Sometimes I ponder the question: What is the intended resting state of a human being? Might it be standing? Walking? Running? Sitting? In the way that clocks were designed to tick and chairs were designed to hold weight. What, at our essence, were we designed to do?

 

During my Junior year of college I wrote “Seek refuge in movement” in Sharpie cursive letters on my arm every day for weeks. I was going through a painful period — a breakup, an initial uncovering of just how low my self-esteem actually was. A molting of sorts. I found that playful, non-linear movement — dance, if you will — is how I found joy and discovery through that difficult chapter. At the time I was dancing daily as part of a recreational company at the University of Florida, where I attended school. I didn’t know, though, that upon graduation the duties of adulthood would impose themselves upon me and thus dance would soon be leaving my life. I no longer saw dance as something valuable or necessary in “the real world.” And thus, my movement became whittled down to only the linear, pragmatic variety — sitting down and getting up from my office chair, pacing to and from the fridge, lifting a dumbbell or two.

 

The impact of my twenties set me on a sort of heroes journey toward rediscovering who I am and who I came here to be, and now, a decade later, dance is re-entering my life. I’m twisting, shaking, and bending my body, completely for the fun of it. Sometimes I make up my own moves just to see what feels good and sometimes I share those moves with others. Sometimes I even find myself wiggling my arms in weird ways as I walk down grocery store aisles, just as I did when I was a kid. For several years I thought that I’d lost my relationship with dance forever. But now as I build it back anew, the relationship is completely different. I experience new kinds of pain. Seek new kinds of refuge in new kinds of movement.

 

I wish I could take a peek into the mind and body of college Brett. To understand just for a moment what he was experiencing. What grief he was going through, how much or how little he thought of himself, and what dance actually felt like in his body at the time. I presume it would be in some ways shockingly similar and in some ways shockingly different to the Brett that I am now. Time has transformed me in ways I didn’t realize I needed or wanted to be transformed. I exist now in dimensions that I’ve always longed to experience but never actually knew to be real. Dimensions like deep time, pervasive wholeness, and the other side of alchemy. I’ve healed a lot. Dance has been both the root and the result of that healing.

 

I wonder what our world would be if more people moved their bodies for the hell of it. How magical, how free that world would be! Most people today wouldn’t dare to experiment with playful, non-linear movement. Most are too embarrassed to even try. We tell ourselves lies like “I don’t know what to do!” or “But I’m not a dancer!” It’s a tragedy really, because these statements are simply not true. Just disenchanted myths passed down from the unknowing generations before us. From the time we’re very young, adults in our society ask us unfounded questions like “Are you creative?” or “Are you a dancer?” As if some of us are not! We chop ourselves to pieces, label our creativity and our movements as “good” or “bad.” We turn the human experience into a game of winners and losers and thus miss the opportunity to connect deeply with ourselves, the world around us, and the world within us.

 

My message is this: All humans are dancers. All movement is dance. To move our bodies playfully and unencumbered in moments of joy, grief, wonder or sheer pleasure is an act of deep living. An act that can have massive ripple effects on the world around us. Dance is a gateway to a fuller human experience. Dance is our invitation. Our birthright. The very thing we’re most designed to do.

 

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A few things I’m thankful for:

- New chapters in new places!!!

- Community of new friends and old

- Changing longstanding dynamics

- Con and Brooklyn (hbd)

 

 

Pop culture things I’m thinking about:

- Really into Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ podcast (particularly with Anne Lamott and Patti Smith)

- Brat summer never dies. That Lorde remix? Come on.

 

 

A random journal entry:

2.16.21

when we feel the need for something else, trust it. there is something else that you need. but often it’s not the something else we have in mind.

 

 

A random thought:

I officially live in Pensacola, Florida. My hometown. (Or technically the town next to my hometown.) I can’t really fathom the impact that living here, and not New York or LA, will have on me and my sense of self, purpose, goals, community. But so far, it feels right.

 

For years Connor and I have read stories from the book City Quitters and dreamt of what a smaller, quieter, more creative and nature-oriented life would look like. It feels good to know that we’ve finally taken that leap to find out for ourselves. I can’t wait to see what unfolds.

 

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Thanks for reading :) Talk again soon.