What keeps us from dancing through the holidays? In a recent NYT article, dance choreographer Angela Trimbur recommends getting away from the rigors of formal moves and taking every opportunity to hit the dance floor. Dancing, she says, can be accessible and fun. But this feels like a rare message. Dancing is like creative work in the ways we can hold ourselves back.
“YES, THIS,” I wrote to my mom immediately after reading the article.
My mom and I will both take any opportunity to dance. Neither of us has formal training or practice intentionally, but we make up for it in enthusiasm. We dance after Christmas dinner, after Thanksgiving dinner, and at every wedding either of us goes to, for as long as they will have us. At David’s company holiday party full of economists, I was one of a small group who stayed on the dance floor for the full two hours of DJ time.
But I’m not immune to feeling exposed and vulnerable on the dance floor. I woke up after David’s holiday party with a bit of a vulnerability hangover, reflecting on all the people who chose not to join in. But this is a work event, they might have been thinking. Our boss is watching.
Trimbur has a message for this too: “Let’s be real, your boss is always assessing if you should be on the payroll. So consider this an audition. High energy!”
YES, THIS.
It can be so exhausting, all this holding back and worrying. On the day I die, I will want to have danced every time.
I’m working on a resolution for the next year that has to do with applying a dance spirit to my writing. I am no stranger to hesitation and carefulness. They show up everywhere in my first drafts of novels and legal briefs. But if I focus on being direct and real, they start to drain away. It gives me energy to eliminate these drags on my writing, and it helps to remind myself what I’ve learned from my mom: how to skip past self-consciousness on my way to the dance floor.
I’ll be taking next week off, but I’ll be back January 10 with plans for this newsletter in the New Year!
Love it!!! Enjoy your time off!!