“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it.”—Matthew 16:25
Moving to a new town, while daunting, can oftentimes become one of the experiences of a lifetime. There hasn’t been one assignment I left behind in which I didn’t cry my eyes out all the way to a new home that should have been exciting, but necessarily was not. Nobody likes a new doorknob, or the closet door that opens the wrong way, the coffee being on the wrong aisle in the grocery store, and feeling like your very soul is being split into pieces between your will and God’s will. Yet, it is generally the case that when you leave some things behind with the courage of a big girl, you grow in ways beyond your capabilities in a new time and place.
Once, in a new season I had not yet welcomed well, I discovered how much I loved the Latin Dance that, in a sense, found me! Walking into my very first class with only a handful of students and a cup of coffee, my expectations were low, still reminiscing about the tap class I left behind in my previous town. I was about to fall in love with an entire culture and didn’t know it.
For the love of tacos, my family concurs with my assessment that if I had not been born as “me,” I should have been a señorita, though our genealogy will vehemently deny it. Nevertheless, Latin dance became my own. Before long, just like all those missing socks and bobby pins that evaporate, my tap shoes were somewhere in the house never to be seen again. Though they have not surfaced to this very day, I never missed them much. Believe me when I say that it is possible to possess a love of dance that exceeds any actual ability. That is the beauty of this sport. There is room for everyone, since you only have to dance better than yesterday’s version of yourself.
Fast forward a few years when I consider it more than happenstance that my father died too young and I was forced to make a move out to the countryside to handle the world he left behind. When I say country, I mean the deepest kind of rural. On my way out of town, I cried off my makeup with weighty tears, fighting the loss of the world behind me AND the world before me that currently offered less kindness than an evil stepsister. I have no idea why I felt compelled to stop by the dance store and buy what I thought would be the last pair of split-sole dance sneakers on earth. Amazon hadn’t become mainstream yet, so there was a good chance I could have been right. I knew those dance shoes represented my holding on to a season that was being stolen away from me in exchange for one I did not care to embrace. Again.
Even though I was positive that my only dancing with the stars from now own would be coupled with coyotes and rattlesnakes, the same old dance sneakers have been with me all these years upon demand. If you have been following my column, you’ll have seen all my tales about later entering the formal ballroom dance society in mid-life which required a completely different shoe. From kicking my own toenail off, being stepped on and losing another one, having a dance partner suffer a heart attack while dancing with me, and ultimately questioning what is really in the heart of a man and why would anyone willingly participate in this dangerous, rigid contact sport—I have continued my study of the congruent paths of dance to life and life to breath and breath to our own God-ordained spirits. The bite-sized moments of the dance are immortal in a sense, mimicking our own respective journeys to a waiting eternity with a living and active God who is sharper than any two-edged sword.
This is why I knew it was the hand of God that reached down and sent me two new Latin friends who are not only the most physically beautiful people I have ever seen, but also sojourners of the true art they bring. While first learning the intricacies of Cuban formation, it was hard not to start giggling when Luis, who is what I consider a Latin Fabio, shouts out expressions to his men in a heavy accent, “Leader her!” We all follow quickly due to his formidable, commanding frame wrapped in a gorgeous smile between sets.
He instructs the entire dance in Spanish. Enchufe, Doble Enchufe!! During my first few experiences in Cuban formation, he could see the menopausal empty-nester Mom fear in my eyes, therefore, without a word about it he switched to English for a few expressions. That was just before I heard him whisper to his wife, Dilandia, something like “Ella no lo sabe tampoco en inglés.” I knew enough Spanish to detect the meaning of “She doesA notA know it in EEEnglish eeeeither.” Still, I was being formed into an official señorita by the best, trying to understand what is required of me. During my most recent class, I looked up and there were pieces of black rubber littering the studio floor from my very own old shoes’ soles. Representing all the pieces of a life that God had chiseled off of me, this time it wasn’t my toenails, but my joints and marrow had literally danced the soles off of my shoes hoping nobody noticed the source. I wasn’t sure if anyone were to ask me why I hadn’t replaced my aging shoes whether I’d be able to hide the real reason of holding on to the past.
On my way out of class, my friends and I all said our goodbyes and without one single bit of hesitation or painful recollection of my old life whatsoever, I tossed the old shoes in the studio trash can. I think oftentimes we know that we WILL get over all the things we are forced to leave behind in due season, but God gives us the grace to take our time in discerning the thoughts and intentions of our own heart when releasing something extremely dear. Eventually he replaces, restores, and gives us something new that is more than we could have ever asked or imagined. I came home and plopped into bed, barely able to hold my eyes open from the long day. Just before my eyelids became too heavy, I got on my phone and ordered a new pair of black split-sole señorita shoes. Order complete. I turned out my light to get ready for another new day in the new abundant life that I might have never known, thankful that God was able to do it again, exceedingly.
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