It's funny, the different ways we experience life. 

The kid and I sat next to each other in the dark concert hall as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre weaved wordless stories on the stage below us. He kicked back at times, rested his head on his chair and shut his eyes to grab snatches of sleep. I scooted to the edge of my own chair, leaned over the balcony's edge and stared awestruck at bodies more chiseled and athletic than any I've seen. 

He seemed the reluctant third wheel of his parents. I was fulfilling a dream, ticking #48 off my life list. 

The kid didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be anywhere else. 

I can't recall the first time I heard about the Alvin Ailey dance company. The Charlie Rose show, perhaps. I know he's a fan. Or maybe it wasn't until I started watching So You Think You Can Dance. Members of the renowned dance company have appeared on the show from time to time. 

Whichever, I was intrigued enough to make seeing them myself a part of my life list. The power of the life list is not just that it compels you to live life more fully, but that when you share it, others help make your dreams happen as well. And so, two months ago, I was surprised to see a message in my email box with the simple subject: Life List. 

"Hi Dana!," it read. "I've been fascinated by your blog for some time now, and I was marveling at your life list. One in particular caught my eye - your desire to see an Alvin Ailey dance show."

The message was from a parent at the kids' preschool, a woman I don't know well whom I had no idea even read my blog. 

"They're coming to the Kennedy Center in February and the tickets went on sale this morning! Consider going - they're incredible."

Without that email, without her help, it's likely I never would have known the dancers were appearing a short drive from our house. 

The show opened with a piece called "Streams" that I found disappointing and dispassionate, though my God, I thought, the bodies! I couldn't get over the musculature on display, the raw strength, even if the dancers seemed to just be executing steps. I worried the night would be too complicated for someone like me - a neophyte with no dance background - to penetrate. 

After a pause, though, the curtain pulled back to reveal tables and chairs, two door frames. "Props!" I whispered, with excitement. Like the table Twitch and Sasha tangoed on this past season of SYTYCD and the door frame Twitch and Katee fought through years ago. 

They called the production "Urban Folk Dance" and it was a steamy tale of relationships, infidelities, passions lost and rekindled, an obvious inspiration for the Twitch/Sasha "Misty Blue" piece. I was on the edge of my seat. The kid next to me? I was too engrossed to notice. 

After the intermission, the dancers joined en masse for an electric production of "Minus 16" that sounded, at times, to pulse to the music of Ravi Shankar. Listen, I don't know how to describe this piece other than bodies possessed by a spirit. They threw shoes, stripped off clothes, fell to the ground, stomped chairs and whiplashed  backwards. It was mesmerizing. But even more stunning was later when the dancers fanned out among the seats and picked audience members to join them in joyous improvisation on stage. 

I died with fright -- and envy too. Had they picked me, I would have stood mortified on stage, paralyzed by my own inhibitions. I envied the people they chose, their freedom and playfulness. And wished it could have been me. I watched them and wished I could have been that brave. That alive. 

Because that's what dance does, right? Emboldens and frees you. If you're lucky. If you allow it. 

By the end of the show, the disinterested kid next to me borrowed his mother's binoculars to better watch the dancers and I felt overwhelmed by several of the spirituals in the closing production of "Revelations."  The music, the dance, they transported me back to the wooden pew in Raleigh where every Sunday I'd shut my eyes and cry as the choir shook the church with their gospel hymns. 

Thank you, Emily, for turning me on to the show. Thank you so so much!

We went to a neighbor's house this past weekend to help their daughter celebrate her 4th birthday. The kids played with legos and dolls and whatever else littered the well-stocked playroom. But after a spell, Desmond wandered into the dining room where the adults were sitting. 

"Do you have any books?" he asked.

Did you see the piece in the Wall Street Journal about French parents and why they're better than American ones? Remember the buzz about Tiger Moms and how their strict, demanding style makes most Western parents seem indulgent and lazy? 

There are so many stories and reports and "experts" who remind me I'm doing it wrong. I don't fret over them for the most part because I do a bang-up job of badgering myself already. I'm well aware that I'm too often short-tempered and impatient, that I'm overwhelmed by the noise, especially when I'm distracted by words and stories in my head. I don't volunteer enough, and we simply can't afford the array of activities that no doubt would enrich the kids lives. 

