The Poem I Must Dance in My Heart Today

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

"One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried

with it's stiff fingers

at the very foundations--

though their melancholy was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save."

I am angry, I am frustrated, I feel cheated and I struggle with the question "why does everything I do that gives me pleasure, cause me pain?"

Friday night SCORE was amazing. I danced into such a deep place that I wanted to stay there forever. Even during the last 30 minutes, after I intuitively knew that I had broken my toe dancing, I continued on, compelled by something very deep, that kept me from listening to my body, and instead just listen to my soul. Now I am faced with the reality that my middle toe is badly broken at the foot joint, and that I will be on crutches and will probably not be able to dance for 6-8 weeks. At least not be able to "dance" the way I want to define it. Now the challenge is to dance through the "why me, not again" feelings. To learn to dance the "blips in the road" and to accept that when I can return to dance, it will be with baby steps, and sometimes with no steps at all.  Maybe a deep dance that comes from within, that does not have to involve my external body at all. A dance that will involve that deeper soulful body and spirit that has to learn to be free to dance, using this body, at this moment, the only way it can dance. I have to let go of the "I want it to be different" song, and learn to accept what is, right now. It is not a challenge that I welcome or enter into willingly but after all....... this is my dance today. The only one I can do.