Learning to Dance (a.k.a. Dancing Fool)

A year ago I was dancing with my girlfriend in the living room. I've never felt like much of a dancer, but she was encouraging. I kept thinking that I'd faced tougher things in life - learning to dance couldn't be impossible.

In the Spring there was a short blurb about dancing on a PBS show for kids. The tap dancer stressed that it was all about rhythm and balance. Yeah, I tried to follow along but still felt clunky.

My big break didn't occur until about two months ago. I came across a toddler show like "The Wiggles" on which they were teaching two year olds to dance - just "shake your body" they said. Aha, this was more my speed! I still felt clunky, but these characters stressed the idea of simply being "loose".

Over the weeks and months I'd occasionally tune into a music station on the T.V. and force some kind of dancing out. I had always thought that if I moved my knees then the rest of my body would follow, but somewhere in loosening up, my hips started to move. Right side up, left side up. Hey - my knees followed my hips way better than my hips ever followed my knees! I kept my feet on the floor, kept within my zone of balance and just swayed my hips to the music.

In mid-December Julia, Yani and I went to a Greek Holiday celebration. Greek dancing seems to be either the whole group moving together hand-in-hand, or the group focusing on one individual who dances in the center. A couple of times Julia and I (and twice Yani) got up to join in the group dancing. It seemed somehow safer to hop in with a friend. Then as we sat at the table again I kept thinking it was time for me to just get up on my own. This thought held strong through about three songs until finally I spotted where I wanted to join in, and as the group circled around, I stood up and joined in.

A few weeks ago I found the same looseness in my shoulders. They can move with my hips, or they can lead. I sense that maybe I've got the same groove for every song, but it doesn’t really matter. It feels pretty good to just move with the rhythm.

So it was that I found myself in the kitchen preparing to cook a roast this afternoon. During a break in the action John Cougar Mellencamp came on the music channel with "Hurts So Good". My hips start swaying, my feet start moving. I make my way to the living room in time for Level 42 singing "Something about you". This feels great!

I find I'm no longer focused much on the mechanics - what's supposed to move where. These days I can simply flow in a comfort zone, or I can explore new areas. My feet are loosening up from the floor. My arms, well they're still spastic but I don't seem to care so much anymore. When my body is moving I'm beyond thinking about how I'm learning and I'm just experiencing it.

I knew I couldn't come through the past couple of years without changing, but the new experiences are so vastly beyond prior knowledge that there was no way for me to imagine how I'd be different.

In some ways it feels like the first astronaut to be launched into hyperspace by setting off on a trajectory near a black hole. The ship accelerates as it approaches the black hole, and time slows to a crawl. Then the ship exits the other side into an unknown world at unrelenting speeds, eventually slowing and coming to rest in a new unknown place, in a new unknown time.

Life doesn’t seem to be moving so fast anymore, more often things seems to be moving at a rhythm and speed I'm comfortable with. I've come to identify changes here and there that I know are a result of the path I've been on. I know I'm emerging with increased strengths, new capabilities - I'm finding characteristics that I never would have gained so quickly without having experienced loss.

I can't change the past, but I can claim ownership of any personal gains achieved. If they happen to be a result of tragedy so be it. Eventually there's got to be a way to put a positive spin on this experience.