Writing about dancing seems very counter-intuitive to me. I have always felt rhythmically challenged, which has never made sense to me given my deep love for music. From elementary school age into well past my college years, I was a musician. I dropped out of the dreaded piano lessons as a young child but begged until my mother conceded to rent my first flute. Several flutes later I was a regular performer and had embraced several other instruments with some proficiency. I love music, and some music compels me to sway in my seat, bob my head, and tap my feet or fingers or both. But rarely am I compelled to dance. My head takes over and I can’t remember to sway on the 1 and 3 or the 2 and 4 or where my feet should go. Oh, forget it. I just don’t dance much, and by much I mean ever.
Of the things I have been formally trained to do, one is my certification as a transformational life and wellness coach. But recently, with the sharing of a poem, a client and friend helped me realize that I am a dancer. As a service provider, my focus is directed toward my client, but sometimes the blessing is that they give back in unmeasurable ways. Jewel Matheson’s poem “We Have Come to Be Danced” was shared with me, and as I read the words, I recognized the dancing she spoke of. It wasn’t the dancing that was the “pick me, pick me” hopefulness for the attention of a calling dance partner; instead it was the dance that happens when breath, soul, and the beat of life collide. The matted hair, shaman conjured, spirit summoning kind of life dance that could not be contained by my dancing a two or four-step dance in frame. The kind of dance that wrings the pain out of my heart and soul. The kind of dance that is exclusively mine and unable to be mimicked. She spoke of the kind of life dance that shakes the chips of my shoulders, that shimmies out of the scales of pain, giving breath to healing and the “shake lose the bound wings so that I can fly” dance. She spoke about a living that shares from the core of love kind of dance.
It was after reading her words that I recognized the beat that she was dancing to. It was the life beat of living fully. It is what the dance of life looks like to me on the days when I am fully embracing all that is around me with gratitude and allowing love to overflow through me. Her dance was the kind of dance that happens when I am wholly embracing myself in love. When I am living freely, unashamed and unapologetically myself. It is when I look in the reflection in the mirror and can love that person fully. Her dance is the kind of dance that I do when I reach into my own personal abyss and unbind the hurts and pains so that I can release them. It is a dance that shakes away fears and insecurities so that I can do my dance of life even when others are watching.
And then I realized, I do dance. I dance wildly, with my matted locks flailing, lovingly, unapologetically. I do this dance, but not to the recent pop rhythm. I do this dance with my life. My life is the partner that I ebb and flow with, that I swirl around in a magical dance. Many times I have heard “dance like nobody’s watching.” But that is not how I choose to dance. I choose to dance a dance with life that is not afraid of people watching. A dance that doesn’t pull back in fear when others look on. I want to dance my life dance so freely that I don’t care whether others see me. Yes, I do dance, with my life, a life I aim to live fully, today and every day I am given. My dance won’t be on the dance floor, but if you ever have the opportunity to glimpse into my life, you’ll probably see me and my partner, Life, doing this wildly amazing dance together. And I hope you will think about dancing too.
