I often dance when no one’s looking, almost anywhere.This morning, at 4 a.m., I caught myself dancing from one room to another. I watched myself for a moment. I tracked my thinking, You’re actually good at this. You should find a way to do it more. What is that you love about it? What are you recreating?
I danced my way through my thoughts into the basement of my childhood. I found myself there when it was still an open space − before my mother made it modern and remodeled.
I was on the dance floor of my childhood imagination.
I could hear the music playing. I could feel the floor and see the diffused light coming through the small, high window. I knew the hours, the fourteen years, I spent dancing in the dusky darkness without worrying. No worries to moving, turning, reaching. My feet didn’t need my head to find a way to hear the music playing on the old record player.
I danced my tree house, my diary, the canvas on which I could paint and then repaint.
It was a forest or a field or the sky. It was the space to stretch. It was the statement I am.
It’s no wonder that I find myself still going back.
Everyone should have a dance floor in their imagination.
--me strauss Letting me be
4 comments:
Everyone should have a dance floor in their imagination.
Thanks for the reminder Liz. My dance floor is actually a large cement slab - it was before decks were popular- in our backyard that was my stage. I was an actress, a rock star and even a Chinese acrobat out there, and never cared if people saw me or not. It gave me a sensation of freedom and creativity and possibility. All good things to go back and claim from time to time.
What a wonderful place to re-member yourself with. So vivid and bright. I think I've forgotten my dance floor. Those platforms were the places I hid to feel safe from what was happening around me. So I try not to remember so much :) And I haven't yet found that I can imagine when I want to. My wanderings are scattered and very uncontrolled. Though once in blue moon I'll pull from my dreams a place that is Heaven. I guess I re member through my dreams. They are my dance floor.
Hi Dawn,
I'm sorry my response from yesterday didn't stay here. It could be that I goe so involved inputruing your :dance floor" that I only imagined what I wrote back. ..
I do remember how much I love that line All too things to go back to and claim from time to time and thinking how they claim us as much as we claim theml :)
Exactly, Katrina,
Our dreams are our dance floor. They remind us of who we are, who we were, and who we could be. We don't have to puruse them or beomce them. It's nice to visit them to remember . . . those bit of me that helped tp bring me here as a person and writer . .
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