Dancing With the Scars

I just got back from a dancing competition - my first. Waltz, tango, and foxtrot at the Grove Park Inn, this cool old hotel in the mountains that still has a ballroom and a stage and the sense that you're on the set of a old MGM musical. The experience was pretty brutal - I danced in a hard heat and didn't advance, which is the sort of thing that kicks me in the ego. But as I was hanging around the spa after the competition, feeling sorry for myself, I remembered this vision-like thought that came to me last summer, when I first started taking dance lessons.

First of all, I love dancing. When I dance I feel pure joy. Remembering this helps me to know that despite little setbacks along the trail that it would be tragic if I allowed anything to make me stop dancing. So that even though I felt like pulling a major pout, hopping in my car, and heading back to Charlotte I knew that would be self-sabotage of the highest level.

Secondly, I dance because there are body issues, gender issues, issues with simply releasing control and learning to follow that dancing helps me deal with. Releasing control is not easy for me or, I dare say, very many women of my generation. Maybe it's hard for all humans on the planet Earth, I don't know. But once again, to have turned tail and run would have been to deny myself the chance to learn a major lesson in letting go.

But there's a third point. Ever since I started, I have had this persistent sense that dancing would help me learn how to deal with the publication of my novel. I realize that doesn't sound logical but here's how it seems to work. Writing a novel is a private and largely solitary occupation. Publishing a novel is excruciatingly public. All of a sudden you're expected to brand yourself, market yourself, answer interview questions, read reviews, expose your thoughts to strangers and family/friends alike (the latter is the harder of the two) and just generally go naked on the page. Writing taught me how to hide. Dancing, which is a performance based and public art form, is helping me become more comfortable with being seen. Maintaining dignity and pride under trying circumstances. My instructor keeps hissing at me "Keep your chin up" which I think is generally good advice for all situations.

Friday morning when I went on the dance floor I was aware I was competing against better and more experienced dancers on a crowded, brightly lit stage. Terrifying. But the most terrifying thing about it - or at least the most foreign - was that I knew I wasn't supposed to let my emotions show on my face. No matter what, you keep smiling. You stay serene. You act like you meant to smack right into that other dancer. It's good practice for someone from the oh-so-private world of writing. When I get a writing-related blow, like last week when I saw the cover of my novel for the first time, I can at least lick my wounds in private. I can pace and curse my fate and bitch and moan to my friends and gradually compose myself. But with a dancing-related blow you have to compose yourself immediately. Keep moving. Take the next step. And then the next. Literally move past it. Keep your chin up. Somehow I suspect publication requires a very similar emotional process.