I'm going to be honest. 2016 has been a tough year. My husband's business slowed down significantly and I've had to continue learning to balance my own work with my need for self-care. Over this year, I have had to learn to accept that I cannot do as much as I used to. I have even had to accept an additional diagnosis. I know now that I have Fibromyalgia on top of the Lupus.

Yet, I am grateful. I can still do a lot. I'm still dancing. I'm even back to teaching regularly. This school year, I am teaching Flamenco to 7th-12th graders at a performing arts high school. I love being able to share this art form that I love so much and I love the kids. They are so funny and they are sponges too. I can't believe how much they learn in such a short amount of time.

Earlier in the year, I was ordained as an Interfaith Minister and I got to perform my friend's wedding in September. Along with my sister-in-law and some supportive friends and family, I also helped raise thousands of dollars for Lupus organizations. 

Even among the difficulties, a lot of great stuff has happened and I believe that very little of this would have been possible if it were not for my access to healthcare--my regular visits to the Rheumatologist, my lab tests, my medicines.

I am supremely grateful for my healthcare. I pray to continue to have access and I pray that everyone has that same access.

For many, including myself, 2017 brings a lot of uncertainty. There is one thing I know for sure, though. I am surrounded by love. The love of my very supportive husband, family, and friends. The love I feel for all of them. The love I show myself when I take things one moment at a time. The love I know I have for all beings, even if sometimes it is hard to express it. I know that there is an infinite amount of love that is always available, no matter what hardships may come.

For that, I am most grateful.



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Usually I try to keep my blog posts focused on a theme and regardless of the theme, I try and tie everything to Flamenco.  However, I've been gone from the blog for about three months and I thought I owed everyone an update.

I have definitely not gone into hiding.  I have been busy with Flamenco, but I have also been busy with everything that isn't Flamenco.

​Wait, what ISN'T Flamenco?!
​
Well, to start, I co-organized my first Lupus Walk fundraiser along with my sister-in-law and fellow "Lupie", Yasmin.  We signed up for the walk only two weeks before it happened, so we decided on a modest fundraising goal of $500 and ended up raising raising more than $1,800 for the Alliance for Lupus Research!  I want to use this opportunity to say thank you once again to all of you who donated.  It means a lot to us.  There is still a lot the medical world does not know about Lupus, which is an auto-immune disease that can attack any organ in the body. No two cases are alike, which makes it difficult to treat.  

If you want to know more about our campaign, check out our team page, The Lupie Broads.  Our donation pages will stay up until December 31, 2016, so if you'd like to make a donation you can click on either of these two links: Mercedes or Yasmin.

Right after the Walk, I started a new part-time job that comes with dental and vision benefits.  I am very grateful for this because Lupus has affected my gums and one of my medications can affect my eyesight.  I still pay for my own medical care because the medical plan offered to me as part-timer nowhere meets the needs of a person with chronic illness. What I have gotten is still major progress for me and I am happy.

Finally, the Spring ended with a trip to New York for my graduation from One Spirit Interfaith Seminary, where I was ordained as an Interfaith Minister.  Yes, there is something major in my life besides Flamenco! Besides Flamenca, I've now been given the title of Reverend.  What does that mean?  For one, I get to perform ceremonies like weddings and baby blessings.  In fact, I've already performed two child blessings and I will be performing my first wedding in the Fall for an old friend of mine.  Beyond that, I look forward to seeing what I do.*

So that's everything else!  Now even I understand why I've been away from my blog for so long!  I'm tired!

All kidding aside, it has been a beautiful and eventful Spring and I am so grateful for your support and love.  It means the world to me and brings me lots of joy.  I hope I bring the same joy to you.

* The focus of this blog will continue to be about Flamenco and the creative process.  If you would like to know more about my work as an Interfaith Minister, feel free to email me at: revmercedesibarra@gmail.com.  Also, stay tuned.  I will be launching a website at www.revmercy.com.

"What Turning Forty Means to Me:  I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home.  I didn't used to have to do that.  But now I do." --Tina Fey

All jokes aside, I am three days away from turning 40. People have been asking me what I want to do for my birthday and I don't know what to tell them.  When I turned 30, we were living in Madrid and we planned a 30-hour party with our friends.  There was an itinerary that was distributed and anyone could join up with the party at any given time.  If you wanted to join us for drinks at 7pm, we were there.  If you wanted churros and chocolate at 6am the next day, there we were.  Most of the big details were planned out, with room for improvisation--we all came upon a playground at 3am, which led to this:

That was a fun weekend.  My friends still mention it every time they wish me a happy birthday.

