Work of Winter

Cold rain turned to snow this morning. Sloshy raindrops became huge, wet flurries driving down in all directions. We had a sleety walk to school, and my walk back uphill under a broken unicorn umbrella was a mess. But my legs felt powerful in heavy boots with a squash of leg warmers. The steady clomp sound was no small part of feeling mighty. My mightiness held some possibility, as in might, as in “I might…” 

I set up shop as usual on the living room rug. Me, mat, movement. The important thing was that I decided (light lifts in this room as I write like a yes, a sparrow on the front porch nods another yes) to call my daily movement practice work. I won’t even put work in quotes because that degrades the meaning of the word. I want to call it work. As in, it counts.

Friends, this may sound silly or unnecessary or flat out stupid. But I think I need to insert here my history of devaluing my work and undercutting my worth. I kill projects before someone else kills them for me. I keep movement, the biggest thing about me (as in elaborate, embellished, fleeting, a flash, as in flashy), small and hidden and private. And right now, while I’m putting all my eggs in the writing basket, I hesitate to call my movement work. Even though so much of what I write about is movement. What is it? Capitalistic expectations that my every move is accounted for? The work involved in movement and writing is strange and nonlinear and takes many forms. It’s filled with beautiful moments like flow and wonder connection and just plain observation which can feel and look like…well, nothing. It’s also filled with horrible moments like avoidance and self doubt and giving up on yourself before someone gives up on you.

When I was 6, I saw some friends leave Parks & Rec camp early to get to dance class, and I said I’ll have one of those. Whatever got me out of playing knock hockey alone in the dirt until my thumbs fell off. I became a kid who went to dance class. I became a dancer. After the green unitards and Dippity-do hair gel, I didn’t quit. Like an Energizer Bunny or a defunct classic rock station, I kept dancing through the 80’s, 90’s and today. The beat goes on. La di dah de dee. 

What I mean to say is movement is at my core. It is my core. So even though I’m not teaching, performing or getting paid to move right now, movement is my work. It’s on equal footing as scratching a pen on paper and fumbling fingers on a laptop. In fact, my movement practice intertwines with my writing so completely that one feeds the other and the other way around in an infinite loop. In a way, one is the other. So although my movement practice is about health (“at my age…”) and self-esteem and rage reduction, it’s also work. In the best sense of the word. Work as in play. As in noticing and flow and good old-fashioned childlike fun.

So when you ask, “what are you up to today?” From now on (instead of hemming and hawing or changing the subject or joking at my expense…”What a fun, wacky mess I am!”) I’ll tell you I’m doing work. Valuing my time. Voting for myself. You’ll see me walking fast up and down hills, pausing for robins and green things. Then I’ll move on a mat, cycling legs in slow motion, performing the “upside down jellyfish hang.” It’s heavy and weighted and weightless and free. I’m drifting, twisting, shaking. I’m wringing myself out, making it up as I go along. 

I know 3 essential things I need to do every day. Sometimes I ignore them and close the door in their face, but I know they’re sitting on the other side waiting for me to come to my senses. These mystical three are…

Moving (Move the body and it moves me.)

Planting (Tend the plants and they tend me.)

Writing (Write now. Write myself well.)

Because I voted for myself today and called my movement work, I took a break from relentlessly listening to podcasts (“How anxious are you?” “Well, how many did I listen to today?”). I put on spacious, comforting music instead. Too often these days I need strangers talking in my ear to numb out the siren song of self sabotage. So podcasts crept into my movement practice. But for years and years it used to be music. Flipping through iPod playlists. Clanging a burned CD into an ancient boom box in the corner of a studio. Dropping the needle on the Ghostbusters album for the umpteenth time to finish choreography for “Cleanin’ Up the Town” or “Savin’ the Day.” Over the years, I was at the helm, curating my audio which metabolized in my movement. So by calling my movement practice work (part of my job) and by opting out of podcasts (at least for today), I’m not being talked at. I’m being lulled. I’m dropping in and soothing myself. My own instincts and tempo and timing bubble to the surface. I remember why I still do this. I remember liking my own company. 

Outside, the branches moved and swayed in the wind. Flurries changed their tempo from time to time. What I’m trying to tell you is that today, for the first time in a while, I felt good. It was the snow, the music, the movement. It was also the swing from feeling bad to feeling good. Like all of us, I need the downs to feel the ups. I experience that, forget it, then experience it again. Today was an up, and I’m grateful. Moving my arms in the air is a gesture of hope. Each time I do it is a vote for me.

After the snow stopped falling and everything was wet, birds landed on the dogwood tree. Bright glistening water droplets adorned the empty branches. Fast and precise, the birds took sips, gulping from a thousand tiny teacups at their ready. I leaned closer to the window to get the full picture. Sometimes, when the winds change and I land in the right spot, I look around and see so much to drink in. That’s when I get to work.