I was never one of those girls who lived on paper towels dipped in grape juice, fell asleep doing the splits, and dreamed of Juliard, but ballet was still a big part of my formative years. It was the one form of exercise that my tightly-strung limbs could manage with any degree of competence. I was hopeless at jumping rope. Running knotted my sides with pain. Any sport involving a ball promised certain embarrassment; I had even been known to hit onlookers in the face with foosballs. But the precision of ballet meshed with my Bach-infused brain—Plié, two, three, four, and up, six, seven, eight, relevé, two, three, four, and down, six, seven, eight. When I took my place at the barre, the carefully measured beat inside my chest fell into step beside the practice music, and my life took on a certain… not meaning, exactly, but familiarity.
It was when a hip-hop teacher choreographed one of our performances that I learned beat and rhythm were not the same thing.
“Try slouching,” the teacher instructed me. “Well yes, technically it’s similar to hunching over, but you need to relax. Try bouncing a little. Swing your arms some. Maybe bend your knees? Just try to loosen up, please, so you can move with the music.”
I succeeded in looking as hip as a Puritan schoolmarm with epilepsy.
All this to say that rhythm is not a virtue I inherited. I’ve learned a lot about loosening up since my ballerina days, but simple yoga breathing took me months to master, and no one is going to be hiring me for a Snoop Dogg music video anytime soon. Even more regrettably (though failing to capture Snoop’s attention is tragic), my rhythm deficiency seems to apply to the grand scheme of life. Despite plenty of years to settle into this existence of mine, I have yet to find my daily groove. I still approach my schedule awkward and stiff-jointed with no carefree assurance that I’m moving in the right direction, no flexibility to roll with the changes that pulse in the bassline.
What guides me now, as always, is the plodding beat under my sternum: Status quo, two, three, four, and caution, six, seven, eight, now practicality, two, three, four, and misgiving, six, seven, eight. (Yes, I’m a blast to have at parties.) But what I want is to be swept away in a rip tide of driving beats and compelling sounds. I wish I could move freely through my days, trusting in the power of joy and unconstrained movement to produce a full life, a wildly good life. I would love oh-so-very much to stop studying every minute as the next note in a sonata and just… groove.
This is where I am this spring, taking stock of my life and shaking my head. Try slouching, I tell myself. Except this time, relax. Bounce a little. Swing your arms. Bend your knees. And for heaven’s sake, learn how to drop it like it’s hot before you actually turn into a Puritan schoolmarm.
