Does anybody remember laughter?

"Fun doesn't mean empty."
A wise friend passed on these words to me this week and boy did they resonate. She also asked me when was the last time I just moved with joy in my dance. And I honestly couldn't think of an answer. Although I often have a mental image as I enter the studio of really flying, catching air and laughing out loud while I'm moving, for the last little while when the music starts I've been so focused on dropping down inside of myself, moving into and through lots of stuff in my head and heart that I've forgotten the part that has to do with pure fun. A little bit it feels like I'd be cheating on the serious part of me that's doing the work, but that's oh-so-boring after awhile. I know that the deep end of the pool will always be open to me, it's the ability to float into the shallow end and just hang out for awhile that I'm sure will open me up to some light and necessary moments.

And that reminds me that I'm prone to either/or choices, as if I either have to be seriously probing my psyche or I'm choosing frivolity, but I can't exist in those two spaces at once. I'm pretty sure this is not true, but it does speak to a decision I made way back when I was in junior high school. I remember watching how the cliques were being formed and there seemed a definite dividing line between the laughing-in-the-sunshine girls and the introverted-seemingly-cool chicks. I decided that since I didn't look that good in pink and because I not only knew all the lyrics, but could play the opening chords to "Stairway to Heaven" (but really, who couldn't?) that my choice must be the latter. Not that I felt particularly cool, but I could mimic like a mutha-fucka. I carried this idea all the way to graduation where photos of the day reveal all manner of bright and sunny dresses and I'm the one wearing...brown.


Now the interesting thing about taking this stance was that I realize how isolating it was. While the girls in pastel would be falling all over each other with giggles, the cool contingent were usually quietly contemplating their navel supposedly thinking deep thoughts. But here's the really funny part: all the cool boys seemed to be mostly interested in the sunshine-y, pastel-wearing girls. And because I was apparently a good listener(!?!?), more times than not a boy I had a crush on would tell me all about it. Especially this one boy in my class named Casey.

The first time we started talking after math class I was practically nauseous with some emotion I'd never felt before—and would soon come to know as deep, passionate like&confusion. (As I remember him, it was all about his shaggy hair and lopsided smile—though it might have been a grimace—I got a little queasy when he'd come toward me down the hall.) One day he asked if he could talk to me and I thought, Yeah, he's recognized that we're fellow outcasts. Instead, just like an ABC Afterschool Special, he asked me about Stacy, whose sunny color combinations were awesomely busy even by Southern California standards. After that I remember watching his mouth move, but had no idea what words were coming out since my brain had checked out after the phrase "she's hot. maybe you'll put in a good word for me." (or something along those lines.) So when he finished by telling me what a wicked-good listener I was, I grabbed onto the compliment as if it were the last life raft on a sinking ship. I think right then I decided that if the only way I'd get to hang out and know the cute boys was by becoming their go-to talk therapy, well, I could handle that. not. so. much. Nevertheless the raft bobbed along and I settled in for awhile.

I feel like that was the pivotal point when I decided to perfect the friendship that can only exist between a boy with questions and a girl with secrets. It was a safe place to be. And now, carrying that idea into the future, I realize that I've set up this construct air-tight. I've often chosen friendship thinking it might turn into something more. And sometimes it does. sometimes it doesn't. But regardless, I do know now that it's less about the boys and more about how to find the merge between two extremes. I think I'm getting closer to recognizing the depth in joy, the lightness in dark, the laughter inside tears. I even open up my lingerie drawer and see how happily the pink panties mingle with the black bustier.