How Miroslav Got His Groove Back

"The groove is in the heart."
~Deee-Lite

This may very well be one of the most important posts that I've written to date. No joke. Maybe you won't understand how I could say that. You might not get it. But thats ok; I'm not writing it for your sake.

I will always remember December 31, 2005 as the night that I got my groove back. But already I am getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit.

The groove is back? Read more here...It must have been about seven or eight years ago that it all started. Or stopped as the case may be. Yes, that sounds about right... seven or eight years ago. But I didn't even realize that things had changed until more recently. The realization part must have happened about a year ago.

You see, I had become content to believe my excuses. After all, I did have grand mal seizures; was on medication even. And other times I was depressed. And then there were times when the setting wasn't quite right... or the sound system was weak... or the music selection stunk. The list went on and on. But at a certain point, I had to accept the facts:
I had forgotten how to dance.

"There are short-cuts to happiness,
and dancing is one of them."
~Vicki Baum

I remember my first couple of years out of high school. Back then, I loved to dance. Madonna hit it just about spot on with her song Into the Groove: "Music can be such a revelation / Dancing around you feel the sweet sensation / I hope this feeling never ends tonight / Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free." Yes, that is how it felt back in those days. The music provided a strange sort of revelation and the dancing, a sweet sensation. I loved it. I remember just letting loose as the pulsing bass beat pushed me around the darkened dance floor. Lights flashed brilliantly. Sounds of laughter came from my friends around me. We played silly little games with one another. Laughed at somebody's rendition of the RunningMan or CabbagePatch. I got psyched to hear Welcome to the Jungle come blaring out of the speakers so we could form an impromptu mosh pit. I would dance and groove until my entire body was completely saturated in sweat. Four hours after I had started, the legs would just give out on me. Though I never wanted to, for that night, I had to stop.

"Movement never lies. It is a barometer
telling the state of the soul's weather."
~Martha Graham

Is dancing something that you can forget how to do? Isn't it kind of like riding a bike or tying your shoes? Thats what I had always thought. Sure, it takes some time to learn, but once you get it, you get it for good. Well, it turns out I was wrong.

So how did I forget how to dance? I suppose 'forget' is probably not a very accurate depiction of what happened. No... I think it somehow became buried inside of me. It may have all started when I started having seizure activity one day at a friend's wedding back when the doctors still didn't have my medication nailed down yet and were testing different dosages on me. I didn't collapse into a full blown seizure or anything, but it was enough to make me get off the dance floor. The whole thing just pissed me off and put a real damper on my dancing mood for the entire night. At that time, my seizures had already robbed me of my driver's license, my ability to work, the ability to play sports, and the freedom to stay awake past midnight. Looking back, I believe that having this seizure activity while trying to dance was the straw that broke this camel's back and dug a grave in my heart where I would unknowingly bury my dancing spirit. Over the years I threw things on top of it that drove it deeper. Without even realizing it, I shoveled oppressive Depression and Inhibition on top of the grave, effectively all but destroying part of me that I really enjoyed.

"We're fools whether we dance or not,
so we might as well dance."
~Japanese Proverb

So I was danceless for quite a while. But not entirely. For when I was alone, I could let loose. In my car I would pump up the volume... sing/scream at the top of my lungs... and jive like there was no tomorrow. I was the lead singer, percussionist, and dancing audience at the same time (don't act like you don't do the same thing...). Something similar would happen when I was with my kids and my wife in the privacy of our own home. After a long day's work, my little boy would greet my at the door and say, "Daddy, play Ctn Eyd Jo!" ... and so I'd head to my computer and pull up Cotton Eyed Joe and I would take his little hand and body and dance with him until we both worked up a sweat. My wife would join us dancing around with my daughter Ella. It was fun. We were happy, all of us. I could completely let loose when I was alone and could do the same with my family. But why was I limited to that? Why did things become different when I was at a birthday party or a wedding reception?

I had become trapped in my head somehow. I really don't care to identify exactly what it was that trapped me. Maybe depression. Maybe an overly analytical mind. Maybe frustration with my seizure crap. I'm not sure. But when my wife took me to San Francisco for my most recent birthday, I told her on the way home that I was done being a prisoner. The next time I had the chance... I would dance, damn it.

I figured that if I can be a fool in private, then I should most certainly be able to be a fool in public.

"Socrates learned to dance when he was seventy because he felt that an essential part of himself had been neglected." ~Source Unknown

How to get my point across here. ... Have you ever laughed so hard that your whole body ached afterwards? I have. Maybe it has been a long time for you. Maybe it hasn't happened since grade school. Or maybe you are lucky enough to have experienced that kind of laughter more recently. But imagine if you forgot how to laugh like that. Imagine that your mind, your inhibitions, your worries, your insecurities... imagine that those things had actually silenced the laughter in your life ... just choked it right out of you. Imagine being limited to only a courtesy chuckle. Or a cynic's smirk. What a woeful life that would be! And can't you just picture people you know who live like that? I sure can. What a horrible thing it must be... and many of them probably don't even have the slightest clue as to their condition! Life without the ability to have a genuine laugh just can't be much of a life at all.

In a similar manner, I had experienced the loss of what I believe to be a critical liberty. Not the liberty to laugh, but the liberty to dance. I put a quote up top regarding Socrates learning to dance at a late age because he realized he had neglected something his entire life. There really is something to be said for that. I believe that like laughter, dancing is healthy. I don't believe its just for some. I believe its for everyone. No rhythm you say? No problem. No moves? No problem. Trust me... I've got just about zilch-o in the RicoSuave department. But you know what? As far as I'm concerned, its not at all about the moves, its about the spirit. A horrible, offbeat dancer with two left feet who is out on the dance floor groovin' to the music with a zest for life gets a lot more out of the night than the guy sitting on the sidelines holding up the wall. Every single time.

