Revelation.

I do not want to be a dancer.

I came to this realization this week. After spending so much time agonizing over why I am studying dance in Israel and why I am a dance major, this thought came to me in a moment of complete clarity while I was zoning out during class.

I do not want to be a dancer. I am not truly interested in the dance world. I have been privy to so many conversations here about famous choreographers, dancers and dance companies. A few months ago, I figured that I would start to get a grasp on who they were and would become really passionate about learning more about them. But I have not. Whenever I try to sit down to watch a YouTube video by some dancer the entire dance world has heard of, I get bored (it takes at least 3x the length of the video for it to load!) and wander off to do something else. I never seem to actually sit down and watch the videos.

I walk into dance class and I am glad to be there.

[This is in part due to an amazing phenomenon that has occurred in my life: I am attending class well-rested and not overworked. I have always been the one to set my own schedule (aka: to overschedule myself) and I love being busy. But I am truly interested in attending ALL of my classes here. ]
But this is not because of any real excitement to be furthering my life dream of being a famous dancer. It is because I love working with my body. I love creating. I love observing and thinking and I am interested in the process of doing all this. I like stretching and moving and being out of breath and pushing myself. I like being taught to think about the world with my body. But it is not dance that I am committed to, not dance that I love purely.
So I walk into dance class excited for a new challenge, for a new way to digest the world, but I am perfectly OK when I am not dancing. I will be glad to go back to Wesleyan and to choreograph something that will compliment whatever thesis I do, to take dance classes and to study myself, in a sense, but when I leave Wesleyan, I will take with me the values and lessons I have gotten from being a dancer for a few years and I will incorporate them into wherever the wind blows me.

What do I want to do? This occurred to me as well. I want to be a teacher. This is something that has always been in my mind, but this week it was very clear to me that I want to be a teacher a lot sooner than I had thought. I thought I would want to be selfish as a 20-something, to travel the world and to pursue art and knowledge. But I really am interested in teaching.

"Do not give up so easily!" I shouted at my Hasidism teacher as he exited our classroom. A very sweet Hasidic man who was brought up in a very secular family in the states and who went to Sarah Lawrence college, who is now a Hasidic man, pais and all, with 7 children and a tiny little home in the Orthodox neighborhood about 20 minutes away from where I live. Recently, he has seemed rather lost in our class. He was so eager at first to have such a different class than he is used to: normally he teaches a small seminar class on Hasidism to third year college students. This year, he has a class with 41 people, 80% of whom are Nativ (gap year) students. The college students who had spent a month of Ulpan with the Nativ-ers were less enthusiastic (I swear, I have never been ageist before). After their enthusiasm waned, many of them dissolved into high school behavior again. Thus, our class dissolved. My professor, who attempts every class to teach high level religious, philosophical, theoretical information always gets frustrated and gives up. Frequently in the middle of a sentence. Leaving the college students and the Nativ students who are committed to the class feeling frustrated.
"What do you mean?" He asked, taking off his hat and coming back across the classroom to talk to me. An hour or so passed, me doling out criticisms and thoughts and suggestions, him asking questions, telling me his thoughts, writing notes about what I had said. His own frustration was obvious, but his resolve was obviously being strengthened talking to me. Listening to myself talk, with my limited knowledge of how to work with "kids" (camp!), made me realize how interested I am in people and in teaching people. "Why are you a teacher? What do you want to get out of this?" I quizzed him. "I love people," he replied. It is as simple as that.
Our next class was very different. It was fabulous. It is in fact probably exactly how I will teach someday. Inspired on my part by so many amazing teachers that I have had who have opened my eyes to all that there is to be learned from the world. Also due, of course, to an amazing professor who actually listened with respect and interest to the critical comments of his student!!!

So, now?

Now, nothing changes. I continue to enjoy class. I will work diligently because I like what I am doing and I like learning. But the doubt and insecurity is gone. I no longer feel like I have to try so hard to be something that I am not, that I am not even sure I want to be. This experience will add greatly to my life and to who I am. It already has. And that, in and of itself, is incredibly valuable.