June 2, 2015
Clinking dishes and outbursts of laughter punctuated the din of Blue Mountain Pizza. No one at our table spoke; we were a quiet island in the sound. I felt an affectionate Ethan-hand on my shoulder and for some mystical reason I tilted my head happily to the left, then to the right. From across the table, Lacy chuckled and said, “Lauren, you fill silence with movement. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a you thing.” I had never thought of that before.
But, I’ve always known that movement feels good. Not like the taste of chocolate fondue good — thick, warm, heavenly, then sickening. Good more like the first stretch of a Saturday morning with birds twittering their “good mornings” to me in my bed-nest; it’s a natural, freeing, rejuvenating “good.” My barely-balancing baby body used to bob and twirl for hours, grasping a kitchen chair for stability — a sort of baby ballet barre. Mom signed me up for dance lessons and that was it. Hello, freeing language of movement named dance. I’m Lauren, your soulmate, and I believe in the power of movement.
Dance technique is like learning an advanced sentence structure, or how to use a semicolon. It helps me more clearly express myself, but it doesn’t necessarily bolster the emotion. I can get emotion out in an all-caps, grammatically monstrous jumble just as effectively, if not more, as I can in a well thought-out essay. Years of dance classes have taught me the MLA format, past participles, and annoying conjugations of dance, but I haven’t forgotten the power of raw, unrefined movement. I have, over time, learned to take the parts of dance grammar I find useful — that I find meaningful — to express myself. Movement is my first language.
Some of my fondest memories include shimmying vigorously alongside my wackily gyrating friends. Those memories are so dear to me because I find an unabashed dance to be a sliver of humanity: the poetic juice of a person comes out in movement in such a sincere, colorful, flavorful series of twistings and flailings and side-steppings that I can’t help but learn something intimate and unique through observation. And there is no wrong way of dancing. All dance is emotion. And every emotion is valid.
For every person to feel free to dance would make my romantic heart content, for appreciating something as intimate as dance seems to be a great lesson in acceptance and understanding. Imagine that quiet, bespectacled, befreckled girl you know expressing herself through dance; and imagine everyone appreciating her fingerprint movement. I believe in her movement. Maybe if she felt her movement accepted and valued, there would come a day when she would feel her thoughts and dreams are important and equal to the thoughts and dreams of everyone else — and that they are worth and worthy of sharing. Maybe then there would come a day when she would feel free to speak, dress, be…like everyone was watching, understanding, appreciating her for who she is and the distinct, quirky, awkward, beautiful dance of her humanity.