Why?... *CLICHE PUKE ALERT* ... Because life is meant to be experienced. You can't experience life while you are sitting in a chair or holding up the wall thinking about life. You just have to L-I-V-E it!

So... all that to bring you up to speed on what occurred on New Year's Eve. I was determined to dance that night, or die trying. Well, death is a little much, ... but I was committed to the effort, even to the point of having seizures. Not joking. Ok, you obviously don't believe me... but I'm telling you the truth. It was totally within the realm of possibility that I could have totally seized up out there and fallen flat on my face. I would have gotten up and tried again. I was that determined.

"Dancing with the feet is one thing,
but dancing with the heart is another."
~Anonymous

I had tried to dig up my dancing spirit on several other occasions before this one. It never really worked. I could do the Conga Line or an occasionally slow dance with my wife. But I could never break out of my mental prison for long enough to get my groove on. Something clicked inside of me on New Year's Eve though...

I was trying to explain all of this to my wife and I think I came up with a great example. Do you know the intro to the TV show Friends? Well, in one part of the intro, all of the friends go running hand in hand and jump in to a big ol' fountain. They aren't wearing bathing suits. They don't have towels. And its in the middle of the night, so they have got to be absolutely freezing. But do you know why that little clip is in there? Its because all of us want to live like that. Deep down we do. We want to live life fully. Not foolishly, per se. But sometimes I think we just get so caught up in the details... in the specifics... in the cares and worries... that life just goes rushing past us. Then, the parts of us that are meant to be adventurous and risk taking end up being ignored and somehow morph us in to deviant, addictive, self-medicating fools who just rot away shaking our finger at those who are courageous enough to actually live how we only wish we could. We make them out to be insane just because we can't hear the music, or, I would argue, perhaps we just don't have the courage to get up and dance to it. Or is that just me?

I remember the day that I dedicated myself to dancing. If you want to know exactly what was in my mind, I just said to myself, "You know what, F(orget) it all. I'm just going to let it all hang out and let the chips fall where they may. I'm sick of the shackles of my mind. I'm gonna bust loose. If I have to become a blabbering drunk to get there... or fall flat on my face from a seizure... so be it. I refuse to live my life from the sidelines caught up in my head a prisoner to my own thoughts!"

And that night, New Year's Eve, it was funny. I had actually expected to get totally hammered. I envisioned drinking like five or six shots of Tequila to get my brain to turn off long enough for me to remember how to dance. But lo' and behold... the wedding reception served only wine. And I hate wine. But remember, I was dedicated. So I downed three or four glasses of champagne over the course of our nine course meal. Got a tiny buzz going, but nothing like what I was originally shooting for. By the time the dessert was served, the buzz was gone. Totally gone. And so I thought I was going to fall short again on my efforts to dance. I thought that I would once again end up going out on the dance floor for a song or two only to leave afterwards dejected that I couldn't find my inner rhythm. To make matters worse, one of my uncles came up to me right as the music and dancing started and began a soul wrenching conversation about this blog, my faith, and whether or not the Local Church is a cult. Now, I have no problem entering in to those types of conversations, and I think I would have actually really enjoyed talking with this uncle about it... but right before re-learning how to dance, a serious conversation like that has got to be one of the worst things possible. It would be like if you were going to try to have a nice care free night on the town and one of your parents call you to tell you they are having problems in their marriage, ya know?

So the cards were stacked against me. I told my uncle I had to go join my wife on the dance floor... but I stopped a few feet away from the floor and watched the crowd dance for a song or two. The complaints started mounting in my mind. The music was too quiet. And the bass? Don't get me started. And what kind of songs were these that the guy was playing? ... Excuse after excuse came up. But then I saw my wife dancing. The smile on her face. The freedom. The joy. And I became jealous. ... "F(orget) it all... I'm gonna dance!" ... and I went out on the dance floor.

"To dance is to be out of yourself.
Larger, more beautiful, more powerful."
~Agnes De Mille

I was just like a man who hasn't ridden a bike since he was a kid. I stumbled at first. Wobbled back and forth... but ultimately found what had been buried inside of me for so long. I danced, and jumped, and skipped... and probably looked like an idiot. But I don't care. I was dancing. I was free. I was sweating. I was laughing. I felt like a liberated man. Like the Berlin Wall had just fallen. Like I was running through a forest without getting tired. I felt sexy. I felt whole. Complete. And all of this... without a single thought in my head. I wasn't analyzing. I wasn't thinking. I was living. My groove was back. And I loved it.

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."
~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

So why would I say that this is the most important post to date? Well, you have to realize that the point to the whole thing is not dancing, you know. Its like... a way of life, man (think hippy talk here).

Are you gittin' what I'm spittin'? This is about living life!

You see, I am convinced that many people are content to sit and watch as life passes them by. I had become one of these types in some areas. From personal experience I know that becoming a bystander to life is a tragic occurrence. ... "DEAD MAN WALKING!" ... Do you know what I mean? What regret we would live with should we lose the freedom and/or ability to do the things that our heart needs so desperately!

As I said earlier, I think dancing is a lot like laughter. Or love even. Everybody needs it. We won't all be Fred Astaires... but thats not the point. The point is to enjoy the liberty that we have. Fighting it, denying it, ... leaves us less alive than if we were to embrace it. If we refuse to dance, to laugh, to love, we become trapped. We become victims of our fears, or insecurities, or pride. We stop hearing the music.

But as for me, I'm done with that crap. The music is back baby. From now on, I choose to be a free man. I choose to laugh. I choose to dance. I choose to love. I choose to L-I-V-E. Heck, I may even jump in to a fountain the next time I see one.