, is in people. Not only in the friends and family most dear to me, but also in generous strangers who have welcomed me into their foreign homes. "Home is where the heart is;" and that heart can go anywhere. Home, to me, has been feelings of trust, gratitude, and the communal connection of human beings.

On most days I feel generally fatigued and wrung out like a wet towel. It has been a gritty, and sometimes chaotic adventure. But, I can always taste the sweet notes at the end of each day. The sweet feeling that I am surviving something; that there is a challenge to survive through. It is this work to survive that is so rewarding.

2015, I bid you adieu.

©2015 Omar Z Robles | www.omarrobles.com |  All Rights Reserved.

Dear Two-Thousand Fifteen,

Thank you for bringing me the most colorful year yet. With the passing of each year I find myself simultaneously filled with pride and stunned by how many new experiences, friends, perspectives, and questions I gained over the course of twelve months. This year was no exception.

The following ramble is due to part-documentation, gloating, and I-have-a-blog-now-so-I-should-update.

Within 2015: I experienced my first winter living in Brooklyn, NY, exercising the practice of taking off excessive winter gear before entering steamy, sardine-d subways; only to stealthily put it back on again before facing the bitter cold. I nurtured my love for tiny children and taught at Kidville under cute class names such as Big Muscle Builders and Run Wiggle Paint and Giggle - meeting the children of famed actors and models and, normal Manhattan-people. I continued my apprenticeship with Elisa Monte Dance and when the company went on tour I would sub in for Tiffany Rea-Fisher's contemporary classes at The Joffrey Ballet School (involving many prances and X-shapes). I started receiving collaborative proposals by photographers such as the Insta-famous Omar Z. Robles, adventurers Hloni Coleman and Zach Louw from Cape Town, and Kike Calvo of the National Geographics. I auditioned for a fabric commercial where I learned tanglingchoreography using bed-sheets (I didn't get the callback). Made some cool dance videos with videographer Jacob Hiss, and my favorite improv partner, Scott Willits. I volunteered at Mark Morris Dance Group's Dance for PD program where I witnessed the beauty of sometimes fifty seniors with Parkinson's Disease, who trek to Brooklyn every Wednesday afternoon to dance (and they sure can dance.) I made my JOYCE THEATER debut with The Francesca Harper Project, danced in a piece by Margot Gelber at STREB which consisted of me standing on table that raised me 30-feet up in the air, and took part in a pre-production workshop for an immersive dance theater show with Broadway choreographer, Chase Brock.

Through all of this, I still enjoyed simple pleasures like being greeted by sunlight through my windows in the morning; taking in the satisfying smoky smell of blowing my candle out at night; and the making of many kinds of friendships. New, old, spontaneous, predictable, brief, life-long... all being invaluable.

If there is one thing I find myself contemplating at the end of each year, it is how often and unexpectedly things, including myself, change. Like New York winter weather, you can depend on nothing to stay the same. Yet this is also what makes life so extraordinary. I am excited (and terrified) by what unimaginable things the upcoming year will bring, and I hope you will follow me on my next journey!