The only thing I can do is redouble efforts every day to dig deeper for patience and focus and compassion, and pray hard that the kids forget, or eventually forgive, the anger. 

Every so often, though, I get a glimpse like this past weekend that we're doing at least a few things right by our kids. Desmond wasn't interested in the toys; he wanted to read! I would have high-fived Kent right there in our friends' dining room if he'd been at the party.

And on Friday, Esme brought home her report card. Tucked inside was a handwritten note from her teacher who complimented Esme on her strong reading and writing skills. "She's devouring books right here in my classroom," her teacher wrote. "I honestly delight in her writing. Oh my, keep her at it!"

Small victories, they're what keep me going.

A bloated, middle-aged man who squinted to stop the room from spinning sat slumped over a card game in the middle of the night and pretended no one noticed the slurred words as they spilled from his mouth like wet dough. 

His brother wobbled and knocked a beer across the table; he never picked up another. 

_______

Another weekend assignment for Trifecta Writing Challenge. The task: write a story in three sentences.

A lot of talk about the end times lately, what with the trippy weather and Newt Gingrich's resurgence. I say we all follow Desmond's lead and chill out.

Rat a tat tat tat,

The sound of lovers leg-locked and lusty,

Until the tat tat tats taper and...

Stop. 

_____

This was submitted for the new weekend edition of the Trifecta Writing Challenge. The prompt: Write a love story in 33 words. I'm fairly certain my story of a failed love affair with words and writing will be one of the more unusual takes on the prompt, but it's where my head (and heart) are right now. 

In both instances, I had to wipe away tears too. 

I've been fighting back melancholy since the new year and reminding myself daily that spring is but a few months away. I don't want to take photos. I don't want to write. I lay on the couch and heave big, heavy, dramatic sighs and sometimes I stifle tears that don't really come. 

But twice this week, I helped and held others in crisis and felt slightly more human. It strikes me that both instances could have turned out differently. 

I'm not an effusive hugger. Throwing my arms around friends or even family, let alone strangers, just doesn't come naturally to me. Which is interesting because I love other people who are, envy them really. Their simultaneous confidence and vulnerability, their generosity. What gifts. And of course, I love to be on the receiving end of their hugs, especially the ones from squishy but sturdy, big-bosomed women like my Grandmother Josephine. I could get lost in that type of love but it's just not something I've ever done well except with my own children. I'm too guarded, too fearful perhaps.

So, when I ran into a woman from my neighborhood near the soap and home cleaners at Target, it didn't seem likely that we'd share a long, intimate hug. But I could tell at 'hello' that she was rattled. She told me she'd just been venting to her mother on the phone about unexpected obstacles with her new business.

"I just don't understand why people can be so mean," she said finally, her voice choked with emotion.

I'm forever aghast and saddened by the same question, I told her. 

And then I walked out from behind the shopping cart and bridged the gulf between us and hugged her. And even as I was doing it, I was aware that it was entirely out of character. But she held on and cried and thanked me and I didn't want to be anywhere other than right there, with her. When I finally stepped away, I was crying too. 

_________________

On my way to pick up Tobias from school yesterday, I saw a tiny dog flitting through the front yard of a nearby house. It looked like a neighbor's dog that I rescued once before after it had escaped its fenced-in backyard. When I realized it wasn't, I had a rapid-fire conversation with myself about stopping that included the observation that the dog looked skittish and difficult to get, as well as an extra glance at the clock to see that dismissal was just a few minutes away. 

I'm ashamed to say that I drove on. I thought surely the dog would find its way home or someone would intervene.

I called myself all manner of insulting names when I thought about it throughout the day and especially when I saw the message on the neighborhood list serv a few hours later that the dog escaped from a mother and her children while they were visiting the neighborhood. 

After dinner, Kent walked through the back door in his bike gear, put down his bags and walked straight out the front door. 

"I've got to go find a dog," he said. 

