A Dance of Home

Kneeling and kissing, questioning and answering, remembering and returning to what is true

I bought a one way ticket today. The last time I did that was two and a half years ago when I moved to Kauai. Even though I know I can change my mind between now and when that scheduled flight leaves, I won’t. Even though there is a part of me that longs to stay on this beautiful island for all my remaining days, the rest of my life has been calling me elsewhere.

Might the rest of your life be calling you somewhere else than where you are now?

When I ask that question, ‘somewhere else’ might be a physical location or it might be a way of being in the world or maybe it’s a bit of both. I’m in the club of both. I had no idea at the beginning of last week that by the end of it, I would make the decisions I have and would now be sitting inside my home (the actual space with four walls I reside in) on a gorgeous day and share with you a dance of home (the felt experience of knowingness in one’s body and one’s soul) that makes me weep, but also elicits a kind of joyful wonder.

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Twenty-four years ago, maybe it was twenty-five, I stepped onto a dance floor in Portland, Oregon and it changed my life. I had no idea when I walked into Vinn Marti’s Soul Motion class that a home I never even knew I wanted or needed would be found. I also had no clue back then that ecstatic dance/embodied movement would play such a significant role in shaping who I was to become.

To witness an ensemble of humans wiggling around a space and writhing on the floor could be a very liberating experience for some folks. It could also be incredibly scary for others. For me, it stirred something deep inside that has remained to this day after a few years of attending classes and workshops and then facilitating hundreds of my own events and experiences for the past two decades.

I was terrified and also titillated not only by what I saw happening in the room, but also by how I was feeling in my body. Some people were dancing by themselves and some were dancing with others, but everyone seemed to be moving their bodies in whatever way they wanted. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives. Everyone seemed to know what the hell they were doing.

Ha! Little did I know back then. I’d like to think I know quite a bit more now twenty-five years later, but I’m skeptical of that. What I do know now in my mid-fifties is sometimes what seems to be true and what’s really true can be two completely different realities. What I do know is how important it is to listen to what your body is trying to tell you even when the rest of you doesn’t like what it’s saying.

Home is the space and place we’re all dancing with all our lives.

Returning now to today and this last week…

On Monday night around 11:30, after the first (and what would be my last) day of a new job, I awoke to a dry mouth and sinuses so stuffed that I felt like I couldn’t swallow and I couldn’t breathe. It took me a moment or two to get my bearings and sense into what was happening with my body and also what was occurring in my head.

“Jesus, this is what a panic attack feels like,” I thought. And then I tossed and turned and ruminated for two and a half more hours until I finally got out of bed at 2am.

I won’t bore you with the craziness that ensued inside my skull, but I will tell you one of the things that came through loud and clear. It was both liberating and scary (like those first few dances were) and it made me stop and consider what the consequences might be were I to follow through with what I heard some part of me say -

“Give it up. Just stop altogether. Stop writing. Stop trying to be someone you used to be.”

Holy shit. I don’t know about you, but when your ego and your soul suddenly start having a conversation in the middle of the night when your body is struggling to swallow and breathe, it’s uh…not pretty. It’s fucking miserable and the feeling of not being able to escape anywhere is suffocating. Sticking my head underneath a towel and breathing in some hot steam helped my stuffy nose a bit. Sipping chamomile tea soothed my throat. Petting my cat was comforting. But it was putting pen to paper that brought both clarity and calm to the chaos and despair I had been feeling.

Home is feeling at ease with what is.

When I wrote what I did last week, I wondered if I would click the publish button. What might being that vulnerable and that honest give me and possibly give others? How might continuing to write what’s hard and real in my own life be of support to friends and strangers who are also living with heartache while doing their best to have hope in this beautiful yet oh-so broken world? I didn’t have the answers, but I felt at home with these questions and also trusted answers would eventually come so onward I clicked.

Have you ever wondered in the middle of the night what home is for you and/or where did your home disappear to?

I’ve been trying so hard in so many different ways to dance with all the loss and the grief that surrounds the disappearance of what my home used to be with my former spouse, with friends who are no longer friends, and with a dance community I created, but I am not dancing with anymore. I think what that middle of the nightmare experience showed me is I am remembering, reclaiming, and returning to my true home dance. The one where I kneel and kiss the ground and others join me in the dirt. The one where deep questions abound and honest answers are lived into not forced. The one where no matter the space or the place- safety, trust, care, and love exist there. The one where being with what is rather than what was or what could be is what’s real.

Today and every day I will continue to write and dance my way home. And four months from now, home will be a familiar place and the space will perhaps be the truest way of being that I can offer to others and to myself.

Photo by Nic Askew

A beautiful song and a stunning video of dancing home
Thought of You by Ryan Woodward