dancing

Curtain Rising

The auditorium was filled with a collective anticipation as the curtain rising revealed nine sequined bumblebees fidgeting in their leotards, buzzing to begin moving their newly-painted gold tap shoes to the well-rehearsed chords of the baby bumblebee song. It was the day I had anxiously anticipated for months and months, through all of our rehearsals and costume fittings and here I was: on the BIG stage.

Seated in the audience with my parents was also my Mom-Mom, my paternal grandmother, and she liked cats and monkeys, but I was nervous she might not be fond of bees. With each tap of my toe, hands firmly on my hips, I scanned the unseeable rows of seats for my people, certain that if Mom-Mom were there and I could see her seeing me, some magic might happen. What magic, I didn’t know.

And something magical did, indeed, happen, despite my not seeing anyone in the audience that night. As I tapped my way through the baby bumblebee song, arms and hands and head and feet all moving in rhythm and time to the beat, the anticipatory nerves and anxiety and fear of messing up my performance all lifted up and out of me, released into the nothing of dust particles scattering in the heat of the stage lighting. I WAS a bumblebee and I danced free — without nervous energy, or anxiety, or fear, or failure. I was pure bumbling joy and exhilaration.

After the performance when I did finally see my grandmother, she and I met each other in an embrace of bumblebee love and she gave me a slender glass vase that held three carnations (two pink, one white) and a tiny bumblebee, attached with wire to the stem of one flower, hovered just above the carnations.

Fast Track Tip #3

What I learned as a five-year-old bumblebee, I share with you now as the simplest method to increase your emotional well-being: just DANCE.

Skip, wiggle, do the Hokey Pokey, bring back the Electric Slide, or pick a decade whose dance moves resonate for you and duplicate them.

You don’t need a special someone watching from the audience. You don’t need an audience at all! This tip doesn’t even require gold-painted tap shoes, although if you’ve got a pair, definitely wear the tap shoes.

Spontaneous Dance Parties happen on the regular in my world.

Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before. —Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

And for your viewing pleasure, me: dancing.

Katie is three and she recently performed a dance routine in which she portrayed a very convincing reindeer. Following the performance the dance teacher collected all of the antlers back from the children in the class, at which time Katie portrayed a very convincing three-year-old having a temper tantrum.

And almost before it started, the temper tantrum portrayal was over, as Katie fluidly moved into a portrayal of a very convincing three-year old running around with her friends and squealing with delight, reindeer antlers forgotten.

You are not three.

You perform every single day, weaving yourself in and out of presentations, conversations, projects, relationships, car lines, checkout lanes, supper preparations, laundry foldings, volunteering, civic responsibilities, and a myriad other -ings daily.

And sometimes your antlers get taken away. Do you throw a tantrum when that happens? Go ahead. Admit it.

And because you’re not three, you forgot to squeal with delight at the next thing that happened and so you keep throwing your tantrum long after the antlers have left the building.

You carry your tantrum and tell your co-workers, or your spouse, or your closest friends on Facebook, or you take your tantrum out on the bank teller processing your request, or you don’t listen to your employee because your tantrum is occupying too much space in your head, or you let the tantrum speak on your behalf when you’re stuck in traffic, or you decide it’s justified to be short with your children at the end of your workday because that tantrum wants to be heard. . . . for days and weeks on end it wants to be heard.

Tantrums are only a ruse for your ego and every time you hold onto your tantrum, your ego is using you to get all the attention. Your ego is not you. Don’t be fooled.

Katie is a walking, running, squealing expressive example of exactly what you keep forgetting: just drop the antlers.

Remember, you are not three.