Life lessons in lindy hop

I realized around the time of my second IUI that the TTC process, with the insurance problems, the uncertainty, and the interminable waiting were sucking the joy out of my life. I wasn’t frazzled, for the most part. Thanks to yoga and meditation, I managed to stay fairly calm. I did my due diligence: going to acupuncture, taking my prenatal vitamins, doing what the nurses told me to do, and trying my best to surrender the outcome to luck, timing, and divine grace. I cannot say I was miserable. For the most part I was happy to have finally started the process, but it was a time of great apprehension, to say the least.

Going into this I knew it would be a waiting game, but I also knew that I don’t like waiting. In my last relationship I felt like I waited a good three years for him to make up his mind about whether or not he wanted to be with me. He did not. During the thinking stage, I kept waiting until my life felt more stable or I felt surer about my decision. Once I started TTC, I waited for appointments, waited for blood work and ultrasound results, waited for ovulation, waited for the insemination, and then waited for results of the pregnancy test. Once I got a BFN, I started the whole process of waiting all over again.

It became apparent that I could not continue like this, living my life in a state of anticipatory suspense while I waited to become pregnant. I am a planner; I've thought this through for over a year and bought a condo because I did not think I could have a baby in a studio apartment. I realized, especially after my problems with insurance, that all the planning I do can go to hell in a handbasket as quickly as it takes to say "baby." There's not much I can control. I can try my best, but the rest is really out of my hands, and I cannot sit around simply waiting for it to happen. So it was quite fortunate that dance became the major distraction in my life.

I’ve always enjoyed dancing, but avoided ballroom-style partner dancing for many reasons. For one thing, I disliked the idea that I had to wait for the man to lead me. I didn’t trust the other beginners in my ballroom dance classes, and did not appreciate the fact that when I had a bad partner, I automatically had a bad dance experience.

At a dance party a few months back, my friend K and I settled upon the idea of taking private lessons in lindy hop. It felt like a waste of time to go to group classes where you learn one new thing a week and practice with other beginners. So we signed up for lessons through the dance studio May I Have this Dance. We picked things up fairly quickly and started going to dances at Fizz, Java Jive, and the monthly blues dancing event Bluetopia, at which point, the fun came flooding back into my life in a big way.

I won't go into details here, as I know that a charming and witty blog about these and other dance adventures is in the works, but I do want to credit two people for this happy development: first, my dancing partner-in-crime K, who plans her life around dancing and has now learned to lead me in lindy hop, and our very talented teacher B, a fantabulous lindy-hopper and, it must be said, the cutest thing on two feet. There is almost nothing as fun as dancing with him.

I have a feeling he is not aware of the important life lessons he has taught me through dance:
a) You have to trust your partner (especially when he dips you).
b) You have to wait for your partner (especially when he's leading you).
And perhaps most important:
c) You experience something sublime when you move in harmony with someone else.

I do not have a partner in life, nor on the TTC journey, but as one of my spiritual advisors pointed out, my desire for motherhood is simply a desire for oneness with someone else, a feeling that I am not alone and that I am connected to something greater than the limited, flawed self I sometimes, or even frequently, experience in my mundane life.

There are two things I need to say about this. First, I agree that the TTC journey for me isn’t just about becoming a mom. Rather, it is about being in touch with something transcendent, about living for someone other than myself, and what better way than the creation of life to experience this? Still, it does not mean that motherhood is the only way.

Second, that feeling of a limited self is really the product of fear and forgetfulness. Gurumayi would say that the feeling of connectedness is already there within us, and that it is there all the time. Life takes a toll on our awareness, but with a bit of grace and a lot of practice, we can get back in touch with the bliss that is already there to begin with.

Practice, for me, has meant yoga, meditation, chanting, singing, and cooking for other people. Now, it also includes dance. As B has shown me, when you relinquish the idea that you can control everything about your life, when you have trust in your heart, when you tune in to the subtle but unmistakable cues provided, when you’re able to let go of your own small ego and allow yourself to simply become part of something greater, that feeling of transcendence is right there.