In My Body, In My Mind

Using one’s body to work through trauma, stress, and challenges is a valid therapy. Some people run or hike. Some people work out, lifting weights. I like doing that, too. Some people play sports, or swim.

I dance.

I’ve been dancing since I was tiny. I took ballet and tap classes while we could afford them, and even after I had to stop, I continued on with my exercises, and I made my own cute little choreographies, too. Body movement was an important was for me to work through anger and frustration and other big feelings, and to express joy, too. And dance let me feel like I was inside the music I chose, in a different way than singing did.

In high school I was part of a dance troupe, where we choreographed dances to pop songs and would perform them anywhere possible at the drop of a hat. That was when Michael Jackson’s Thriller was big, and we learned that dance and would dress up and perform for parties and the like. It was a ton of fun, and when it was time to go off to college, I continued my dance studies. I took modern dance and ballet. I knew ballet wasn’t a serious option for moving forward but it’s a great foundation for movement and control. I glowed when my teacher told me I had “great feet” because I’d worked hard on keeping my basics.

Dance got me through the hard parts of those times. It kept demons at bay growing up, or at least it tried; it gave me a way to control a tiny part of a life that was spiraling out of control while I watched everything crash down around me in college. When I discovered dance clubs, and then the all-night members-only fallen paradise that was my Friday night retreat, I finally felt like I could dance some of the pain and trauma out of my body, casting spells on the disco light illuminated floor with my feet as my arms traced out graceful symbols. I would stay until the sun rose, blinking in the bright light before wandering off with all my other dusty-black clothed friends in search of breakfast.

I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since.

I haunted various goth/industrial/synth oriented club nights for a while, then became the caretaker of one as well as a DJ, traveling to some of the clubs that I’d participated in as an attendee before I was able to add to the magic myself. I was known as a “floor starter,” someone who wouldn’t hesitate to get out there all by myself to dance–and often helping to draw other people to the floor as well. I generally have no shame when it comes to art, and dancing is a lot of things but most definitely is an art. You don’t have to be fancy to dance well, but you do have to let yourself express the music without worrying what you look like. Losing yourself in the tune, the rhythm, the vibe: that’s when you’re at your best as a dancer. I conveyed the joy of moving to the music in a way that drew other people to join me. That’s also a form of magic. Curating the music, creating the vibe, inviting others to join: alchemy.

I make music. I’ve always sang, always danced, always been entranced by what music brings to us. It’s a form of connection, creation, expression, communication. I want to lose myself in it; I want to offer myself up to it. I want to feel it move through me and move my body, not in possession but in partnership.

When I’m in my body like that, I’m fully in my mind too.

Dancing puts me in a kind of trance but it’s not an out-of-body experience, it’s being as at-one with my body as I could possibly be. My brain benefits from those moments, becoming refreshed, then inspired. It’s why one of the most common pieces of advice that I give writers that are dealing with creative blocks is to get up and dance, or chair dance if that’s not an option. Pick music that demands that you connect your body to it and let it lead you out of your blocked place and into something fresh and energized.

This is why all my books have soundtracks, by the way. I use that music to put me into the mood, to define the vibe of the chapter I’ve associated it with, and to express that energy to the reader. Music is shorthand for emotion and by sharing it, I’m offering you mental insight into the scene that might already be expressed in words but is always heightened by the inclusion of the tune that helped shape it.

Now if you don’t mind me, I’m going to turn on my tiny disco lights and move across the room to some beautiful songs.

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