There is beauty in making mistakes

I stumble on the dance floor through the combination once,
twice, three times, four times and I start to pull into myself. I knew I wasn’t good enough.

But then I look up and catch a glimpse of my face.
It’s me, just me.
Not Alexa The Dancer, Alexa the Performer, Alexa the Perfectionist.

I don’t need to prove to be more me, so I begin to peel off the layers I’ve been hiding under.

I stumble through again, but the mistakes I make in the movements make me chuckle with my scene partner on the other side of the mirror, the person there with me, the person whose face mirrors mine in delight, the delight of the music and the movement. The delight of just being here.

My mistakes make me me, me that you can see.

I don’t tighten— not my face, not my muscles, not my eyes. I don’t give in to the temptation to cover back up again, to try to dance perfectly, to try to fit into the moves that I don’t remember or do the ones I do remember more rigidly right.

I follow the music and the sense of the way the dance falls into it, and I don’t forget all of the choreography, but it’s more like I am a rushing river and I crash around rocks with a bright effervescent spray, laughing and leaving them behind for open water, and more rocks to play against, and the absolute joy of unfolding and being seen in all my crashing. Playing in all my openheartedness and in every “mistake” I thought deemed me unworthy but instead makes me more me.

with joy and confetti,

Alexa