When you perform a flamenco puppet show for 300 kiddos with world class musicians,

and then get back to your customer service job the next morning at 7 AM...

Yeah, my Instagram feed sometimes looks kind of glamorous. But, I also hope it also conveys my normal day to day slogging, too. This morning, I had one last gig to do to wrap up my participation in our Zorongo Flamenco Minnesota Tour. We visited six cities outside of the Twin Cities, and held our end of tour show in St. Paul. It was a great experience! Above you can see the hundreds of little kids who enjoyed our puppet show at Gustavus College last Thursday morning. They were super adorable, and it was lovely seeing all of their engaged little faces looking up at me and Olie, my puppet. One kindergarten class even sang us a cute goodbye song in Spanish (sadly, their Spanish is probably better than mine).

And then there are the other days. Here I am today, after our last gig at a Community Center in Bloomington-

My buddy Amanda took this photo, which I have titled "Post-Tour: A shovel, ice scraper, blanket, and lots of bags". I'm still in my flamenco dress. wearing my running shoes, and carrying every pair of flamenco shoes I own now in my dance bag (which are getting to become quite a collection) along with all the other things I brought in our Zorongo van.

I love performing. It's pretty much what I do best. But, at this moment I was also looking forward to a bath and a nap, to unpacking my costumes and cleaning my house, too. I'm wearing my tennis shoes because my feet were legit tired of heels. And I'm not a tennis shoe kind of person, if you know me at all. My point is that sometimes we forget to post the not-so glamorous moments, and I'm glad Amanda was there to snap a photo of me living the real life.

It's been almost a month since the tour ended. I've procrastinated even posting this blog. I've still been hard at work rehearsing, but some days, I find the need to stay home and take it slower. It's winter, it's gotten colder, and the holidays are fast upon us. Thanksgiving has already come and gone. And I've found it hard to jump onto the fast-running horse that is the process of getting ready for a show.

But, I know I have to jump back on because the Majas have a production of our own that we will show in mid-January! And it's mid-December! I feel like we're totally crazy for doing it, but also really appreciate that we're going for it too. We have so much work to do (more on that in another post...)

I think that what I'm getting at in this post is that being an artist takes a lot of hard work, energy, and momentum, and I'm totally amazed and inspired by the artists around me who have made this their practice. Much of the time, the work behind the scenes is not glamorous and is not fun. It can be downright stressful. And each opportunity I have to take part in that process has taught me something, made me grow as a human, and inspired me to push forward.

To all of you artists out there, you all have super powers in my eyes. I support you, love you, and encourage you to keep getting on that horse. If you ever want to talk about how it's not glamorous, and how it stresses you out, I'm here with a listening ear and open arms. I see you. Keep inspiring me. Don't stop!

Getting back to normal...