​Now, 10 years later, I have no idea how to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the 30-hour party. Things feel fuzzy.  The thought at the time was, "I'm turning 30 and I'm in Spain; it should be epic!". Now it really feels like, "Uh, I don't know...?".

Now, I don't want you to take this as me being negative about my age or anything like that.  I like that I'm turning 40.  It feels like an age with some character to it.  I get to say things like, "Kids these days" and "I can't be bothered" and mean it.  It's a great age.

I think the thing that feels nebulous to me is that everything is up in the air right now.  I grew up being told that a woman needs to have her life settled by the time she's 40--her career, her family, her home; every detail should be in place.

Hmmm.  But....what happens when you've chosen a career in the arts?  I'm not even talking about the financial questions that I know come up for everyone when they hear "artist", although those are very real questions.  I'm talking about art itself.  The simple act of creation is a constant question.  When I get up onstage, I never know exactly how the performance is going to go, especially with Flamenco since so much of it is based on improvisation and communicating with your cuadro* in real time. When I sat down to write this blog post, I had no idea what was going to come out.  I still don't know where this is going to end up.

And what happens when your husband suddenly gets a job in Africa and is gone for a couple of months at a time, in a region that is not particularly stable, working for an industry that is not particularly stable?  

What happens when you get diagnosed with a chronic illness that is known for being unpredictable?

What happens is the truth of life--nothing is certain.  Nothing can be "settled".  The moment you think things are settled, a tremor or an earthquake will hit and unsettle things.  Foundations crack. Structures shift or crumble altogether.

This is where being a Flamenco dancer has given me an edge.  I have been trained to improvise.  If things aren't exactly going the way I had planned, I listen for cues and shift until everything gels together again and it always does.  It may not end up coming out the way I originally envisioned, but sometimes that insecure moment leads to something even better.  Sometimes it doesn't, but it always leaves me more confident in my ability to handle what comes.

So this birthday, with so many things in my life feeling unsettled, it seems perfect that I just let go and see what happens for my birthday weekend.  So far, I've been asked to perform at El Cid on Saturday, the day after my birthday.  I know many of my Flamenca friends are throwing a brunch for me the day after that.  I love that the weekend has spontaneously come together and it feels very right that Flamenco is playing a big part in it.  

I also find it interesting that my actual birthday day is still wide open for anything.  I'm feeling a little unsettled about that, given that it's the big 4-0 and all, but I'm just going to breathe, listen for the cues, go with what comes, and know that it will be perfect.

​
*cuadro--the ensemble of Flamenco performers onstage.



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Two years ago, I wrote A Love Letter to Flamenco and one year ago, I wrote Surrender.  It was interesting to reread them both and to think about all that has happened since.  In "Love Letter", I was recommitting myself to Flamenco after having a period of feeling a bit uninspired.  What is interesting about life is that once I wrote that letter, so many things started happening to make my renewed commitment more challenging:  I found myself needing to let go of a couple of regular gigs and I started having some physical pain that was limiting how much I could do, both in daily life and onstage.  I wrote about those challenges in Surrender, where I decided I would welcome the changes to see what I could learn from them.

Well, as you know if you've been keeping up with me, I have since learned that I have Lupus.  The mysterious pains were because of the Lupus.  So I found myself welcoming Lupus in 2015 and like I said when I first announced I had Lupus, I welcomed the diagnosis because I finally knew what I was dealing with. Maybe committing to a year of "welcoming" in 2015 readied me for the news I had long suspected was coming.

I still feel I am in the same transition process that I wrote about a year ago.  I am not really sure what is coming up next for me.  I feel like I am barely catching up with myself now.  I'm just getting used to regular doctor's visits and understanding how the Lupus behaves in my body.  I'm just now understanding what my body is trying to tell me at any given time.

So this year, I want to write a love letter to my body.  I want to thank this body of mine for carrying me through this life so far.  I want to thank it for the simple things like allowing me to walk, to run, to see, taste, smell, touch, and hear.  I want to share my gratitude for this body that has allowed me to combine those skills and senses in a way where I could make music and art with it.

I want to thank my body for carrying me en compás* all of these years, enduring muscle aches, cuts, sprains, and all kinds of pain so that I could transmit my feelings, my life, through Flamenco.  Every twirl of the fingers, every snap of the head, every arch of my back, every remate, every stretch of my arms to the sky has been because of this body meeting the demands I have made of it. My poor body even put up with me when my demands were totally unreasonable, like the years I spent in disordered eating.  It has more than bounced back since I worked on healing that issue.

