I’ve Stopped Dancing

Even with myself.

I notice, when I stop to look at myself and things that I do now, having entered the land of elderhood, that I no longer dance. Not even when alone, which I used to do when the music moved me.

To be honest, I don’t listen to music much these days. I seem to prefer silence more often. But I also wonder if that has become a habit and that I may not tune into when my soul may need a bit of music or movement.

I used to love to dance. 

I took hula classes for several years, and loved it. Not the Hollywood shimmery glitzy hula, but the hula that is a sacred dance and prayer. A connection to the earth and the universe. A merging of bodies with the divine. A movement to the music of the sacred. 

What I also appreciated about hula is that one didn’t need a partner. We did group dances and performances, which were great fun. But hula was a dance that you did that spoke to you and to whomever the dance might have been dedicated to. To move your body in rhythms that synced with the dance of life. Your hands mimic nature, paying tribute to water, trees, goddesses of volcanoes, the goddesses within each of us. Maybe even the volcanoes within each of us.

I also used to love ballroom dance. My fiancé and I took ballroom dance lessons in preparation for our wedding. It was such fun. We stopped the lessons after we were married. Too bad, I now think. Maybe dancing that way would have helped us remember how to dance with each other in other ways. In the ways of growing intimacy and loving familiarity. With a steady partner. Our marriage lasted 12 years, with the last year being separated. I feel sad about that, but also realize that we did what we could at the time. He remarried a year after our divorce, now having danced with someone else for all these years. I wish him well.

I have had several relationships since my marriage. I appreciate them all. But dancing has never really been a part of any of those to any major degree. Maybe that was part of the problem.

I write, I paint, I sit in silence. I work on allowing life and all the feelings to move through me. 

I hike and walk in the sacred redwoods. I sit by the water. 

All these are done in silence, usually. And I appreciate them all. 

I try to move my body with exercise, belonging to a local gym that has become like a family to me. I appreciate that and the chance to move and work my body. And I notice that I am not one of those who listens to music while exercising. I enjoy the gym, (especially when I am done!) It is something that I do that is good for my body and good for me. 

But it is not dance. 

Dancing is, it seems to me, a way of celebrating our bodies and lives. A prayer and song sung with our bodies. An ode to joy and life and our wonderful bodies that allow us to experience this magical, albeit sometimes painful, life. 

I have a young friend whose wedding I was able to attend several years ago. Her father had difficulty moving, was in a wheelchair. And yet, he was determined to have that dance with his daughter at her wedding. And he did. With tears all around. Wobbly, needing support to stand, but moving in time to the music and celebrating this marriage of his lovely daughter. With dance. 

Have you seen someone in a wheelchair on the dance floor moving their chair in time to the music? The call to dance is deep within. It calls to us in whatever way that we can respond. 

Dancing exists for itself, for its own purpose. For its own expression. 

Dancing simply is.

When did I stop? I didn’t even really notice. It simply gradually faded away and out of my life. 

Perhaps it took other parts of me with it. The part that was called to move with joy just because. The part that listened to something that my body and soul may have needed, a special kind of movement and rhythm. The part that heard the music and answered. The part that didn’t need a logical reason to do something. The part that was moved by something that is not easily named. The part that could hear the calling of the sirens of the divine. The part that wants me to remember my body and honor it. The part that celebrates life in a physical way that does not need words. 

Maybe it’s time to reclaim those parts of me.

Perhaps the dance that I would be called to now may be slower, may have more movements that include sadness and bittersweetness in addition to the joy, but movements, nonetheless.

Maybe the dance could now help me express, in another way, my continuing participation in this precious gift of life. 

As I find myself coming home to different parts of me on this journey of aging, perhaps dance can be included in that. 

Maybe there are some things that I can try.

I can put some music on and try to see if there is dance left within me.

 I can take a class in some kind of dance that can help me remember. Help my body remember. Speak to that part of my soul. Call that part of me to come back. Welcome that piece of me that I have forgotten, neglected, let go of prematurely. 

 I can stop in the redwoods and hold my arms up to them, to their majesty, and allow my body to express what they stir in my heart and spirit. A gesture of dance, a sacred dance of recognition, relationship, and connection. 

 I can play some music and stand up, even simply sway in time to it. Allowing my body to hear and feel the music in its own unique way.

 I can even walk, when the spirit strikes me, with a spring in my step. A joy in movement. A lifeforce asserting itself.

As elders, sometimes we can be objects of laughter or even ridicule when we dance. Or we are seen with attitudes of condescension and called cute. If we dare to move our hips in sensual ways (we are still alive, after all), there can be smiles and mild laughter at this. We were younger when sensuality and sexuality were perhaps more validated. But it is within us still. We are still here and alive in these human bodies, these sensual containers for our spirits. 

Have we learned to shut down those parts of ourselves in response to this ridicule and condescension? Have we internalized those judgments and stopped this dance that lies within us still, perhaps buried but there, nonetheless. 

Have you watched some of the YouTube videos of young children called to dance and move to the music? I smile when I see them, and think of all the dance within them that is yet to be.

Can we do that for elders? Smile and see the dance that is still within them/us? All the dance that has been there? And what might still be there, needing to be expressed and enjoyed and celebrated? Life still being itself. Life still expressing itself. 

Can we do that for ourselves? Acknowledge the dance that is still a part of us? The movement, sensuality, grace, joy of life that are still so very much there? 

Will you join me on the dance floor? 

Come, take my hand.