dance encounters

Years ago, I remember so acutely feeling like my first year on the job taught me more than my years in my degree program; and that where I was, all that I learned in school didn't help to get the job done. The work was...hotwiring databases to move quickly, hacking interop libraries to make ancient softwares do their job better. I'll never forget the time that we had -- I don't think it'll hurt anyone at this point if I share this -- we had a sudden need to get into a system that credentials were lost. It was only by being familiar with configuration files that I found that the super-user credentials were stored *in plain text* in a configuration file. It tried it, and it worked! The closest to hacking I've ever done.

Later on, in a new employment, principles like unit testing approached at the fringes of conversation, spoken of in hushed whispers by my boss over a beer. I thought that talent was something developers either had or didn't. And I learned that there were two jobs, at my job. There was doing the thing the bosses wanted done, and then *knowing how* to do the thing they wanted. There were multiple developers there, and one was fast, focused, effective; but figuring out just what his code did was tough to do, he didn't write his code in a way that explained itself, and no comments to explain it either. There was another developer who was so cautious, who thought their code had to be perfect -- and those efforts nearly always sabotaged their best intent. A third developer was more matured than all of us, and was 100% assigned to the more difficult tasks, and no one understood what their code did.

Now...it's strange. Software libraries by writing little pieces of code, and telling them how to interact with each other in just the right way. It's building a house of cards to interact with the wind in just the right way.

There's conversation about UML diagrams (a graphical way to show those interactions), software design patterns (kind of like football plays -- in a way, I think, but I don't sportsball much, so that could be a bit of a stretch -- it's drawn out ways of placing your code in just the right way to get the most done with the least code that makes the most sense to the next person reading it), algorithmic runtime performance (notice this took 62 milliseconds over 3 milliseconds? Why is that?)....and it's....

...it's strange, I don't have a name for this feeling. It's like inverse homesickness -- instead of longing to return back to a long lost home; finding instead that I journeyed farther and farther away, and that left-behind place moved of its own accord, successfully, snuck up on me, and tapped me on the shoulder.

I forgot what the hills and valleys looked like, the smell of the craftsmanship they tried to teach me in college, but here I am, trying to find my way again in the concepts I'm re-remembering as I'm being reminded of them.

This year, more than just work, has been something like that, for myself, too.

I remember when I lived in Pocahontas county, and I noticed that I would come up with any reason to think about anything *but* me. The mountains, large, distant, alluding to more just around the corner...echoed what I was learning inside myself.

I envy people who have answers. I never seem to, I think my virtues lie more in practicing a growing kindness to making a home among...questions.

I imagine baseball pitchers know the feeling, every time, of trying to find the resolve to not screw up the throw. There’s this moment of suspension, where they have to give it everything they have, and then - quite literally - let go and see what happens. That ball, a single inch beyond their fingers, time slowed to a halt, is completely out of their grasp, forever.

I figure there’s a lesson there, but I don’t have the patience right now to think about it. I’m not here, back at this glow-in-the-dark gaming keyboard, to think about that.

This weekend, I was supposed to go to another dancing festival; this time in line with the kind of dance I want to do, Zouk. I woke up sick the morning we were supposed to drive there, which introduces the moral crisis, I think, every dancer has to wrestle with at some point, do I keep going, and hope for the best? Or do I stop and stay put?

I literally googled etiquette on the situation because I didn’t want to acknowledge myself in the moment, and the internet says that if you have a fever, you’re very likely sick, and if this were your kids, then there’s no question; you keep them home. But I noticed that it was still hard to make the choice, what if it was just a temporary thing, what if I got better?

The more….foundational grappling, I think, is putting other’s experiences before mine. It’s hard to acknowledge that if I’m under the weather, others wouldn’t have the greatest time with me, regardless of acting so…self interested so as to put them at a risk just so I could dance more. It’s hard to care for others by caring for myself; it’s unsexy, unacknowledged, lonely work…

…memories of hearing professional dancers drilling on their own comes to mind. All those drills and practices, alone. The room did not thank them. It was sowing experience in a garden all alone..