So now it is time for me to really repay my body.  Right now it feels like it's screaming at me, trying to get me to pay attention.  So I promise I'm going to try and listen.  I know that as a dancer, and therefore an athlete, I often push past the fatigue and the pain in order to deliver the best performance I can give.  The thing is, I don't want to give up dancing, and honestly, I don't think my body wants me to either.  In fact, I feel like I've had some of my best performances lately.  It's as if everything I've been going through has fueled a new level of emotion that needs to get out.  My body and I both need the catharsis.

So as long as this body lets me, I'll keep dancing.  What I do promise to do is to find balance around it. If I have a show one night, nothing else happens that day or the next.  I will eat nutrient-dense food, drink lots of water, get a lot of sleep, take epsom salt baths, get a lot of sleep, meditate, do yoga and my physical therapy exercises, get a lot of sleep, protect myself from the sun, wear my compression socks, keep my hands and feet warm, take my medication and supplements, and get a lot of sleep.

Most importantly though, I will learn to trust.  This body of mine knows what it needs and what I need. I will not be "cured" because there is no cure for Lupus, but there is a lot of healing to be done and I trust that my body knows exactly what that is.  All I have to do is trust and listen, the same way I have always trusted that my body would absorb the Flamenco I so desperately wanted to learn.  Now I want to learn about healing and I trust that my loving body will teach it to me.  

​* Definitions:

en compás--in time, in rhythm.

remate--a phrase of steps that brings a section to a close, usually in a climactic way.


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"You have had a rough year," is something more than one person has said to me recently.  I guess when you think about it, it's true. In less than a year I have built the following team of health professionals thanks to Lupus:  my primary care doctor, a rheumatologist, a physical therapist, an acupuncturist, a periodontist (plus periodontal care from my dentist), and a cardiologist.  I still need to add a dermatologist, an opthamologist, and an otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat doctor).  The latter two are due to side effects from my meds. Once I add two of the last three, I have enough doctors to form my own baseball team.

I am on three daily medications and I take prescription pain medication as needed.  I am on a bunch of supplements.  I have had at least two medical appointments weekly for the last eight months.  I put myself on a fairly strict anti-inflammatory diet called the Auto-Immune Protocol, and I have been retraining myself on how to schedule my time based on The Spoon Theory. Oh, and let me not forget that I now live like a vampire because I must avoid the sun at all costs, since UV rays are a Lupus trigger (as you can guess, one of my supplements is Vitamin D).

Basically, my life has changed drastically in a short amount of time, and yes, it has been rough.  However, I feel it has also been a good year.

I welcome the changes.  After years of mysterious symptoms with no explanation, with doctors looking at me as if I was as crazy as the symptoms I described, I feel such a sense of relief.  Now when I go to a doctor, I say, "I have Lupus", and that's enough to get them to listen.  When she first evaluated me, the cardiologist said, "It's too bad you have this, but I imagine it feels good to finally be getting some answers".  Yes, yes, that's exactly it and it's wonderful to hear a medical professional acknowledge it.

I have received so much loving-kindness from my family and friends.  Ever since I wrote my original post about my diagnosis, I have received emails, phone calls, and regular "check-ins" done with such care.  I am so grateful to know such love and support.

I also welcome new contacts I have made.  I have gotten to know other "Lupies" through mutual friends, patient conferences, and a Lupus support group sponsored by Lupus LA.  There are social networking sites for Lupus patients such as My Lupus Team and Patients Like Me.  I have found a lot of resources in the general auto-immune community because of the lifestyle changes I've made.

I have been able to rekindle an old friendship because we both found out we were sick at the same time, she with Fibromyalgia (a related disease).  After years of not seeing each other, we spent a whole afternoon drinking tea, catching up, and comparing notes.  It was awesome and now we talk regularly.

I have also been able to deepen my relationship with my sister-in-law.  She was also diagnosed with Lupus shortly before I was, so we have been each other's main support group.  Although neither of us is thrilled about being sick, it has been wonderful to have someone to turn to for support for even the smallest of things like, "My feet are so cold, I'm wearing three pairs of socks" (see Raynaud's for an explanation of that one).

Most importantly, Lupus is teaching me to be mindful and to listen to my body.  I have had to slow down enough to pay attention.  If I mistakenly eat the wrong thing, the pain in my joints tells me so.  If I don't get enough sleep or over-schedule my day, dizziness and fatigue will drag me down.  

