I’m misunderstood, you know. Really, I’m a dancer.
I never told anyone, never dared to admit it even to myself. I took dance classes at Debbie’s School of Dance as a kid, but those classes weren’t fun so I wasn’t particularly good at them. That made it seem that I was only an okay dancer, not a gifted one.
Now wait, wait: I’m no dance genius. Have you been to any city ballet company performance recently? watched a Beyonce video? Dancers are artists and they train their whole lives to be professionals. I wouldn’t insult them by saying I have some divine knowledge of their craft. But if you’re talking passion and creativity, I can say with conviction: I’m a dancin’-dancin’-dancin’-dancin’ machine that can match the best of ’em.
You know how I know? It’s because there is no other state in which I am more baseline happy than when I am dancing. Look how happy I am:
I’m dancing, as evidenced by the right foot step forward, there. My sister Nan is mugging for the camera and she’s clearly freaking adorable, but I’m actually not mugging. I’m just caught in a moment.
When I’m dancing (and I prefer good, crunchy remixes to pop music) and in the zone (which most assuredly does exist, a place between intense focus and stream-of-consciousness) I’m alive. I feel my vitality. It’s said that we don’t “have” a body, we are a body. When I’m dancing, I know this and embracing it feels as good as it felt to be with my sister back in that room on the farm in Iowa that day.
How about you? What do you love the most?