..but it needed done. I slept for another 7 hours that day. My body needed rest. It was hard not to lie about it and go and hope for the best. These events are all or nothing. Admitting I had to pay for my health with the price of missing the event was a…steep cost.

And yet, now of the other end of this, I’ve found that, perhaps, there was a lesson to learn in the missing of it. Life isn’t over if I miss. And thinking about it…if I keep saying the word, ‘miss’, that implies that what I gained this weekend is also a loss, but it isn’t. To call any time as something other than a gain is to cultivate an attitude that discards the present moment, and that’s antithetical to what dance has taught me.

Like some cheesy kung-fu movies, part of a students job is to honor their master. If I’m to model my life after what dance has taught me, then that also means learning to view lost opportunities, themselves, also simultaneously as a gain. In a dance, a lead that’s hung up over a thing that didn’t go well has their head stuck in the past, and they’re not dancing with the person in their arms in the present moment, even in the middle of the song. Every follow knows what that’s like, it’s like a night and day difference. Even though it’s so hard to let go of mistakes as a lead, I think it’s our job to let go of the things that happened and embrace how best to handle the present moment and see it as a gain.

...ah, I knew it would circle around. Like the baseball pitcher. At some point, they must let go, and then being present in the moment translates to adapting and handling to the moment that’s a consequence of the pitch. It could be a foul, a strike, a home run, a sideline….thing (I’m not good at sports)...or it could pop up and hit the crowd. It could fly out of the park.

...I don’t yet know how to give it a name, this phantom pain that comes, for me, with letting go of the past that I wanted differently, or the future that’s now unreachable as a result. In a way, it doesn’t make sense why I would squeeze it so tightly, as if holding it would make it real through force of effort -- that’s not how it works. Life...happens. Why is it hard to embrace the present? I don’t know. 

But I do know that acknowledging. and naming, it...helps to allow me to lay it down, forever, and take up the present moment. In my life, in my dance. I could drill down and say in this moment, in this heartbeat, in this breath. When was the last time I took a breath, savoring the expansion of my chest, the rise of my shoulders, the scent of the air, the coolness of the breeze in my nose and throat, the satisfaction of fresh air to my lungs, the slight relief in my head? 

Fact one: I’m terrible at singing.

Ever get a chance to listen to me, and you’ll know. It isn’t projection I’m lacking, it isn’t theory, it’s the….tonal lock...on a key, that I seem to be missing. Every key sounds like every other one; my ears are colorblind.

I meet people that so easily start singing a song, without music, and I can hear the intervals that their voice keeps between words, and I can tell that it’s right, they’ve found their key, they know it and feel it, and I open my voice to sing along and…

...I hesitate.

When I sing, it’s...tenuous. At first. If I find a key to lean on, then I can throw my weight into the song and belt out words with gusto, but until then...it’s more of a quiet endeavour.

Fact two: I am not currently singing. I am, in fact, apart from the clickety-clack of my glow-in-the-dark neon gaming keyboard, sitting in almost unwrinkled silence in my living room. I am, in fact, writing.

But you knew that. I waste your time talking about it.

But the principles are the same. I’m...unknowing...of what tone these words will take. I want to talk about my dancing experiences (spoilers: it’s basically wrecked my life in the best possible way, and if you give me a chance to talk at length about it I’ll bascially go forev--- oh wait, that’s what I could to heeere)

...but.

The things that draw me to dance….the things that keep me coming back, it isn’t the physical movement of dance. It isn’t the technique, or any of the things that physically happen in the room. It’s the invisible parts of the dance. The interplay of two humans, and what we learn from that, is the thing that draws me back.

You see, when I first started dancing, I didn’t have a lot of social experience with people like that. The glow-in-the-dark gaming keyboard...draws the rest of the picture. So when I had to hold a lady’s hand, or even move her by her hips…

Well, oh my god, where is the woman’s hips? What are hips?

In the middle of my nervous breakdown, swimming in the middle of a salsa song, the lady I was dancing with smiled at me and -- you know where this is going -- I decided at that moment I would do anything to earn her smile again.

I...have learned, since then, that there are at least two kinds of smiles. There’s the kind that is genuine enjoyment, and there’s the one where it’s literal pain.