"Oh, thank God," I shouted and blurted out the whole story to Esme who was the only one listening at that point because Kent was already outside looking. It turns out that as he rounded the corner to home, he saw the tan-colored Chihuahua/Pug mix in a yard it obviously didn't belong in. He stopped to help the dog but when he got closer, she bolted through a slit in the fence. 

I quickly called the phone number in the email and asked the dog's name -- Gigi. 

"I have six kids and they're heartbroken," Gigi's mom, Julie, said. "I'll be right there."

Kent walked up one street yelling Gigi's name and I walked up the other. But there was no sign of her, so we walked home. When Julie showed up outside the house, she pulled her two-and-half-year-old from her minivan, positioned him on her hip, and we headed out again while Kent went inside to get our four to bed.

Julie lives in Arlington, one city over. She'd stopped at our coffee shop at 10 a.m. and didn't realize Gigi was missing until she got home. She's such a tiny, slip of a dog - and lightning fast too - and she obviously just hightailed it out an open door without being seen. 

By nightfall, Julie had given Gigi up for gone. 

I walked up the hill and ran into a neighbor who was standing on her porch. She went inside to grab dog snacks and headed out for her own search after I rounded the top of the hill. I heard Julie calling Gigi's name frantically from the street next to mine. When she went silent, I stopped, hopeful she found Gigi. But then she resumed the chant again and I carried on. 

I went down a third street, then headed out along the main road. At the end of the block, I was shocked to see Gigi in the center of a corner lot. I called her name and she darted for the fence. "No!" I yelled. "I've found your Mama." I don't know whether she stopped because she realized I might actually have something useful to tell her or whether the slits in this fence were too narrow for her head, but she backed up from the fence and walked to the center of the lawn. 

I didn't dare move an inch closer, just stood on the sidewalk and tried to sweet talk her. My hands were shaking as I called Julie who was several blocks away. She didn't know the neighborhood - and it was dark - so I couldn't figure out where she was at first or how to direct her to me. 

"Just follow the runners," I said. 

There were packs of runners from a local running club out training last night and Julie ran beside two of them -- a mother of six with a baby on her hip, running toward me in the dark. 

"Your Mommy's coming," I told Gigi who was comfortable enough by that time to drop to her belly in the grass. 

"Gigi! Gigi, baby!" When Gigi heard Julie, she sat erect, one paw lifted from the ground and her ears perked in the most impossibly adorable way. She ran to her family and jumped in Julie's arms and well, you can understand why I cried. 

On the walk back, Julie gushed about our neighborhood and the people she met in the street who helped. "People in Arlington are nice," she said. "But they wouldn't send out search parties like this." 

"Your neighborhood's great," she told my neighbor up the street, the one with the dog snacks, as we stood outside my house. "It is," my neighbor said and smiled. Sometimes it is just like a hug.

I've been terrible at joining in, but I read the posts religiously and look forward to the big reveal each week, wondering if this will be the week I'm compelled to write. 

It should come as no surprise that I've been in a bit of a creative hole lately. Surely you've noticed the scant posts. I stared out the window today at the giant sugar maple that towers over our back yard and thought, there will be leaves soon. This malaise will lift. 

Lisa reminded me again today that there's a new prompt to tackle and still two days left to do it. "There's still time, Dana. Sway. C'mon," she wrote on my Facebook wall. 

I'm going to sleep on it and think of it fresh when I wake. But, in the meantime, Trifecta also created a meme this week to help the writers get to know one another. Ten questions to share with others. Surely, I can at least do that. 

1. What is your name (real or otherwise) 

Dana Damico. My father will remind you of my middle name, though; he insists on calling me Dana Ann. My husband prefers "Dana Bird" while my dearest friend settled on Mrs. Ramirez for reasons unknown to everyone but her.

2. Describe your writing style in three words. 

Concise and unadorned. I hope it manages to be poignant at least some of the time. 

3. How long have you been writing online? 

I started Feast After Famine in August 2009, but I started work as a newspaper reporter in 1997 and my stories went online as soon as the newspaper created its web site. When was that? I'm postmenopausal and old and can't possibly be expected to remember such things. 

