You become yourself, when you become unrecognizable.
Let me explain.
After three long years I found myself on a dance floor again- Alaska style. I was at the South East Alaska State Fair this past weekend. It’s an annual pilgrimage of northerners to mingle with x-large-northern-grown-cucumbers, wild musicians, fisher-people, cotton candy, carnival rides and bunnies you can take home (anywhere seaplanes can fly).
After a long day of watching the logging competition and drinking a glass of vino in the “wine garden” (aka the community veggie patch) I happened upon a band playing a cover of Kate Bush’s Running Up that Hill- Alaska bluegrass style.
Whatever it was, the music grabbed me.
Within 21 seconds, my pack, fleece and base layer long sleeve were off and I was on the dance floor.
Beside me dancing were the women I met down at the ocean from the Alaska Mountain Guide company. Mixed in were the kids, now all grown up, who used to go to story-time at the local library when it was too wet outside. There was the 19 year old who’s growing a beard and holding down his first real summer job and the rosy-cheeked woman who bought the black vintage dress I eyed. Queer folks doing sexy flirtatious polka and teens who just discovered that when they screamed at the band, that the band dug it.
In that moment, I was rocking with so many firsts.
The closest thing to a bar, the under aged kids have experienced. The teens who’ve been locked up inside their parent’s living rooms for 2.5 years. The 50-somethings aching to remember that this kind of community can happen again. And people like me, hungry to feel connection with strangers in a time of more borders and uncertainty.
In the midst of it all, I returned to myself.
As the crowd got bigger and hotter and smiley-er, as the band jumped, twanged, cooed, and egged the dancers on, I became unrecognizable.
I forgot I was jumping with my rubber boots on. I forgot I didn’t know anyone. I disappeared into a timeless, dynamic container of energetic exchange.
I saw myself in my 20s, coyly flirting with everyone. I found myself in the announcer, who lost his friend last year. I was the inhibited man leaning against the metal pole, wishing he could let go. I was the 6 year old boy, bouncing on his dad’s shoulders, high above the crowd.
With self-consciousness gone, a new discovery emerges. When we become unrecognizable to ourselves, we find ourselves.
It’s ironic no?
We spend so much time trying to prove our smarts, offerings and ideas- only to momentarily feel the hit of self-validation or connection. We might feel amazing or like shit (if we don’t measure up)- then forever chase the self-validation to feel good about ourselves or escape the moments when we don’t.
So it’s these moments, like the one on the wet Alaskan dance floor, that I uncover contentment in my bones.
May we we stay a little longer in these moments, to re (member) that it’s not in the chasing that we nail our happiness, but the undressing of our ‘selves’ in the border-less moments of each other.
May we care less about being recognizable to anyone and more lost in the pure joy of being alive.
Happy summer.
