When I was growing up I had the extreme luxury of being able to express myself through drawing, acting, and later writing, more or less to my own satisfaction. It’s only in hindsight that I realize what an extreme luxury this was; If I wanted to draw the most beautiful ballgown ever, I could sit down, get to work, and eventually have a product that pretty much fulfilled my own expectations. I took this ability for granted because I never remembered a time when I didn’t have it. (I’m harder on myself with writing because it’s always mattered more to me and I’ve put more time and effort into improving it, but even at my most frustrated points I never feel inept as a writer.)

I’m not an inept dancer, but it’s the one thing that I wish I had the same fluency in. I’ve even been told I’m a good dancer, but that hardly matters when I can listen to a song I love and close my eyes and see the movements I’d like to make with my body, and then am unable to come even close to replicating them. 

My friends may assume that I watch shows like America’s Best Dance Crew as some sort of ironic statement, and that my intense emotional reaction to clips like the one above is maybe just a weird manifestation of seasonal affective disorder, but I’m genuinely in awe of those kids’ abilities to transpose sound through their muscles, bones, joints, even if its some stupid Ke$ha song or whatever. I’m no connoisseur, I just watch reality TV all day, but dance always strikes me as a completely joyful expression, regardless of the context. No matter what those bodies are saying, the meta-choreography is saying “Hey, look, we can do this!” and, gosh, it’s  such a total victory.

(PS - I tried to tell my mom all this the other day when we were driving somewhere and she, in so many words, told me I couldn’t dance because I didn’t have a soul. LOL THX MOM)