“Look how sweaty I am!”
“Look how happy you are!”
I had just emerged from a modern dance workshop, the last class in what had been a wonderfully full day of teaching. Warm, sweaty, exhilarated, and apparently, absolutely radiating joy.
I didn’t have much awareness of my state at the time, a common outcome of being immersed in a dance class.
The very nature of the experience of dancing can be the complete absence of awareness. Taking you to a place far beyond escaping responsibilities of the everyday adult, and more like transcending past the experience of being responsible for anything at all.
Just being. Simply being.
I had been looking forward to this particular day all week. Nearly six hours in the studio. A whole day dedicated to moving, dancing, teaching, and sharing something I love with people who genuinely wanted to be there.
An experience that I expected to be restorative.
And it was.
It doesn’t always happen. Not every class. Not every time I put on music and move. But sometimes, when I’ve spent hours immersed in movement, music, and the energy of other dancers, I find myself in this extraordinary state.
No self-consciousness.
No internal dialogue.
No effort to feel any particular way.
“Look how sweaty I am!” I remarked as I locked eyes with a client preparing for the next class.
“Look how happy you are!” she replied without missing a beat.
Stopped in my tracks and suddenly aware of myself again.
Aware that I had spent the afternoon doing something that fed a part of me I don’t always know how to describe.
And grateful… for the day… for the dancing… for the people who had shared it with me.
And especially grateful that someone else had recognized what I hadn’t even stopped to notice myself.
I wasn’t trying to be happy.
It’s just that, for a little while, I hadn’t been trying to be anything at all.
Keep showing up,
Ellen
Memoirs From the Dance Floor
