by Rachel PughThere is an old saying circulating the home decor industry that seems to have been made popular in recent years: “Dance as if no one is watching.”
I’ve somewhat liked the saying, although I’ve always felt such a realization should be a given, even though I know, sadly, it is not. Be your own person — enjoy life without allowing others’ judgments to hinder your spirit. Yes, the phrase can hit home and wouldn’t it be ideal to pirouette through life on a constant whimsical melody that only we know note by note? But that is not the tune we have memorized in order to dance independently to the beat of our very own makeshift drum. My question remains constant, unable to forget even if I tried — why can’t we dance as if the whole world watches, step by step, twirl by twirl, and we could care, quite frankly, less?
A constant teacher’s pet to my own internal classroom, I’ve raised my hand aggressively time after time again for I already know the answer. Sometimes you stop dancing because it simply hurts too much to finish the song. And never finishing means never giving the chance to try the new dance you’ve waited so long to reveal. You know it. You’ve memorized it step by step and you can visualize how beautiful you look as you gracefully move one foot after the next. And yet, you stand there, paralyzed in the middle of the ballroom, defeated before you even let yourself play. And it hurts even more because we know, everyone is watching.
At the age of 2, I attended my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Lee’s wedding. I should not remember it, and if asked to recall a detailed synopsis of the day’s event, I would have to politely admit that I do not know how joyous the occasion must have been. Surely the festivities were enjoyed by all, as proof has been laid out for me through old photographs. But when I try to remember it, only one vivid memory lives: me dancing with my Uncle Howell and Aunt Aggie.
As a child, my Aunt Aggie was my best friend, or as I called her, my “girlfriend.” I had to sit by her at every family gathering, I slept at her house frequently, and as someone who grew up without grandparents, she was to me what I felt a grandmother would be. She rocked me to sleep as she would sing, “close your little peepers,” she took me on my first bus through town, and I envied how she colored — she would rotate her crayons in a circular motion making delicate circles of color on my cartoon coloring books. I loved her with all that I was, and if I had the opportunity to be near her, I wouldn’t have passed it up for the world.
So when asked to dance with my Aunt Aggie and Uncle Howell at my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Lee’s wedding, I jumped at the opportunity, dancing sandwiched between them on the dance floor. But this is not my only memory of the dance. My uncle, being of a short stature, was wearing a belt that was about even with my hip bone. I can remember the buckle digging into my side as we danced for what seemed to me was forever. It hurt, and I remember the feeling of pain as we continued to saunter to the slow music. And I never once said a word. I feared that if I spoke, if I showed even the slightest wince of pain, my aunt would surely put me down to alleviate my struggles. And this meant the dance would be over. To me, no amount of pain could be worth such an action.
So we danced. And no matter how much it hurt, I continued, for I knew the dance was worth so very much more than pain which, over time, would eventually and inevitably fade.
I keep that dance with me. I keep it safe and protected for I know that at any given time, the world watches. And when I reach that moment of hesitation, that moment when I feel like I cannot possibly muster the strength to finish the moves I orchestrated so many times before, that moment when the pain seems too intense to bear, I continue dancing. Because for me, I cannot imagine, ending the dance before first finishing my song.
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