The Dancing Wind

How many writers are out there? Millions, I figure, and for all different kinds of reasons. I used to write only to hopefully make money. I called it being a professional writer. Even my most creative work, my speculative screenplays, my short stories, and my poems were to be validated with a prosperous prize.  The money was to be proof that I had a valuable “voice” and this caused me to find a way to produce a valuable piece of writing every time I picked up a pen, or opened a new document on my computer, and sometimes that worked out. I studied hard, and I was paid, but I didn’t feel like it was what I dreamt of as a little girl. I was looking for something more rooted.

A lot of the time my education didn’t work that well, too, and I became distressed that my voice was not being heard through writing. I felt that if a few part-time readers, working freelance for a producer, or publisher could decide my fate, then it was a crazy thing to even attempt. I wanted to quit.

However, I missed something important about writing when I wrote for any kind of attention at all. I became inflexible in an attempt to create that sought after “voice”. That something unique carried out in words somehow didn’t come out of the formulas I’d studied so very hard. I came to realize that the assumption that any idea is ever complete and finished, is arrogant, to say the least. I realized there is always a new way to write about anything. Always.

Once, far away, and long ago, there was a girl who danced with the wind. Twisting around giant rocks, skating over wild rivers and leaping over whole forests, she danced wherever the wind blew her. She made up her moves right on the spot where she found herself, sometimes echoing the voice of the wind and sometimes playing against the wind, but never for long. Improvising allowed her to create just the right dance, and she never repeated a dance she’d already danced in a new place. A new dance for each moment of her journey was her way. She didn’t worry if the dance was long or short. She didn’t worry if there was no one to see her dance except the wind.

It pleased folks to see the child dance and she found herself supported along the way. She didn’t plan for tomorrow. Yesterday’s dancing was forgotten. The wind was her angel and the storms were her friends.

One day the air was still. No breeze. No trembling leaves. It was hot. And, she didn’t feel so much like dancing. She sat beside a pond and looked at the mirror to a cloudless sky. It was so still that she could not imagine that the water was any more than a surface to reflect upon. While sitting there day in and day out, in a state of deep fatigue, it occurred to her that her insides felt different. In this state of immobility she noticed smaller things, too. She saw life was very busy even without wind to blow it along. Getting nearer to the pond, she began to see life beneath the surface when sitting in the shadows of tall motionless trees. It began to astound her that she’d missed so many opportunities to see the world while she was dancing with the wind. She didn’t notice she was alone.

Then the wind kicked up again, but this time instead of dancing, she found resistance bubbling up inside. She stood against the wind and felt the struggle of life. Feeling determined, she grit her teeth, and began to bury her feet in the earth. She was not going to be pushed into dancing with the wind anymore. She forgot she loved to dance. She let the rain pound against her face. Her existence became one of struggle to be herself so that she could watch the world living and contemplate on it and be a part of it.

Years went by and by and she didn’t dance, and her body grew sturdy. She saw the seasons come and go as she reflected on the waters, the cycle of life surrounded her, and she was awestruck. When the breeze stirred and she hunkered down to wonder what her purpose was and where she belonged. She found fewer and fewer answers the more she asked. Watching life move along with or without the wind didn’t make any sense to her, but being still didn't either. The bugs and butterflies seemed to adapt to whatever the weather brought. Sometimes they danced on their own, even, and when she realized this, she realized she had lost her way. She wished she could remember the dances she once had danced, but they were firmly in yesterday. She wasn't even sure where her feet were anymore.

One still day, she decided she’d had enough resistance. She wanted to move like the life around her moved, and she decided if she couldn’t remember how to dance with the wind, she would dance in the stillness. Since her feet were planted firmly into the soil so far away, closing her eyes, she stood and waved her arms. She waved them a little bit at first, but then she imagined they were dancing and they began to sway gently up and down, back and forth, and the trees around her noticed and waved back gently.

Soon her body swayed with a new found rhythm and she felt a soft breeze upon her cheeks. Her body bent and stretched as it hadn’t for so very long. She felt her hips swirl this way and that way. Rolling her head around and around, her long hair ruffled like leaves on a willow tree, dipping into the pond and stirring the mirror. Soon her knees bent and straightened and her toes beneath the dark soil began to move, and she could feel her own feet had grown deep into the earth.

When she felt the raindrops hit her cheeks, her eyes opened, and there, all around her, she felt the embrace of the wind welcoming her back. Though she no longer felt the need to leap over the forest, skate the wild river, twist past the rocks around her, she knew that she would never forget how to dance again. She had become the dancing wind herself.