Once in high school my buddy Wes and I entered a swing dance competition with 100 or so other couples. "Here's our strategy," he told me. "We're going to dance so wild and so fast that the judges won't have a chance to tap us out." That's what we did, and we ended up evading the judges long enough to win.
Late that night my friends and I drove home like champions, plastic leis tickling our necks as the summer air streamed into my '89 Honda Civic. I remember thinking that there was no better feeling than being 16.
And now (just nine years later!), Eric was recently surprised that I was tapping my fingers on the steering wheel in rhythm to a song on the radio. "Oh, cute!" he said. "You're relaxed!" Others regularly ask about my welfare, offering concerned upturned eyebrows and furrowed frowns. Strangers bombard me with "there's never a moment's rest, is there?" or "now, don't you have your hands full?" Last week my physician asked me questions about how stress is affecting my health. I always find these queries strange, at best, and sometimes intrusive. Honestly, I'm not feeling stressed.
Enter Kim. Tonight my perennially carefree (and fun!) sister came over to take Jacob on an aunt date. When they came home, she introduced us to some youtube videos, including several variations of "Hamster Dance Spiderman." We spent the next 45 minutes trying to learn Spidey's smooth moves, and I'll have to admit that I revisited the clips after the kids went to bed (I have to get that lunge twist combo!). The experience tickled my serotonin receptors for sure.
I want to say that I "felt like myself" tonight, yet I always think it strange when people use the phrase. Aren't you always yourself, no matter the mood or stage of life? There are just aspects to the self that are less desirable and that we consider outside of ourselves? Lacan's "mirror stage" enlightens the analysis, as I can imagine an alternative stage in which I (the "real") am wholly (and, paradoxically, also fragmentally) represented through the "mirror" of dance. But I like to (romantically) think of myself as the dance's representation, even though I realize that the "real" encompasses much more.
In short, I've been missing out because I'm too stressed to enjoy life. The Hamster Dance Spiderman helped me learn this. Try it out yourself if you feel like it: Hamster Dance Spiderman.
P.S. Do my thoughts still exist if I don't blog about them?
5 comments:
I'm sure all of your friendly neighbors are put of those inquisitions on your life, stress, etc.. but as I was driving home from lunch bunch, after wonder how you do it, I realized that I am in the same boat - I am about to have my 4th and my oldest will barely be 5. I don't know why it's easier to look at someone else's life and wonder "how they do it" when in reality, we're all basically in the same boat... except I guess the difference is, my husband is home, yours is busy in school and gone a good majority of the time. How do you do it? ;)
That whole Lacan paragraph reminded me that you are one of the smartest people I know. Wow. I used to know stuff like that before I had kids, and you've somehow managed to retain it.
This whole post captures a universal issue of the busy mother. We can be happy, we can find motherhood joyous and fulfilling, we can believe it is the most important work of our lives, but there are moments where we all think, what happened to the old me? The one who knew all of those U-2 lyrics and enjoyed the occasional mosh pit? Or something like that.
Isn't Kim just SO much fun!! I need her in my life!
PS... of course your thoughts exist without blogging about them, but the real question is how long will they last? If not writen we tend to forget, no?
Holla!
Not to dwell entirely on the negative with my reply, Amy, but in reference to people (quasi-rudely) vocalizing your stressful moments, my least favorite 'constructive' comment is when Maddie is being a bit unruly, maybe crying loudly, and just attempting in general to disobey the human being's natural tendency to walk in a straight line, and some AWESOME person says, as sweetly and lovingly as they can, (something along the lines of) "Oh, you just wait till she's 2/3/15/18. She's gonna really make you crazy/turn into a different person/break your heart", to which I am usually COMPELLED, albeit reserved, to lovingly sneer something like, "Well, just you wait till you're 70/86/91. Your bladder will turn against you/bones will be as fragile as glass/body will fall apart around you". But if I responded with something of that nature, and lowered my standards of acceptable communication with complete strangers in a half-brained attempt to save my inflated ego a smidgen of embarrassment, I would be "letting the Terrorists win", or something like that.
But it does bug me a bit when such people lay their 'curse' on my family in such a way. I honestly must say that I never think of you as stressed or anything of the sort. In fact, when I think of you, I picture the night our whole family was playing that 'acting out scenes' game in MD, James "getting ON the airplane" to SLC, and your subsequent hysteria.
My apologies to anyone reading this reply who happens to be 70, 86, or 91. Hang in there, you look great!
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