I want to dance

Today, my little miss started her first ever dance class. It’s a ballet tap combo for 31/2 to 41/2 year olds.

She had a terrific time and is looking forward to next week.

And I walked away feeling jealous. I’ve never studied dance. Of all the random interests I’ve pursued either via books, a few community education lessons, or a more formalized series of classes I’ve interested in various kinds of dance for a long time but it’s something I’ve stayed away from.

I know I can learn dance moves and I would certainly appreciate the exercise component of it, so I don’t know what the hesitation is.

Actually, I do know. The dance genres and styles I would most like to learn are ballet, hip-hop, tap or maybe some combination of all three. These are all dance styles that adult, white men should, for the most part, avoid trying to pull off. If I had started studying any of these as a child or even as a teen I could claim some legitimacy in my interest but as someone in his 30s it would take me quite a while to overcome the concern that I was trying to be cool or reclaim a youthfulness.

I don’t really enjoy being young or youthful, but I enjoy even less the possibility that I’ll be percieved as though I’m trying to act cool or young. And shame and a self-consciousness would probably be a big hinderance in trying to learn a dance style.  Plus, the recital would be a huge source of stress.

The other reason I don’t take tap lessons or learn how to dance hip-hop is because I hold folks who do those things well in such high regard and I would always be frustrated I wasn’t at their level. I’m not a good beginner. I want to be an immediate expert. So, maybe I should take a tap class and experience that feeling of being terrible at something and yet maybe having fun. Perhaps I could learn that being bad at something won’t hurt me and I don’t need to be great at something to enjoy doing it.

Or, maybe I’m a natural and within 1 year of my first tap class I’ll be opening for Savion Glover.

Maybe?

LW

I’m running from something

Exercise has been a really good thing for me for a long time. I landed on running several years ago after being a gym rat and it’s come to feel like home. I mostly like doing it and I like how I feel after I do it.

Plus, there’s something about me that gets great satisfaction in having something I know I want and need to do nearly everyday. I can’t stress how valuable it is to have a daily ritual that gives me something I know I can start and finish all in the same day.

But, I’ve just become aware in the last week that I’m now using running and any other exercise I do as a way to avoid other things. Lately I’ve been spending 90 to 120 minutes on my daily workouts when I used to rarely go more than 60. And I’ve been denying this change and telling her she’s crazy when my wife comments on it.

Last night I found myself into my fourth mile after 10pm after having spent an hour working out in my home gym (a pull-up bar, a folding chair, and half a dozen dumbbells) when I realized something might be up. Maybe I wasn’t just running because the resistance workout wasn’t a high enough calorie burner and because I want to keep my runners legs. Maybe I wasn’t going for a run before bed just to clear my mind and ensure that I had done at least one thing that day I didn’t find ultimately disappointing. Maybe I wasn’t running to get and keep health in my life but instead to try and avoid things that are important to me and that I deeply care about but am finding increasingly terrifying.

I quickly thought of two major things that could easily be what my excessive exercise was helping me avoid.

One: If I can work out long enough and late enough every night the wife will be asleep or nearly asleep and I won’t have to contemplate having a conversation about the surprisingly few but worryingly significant issues I don’t think are being addressed between us. If I’m just working out to be fit and take care of myself how can that be a bad thing, right. But if I’m working out so I can wait the wife out and not communicate, well that doesn’t just do harm to what is easily the most important and worthwhile relationship I’ve every been a part of, but it also taints my running. Neither of which is okay with me.

Two: I’ve lost all confidence in my ability to write anything worth a damn. Seriously, that’s it. I know I’ve been capable of writing things I’m proud of in the past. I have things I’ve written that I am excited about sharing with people live on stage. Things I know are funny and good and still have a truth for me. But I can’t seem to convince myself that I’m that same person. I no longer think I can write something good or something funny. I want to be a writer but when I think about writing, and I’m almost never not thinking about writing, I want to throw up.

I know this insecurity in one’s writing is unoriginal. And that pisses me off too.

This brings me to the purpose of this posting. I haven’t posted a blog entry since September and I didn’t think I would post another blog entry. But, I’m working on a writing project and I do want to be a writer both as my profession and as a large portion of my identity so I’m going to make myself be a writer. My fear can go frag itself. I’m going to pile crap upon crap on this blog everyday, or nearly everyday, until I recognize the writer that’s somewhere in my head hiding. And then I’m going to write some more.

I almost decided to stop running yesterday because it occured to me that my running is a way of hiding from my fear of sucking as a writer. But being fat and out of shape isn’t going to make me a writer. Writing is. So I’m going to write.

LW