Dance Me Outside

From the time she was three, Miranda was a dancer. She knew that dance was the only thing that gave life meaning, and when she danced, she glimpsed the freedom from the weight of thought and separation that lifted from her mind as her body flew through the air and both defied and honored the pull of gravity. Her mother was a dancer and a dance teacher, and she recognized her daughter’s potential. Both she and her mother lived to realize the dream whereby Miranda would achieve true mastery over her art form, and become recognized as a master of the dance.

The path would be long. She studied all of the great teachers and they had many techniques. She knew she had to practice endlessly and renounce the life others took for granted. She sought out the greatest living masters, followed the teachings of those living and dead, and her devotion burned within like an eternal flame no matter what befell her in the mundane world of ordinary events. From trauma to depression to dysfunctional relationships---none of that mattered, for she would not let anything stand in the way of her pursuit of the only goal in life that mattered; to become a great dancer, a true artist, one who has reached the heights of mastery and truly can be said to be dancing with the gods.

Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan, Nijinsky, they had all attained this almost mystical divine state, and she would join them. And yet, no matter the hours devoted, the unbending dedication of mind, body, and imaginary soul she gave, at the age when attainment of mastery should have been hers by all rights, by all effort and intention, she was, at best, a fair dancer. Better than average, no doubt, but she could not soar effortlessly across the stage, she did not have the intuitive grace to invent movements that would leave her and anyone watching breathless with wonder, and she could not even teach others more than the same rudimentary techniques every reasonable teacher of dance taught all across the world. The famous choreographer at the renowned dance company she long dreamed of dancing for watched her audition, shrugged, and said her dancing was “fair” as he waved her away. The realm of the masters seemed as far removed from her own life experience as it was when she was three years old.

How could this be? She had read every word, undertaken every practice, renounced every distraction. And yet, the impossible to describe gap between someone who can dance and someone who embodies dance, who has become dance itself, remained like the Grand Canyon separating her from the only thing that could ever give her life meaning, the attainment of mastery that would end her turmoil and struggle and pain and allow her to enter that transcendent realm of dance where none of that would matter.

One day she was walking alone in a national park, thinking perhaps she might just throw herself from a high peak. Her search was over, and it was clear it had all been futile. God or fate or whatever unknowable force existed in the world, if any at all, had tormented and tortured her with the promise of a beauty and grace so sublime her heart would burst and tears would flow when she saw it. And yet it was not hers, and she now knew it would never be hers, despite doing everything right, everything she was told.

As she came to a clearing in the pines, she saw an old woman dancing. She could hear music but did not see its source, as the woman seemed alone. The woman leaped into the air, seemed to float and glide, and then slowly drooped to the ground like a leaf fallen from a tree. Miranda’s heart stopped as she watched in wonder and awe.

The woman stopped dancing and sat on the ground looking at Miranda. She smiled. Suddenly Miranda was filled with anger and rage and resentment. She threw herself at the woman, screaming, “Why why, why? Why can’t I dance like that? Why do you have this gift and I don’t? I did everything…. I tried everything!”

The woman simply rolled gracefully out of Miranda’s grasp and flung Miranda across the ground, where she landed with a thud at the base of an old cedar tree.

She looked at Miranda and told her to get up. Her voice was calm but so unwavering that Miranda obeyed like a child. The woman pointed to the clearing and told Miranda to dance when she heard the music.

Miranda stood in the center of the open space but heard no music. The woman said, “Just listen.” Miranda heard the wind and the calls of animals. She told the dancer what she heard, but that there was no music.

The dancer said, “That is the music, silly girl.”

So Miranda danced. She danced without caring about her technique, she danced without caring what others would think, she danced without even caring what the woman thought.

It felt so liberating and wonderful, it was sheer perfection, and she moved with a freedom she never before felt. And then the dance came to a natural conclusion, as Miranda gracefully sank to the ground and bowed her head.

Miranda was crying with relief and looked at the woman with gratitude. She had found it at last. She imagined that this was what she had been waiting for. Now she had found her true teacher and she was going to become a Master of Dance. It was all about letting go of herself and just being the dance. Of course! She imagined her dance had been as perfect as any dance anyone had ever done, and started to fantasize about doing world tours and seeing her mother at last watch her with awe.

She told the dancer her thoughts and the old woman laughed. “No, no, what are you talking about!” She exclaimed. “Your technique was deeply flawed, you made many mistakes, and sometimes your feet and legs were simply awful. I can see you are a decent dancer, but I wouldn’t give up your day job.”

Miranda was so shattered she didn’t even explain that dancing was her day job.

“But I felt so free and like I was truly there…at last.”

“Well of course,” the woman told her. “When you don’t have any idea of how you think you are supposed to dance or how someone else dances in relationship to you, of course, that is all dancing is about. It makes as much sense for you to believe you should dance like me as for a squirrel to think it should be a bird. Or a bird a fish. Or a rabbit a tree. I could go on, but you get the point.

“When you lose the thoughts of what should be, and what you are in relationship to what are only your own imaginary ideas of perfection, there is no better or worse dancing, only dancing. Most humans who ever danced had no artificial concepts about how to dance, they simply moved as they felt and that was that. You have been studying to find something that will allow you to transcend yourself, but you have never been anything but life dancing as the dream of you. How can that be wrong? There is not something to become or find out. Life simply is, and there is nothing to do with that awareness, nothing to attain or let go of, nothing at all.”

She continued to speak as Miranda sat on the ground. “People love to watch what they call a great dancer, and a few seem to have a certain faculty for it. Who knows why that happens? But that is not a higher or lower or better or worse state. It simply means they may talk about dance in a way you find insightful, and you enjoy watching them. But when you imagine they are doing something you need to achieve, or if they act as if their dancing is somehow superior to anyone else’s, that is where the suffering starts.

“The only dance lesson one will ever need is to move without caring what you think or what anyone else thinks. Just listen to the music of life and you may notice you have always been dancing perfectly, without choosing to dance or having to take a single lesson. And if anyone ever tells you there is something more you need to be doing, you will simply laugh and keep dancing. There is no practice, there is no method, and there is nothing to attain.”

Miranda looked down, trying to take it all in, and when she turned back the woman was gone. She hiked down the mountain, went home, and took all the dance books and videos she had collected, as well as her ballet shoes, to the thrift store.

Then she came back home, put on her favorite song, and danced.

Miranda danced as perfectly as anyone in all the apparent world had ever danced …even if it was only what experts in the dance world would call “fair.”