Today has been an exceptional day. It began with a wonderful breakfast with my kids. We had such fun and easy conversations; it was natural and easy. Michal came to visit this weekend. Yesterday we had a good time shopping to get her some interview clothes and other necessities for her upcoming visits to prospective graduate schools. I am not a big shopper–particularly clothes shopping–and I confess that I hadn’t been looking forward to it. But I wanted to go and be as supportive as possible of Michal as she prepares for these trips. In the end we found a nice array of dresses, slacks and jackets for her. In retrospect it was kind of fun. She definitely knows what she likes and was quite decisive and clear about each of her purchases. She looks great in business attire–I’ve rarely seen her in anything but jeans, and haven’t seen her in a skirt or dress in years!
After breakfast this morning we spent almost an hour listening to music and dancing–yes, dancing. It was a lot of fun. I had asked Michal to put together a playlist of dance music for me so I could get my blood and my mood moving. There was a time many years ago when the kids and I used to dance around the living room of my house in Michigan. I often danced while I vacuumed the floors in that house, blasting Gloria Estefan’s “Tres Deseos” (Tres Deseos–Three Wishes) and swinging the vacuum cleaner to the beat of the music. Today’s dancing, this time around my bedroom to oldies by Michael Jackson and the Bee Gees as well as contemporary tunes by Cupid and LMFAO, was fun and meaningful. I have not danced and played like that in a few years, and what’s really cool is that I still move pretty well!
I am grateful for dancing today. It reminded me the sheer joy that comes from moving my body to the drumbeat, bass, rhythm. I didn’t care about how I looked (though it must not have been too bad because not only didn’t Michal “roast” on me for embarrassing moves, she actually taught me a line dance and other contemporary dance moves.) In her new book, “Finding Your Way in a Wild New World,” life coach and author Martha Beck talks about “the path of sacred dance” in moving us to a state of “wordlessness” that helps us tune into our inner wisdom. She suggests, “Find or play music with a strong drumbeat, then either do a dance you’ve learned or just let your body follow the rhythm…you know you’re doing sacred dance when you realize that for a few moments or minutes, you weren’t thinking in words.” Today simply by dancing in my bedroom to wonderful upbeat rhythms I remembered the power there is not simply in movement, but in dance in particular; that the combination of music and movement can be transcendant. To dance today was simply divine, to do so with my daughter was priceless.
When I woke early this morning it was to the familiar liquid warm anxiety coursing through my veins. This has become a common if uncomfortable phenomenon that I’ve come to recognize as a precursor to panic. I rarely get to the panic stage, but I definitely know the precursors. Rather than lay there and try to vanquish the fear I decided to get up and write about it. For the next 60 minutes and eight pages I wrote my way from anxiety to calm, from confusion to clarity. I’ve attached a yellow sticky note to the front of my journal that says, “Writing My Way to Clarity” because that’s what I’m doing during this time. By the time I finished writing this morning I had set the tone for the rest of the day. In spite of the early morning anxiety, between hanging out with my kids, dancing to the beat, walking out in the beauty of the Park, and other activities made this a beautiful day. And I am so grateful. The truth is, Mama said there’ll be days like this too! May we all know happiness and the root of happiness. Let it be so!
I have spent the better part of this day honed in on gratitude.
