about dancin' - kind of

Dance like no-one is watching. Sing like no-one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on earth [?]

I was going to attribute this Mark Twain but there is no consensus on the world wide interweb, so I won’t take the risk. I often get sent these sentiments in one form or another, either on someone’s email signature, or in one of those email forwards which include funny pictures and will say wootwoo somewhere in it, exhorting me to send it to five fabulous women I love.

And this is a clumsy segue into what I really wanted to talk about and actually has little do with the above quote. Digressing much? Oh wells. I had to start with something. It was the first sentence in the quote which attracted me. “Dance like no-one is watching”. I do that you know – except I dance when no-one is actually watching, not counting the wide-eyed cat who I swear appreciates my moves, even joining in to wind herself around my seriously clumsy legs. Her trust is touching.

I am a lazy person. Exercise and I are merely nodding acquaintances from different neighbourhoods - not great mates at all. I have little desire to move my bulk beyond the necessary functions, and if I could get away with it, I would probably forgo even that. I can’t imagine exercising for fun, although I sometimes wonder what endorphins feel like. I admit to a faint fascination with running because there seems to be something so liberating about slipping on a pair of shoes and running away. Surprisingly I’ve even read books about running, and started a running program a few times, although I generally become unstuck around day 2 or 3 when I realize that there is actual discomfort and ugly gasping involved with moving 70 odd kilos of usually sedentary flesh. The one or two minutes of running (per 5 or 10 minutes of walking) is the stuff of nightmares and nothing like the beautiful effortless strides I see in the early morning runners on the street, who always seem strangely blank. Anyways I give up and sit on the couch and do things I’m good at like watching tv, reading, looking at facebook and listening to music.

And then comes along that piece of music. I can’t predict when or what it will be. It might be classical, or from the top 40. It doesn’t announce itself. It’s just there. I know it because all I know is the music and nothing else. And here’s the surprising bit. My muscles start twitching. My limbs are restless. I cannot sit. I must dance and dance I do. I stretch, I pirouette, I leap and jump, I shimmy, bump and grind; a grotesque combination of ballet, hiphop and moves I learnt at the grade 10 social circa 1985. I’m not a coordinated person and my flexibility is appalling, but it doesn’t matter. As long as it is only the music I feel with all my senses, I am Margot Fonteyn and Billy Elliott. I am somewhere else. My heart rate rises, I sweat, my muscles feel it. I am, in short, exercising. But if even for a second, I catch a glimpse of myself, or imagine what I must look like through someone else’s eyes, then it’s over. It’s just too laughable and a little bit tragic. The music fades, and I sit on the couch again. But it will come back. It always does.

"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance" Japanese Proverb

musin'

One of my New Year resolutions was to start a new blog and keep it up. It’s now May and I have made an impressive three entries. The moral of the story: Don’t make New Year Resolutions. They suck. This is not to say I haven’t started any entries. I have - many times. I’ve had ideas. I’ve even researched a couple of ‘themes’ but I get bogged down in the detail and then it starts to feel trite, mundane and I give up. I think a good personal blog is a fine combination of opinion, random thought and domestic details. Some people have an extraordinary ability to make their everyday existence, even if not markedly different from my own, a joy to read, and I would like to be one of these people.

The inability to continue the blog is just an extension of a lifelong problem. The belief that whatever I have to say is not as interesting or valid as someone's elses words. The fear that what I have to say is stupid, and people will judge me. This belief has kept me silent in primary, highschool, university and in the workplace. I never offer an opinion, an original idea and agree with pretty much everyone, including all opposing arguments. “For God’s sake Huff..don’t rock the boat” it whispers. "ok..good idea" “Oh and don’t blaspheme”. “Sorry God…sorry Dad” . See what I mean. I once analysed myself using Google as an evaluative tool, and the term “people pleaser” came up. Urgh. I usually Google personality disorders on people I don’t like. So I don’t know what that’s saying.

But there’s been a rumble within me. It’s been with me for a couple of years, but ever since I turned 40 last June it’s been getting louder and louder. One day I might just snap. Hopefully it won’t come to that. Hopefully I’ll just turn into a proper grown up. But it’s like the scales have been lifted from my eyes and ears have been unblocked. (I think I might have lifted that from the Bible). It has taken me this long, but I’ve suddenly discovered something – other people are not necessarily more interesting. They may be more articulate, but what comes out of their mouths is just as likely to be a load of bollocks, no matter how beautifully phrased.

How funny. I didn’t mean to write the above to paragraphs at all. I was just going to say that I am going to take Gretchen Rubin’s advice from The Happiness Project Blog and try and write more frequently, because the longer you leave something the harder it gets to do. And I’m not going to worry if what I say is interesting or not. Thank you to Sarah Wilson from Sunday Life for referring me to Gretchen Rubin. I’m addicted to Sarah Wilson’s column..even though at times she comes across as a little bit smug.