Setting the Theme

Happy New Year, my loyal readers! 

As the whirlwind of holiday gatherings, get-togethers and parties settles down, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk to you about something important.  

New Year’s resolutions. 

Wait, did I just see a blood vessel pop in your eyeball? 

If you thought this will be another one of those “new year, new goals, new you” kind of posts, well…Ah, who am I kidding?! You’d be wrong to assume your favorite auntie has nothing better to talk about than this - something that the vast majority of people will fail at without strategically applied accountability, planning, support etc. 

In my opinion, setting new year resolutions is a highly personal endeavor and should, perhaps, be exercised in private. However, I do believe in setting themes, be that for a whole calendar year, a month, an evening or a Zoom meeting. 

What is a theme you wonder? Well, in my downshifter interpretation, a theme is a set of emotions that will be the lens through which I view all the events of the specified time period. A collection of guiding principles, if you will. 

For example, my recent holiday family gathering was themed by “coziness, comfort and kitty purrs”. Yes, kitty purrs are an emotion in my world. As a result, whenever I got an urge to go grab another drink, I had to stop and consider the consequences of disturbing a purring cat on my lap. The outcome? No hangover! A win-win. 

The party that followed a few days later was themed as “excitement, generosity, experimentation”. I made 5 (yes, five) multilayered cakes in 2 days to perfect one single new recipe. The experiment was well worth it and sharing this novelty with my guests gave me plenty of excitement. As you can see, setting the theme also means setting the mood and outlining the goals. 

Now, before looking far into the future, let's recap the most recent events. 

Since the inception of the Feral Dancer Blog I have ranted to you about several topics that are near and dear to my heart. From explicit sexuality in traditional Egyptian belly dance to the recipe for a deviant youth. Trust me, I am by no means done ranting. There will be more angry blog posts, more Myth of the Month posts and, perhaps, even new avenues where I can offload to the interwebs all the belly dance related frustration that is burning in my heart. But, as any cat parent can tell you, a good rant is like a hairball: once it’s out, you feel liberated and as the time goes by a new one starts to build up. You know it is going on that new white rug…you just can’t time it perfectly yet. 

Today’s post is not intended as another rant but rather is an opinion piece. It won’t have a dozen or so hyperlinks to substantiate any of my claims. Treat it like Auntie Helen’s personal wish list for the year to come. 

But dread not, Dorothy! That seat belt will get plenty of use in the new year. For now, I’d like to set the theme for the next 12 months.

May it be “empathy, compassion, respect”!

It’s a great advantage to see any and all events of your life through the triple layer of these emotions. It does seem to require superhuman willpower though.   

How many times have you heard the phrase “be kind to yourself”? There are countless self-care gurus and wellness coaches that are shouting exactly this from every corner and soapbox in the world these days. Maybe it’s just me, but I always feel like they come out of the woodwork around the beginning of the year in greater numbers than before. Be kind to yourself, be compassionate to yourself, take time off for yourself, be patient with yourself, respect yourself. All valid advice. Empathy, compassion and respect are necessary components of kindness - there are no substitutes for any of them. So, yes, a good theme albeit a bit broad. 

I’m generally not the one to tell you what to do as I, myself, run on the principle of “don’t tell me what to do and I won’t tell you where to shove it” (makes learning group choreographies extra fun!), but this time I’d like to ask you to occasionally put aside the whole “be kind to yourself” trope and just be kind. Pithy advice, eh? I can totally see this causing a major eye roll. 

Please allow me to demonstrate what I mean by sharing with you the vision I have for this year’s theme.  

I imagine myself not as a dancer and performer, but rather as a member of the audience at non-professional dance events. I’d like to attend as many dance student recitals this year as I possibly can. I want to go see all the performances by all of my dance friends, no matter the style or genre. I hope to be at every summer street festival that has a stage and includes dancers. I will be there watching, smiling, clapping, cheering and admiring. You will hear me from a few blocks away roaring in excitement for my peers.  

This is what gazing through the lens of empathy, compassion and respect is to me. Neither judging nor evaluating, never nit-picking or comparing, just being there and watching with open heart and open arms (for a post-performance sweaty hug, of course).

I remember the jolt of adrenaline that makes your knees wobble when your toes hit that stage. The awkward face muscle paralysis that replaces your smile when you make eye contact with people in the audience. The 181 bpm heart rate that is louder in your own head than the music on stage. The fear of messing it up for everybody in a group choreo. The nightmares of a costume malfunction. The horror of mixing up left and the other left.

I remember all of this and more.  I want my fellow dancers to know that no matter what happens on stage, there will always be a pair of friendly eyes watching and a friendly voice cheering for them. 

Will you partake in the theme I have set for this year?

Let’s collectively celebrate each other and be each other’s Emotional Support Camels. 

Let’s go see performances outside of our usual scope of dance interests. 

Let’s, of course, be kind.        

Have something to add to my tedious ramblings? Get in touch: askauntiehelen@gmail.com