On Being Uncomfortable and Growing From It
We’re officially closer to the beginning of 2021 than we are to the beginning of 2020. We have made it halfway through which is sure to be one of the most important years in our history.
We’re at the tipping point where we can either deicide to “be done with it,” that we’ve hit our limit, that we’ve pushed our boundaries far enough and now we want to go back to our comfort zone, or we can decide to keep on pushing. To keep on growing, learning, expanding, transforming.
So many of us are finally seeing just how much is at stake here, for our individual lives and communities, and most importantly, for our Black community. There has been so much “solidarity” within the dance world and I, for one, am eager to see how things change.
But that has to start with us! We have to hold our schools and companies accountable. TO do that, we can’t let ourselves slip back into what’s “easy:”
“I just want to get back to normal.”
“I just want to get back to my life.”
“I wish we could just skip this year.”
Life is what happens in the middle of all the moments you’d prefer to wish away.
There is no normal anymore. Also, life never stopped.
Life is quarantine, zoom ballet classes, the massive wake-up call for the long-overdue fight for racial equality and justice. Life is the decision to watch the (incredible!) documentary 13th or read White Fragility, or to sign a petition or VOTE! Life is taking class in your living room, or choosing to NOT take class in your living room. Life is filing for unemployment week after week, rewriting business plans, zooming with friends and family to stay connected however you can.
Life is curiously questioning everything, letting things be messy, imperfect, and beautiful.
Life is what happens every moment of every day. And those moments are what we piece together to become a better version of ourselves.
Who we are is determined by how we show up during the hard times and how we get up after being knocked down; Whether we decide to keep fighting, to keep educating ourselves, to keep staying inside when everyone else has had enough of wearing a mask.
It would be a damn shame if this was all for naught. It would be a damn shame if we fall right back into our old habits, desperately grasping for comfort, longing for simplicity and ease. I get it, we want something familiar. We want to jump right back in the studio and dance like we used to, pretend this never happened. But we’d be wasting all of this beautiful potential for growth if we stopped paying attention just because we can suddenly “get back to our lives.”
I don’t want to erase any of this from my memory!! I want to take it all with me, to use it so I can continue to grow from it. The moments I fell into a ball sobbing helplessly on my floor, the moments I snapped at my cats (my cats!!) because I was so frustrated with the world, the moments I picked up the phone and called friends I hadn’t spoken to in years, the letters I hand wrote, the emails I sent to elected officials, the chants of BLACK LIVES MATTER, the names Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and waaaaay too many others. I don’t want to forget any of it!! It’s too damn important.
But I also recognize it’s hard to know what to do with all of this. How do we take the growth and learning and agita and mold it into something productive?
This is the tipping point.
After years of training to do or be what the director/choreographer/teacher wants, it’s time to start using our own voice. We must not revert to focusing on the technique or our own goals (the things we feel we can control).
It takes work to sort through it all, to see it and to feel it, and then to decide what to do with it. It takes work to accept change, to allow space for growth. But it’s necessary work — now more than ever — for us individually and for the world. We each have more strength and power and influence than we think, and it starts with knowing ourselves from the inside out.
As we move through the phases of reopening, keep coming back to yourself. Force yourself to feel the challenges this pandemic brought, to see them and honor them, so that you can grow from them.
How will you hold onto the beautiful and painful and precious lessons of 2020? How will you lean into the discomfort rather than wishing it away?