4. Which, if any, other writing challenges do you participate in? 

I gave NaNoWriMo a solid effort this past November but insecurity and shame got the better of me and I flamed out just shy of 20,000 words. 

5. Describe one way in which you could improve your writing.

Ignore my nasty inner critic and write with abandon. 

6. What is the best writing advice you've ever been given. 

"Quit yer whining and just write." It's not an actual quote (despite the quotation marks), but it seems to be the one thing every writer I've ever met can agree on.

7. Who is your favorite author?

Annie Dillard wows me, Tom Junod makes me envious, John Irving makes me cry with laughter, and John Steinbeck was the first writer who smashed my heart to bits and made me weep. Favorite? I don't have one.

8. How do you make time to write?

This is the problem: I don't actually have a consistent writing schedule. I have four kids (7, 5, 5, 3) who obviously require lots of attention so I write when I can, usually in my head first. I write notes on scrap paper and tell the kids to shush so I can hear the words clamoring for my attention. If my thoughts wake me, I root for my iPhone in the dark and tap away in the 'Notes' file. I have no shame about parking the kids in front of the television with a movie if there are words that I need to get out. Generally, I can't write at night because my head turns off the instant the kids go to bed (if not a few hours earlier).

9. Give us one word we should consider using as a prompt. 

Poop. I'm sorry, like I said, I'm surrounded by kids and scatalogical humor makes them howl with laughter.

10. Direct us to one blog post of yours that we shouldn't miss reading. 

I couldn't find one. So, I'm directing you to a post that I wrote about writing, how it makes me feel, why I keep at it. It's called 10,535, and I wrote it during the first week of NaNo when I was still high on the adrenaline of creating something from nothing. Before all the magic went poof.  

If you're interested in experimenting with the Trifecta Writing Challenge, they're always looking for new writers. Head on over to the site now. Give it a whirl. This week's prompt is "Sway."  Remember to use the third definition (go to the site for details). Your deadline: Tuesday at 8 a.m. EST.

I've spent the past several weeks obsessed with Downton Abbey. I close my eyes at night and hear Bates talking. I wake in the morning and Anna speaks. I imagine myself in Mary's dresses and struggle to recall a character I've ever loathed quite as much as Edith. Or Thomas. Or O'Brien. 

I'm captivated by the lot of it -- the writing, the acting, the cinematography. I can't recall a television show I've loved as fiercely, though surely there is one. 

The same is true of this song. When you spend years burying sadness and anger, fear and other unsavory emotions, it can be hard to find your feelings. For whatever reason, this piece calls to a deep place long overlooked, frees up tears and desire, love and pain. I can't recall another song that's touched me so completely. Though surely there is one.

Strong connections made become weak ones, regretted.

Used to be, letters unanswered over time told the story, gently.

The Internet makes the ebb sting like sand running over feet, immovable, as you see imprints elsewhere and question: Why not here?

Trees bud.

Flowers fade.

Snow falls.

Rain soaks the ground and water races. Away.

---

As for real poems, have you seen Amy Turn Sharp's poem project? She's writing a poem a day for the next year and, so far, I'm wild about them. Go. 

It's re-registration time at school - $175.

There's a broken branch with a dagger tip perched 60 feet up in the sugar maple that threatens to impale the unfortunate standing beneath it when time or wind or decomposition dislodges it. Cost to remove: $575.

Then, the automatic sliding door on the car broke. It's a hard problem to ignore even for classy folk like us who have overlooked the missing hub cap, rusted out dent and bashed side view mirror for more than a year. Price tag to fix the door? I'm scared to ask. Ditto the other stuff.

Even before the bills starting piling up like pancakes, I knew it was time to start the job search. Both out of necessity and interest. The kids are nearly done with the constant need for me and have embarked on independent, exciting lives outside the house. I'm eager to fill their absence with work, but I also need to. Come fall, two more children enter Catholic school full time and the youngest goes to preschool an extra day a week. Translation: Lots and lots of dollar signs.

And so, work.

Part-time, ideally. 

Where? What? I don't know.

It's been so long since I put a resume together I'm not sure what they even look like anymore.

Your tips and leads and thoughts and experiences are most welcome. Not just about the resume, about all of it.