the dancing girl is a lie

The idea: I’m not my old self anymore & not my new self yet.

All I need is to be in the moment, to follow the cues of my body to what feels good to determine who I am now. I need to slip out of thinking mind, to be free from judgement, free to follow the urges that arise.

Only we aren’t free from judgement, we are beholden to it. The best we can hope is to be aware of it and have a choice in not yielding to its restrictions and guidelines.

I try what I used to do, what is safe, what worked in the past. I find a place I’m comfortable. At a concert I stand with a friend who doesn’t require attention or conversation. I stand second or third back from the stage and just off center to not attract too much attention, dancing with the music in a sway that is more than mindless and perfunctory, but less than fully free. It is a movement designed to appear free, but in a container, designed to lead you to assume that there is more in there and it could unfurl at any moment.

I watch the exuberant dancers & think "I want to do that." Really I want to want to. I want to be a shiny girl freely enjoying herself, so engrossed in the moment she’s unaware of the attention she is drawing of those who wish they, too, were so consumed.

The dancing girl is a lie. She is pushing through it, aware of the attention of others, their judgement, her own. I don’t wish I was her. I judge her freedom. I envy it. I wish to want it, but I don’t.

I move my shoulders. Do I want to see how it would feel to be a bit freer? In a solo the guitarist dips into the moment, his notes expressing the next right step. His flow invites us to group meditation, now, now, now. I explore my shoulders, neck, wanting to lead myself into movement that is carried by the notes. Instead I narrate it, asking myself is this what you want, is this authentic to you?

Where would I go if I could go anywhere? What would I do if I wasn’t worried about appearing a certain way, about being judged for not being that? These ideas washed up on the shores of my mind, foam on the waves of the music. They are gifts for just me and I was leaving them behind, afraid to sit and collect them because it meant writing them down on the notes app on my phone, sitting on the side instead of dancing and appearing engaged.

As I type through this realization I feel deep self betrayal. All these years I wanted to be writing, but I was more concerned by what people would think of me than to express the energy of what my soul truly felt called to. I left idea after idea on the floors of concert halls because I was embarrassed that have everyone there think I was texting.

My narrative of “I don’t care what people think” was a protective one. It sat proudly on the bumper sticker of my personality. That mantra ironically kept me from seeing the ways I did care so I couldn't use that awareness to dismantle those beliefs. Clearly I do care. I wanted to appear normal, desirable, among and yet slightly better than so badly that I chose that image over being myself.

When I see being myself as god experiencing itself there can be nothing that is more urgent or paramount. What other humans think of me couldn’t matter less in the pursuit of god self realizing itself within my mortal life. Their opinions about me or anyone is just their own pebbles in the path to their own divine self realization.

And what is it? To do exactly as your soul feels called in that moment. The journey of being exactly who you are without conditions. To sit still and write feels better than dancing ever did. To tap into the contentment feels like every cell of my body folding inward & outward simultaneously. It’s divine, orgasmic, delicious.

To sit in the back on a chair feels transgressive. I feel naughty. Superior. Oh, I was writing; the sophisticated and neat art form of snobs. Then the turn around of the judgement. You thought I was zoning out on social media but you were wrong, I was doing my own art. And what do you think of me now?

I feel happy watching from afar.