271 Days #5
Rhea happily listened to Gary and the woman talk about the power of open communication in relationships for over an hour, but all her new tender feelings toward the workshop evaporated when the woman excitedly announced it was time to dance.
The announcement elicited scattered whoops of joy from the group that absolutely baffled Rhea.
How could anyone be whooping at the thought of dancing sober in the middle of the day inside a brightly lit tent?
“I know some of you might not be comfortable with dancing, but we hope by the end of this weekend, you will be.”
They told everyone to take off their socks so they wouldn’t slip.
As Rhea was taking hers off, she realized her hands were shaking; she was in fight-or-flight.
Rhea did not consider herself a good dancer.
She took a hip-hop dance class in her twenties, and halfway through, the teacher asked if, since she was clearly a beginner, she wouldn’t mind moving to the back of the room.
He had the decency to whisper the request, but it scarred Rhea for life.
The workshop leaders told everyone to start by just walking around the space.
“And keep your eyes on the floor,” Gary said. “Dance therapy is nonperformative. You’re not dancing for anyone but yourself.”
All the seekers turned their gaze downward, and suddenly, Rhea could breathe.
She wanted to kiss Gary on the mouth. He was a genius; walking around the room with her eyes down was the most comfortable she had felt since she arrived.
It might have been the most comfortable she had ever felt in a public place.
She wanted to create a new American law: citizens must keep their eyes down at all times.
She felt free. No one was looking at her, no one was judging.
The woman turned on music with a simple, clear beat. “Keep walking around, and if you start to feel the beat, just bend your knees.”
Rhea could not believe her luck. She was really good at just bending her knees.
She did it at weddings, birthday parties, pretty much any event that required dancing.
She continued walking around the room, horse blinders locked in place, and after several minutes, she started bending her knees.
Relief washed over her, as if the music had been begging her to do so and now she could give in.
When the workshop leaders switched the song to one with a slightly faster tempo and told the seekers to start moving their hips, Rhea gladly obliged.
She felt loose; she had never been eased into dancing before.
The rules of society were: Okay, you’re sitting, you’re shy, you’re uncomfortable—now get up and dance!
This was different; all the pre-dance walking around, looking only at bare feet, made her feel freer than even the most copious amounts of alcohol could have. The best part was, she didn’t know what Danny’s feet looked like, so she couldn’t keep her tracking device on him.
“Now we want you to let it all go, the stress, the fear, the rage, leave it all on the floor!” the woman leader yelled.
She switched the song to a wild track. Drums beat rapidly; Rhea’s pulse quickened. She felt as if the music were grabbing her body and thrashing her around. She moved in ways she never had, arms flailing, knees jerking, hips gyrating.
She did not look up at anyone else but knew they were all moving as one.
After she danced to many more songs with the same intensity, her breath was ragged, and sweat poured into her eyes.
Outside the tent, the goddess of rain was in on the drama; the rushing throb of a downpour seemed to be keeping time with the beat.
“Let it all go!” the woman screamed.
And Rhea did. With each motion, she felt herself flinging away anger, fear, and anxiety, as if they were layers of clothing she had not previously known how to take off. She seemed to shed tangible weight as each one fell to the floor.
“Now, listen to me, take all that pain, all that anger, and let it out. I want you to scream!” the woman yelled.
The entire pavilion erupted in screams. Animal sounds: howling, screeching, yelling.
Rhea’s hands involuntarily shot up in the air, and her mouth flew open.
She yelled from the very bottom of her feet; she yelled until her voice cracked.
She closed her eyes, threw her head back, and howled.
Then, suddenly, she dropped her arms and ran.
She ran through the yelling, thrashing seekers, toward the door.
She bolted outside into the rain and kept running with bare feet.
Each time her foot hit the ground, pain from the hard earth shot through her, but she wanted the pain.
She was feeling too much; the dancing had shaken everything loose, all the old agony.
An excruciating internal suffering had overtaken her body, and the pain in her feet was soothing in comparison.
