Susan Senator

Courage! What makes the Hottentots so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot? What have they got that I ain’t got?
–Courage!
(You can say that again.)

— if you don’t know I am not telling you.

I have been thinking alot about what feelings feel like. A lot of people call me “brave,” for example, or say that I have “courage.” They are usually referring to the fact that I speak honestly about what’s going on in my life/head. One friend says I’m “so out there.” It’s funny to me because I don’t go around feeling brave. In fact, it is often the opposite. I frequently feel nervous or a little scared even, and yet I continue to do whatever I have to do or want to do, whichever I am called upon at the moment. I guess this is bravery? To feel fear but to continue with the right thing anyway. It’s just that it doesn’t feel the way I imagined it would, but what does?

When I really think about it, joy doesn’t feel the way it sounded when I first learned the word. It was kind of a silver word, it looked and felt clear, shiny, pure. But the first time I was conscious of actual joy was when I looked at newborn Nat. He was so perfect and yet so utterly fragile and dependent. I was engulfed by my new and tremendous responsibility and I was almost afraid to let myself love him. Almost. The overwhelming feeling was of being breathless and sleepy at the same time. I felt something expanding in my chest and my throat, that squeezed tears from my eyes, and it came to me that this was joy.

Last night I experienced both a sickening fear, courage, and joy, all at once. I was called upon to perform for my belly dance classmates. The teacher took a 20-minute song and divided it into 6 parts (there were 6 of us) and had us each choose a part: intro, veil, zills, drum solo, long-middle-part-whose-name-I-forgot, chiftatelli, finale. I foolishly chose the drum solo, and yet, any part would have been difficult for me because I have never performed improvisationally before, and certainly not in front of other dancers who really know what’s what (in other words, before whom you can’t fake anything).

I watched the dancers go before me, each brilliant and lovely. They have all been dancing at least twice as long as I have. They had a level of comfort that I would have envied had I not been so entranced by their movements. Each one tried a bunch of different moves, some slow, some faster, incorporated spinning, moving around the room, or then being still. It was as if they had all done this thousands of times before.

But as the drum solo part neared, I felt my heart pounding as strongly as the doumbek. What would I do? Would I have enough ideas? Shimmy alot. Undulate. Hip drops. Pivots. The music started and my body was moving, but it was not belly dance. I don’t know what it was. A little regular old club dancing. A little bit of lame shimmying. My stomach dropped to my knees, my face was red with embarrassment. I could not look at anyone. I turned my back on the girls. I looked at the teacher who was watching with an enigmatic, unreadable expression. Eventually she stood up and moved in different ways to give me ideas. I remembered the hair tosses. I shimmied and lifted my arms. She smiled. Ah, that was right! But the song ended and I slithered back to my chair, wishing I could disappear.

And yet. I had done it, and I already felt like I could learn from it. I watched the last person go, the song ended, the world continued to turn. I felt clarity as my embarrassment receded into memory. I thought, I won’t drop out because of this. I will merely adjust my goals. This class is a bit over my head. But I still love it. Just not this part of it. I just won’t do this part next time. I am getting better at dancing, but I am not ready for improvisational performing. One (traveling) step at a time.

After, I went out to dinner with a new friend from the class. That was a great thing for me, because she validated many of my thoughts and feelings about dancing, the class, dancers in the area, and performing. She is my first belly dance friend and it is a precious gift that I hold gently, like those bubbles that Nat likes to blow. Making new friends, no matter how wonderful they are, is also an act of courage, and a joy.

When I woke up I was hearing zills in my head. I knew that I would have to practice and the whole evening would surround me again. I popped in my teacher’s CD and as soon as that crazy, sexy clarinet started up with the heavy, hard drum, I felt my blood rise and my excitement with it. I fastened on the zills (middle finger and thumb) and started clinking them like crazy. Whose hands were these, fingers moving expertly back and forth to the music? I worked on all the different moves with zills, sometimes losing the rhythm, then getting it back. I was out of breath, but every now and then I caught a glimpse of myself, either in the shadowed silhouette on the wall or in the hall mirror. Light pressure in my chest, sleepy-high feeling behind my eyes: Joy. As strange as it sounds, that is joy. And continuing to dance, even with the vomit-like taste of failure in my mouth: that is courage. I should know, because I learned both from Nat.