Life in Dancing

      

              I was just a little girl in 1984, the movie came to theaters and all my young aunts and young uncles were talking about it. I was being babysat by one of our mother's friends who ran a daycare from her home in Meridian Idaho. She put this movie on the TV for her older daughter and then they danced as I watched on in awe and in happiness I will always remember the movie, Kevin Bacon was dancing his way through "Footloose." against all the strict religious parents who had band dancing and didn't like new music. I was instantly intrigued that being babysat felt strange and scary, yet this movie came on and we were all dancing with it.

I began dancing with all my music cassette tapes, I taught my sister and my brother to jump off the living room couch when the music got loud or had the sound of a big bang in learning the timing I felt like I was apart of the music and in all things we danced all over the living room of the single wide trailer home. That home felt so big when you are 5 years old dancing all over the place and giggling then when I was 10 we spent a summer away from it and I came back feeling like it's so tiny and tight in moving around...by then I had been dancing out in the country side!

I am not a very good dancer, I have never been coordinated or taught properly yet all of my life I have tried to capture the beat in the happiness I feel when dancing sets us free!

Dancing is the joy that the human body can move and be alive fully in sweat and high heart beating as your spirit knows that music is calling us to escape this life time into the endless possibilities!

I have used dancing in many ways, to let go of all the drama and stress of my teen years by dancing in worship songs, in simply having fun or practicing balance. In anger, in sadness and in fear I have danced through all of those emotions to be made stronger after the song and after my body aches. 

The only way I realize that I struggling with something is often while I am dancing.....it's in the song or the release of energy that gets me sudden aware of what I am hanging in by a thread and need to cry out or run in place until I break down into a deep sob or scream. I have noticed in my great days my dancing is beautiful, it's light and flowing as I embrace my joy for life and love!

I remember attending a wedding when I was 22 years old wishing I knew how to dance like my friend so I asked where did she learn those popular moves and she laughed saying it was all made up to go long with whatever song. She told me "Dancing is easy if you have confidence, people get hung up on others judging them so once you don't care how you look or what others say about you then you are free to move with any beat!" I sat in awe of her and nodding my head in thought thinking to myself that the power of charming confidence goes a long ways into action for all things.

I was at a friends wedding where only the old people were dancing and I saw so clearly that the young people were holding back and laughing at the old people so I went out for the first time ever to dance along side the clearly happy old people, the most amazing happen in how I was free! 
I was more then just dancing I was being brave so I felt empowered beyond anything I had ever experienced before!

My life in dancing has helped me through the hardest times in my life, yet in the deepest painful grief days I didn't dance, I couldn't dance even though I tried it took me 2 years in trying baby steps to dance again. 
My legs hurt beyond anything I had known, my chest was burning for months and my hands were weak, I began to fight back pretending to be boxing instead of dancing or attending my Pound Class in order to beat those drum sticks to the music in my angry days of grief. 

I have only recently been dancing like I use to again and I can felt it coming back to me again, freedom in loving life and dancing until I am pouring sweat!

Life in dancing is life in living!

Celebrating all things good or bad can be found in dancing!

Dance now for you will not be alive forever, Dance more for those people judging you shouldn't win in keeping you from the deepest joy in the whole world!

I was at reception recently that had a great dance floor with great songs and all the generations were dancing together, it brought everyone together to celebrate such love! It was so wonderful! It was a great time!

In music and in moving about we forget our worries, our responsibilities, and all the things that makes us different don't matter when we love the same song!

I am aware of course that my dancing may look like Lucille Ball and I can make many faces in shared emotion of the song yet I will always celebrate love and togetherness that dancing brings us all!