I'm not always fine when I do what I am supposed to do, but I do tend to feel better, and this is all I need.  Feeling somewhat better has kept me dancing.  Not only that, I have been dancing with a lot of feeling according to my colleagues.  After I had performed an Alegrías recently, one of my fellow dancers told me , "There was so much joy in your dancing, it was as if there was nothing else you'd rather be doing".  I told her that she was right.  That's what if feels like when I dance--there's nowhere else I'd rather be and there's nothing else I'd rather do.  It's apparently good for me too; the cardiologist said I would be worse off now if it weren't for the dancing.  So there you go.  I'll keep dancing so long as this body wants me to do so.

So as I go into 2016, I look forward to the continued changes.  I accept that I am entering a long and slow transition into something new.  I hope that this something new brings me to more growth, love, gratitude, and acceptance, and that I may use whatever I learn to help others as well--even if it's something as simple as telling you to eat whole foods, get some sleep, and do some dancing.


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When I was still an intermediate level Flamenco student, I was given some of the best advice I have ever received, that stays with me to this day.

It happened when I was trying to drill a llamada, or opening "call" step that you use to call the musicians and singer in for the next section of the piece. Because they serve this function, llamadas are usually exciting and punctuated with percussive heelwork that comes to a well-accented close.  Then there is a breath...
and the next section begins.

So you can imagine, the llamada must be executed clearly, without hesitation.  However, when you're a student still in your early days, these steps often seem intimidating.  Thus, a fear can set in and this is where you can get stuck.

So one evening, during a rehearsal at the dance studio, I was stuck in one of these moments.  I couldn't get a llamada por Alegrías (the rhythm of "Joy" of all things) to come out, even though I had done it a bunch of times in class.  The stress of having to do it by myself while others were watching was just too much for me.  It just fell apart after the first few counts.  I was about ready to cry from anger.  It was the complete opposite of what I was supposed to be channeling.

Then the words that have stuck with me for years came out of my fellow student, a tiny, but fierce dancer.  She smacked one fist into her other palm and said, "In Spain when that would happen to me, my teacher told me the problem was that I was afraid of the step and that as long as I was afraid of the step, it would never come out.  You actually already have it in you; you just need to let go and let it come out.  So just go for it.  Just do the step.  Don't fear the step.  Don't fear the step!"

Don't fear the step.  Just go for it.  It's already in you, you just have to get out of your own way.

How perfect is that, not just for dance, but for life?  That's why I still remember it.  I have continued to use that advice throughout my Flamenco career and studies, but I also think of my fearless friend when I have a challenge in other parts of my life, such as this new Lupus diagnosis.  The fear is what keeps me stuck, but when I am willing to let go of the fear, I get out of my own way and find that the step I am so afraid of is what will lead me to the next breath, the next verse, the next calling.

Now remember, there will always be steps in dance or in life that are more complicated than you are technically prepared for, and you will have to do the work to acquire those skills.  But when you know you have diligently done the work, and something still isn't quite right, it might be time to ask yourself, "Am I afraid of the step?  Do I need to just let go and see what happens?"  I bet you'll often find that's all you needed to do to get through that step and into the next breath.

And yes, by the way, that is what happened for me that night.  I let go and it turned out I did have the step.  And yes, I breathed a big sigh of relief and got a good joyful laugh too.


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Is there a step you know you need to take, but you're letting fear hold you back? How do you think you can "let go" and just take the step?  I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below!  Let me be your cheerleader!

I've been putting off writing this entry.  I've been putting it off so much, I did not even send out my newsletter last month.  I needed some time to process what I was feeling and how I was going to talk about it.  As I write this sentence, I still don't really know what I am going to say.

Last month I was finally diagnosed with Lupus.  I say "finally" because I've been dealing with mysterious symptoms for years now.  I've been going to doctors, having them run tests to explain things like hair loss, dizzy spells, heart palpitations, digestive distress, numbness and burning in my legs and feet, and massive fatigue, among other things.

About a year ago, my symptoms got worse.  After a very busy April full of several gigs, I ended up in bed for an entire weekend, frightened.  I had sharp stabbing pains in my stomach, heart palpitations, leg weakness, nausea, dizziness, and a fever.  I went to the doctor later that week, feeling horrible, and had all sorts of tests run.  Everything came back normal.  I was told it was "just stress".

By Thanksgiving, I couldn't empty my bladder.  After some testing, it was decided I would need physical therapy to regain proper function of my bladder.  It seemed unrelated to all the other symptoms, that my dancing was responsible, but now my team of medical practitioners seem to agree that the Lupus may have something to do with why my therapy is taking longer than predicted. Forgive me if it seems crude, but to put it quite simply, I haven't fully emptied my bladder since last Fall.