She wanted to cry out for her mother. She wanted to beg her aunt to be kind.
She wanted to fling herself into the ocean.
She ran to her room, fell onto her bed, and wept.
—
When she woke up, it was dark outside. She had no way of checking the time. Her phone was inside her purse, which was inside the Leonard Pavilion. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling, feeling nervous around herself, as if she were meeting Rhea Darby for the first time.
After years of self-examination, it turned out she didn’t know herself at all.
She didn’t know that much emotion lived inside her body.
She had cried thousands of times, but not once had she ever screamed like that.
Part of her was disappointed; was the pain bottomless?
Was there no amount of talk therapy that would ever result in a pain-free existence?
She had been bringing herself everywhere, introducing herself to men, taking herself on dates, trying to get herself married, and yet, she still did not know who she was.
Her mother was unsafe. She knew that. Her aunt was cruel.
She knew that. But she did not know what that lack of safety and abundance of cruelty had done to her body.
What else was locked in her joints, in her hips, waiting to be screamed out?
After abstaining from the practice for five years, when Rhea was twenty years old, she finally wrote her mother another letter.
It was Christmas morning. Since her mother had died two weeks before Christmas, the holiday always pulled Rhea into a heavy bog.
Her second attempt resulted in a vastly different letter from the first. She was older, more articulate, and far more pissed off.
Dear Mom,
Well, everyone told you to stop taking pills, and you didn’t listen.
Now I’m alone on Christmas.
Not that you care, ’cause you’re off in heaven or whatever, but I’m doing really well in school, and I’m going to be a fashion designer, but you’ll never get to see any models walk in my designs.
My hypnotherapist helped me uncover a memory.
You left me home alone for hours when I was very young, and it turns out I was really scared.
I didn’t know when you were coming back.
Why’d you do that? I wish you were here.
I miss you with every breath I take. I love you so much.
She burned that letter in a cleansing ritual in her apartment sink.
She felt mild catharsis from the act, but nothing even remotely close to dance therapy.
Had all the inner-child work, letter writing, and crying been a waste of time?
Or was it a stepping stone to get her here?
Surely, animalistic howling on the dance floor required a few building blocks.
Maybe this weekend was unwinding her; maybe she was letting go and would finally become a loose pile of yarn instead of a tightly wound, dense ball.
How could she ever expect to meet the right man if she was still too uptight to whoop with joy at the thought of dancing?
Maybe this new freer version of herself would attract someone funny, spontaneous, and romantic, someone less like Randall and more like…
Danny Beckett. But a Danny Beckett who wanted kids, of course.
She remembered Wild Eyes mentioning there was always toast and tea available in the Lodge. Just the thought of toast made her stomach growl, but it would have to wait until she retrieved her boots and purse.
The rain had let up, and the campus glowed under the concerned eye of the moon.
Rhea walked slowly on the jagged ground, no longer relishing the pain.
Her boots were outside the pavilion, and she gratefully pulled them on, but the pavilion was locked, and from what she could see through the glass doors, her purse was not inside.
She walked across campus toward the Lodge, wondering what time it was.
She passed Danny’s room; the lights were off.
She flashed on an image of him on his bed, spooning Uh-Huh Same, and her empty stomach twisted.
As she got closer to the Lodge, she heard voices and laughter.
She felt grateful she was not the only person awake, while also dreading seeing people after being so emotionally scooped out.
There was a large stone fireplace outside the Lodge; smoke poured out of the chimney, and several people were sitting around it.
Rhea saw Gary playing guitar, because of course Gary was playing guitar.
The woman leader was cradling a glass of red wine and chatting with Warm Wendy.
Danny was seated in the shadows, leaning forward in serious conversation with a man Rhea had not noticed before.
Uh-Huh Same was softly singing along with Gary’s guitar, and although Rhea knew very little about Uh-Huh Same, this fireside karaoke seemed exactly like something Uh-Huh Same would do.