I like to think of life as a dance to heartbeats. By this I mean something quite mind blowing and terrific. The goal, however, is not to be overwhelmed by the music but to dance consciously unconsciously. To create––not with rigid effort but with the help of a gentle internal guide––steps that complement the beating drum. That makes one sync beautifully with one’s song. For it is one’s song. The only song that is all one’s.

It can be challenging to keep listening and dancing to a song that never leaves you––a song that is you. Noises come, rushing to meet us as more interesting music, accompanying them, a false sense of urgency and significance. These deceitful occurrences often convince us that we must dance differently than we ought to. They say our moves are all wrong, too different. We ought to move in uniformed steps, move more quickly, more coldly, more selfishly, more arrogantly, they tell us. They say imagination is for cats, human beings are brains. They say heart is weak flesh doomed to rot. They say we must show others who we are. They say we must show others what we are. They say we must prove that we are beautiful. We must prove that we are strong: we must always be at war with ourselves and others. Weakness is for dogs, and humans are unbreakable.

They say we must prove that we are not fools. And the way we do this is not by dancing to our heartbeats but by moving to the looks in their icy eyes, to the barks of their cruel mouths, to the wrinkles of their ostentatious noses, to the thorn sharpness of their words, or to the syrupy sweetness of their alluring lies. And we do and do and misery engulf us and the pain that they promised would evaporate crystallizes into uncomfortable chains that keep us pitifully still. And we are puppets to that which cannot love us, cannot nurture us, cannot allow us the dance that is only ours to be. So say no more. Only, dance as you desire. Silence all sounds except that which is your life’s beyond mortality. And I do not know how one does this but I imagine one listens closely to those beats and moves as they instruct.

It has always been the thing for me to spend my anniversary in contemplation. When I recently had the blessing to meditate upon a new age, I realized that what I wanted to focus on, with my gift of breath, is the love of God. The idea of loving God is new to me. I have always felt that God is that which one goes to for what one needs. God is that which one bribes with good habits. I never thought God is that which one loves for its own sake. That God is the perfect thing to love.

I am not talking about religion. I have no religion and I want no religion. I am talking about the heartbeat of things. That magic that keeps one going. That free thing that keeps one floating. That thing that speaks a language we misinterpret our entire lifetime. That thing that informs us, which we assume wants things it has no need of, but are yet so afraid of that which it actually wishes us to do: to move to it, be moved by it, sink into it, become it. I want to want God with my whole being, without any hesitation. I want to love God with my whole being, without any hesitation. I am not talking about the gods we “make,” I am talking about the God that made you, me, everything. The one we do not know, the one we have never seen but who is so close to us, who sings us into life every day, and whom we do not know how to copy; and our efforts to understand are full of fear, the wrong sort of fear––mistrust. Mistrust, the belief that that which we can only hear ever so faintly, what propels us––our thudding hearts, our lives––is everything, when it is merely a hint of everything.

I have started making and sending handwritten cards to friends because my handwriting is too pretty to only exist in my journal. I kid you not! And I love also the method of writing in ink. That it forces one to think a little carefully before writing, and that one’s mistakes are made to stand together, clinging to long lines, or blocks of whirling curls, or thick smokes in ink. I love the idea of of my handwritten letters being propelled forward, by several hands, to reach the palm, eyes, and heart of a friend. The slowness of its travel is exciting and anticipating its arrival either correctly to the addressee, or the unimagined other or elsewhere is thrilling.

For months now I have been maintaining a wonderful relation with my apartment’s stairway. No matter how tired I am, I climb up or climb down. With or without groceries. Slowly or quickly. My finest/stupidest achievement was running up the stairs one day when the elevator doors were wide open and I really really really had to urinate but still opted for the stairs––running past the opened elevator doors. I was impressed. I love what the stairs are doing to my legs. I love how they are reminding me of my thighs. I love the process of the leg above becoming the leg below and the leg below becoming the leg above.

My hand-washing continues. Even now that the summer is gone and colder days nip at my hands and it feels ever more foolish to go out on the balcony and peg my clothes to dry. I enjoy the foolishness of it. I am glad I stopped using the washing machine when really broke, Mother would not borrow me any more money for my washing because she had suddenly decided that it was time for some tough loving. It was easy to start hand washing again. I had forgotten that I loved doing it. I love this little event I now have almost once every week, which puts me in the bathtub, and it is not my body that gets washed, but that which wraps and drapes it. I love how it is my hands that washes away the stains and sweats: rubbing the clothes in soapy water, rinsing them in clean warm water, (water!such a beautiful awesome thing!) and wringing away the excess. The process feels incredible to my arm muscles which are being made stronger by the exercise. I enjoy now how my mind finds familiarity and intimacy in my clothing––there once was a stain in this very spot which required some creativity to wash out! Oh look how clean you look, now! My clothes are no longer something I wear for a few days, throw away and replace with more. They are things taken care of, things loved and allowed to hang beautifully, on body and in closet. It is weird but since I started hand washing again, it has become difficult to buy new clothes. In fact, these days, it is quite difficult to buy anything I do not need.

Here is what I am saying, I am slowing down to the tempo of my heartbeat, in my own way. I want to listen to myself more. I want to be brave to move in the ways that my heart knows to be good. I want my life to be the dance that it ought to be. To learn to love that which ignites me, that which because of, I am; that which is my only true need. I wish to dance slowly, every day in love with love. And I know I am chicken and do not have a clue as to how to go about this affair––and when I should be taught, I will probably make one thousand and one excuses why I cannot do it, yet. But one can tip-toe about things until one can walk about them. It seems to me that the whole point of one’s life is to go about the true affair of love, so I am already dancing to its song in one way or the other. Hence love will lead me to itself and into itself. All I have to do is listen, more consciously, to the internal song in the center of my being and follow it with all my being. Then all shall be well, for it is already well. This is what I am thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving.
—
Jane A. Odartey