I love to dance, love it like I love floating, swirling words. Perhaps more so. Words spin my head, dance moves my heart. It is when I am most honest, most free. There is no thought that directs the movement of my limbs. Their stirring is called by feeling, and flows unreserved.
And although my swirling hips, popping chest, and stepping feet may suggest otherwise to a spectator, these are the moments when I have no guard. I move honestly, without any concern for how I appear. I move simply as I am.
Around 11:30 last night I got an itch. It's been 3 plus weeks since I moved without reservation, without thought, within freedom. So I snuck my ipod out of my pack, plugged in bright read headphones, slipped out of my crowded living room, and slyly made my way onto the terrace.
It was a full moon, so bright that, despite the midnight hour, I was not completely hidden from my surrounding world. The hanging sheets and shirts on the other terraces were still visible, peaking out as spectators of the sky. I had to smile out loud to myself, realizing what someone on the next terrace would see: white skin appearing out of black leggings and an oversized purple shirt, something shining in her hand, stepping with vigor to sounds silent to their ears.
And slowly I feel into it, beginning with swaying hips and emphatic hands. As music swirled and the flip-flops slipped from my feet the sensation from their constriction was replaced by the rising smell of mold from the terrace's damp floor, awakened by my movement. My feet blackened as their passion rose, swirling on this terrace at midnight under the full moon's glow.
For me, this is happiness: creating my own home from dancing feet on the molded rooftop terrace, accompanied only by night sky and Punjab's sweet September air.
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