Body is the new brain

From today, my body is my brain. Instead of puny 8 kgs (estimated weight of a head), my new brain weighs 58 kilos! 59 actually. Since I have started dancing, I have gained weight. I’m assuming its all muscle.
For a dancer, it’s the body that responds. They hear the rhythm in their feet, not their ears. They feel emotions in a trembling arm, a tightened butt. They express joy in a complex footwork, split second jumps. And they swirl in the same spot, like earth encircling the sun to commune with god.
God, of course, is the greatest dancer if you’re Hindu. The greatest beloved if you’re Sufi. Most just if you’re Muslim. Most kind, if you’re Christian. For Buddhists, you, yourself are the Buddha. If only you realize it. Overwhelmed by the first chills of a Mediterranean winter, all these qualities merge. They seem like different aspects of divinity. If only I could see the divinity in me.
On stage, Muge, one of my dance teachers has the smile and excitement of a little girl in wonderland, and the grace and confidence of a woman. When teaching, she pays attention to all the students, and helps me overcome many obstacles. It may sound like counter-intuitive behaviour, but generally, the slow learners in our class tend to haunt the backbenches, and all the confident, good dancers stand in the first row. Muge insists on telling me that standing in the back row will make learning more difficult. She also expects me to ask more questions when I falter. She doesn’t allow me to give up.
“You think too much! Don’t count your steps, let yourself loose!” she yells, as much as her soft voice permits her. She is constantly telling me to let my feet, not my head do the dancing. To pick rhythms instinctively. So I am trying to make my body my brain.
Most people spend their childhood jumping over gates and walls, punching, kicking, dancing, cycling, playing in general. When I look back at my childhood, I have no clue what I spent my time on. I skipped school, I skipped the swimming classes, cycling, badminton. I would cheat in exams, space out in singing classes. I am probably the only adult on this planet who can’t hit 3 balls in a row with a racket, cant balance, can’t even jump!
Out here I am constantly told to carry my body’s weight in my abdomen. If I want to spin or jump and land in the same place, I must carry the weight of my body in my tummy. It’s a beautiful thought. Using your navel to find equilibrium. But I have no freaking idea what this means. Period aches and gas are the only times my awareness shifts to my belly. I am sure most of you will be laughing at me at this point. Which twat doesn’t know how to clench their tummy when someone punches them, or when they jump. Guess what, some of us just get punched.
All brains need to unwind, especially when they are burdened by their own weight. And swimming, I’ve just discovered, is my body’s meditation. The water steals the weight from my feet, gently picks my knees and carries me instead. It washes away most aches and helps me stretch after hours of intense tightness. It’s the closest to my mother’s hug I get these days.
But sometimes, actually very often, the pain doesn’t go away. You stretch, you swim, you sauna, you sleep, you pray that when you wake up, the pains gone. But as soon as you lift your leg to get out of bed, the pain wakes you up to remind you you’re human.
Since I’m straddling between two worlds; the instinctive and the intellectual, the physical and the mental, I hold on to analogies to make sense of things. Incessant physical pain may be a new acquaintance, but I have lived with pain before. I think anyone who’s bothered to fall in love has.
When an activity is this physical and sensuous, the sexual can’t be far behind. And most of the spare time here is spent practicing the peacock dance of display and attract. I, though, am a penguin. I waddle miles away and towards my emperor penguin. This means I generally come home immediately after practice and read a book instead of coffee with big nosed, six packed beings.
And on one such early night, I happened to go through special folders in my email inbox, full of intense exchanges, passion and heartbreak. In life, after each heartbreak, I’d not only shift continents, I’d also pack all those email relics away into a folder and change email addresses altogether. Don’t ask me how many email addresses I now have.
Anyway, I could never go through love mails the past without crying, without feeling cheated, hurt, and worse, heartbroken all over again. Each mail would rip the fragile scabs time had placed.
But for the first time in my life, in a totally new country, I could read my cherished love letters without shedding a tear. Ofcourse, there’s always remorse and longing, but the pain didn’t overwhelm me.
I was fine. I slept well.
So I reckon if broken hearts can breathe new life, so can broken limbs (painful knees in this case). And now you know why I’m always a beat late in my dance steps, why Muge yells at me to stop thinking. I’m a daydreamer. I use the heart’s wisdom to pacify knees.