“Self-expression sometimes requires other people. Becoming ourselves is a collective journey.” -Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

                Lately, when I’m having a hard time, I’ve been trying to either drown out the trouble by staying busy around friends, or to sit alone in my apartment and figure it out so I can be okay on my own. Which means it’s a great relief to see Alok point out how silly I’m being.
                I miss dancing. I miss the movement that wasn’t only mine, the momentum that carried me because I was sharing it with someone else who was sharing it with me. I was never a very good dancer, but my teachers got me to believe that didn’t really matter. Dancing, one told me, was being at home in your body. Dancing, another told me, was being alive together. So now I’m imagining the tension of holding hands with someone as we lean apart, my weight resting against the pull of their weight. Take either of us out of that picture, and of course the other person falls down. And thinking about that, holding the weight of all that’s holding me, I wonder if almost everything I do is dancing.