This morning I was shamelessly seditious. I broke with tradition—and it felt good.
At 4 AM as usual, I got up, made myself my four cups of coffee, and began to write and read. But this time, instead of extending my study into the next hour, as I had been dong religiously for the last month, I closed The Art of Happiness and carried my cup over to the living room rug.
I was in desperate need of a rejuvenated exercise routine. And thus, then and there, I refocused all my energies to stretch, meditate and otherwise. But this time, I took a wholly different approach—and it felt good.
In the process, I learned a vital lesson about the art of living.
For instead of giving preference to one form of movement or another, as I usually do—I just let go and I moved to the music and my whim as they had me do. Unapologetically, I meshed the disciplined stretching of a veteran runner, faux tai-chi, yoga, meditation, half a year of boxing, and all the energy of Jack la Laine reincarnated (he has to be dead by now). Essentially, the result was a fuckin' free-for-all.
But the most liberating point of my work-out was when I integrated dance. I suppose one my misconceive many things about this, in particular, concluding that what I came up was with aerobics, but I really believe I was a little more fluid than Richard Simmons or Suzanne Somers, as I moved with a kinesthetic intuition honed by years of training which allowed me unfold into this makeshift routine. Everything from classical ballet to ballet folklórico, from modern, merengue, ballroom, salsa and jazz, and, most importantly of all—all those adolescent years of ecstatic dancing in my room alone—were drawn together for inspiration and a certain emancipation of the soul.
Ultimately, what I gained beyond a moment of glee, free of the shackles of the stereotypes of gender, was a bit of wisdom which I felt I could immediately apply to everything.
For I learned that one should constantly, occasionally, consistently break down the limits of all that we learn and allow our intuitions to recombine, so that we end up with a wonderfully intertwined creative force which gracefully accommodates our natures and takes advantage of the will of the moment.
For over the course of life, we learn to do a lot of things a certain way and quite unconsciously we tend to stick to it, especially if others are involved. So, whether it be how we say things, how we move or how we otherwise express ourselves and engage others, we often get into a groove of what we are taught and tend to stay there.
And thus, I realized this morning how great it is to just let it all flow organically, so that i might happily recreate for myself The Way—with a plié, a sashay and a jiggy—if only because it felt good.
Rejuvenated, I then quickly jumped in the shower, and at six to six I scurried down to the bus stop.
Actually, I ran. And it felt good.
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