After the Dance

Tell me sir, why you dance your dance?
It is because its comfort soothes you?
Do you think your dance is romance?

May i ask the reason that dance feels so good to ya?
When you hold that dance and entrance that dance,
Would u choose another dance if the dance that you dance did not feel as good as a dance should?

Did you pick a partner when you should have picked a potnah?

Hey brotha, are the shoes that you dance with made to fit you?
Is the fit too small? If you stay in that small shoe, will you be callused?
Are the shoes that you wear too big for you?
You feel they are made for someone else, they don't get you, right.

If you profess that the fit is good Right Wonderfully majestic,
Then tell me, do they draw close to those parts that need binding when the dance gets tiring, too weary?
Do the laces weave in around and thru you to keep you from coming undone?
Are those shoes, those good Right shoes support to your soul?
Can you pull on the strings of your wonderfully majestic shoes and know
beyond a shadow of doubt that they will not fray, unfurl, break?

Is it the right shoe for you?
Is it a ballet slipper when you dance your tap dance?
When you need to don your jazz shoes are the shoes that you dance with combat boots?

Out on the dance floor where you dance your dance are you hypnotized by the music?
Are the beats and rhythms in line with the dance that you dance on that dancing floor?
Does the melody of said music resonate wholly in your being?
Old school, new school, salsa, reggae, hip hop, jazz or blues, sir
Is the dance and the music that you dance to the same?
What is that? You say you dance the paso-doble but the music is opera.
Now i've watched Dancing With the Stars enough to know that you gotta have the right downbeat if you gone do the lead.
Can't keep dancing that dance if the music is all wrong!

It gotta feel good in every way.
Gotta make you feel that thang feel like you don't ever wanna stop movin to its pulse
its cadence The timbre, the melody.
Why mister, if the music ain't in touch with that place that makes the world seem not large enough to conquer and the sky so close you can touch it, then what makes you think its the right music to groove to?
This dance that you love to dance

Will you retire from your dance or do you love her that much that you will never ever never never ever never let her go?

Honesty is the best policy.

Is what you know to be your truth true? Is what people say about you the truth? Do you even care? Most people will say that they really could care less about what other people say about them. i would beg to differ. The adage that talk is cheap is just that, a cheap adage. It is inherent within all human nature to care about what other people think of you. Consider an infant child in this example. When you look at a baby and smile, it does one of three things - smiles back, cries or just stares at you with no emotion at all. Now, does it not pang at your heart when that child cries or looks back at you expressionless? Of course it does. You consider that there is something wrong with you. You wonder if it was something you did wrong to make the baby cry. You come up with a thousand different scenerios that your child could be thinking about you. Your only saving grace, really, is that it is a baby. S/he hasn't had a lot of practice interpreting the actions of others to formulate sound conclusions. But your contemporaries have.

Ask yourself a series of questions - use what emotion or thought comes to you first:
1. How do i really feel about myself? (Content, terrible, proud, happy, i don't know)
2. Would you change the life you live? What would you change? (Think of all things and list them)
3. Realizing that you have nothing but time, would you work harder for a career or family?
4. Do you always do what you love? (Even if it is considered wrong by society - drinking, partying all night, promiscuity, gambling, etc.)
5. Do you feel as if there is something else you were designed to do? (i.e. Be a pilot rather than a secretary, a BMX bike racer rather than a maintenance person, etc.)
6. If you believe that you were designed to be something else, what would it be and would you pursue that path regardless of what others would say, think and feel?
7. Lastly, were you absolutely honest in answering these questions?

Here are the answers i came up with:
1. i have overcome a lot of obstacles in my life. i am very proud of the person that i have evolved into though it is my desire to be more assured in my dealings with others.
2. The only thing that i would not change is having my children. They were entrusted to me for a reason and i take that purpose very seriously. Every other aspect of my life can be changed.
3. i would definitely work harder for family.
4. No, i don't always do what i love. There are things ingrained within me that i just do. Not that i particularly like or dislike them. i love to cook. i like to read. i like to blog. i love to give my children a bath at night and tuck them in. i love to travel.
5. Yes.
6. i believe that i was designed to do two things consecutively, be a writer and a housewife.
7. i was honest with all of my answers.

Notice that i didn't answer the second part of question 6. i can't honestly answer that at this point in my life. i would like to say that i would, but it wouldn't be an honest answer. When you are honest with yourself about yourself, no lie or misconception about you will stand. On its face, the very mistruth that people form about you will, in time, be shown as a falsity. Stand on your principles and everyone that does not stand with you will be cleared out. The good Lord protects babies and fools. Be a fool for yourself and you will have nothing to worry about.

Who knows you?

i was thumbing through one of my many notebooks this morning and i came across one sentence on a page: "Who knows what's best for me better than me?" i can't recall at this moment the genesis for the entry but it got me thinking about it. No great revelation came to me. i sat down in the chair i was standing next to. At that moment, it was like the ponderance of the question became this great weight. i stared out the big picture window as if the answer was walking around out there waiting for me to acknowledge it. i flipped a few more pages hoping to find the answer somewhere within. Nothing. Then i thought about an entry that i made in one of my journals some years ago. i ran upstairs and read the journal entry. Within the text i had written the exact same question. So i surmised that this was not a question that i wanted a person or myself to answer. It was a question for the universe to send me the answer to - or not. Even as i am penning these words, i just noticed that the Lauren Hill song "Ex-Factor" is playing on my Pandora station - spooky shit! The lyrics now send me into another mental tailspin.

New question to myself, first, and if i am not able to come up with a concrete answer, universe step in: "Do i really know what is best for me or am i relying on someone to tell me what's best for me?"

i recall a conversation that i had with my guy a month or so ago and i told him that when we met, i didn't need him to save me from anything. i had a great job, so i was financially stable. i had one child at the time, so i didn't have my kids running amok. i was absolutely positive that i didn't want to be with my then husband anymore - i didn't have this great struggle to pick a lover. i was on a course to better my life and health. i became a vegetarian and was losing weight and dressing differently - not Peggy Bundy-like but i started buying clothes that showed my newly found curves. Overall, i was feeling good about myself. i made a promise to myself that i was no longer going to be a doormat to other's emotions. My new motto became, "To thine own self, be true." i wrote that everywhere - my car dashboard, my office desk, the screen saver on all three of my computers, my bedroom closet door, any place that would hold a Post-It note. That period in time i dubbed as the Emancipation of Me! (Mariah Carey's Emancipation of Mimi had come out that same year) i didn't need a "Captain Save-A-Ho" type to rescue me from my situation. i had my shit under control.

Some may look at my life today and say that i am in some sort of trance. That is true. And i must tell you that it is the best feeling that i have ever felt. Don't get me wrong, i will not compromise my personal liberation for the feeling of being in love, it took a lot of hard work and loving myself to be who i am today. But i will allow myself to be in love. Is that what i want? Thin-slice answer, hell yeah! Is that what is best for me? The answer the universe has whispered to me is, of course! Love just is. Undefined. Unexplained. Unrelenting. It is what it is. That i know for sure.