i’ve always wanted to learn folk dancing, but never made the time to.  in middle school i learned a few (plus a couple hula and tahitian dances…lol.  filipinos and hawaiian/polynesian culture is a blog rant entry for another day) for our cultural assemblies, but bc my filipino org involvements were off-campus in both high school and college, i never did pcn (“pilipino cultural night”…i’m surprised pcn doesn’t have an entry on wiki!) or any of that “normal” filipino club stuff (like friendship games which is…WHOA.  25yrs old this year).

i’ve always loved watching the cultural dancing portions of pcn (the actual story lines, not so much) and i regret not better balancing my time and priorities to include all that “filipino social scene” stuff in addition to the community organizing and political advocacy i was already engaged in.  my perspective when i was younger was pretty much “go hard or go home” with the activism and, as i’ve gotten older, i’ve begun to appreciate and realize the functional purpose the “social” filipino clubs serve (none of them are purely social, which is what i failed to see, though most were and are definitely not as “political” as the orgs i committed alllllllllll, and i mean ALLLLLLLLL of my time to).  

in college i actually was genuinely interested in joining the filipino club, but was immediately turned off by the fact that on the first day of classes for the school year their major selling point for recruiting new members was pcn (i said to them: “umm, isn’t pcn at the END OF THE YEAR?”, signed up for their mailing list, and walked away).  i understood how big a deal pcn was, but for that event (plus friendship games) to be pretty much all of what they did throughout the year seriously turned me off.  though i knew a bunch of the officers for the club, i never did give em another chance and, as my schoolwork, workwork, and community work loads grew and the officers i knew graduated, my non-membership never bothered me again.  

and so that brings me to today.  i’ve been on sabbatical from organizing, any sort of community involvements—period, and…really…from LIFE for a year now.  i am feeling out this “re-emerging” thing and coming back into the world is a scary, scary thing…but it’s time.  i wish i could rewind the clock back 10 years, reappear on the verge of my freshman year of college, and do a bunch of things over and make better decisions (generally speaking)…but of course i can’t.  for now, the task at hand is regaining a foothold on how to once again be in the world and in the midst of its madness, but without over-committing, ignoring my health and self, and without burning out this time.  and…maybe, it’s time to learn some folk dancing, too.