Day 7: May 7, 2010

Do you know what the best thing is about having a laptop with wifi? Being able to blog outside in the sun. And do you know what the best thing is about having a secluded back yard? Being able to dance in it.

Yes, I was officially recovered enough to dance again today. I have a cough that sounds like a barking dog and is quite remarkably painful, but it wasn't going to stop me from dancing, no sir. It was so beautiful outside that I broke my own cardinal rule drilled into me by my parents: NO MUSIC OUTSIDE -IT'S NOISE POLLUTION, and I plugged my iPod speakers into the outdoor outlet in the back yard. Three songs today: "Blood-stained Tip" by Shadow Fax (who I bet you've never heard of), "To Sheila" by Smashing Pumpkins, and "Konstantine" by Something Corporate. These songs are all from my "Meg" playlist, which is a list completely composed of songs that mean, or have meant, something to me. It's kind of a soundtrack of my life to date. Specifically, these songs are: a favourite from my sophomore year of college, a song from the ONLY good date I had when I went to school in New York City, and Meg-and-Matthew's "First Dance" song...both as a couple and as a married couple. Needless to say, I was going for maximum evocativeness (apparently, evocativeness isn't a word, but you get the idea).

Anyway, so the songs were playing and I started moving...and an interesting thing happened. The first song was general dance-y stuff (read: moving and being frustrated because I can't seem to move the way I want to any more ever), but in the second one I turned around and was caught in a moment. As I watched I saw our little Xander walking down the lawn, totally preoccupied with looking around him. And as I watched him walk away I was so overcome by love for this little person -with his little blue jeans and his wee bucket hat and his coconut head and his tiny, uneven toddler strides, that my heart almost leaped out of my chest. He turned around and I crouched down and held out my arms and watched him as he grinned and ran towards me with his arms held out for a hug. It was amazing. It was like dancing, only I wasn't moving. And here's the interesting part...I couldn't wait to come in and write about it.

This is a big deal...until recently my first thought would have been to dance about something like that. I probably wouldn't have actually gotten up and done it, but I would have felt like it. To have my first instinct be to write...that's new. It kind of scares me...does this mean I'm a writer and not a dancer any more? Can I be both? Am I more one than the other? Or am I just way too preoccupied with labels?

Those are rhetorical questions...of course I'm a dancer. But it reminds me of something I was pondering as I stroller-walked Xander around the block earlier today. My philosophy of "Everyone's a dancer"...is it really true? I mean, yes, everyone can dance, everyone has the ability to express themselves through movement if they feel like it. But that's what's making me wonder...the "if they feel like it." Take my ex-fiance -he never danced, ever (I don't know if this is still true, but it was when we were a couple). He just didn't like it. Is he a dancer? Are you a dancer if you would take the term as a genuine insult? Or if you just plain never feel the urge? If you're out there and you're reading this I'd love to know what you think. I'll be thinking about it myself, I'm sure, and I'll get back to you if I come up with anything.