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When I dance, I dance for myself. Even when I go to Navratri and the garba dancing pulls me in with the larger group, I'm there for me.
But the reasons I don't dance are all about other people.
I like to dance in ritual, but the group I practice ritual with has a lot of people who are not physically able to dance. They're wounded, or they're too large, or they're too tired, or they're too old. So I sit still. I don't want to remind them. I don't want their disappointment or dejection projected onto me and made mine so that I become all that they can't do instead of being me. It doesn't express what I want it to, so I just... sit still until my legs fall asleep. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, you know?
When I'm not with them, sometimes there are drum circles or dance floors or other places where I can go to move to feel like I have music in my veins instead of blood. And that feels good. For a while. But often some stranger (generally a man, but not always a man) decides this is a display for their benefit and suddenly I have a woman's arm around my shoulders or a man's hands on my hips, pulling me closer to him.
Rather than shove them away and scream at them for halting my motion and chaining it to theirs, I just stop dancing.
But you know? Just because you can see me, and just because you're close enough to touch me, doesn't mean my dance has anything to do with you. It isn't yours, and neither am I.
Still. As long as dancing means attracting the very people who make me feel less free... how can I feel free to dance?
Maybe this is just part of being a woman. Everything you do, everything you are, even the things which are supposed to be just for you... someone can always come along and take it, and never think twice about what it means and what they've done. After all, it's only natural, and you wouldn't be dancing like that if you weren't extending an invitation, right? If you weren't offering.
Whyever that happens, it does. I can't forget about what people are thinking of me and of themselves, and just dance like I want to. I hate feeling like public property, like everybody's blank slate, like everything I do is an opportunity for other people to project their assumptions and disappointments and desires onto me and make them part of my life.
I love being a woman because of what it means to me, but I hate being a woman because of what it means to everyone else.
But the reasons I don't dance are all about other people.
I like to dance in ritual, but the group I practice ritual with has a lot of people who are not physically able to dance. They're wounded, or they're too large, or they're too tired, or they're too old. So I sit still. I don't want to remind them. I don't want their disappointment or dejection projected onto me and made mine so that I become all that they can't do instead of being me. It doesn't express what I want it to, so I just... sit still until my legs fall asleep. If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, you know?
When I'm not with them, sometimes there are drum circles or dance floors or other places where I can go to move to feel like I have music in my veins instead of blood. And that feels good. For a while. But often some stranger (generally a man, but not always a man) decides this is a display for their benefit and suddenly I have a woman's arm around my shoulders or a man's hands on my hips, pulling me closer to him.
Rather than shove them away and scream at them for halting my motion and chaining it to theirs, I just stop dancing.
But you know? Just because you can see me, and just because you're close enough to touch me, doesn't mean my dance has anything to do with you. It isn't yours, and neither am I.
Still. As long as dancing means attracting the very people who make me feel less free... how can I feel free to dance?
Maybe this is just part of being a woman. Everything you do, everything you are, even the things which are supposed to be just for you... someone can always come along and take it, and never think twice about what it means and what they've done. After all, it's only natural, and you wouldn't be dancing like that if you weren't extending an invitation, right? If you weren't offering.
Whyever that happens, it does. I can't forget about what people are thinking of me and of themselves, and just dance like I want to. I hate feeling like public property, like everybody's blank slate, like everything I do is an opportunity for other people to project their assumptions and disappointments and desires onto me and make them part of my life.
I love being a woman because of what it means to me, but I hate being a woman because of what it means to everyone else.
