Eclectic Waters

Archive for January, 2007

I have three.

1. To learn how to Salsa dance.

2. To run more consistently (I say every day, but even if it is only three times a week that is fine)

3. To be more present in the moment (I do this by telling myself “right now I am…” and then describing the details around me – this brings my mind back to my body so I can actually enjoy and be present in the moment.

Last week I made good on all three of these. The funnest of which was the first.

My roomate recommended The Blue Agave.

The dance instructor was clear in his instructions and the girls stood in a line opposite the guys as we practiced our steps individually and then we met in the middle to practice. When the music started couples flooded the floor and I watches as they expertley spun and stepped in time. Fernando was standing near my group and when Jesse and Josh went to dance, he asked me to dance. Since we were both beginners we pretty much did one step for the twenty minutes we danced. Many girls would be uncomfortable dancing with a stranger, but I simply enjoyed the music and beat. I also learned the skill of keeping my dance partner at a distance. Salsa dancing is intimate and sensual and so I am still processing and deciding how to learn to dance without moving from sensual to sexual dancing. There is a difference.

For one, dancing is in itself a very kinestetic and, depending on the dance, sensual experience. However, depending on how closely two people dance and where their hands are positioned and even based on eye-contact etc., the dancing can remain less intimate.

After excusing myself from Fernando and checking on my friends, I danced with Mario who has been dancing for awhile. That was fun. The girl doesn’t have to know too much about dancing if her partner is good and able to lead her. Mario not only taught me more, but was also able to explain what the DJ was saying in Spanish. The biggest feat of the evening was not in the fact that Mario gave me his number (I’ve now decided to not accept numbers – my focus is learning to dance not to “hook” up and by accepting numbers I feel that I am giving that impression) – but in the fact that my feet made it through two and a half hours of dancing in heels. That’s an accomplishment!

With practice I’ve always been a natural at dancing .

“We eat right, exercise daily, and still die.” – Dr. David Jeremiah (might be paraphrased)

These words lifted the fog of guilt and depression a woman was falling into as she wished and thought of how she should have taken her husband to the doctor for indigestion the night before he died, sitting on the couch.

Just a week earlier her husband had completed a physical examine and the doctor had marveled at his physical fitness.

Listening to her story I thought,

Words have power. What will you write?

Does God ever call you to something and then as you do it and step into it – everything around you is destroyed?

Teaching was that way — following a dream, a thought, and then having it crumble along with the life and identity I built around it. But that was not a bad thing. I realized I did not want it all that much, or I would have fought more tenaciously for it. As it is, it was not what I expected, and I am content letting it go.

I like the part of Noah’s story where new life arrives.

An olive branch, waving across the water, held in the beak of a dove.

Hope.