30 Days of Me :: Two

Something you love about yourself.


Buildings and bridges
are made to bend in the wind
to withstand the world,
that's what it takes
All that steel and stone
is no match for the air, my friend
what doesn't bend breaks
what doesn't bend breaks

Ani Difranco

Hands down, my flexibility. Both physically and in other ways. As a dancer, flexibility is key. It lets you get there. To that place, that deep and open and perfect place. It lets you move in ways others sometimes cannot. It makes you free.

I have flexibility of mind and faith and belief. I am really good at that. I love that.

Now, what does that mean, though? Maybe it sounds a little wishy washy. Like, I cannot commit to a faith structure/belief system/way to live, right? But in my mind, no loyalty is something to love. When you do not sell yourself to something and stay open and questioning and seeking, then information comes to you and informs you. And being informed is my best way to live. In my humble opinion.

A long time ago, I was raised Catholic. It takes a lot of hard work to become Un-Catholic when you have learned from a young age to only be that. But when the questions started, when my freshman year of high school my religion teacher was a gay woman, then my junior year teacher of religion was a gay man (I realize the school did not realize this consciously, and neither did I until a few years later) well, then they opened the doors. And I never looked back. I credit them for the first freedom I ever experienced. They never spoke against the Church, never tried to manipulate what they taught, instead they offered a different point of view. They just brought a view that did not exist in my experience until then. In doing so they introduced the idea of being flexible into my formative teenage years. And it gave me a voice.

And then I just decided that information is freedom and flexibility is god. If you cannot move, you cannot live. If you cannot bend, you will break. I see it modeled everyday in my work with the class we fondly call 'geriatric'. Of course I hold core beliefs about not hurting others, or trying hard not to anyway. Of living life with respect for Self, and Others and Life itself. I am just not that into thinking that I know how to do that better than others.

Whether it is on my yoga mat in class, wringing my body into odd twisted shapes or in my daily life making decisions or approaching the next great experience, I feel best when I feel flexible. I am glad I can honor that in my Self.

Now, off to stretch...