If I was given that chance to restart life all over again, I would have danced the same. The same fluctuating rhythmic movements alternating between awkwardness and agility, through the dizziness and the blur, to the same tumultuous tunes. Sometimes the tune grows quiet, monotonous and the moves become edgy. And I would move as slow as a tiptoe. Sometimes it gets so loud I had to dance so fast to keep up that it drowns me, I had to search for and reel myself from this abyss. But I would have danced the same.
The same moves - the twirls, the leaps, the crouching, the freezing, the bending over backwards, the breaking, the running; away and towards. Sometimes with crippling anxiety, doubt and fear, other times with passion, and other times with unquestioning obedience and total surrendering. I would allow myself to fall flat on my face, I would then nurse my scraped knees myself. Sometimes I would bury my face in the pillow, with shame and humiliation while questioning my worth. But I would still stand up, and move, cautiously, and then regain my confidence.
Sometimes the moves become repetitive, like a cycle, but that way, that's how I get better. Once in awhile I jump into taking risky steps and I falter awkwardly which would hurt so so bad the limbs, the head and oh the heart especially, hurts. Oh how foolish must I have been, diving straight into these steps without even thinking how I should have protected myself first? But I would have laughed through them all again and again because at least I know I tried. Well then at least I know, I had danced fully, authentically. And I shall continue to dance, with all that I am, and all the flaws that make me, me. And I shall dance, while chanting how I could have this dance only once, in this lifetime.
Oh who am I kidding? I wrote a post previously on the importance of mobility. But going further than that, it is the social encounters that make up the foundation of human experience living under this same canopy we call earth and sharing this home alongside others. To the first moment babies acquaint themselves with the world, having the first touch, hearing the sounds of a laughter, whimper, sigh, silent smile, and modelling on the external world to distinguish safety from danger, right from wrong, norms from exceptions. It is the everyday social experiences of walking out on the streets and seeing people doing their own thing - the mother reprimanding the child, the young man awkwardly fishing his pockets at the entrance of the bus, a fragile old woman taking her time to walk up the stairs, the sound of aggressive haggling at the market. And then there are those two close friends insisting they each want to pay the bill for the other, a group of boisterous teenagers disrupting your ...
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