Anyway, after another busy April this year, I ended up with massive fatigue again.  After another round of "normal" test results, I begged my doctor.  I said, "Look at my face".  By now, I had developed a strange rash across my cheekbones, nose, and forehead, and cystic acne all over the rest of my face. He decided to run some other tests.  A week later he called me into his office.  "I think you have Lupus".  Two weeks after that, a Rheumatologist confirmed the diagnosis.  Besides positive lab results, I now learned there was evidence of arthritis in my joints and that mysterious rash on my face turned out to be the classic Lupus symptom.

I left that Rheumatology appointment and went straight to a gig.  I danced that gig with a new awareness of my body and my life thus far.  When you first start learning Flamenco, you are inundated with all of these new rhythms, each with different names, percussive accents, and melodic tones, even if the counts are similar.  The nuances are subtle enough that it can take a few years before a student can correctly identify what palo, or rhythm, they are listening to.  Then one day it clicks.  You hear the opening chords on the guitar, the first couple of accents, and right away you know that it's a Tientos, or it's a Tarantos.  It's a Solea or it's a Solea por Buleria.

This is how I feel about my Lupus.  I've been dancing with Lupus for years now, but not knowing it. You can only improvise, adjust, or choreograph so much if you don't know the nuances of what you're working with.  Now I know that I've been dancing with Lupus.  Now I know what to adjust for.  Now I know how to improvise around it.  Now I know how to choreograph with it.  Now I know.

There is such relief in knowing.  There is also wisdom to be gained from this point forward.  Just like in Flamenco, where there's a whole new level of learning once you've learned the basics, I am now looking forward to getting to know and understand this new rhythm of Lupus.  I'll keep you posted on what I learn.

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The meditation center I go to has an annual intention-setting ceremony on New Year's Eve.  I haven't been to it yet because usually, I either have to work or I go to a family party.  However, last year one of the teachers held a daylong class in January where she held the same ceremony.

Basically, rather than listing New Year's Resolutions, we picked one word that described our intention for the year.  For me it was "welcome".  With my husband beginning his job in Chad near the end of 2013, we were barely turning the page to a new chapter in our life together.  Transitions are hard. This was the first time in our then 12 years of marriage (15 of being together) that we would be apart for a significant amount of time.  Due to extraneous circumstances, we essentially moved in together after only three months of dating, so you can imagine how this change has been shocking to us.  

Add to this that before now, I have never lived alone for an extensive amount of time.  Suddenly, not only is my husband far, far away, I am now fully confronted with what it is like to live with me.  There is no one else to direct my attention toward.  In the silence I hear all my thoughts, fears, hopes, desires, joy, and rage.  It is sometimes deafening.

Through my practice, and through Flamenco as well, I have come to learn how to be in the moment and accept what is, or at least to try.  So I decided to fully embrace it.  Hence, "welcome".  In 2014 I welcomed the new lifestyle, the new challenges and struggles it would create, but I also looked forward to the new opportunities.  One amazing opportunity was my visit to Chad: 
https://mercedesfinallymakesittochad.shutterfly.com/

However, over the last year, I had to learn that part of the practice of welcoming, is to welcome the unwelcome.  In July I was hit by a drunk driver and my new car needed tons of repair (luckily I manged to escape with just a bruise on my arm).  I also had to make the choice to leave behind some of my regular gigs because I felt they were not serving me, either financially or spiritually.  On my way to Chad, my original flight was canceled and my replacement flight left me stranded in Istanbul for two days.  Throughout all of it, I had to remember "welcome".

Now I am starting the new year with some physical complications that are due to a possible back injury.  I am still dancing, but I am now making the choice to only do work that serves my whole well-being.  In the meantime, I am also navigating a health insurance system that still wants me to jump hurdles to get the care I need.  Welcome.

It has not been easy.  I have been struggling the whole way, sometimes crying, sometimes ready to hit somebody, all the while wondering why I have to be so gracious. Yet, when I remind myself to welcome everything, there is a subtle peace that comes.

So in this process, I realize that in order to welcome anything new, I have to be able to let go, to stop resisting, to surrender.  So for 2015, my intention is to surrender.  

I remember more than a decade ago, in my early years as a Flamenco student, a more senior student once told me that the reason I was not getting a step was because I was afraid of it.  She told me, "just let go and do it".  So I did; I surrendered to the step and finally got it.  In that moment, I welcomed myself into a new understanding of my craft.

So now I surrender to my latest reality--to living two-thirds of the year alone, to dancing in fewer, more meaningful gigs while experiencing some pain, to growing.  In doing so, I hope I will truly make way to welcome whatever lies ahead.